Side Effects

by Michael Palmer

  Kate beamed at the man's insight. "Deal, " she said, smiling broadly.

  "Deal, " Zimmermann echoed. The two shook hands warmly and, after Kate had settled their bill, walked together into the winter night. Numb with exhaustion, John Ferguson squinted at the luminescent green print on the screen of his word processor. His back ached from hunching over the keyboard for the better part of two full days. His hands, feeling the effects of his disease more acutely than at any time in months, groped for words one careful letter at a time. It had been an agonizing effort, condensing forty years of complex research into thirty pages or so of scholarly dissertation, but a sentence at a time, a word at a time, he was making progress. To one side of his desk were a dozen internationally read medical journals. Ferguson had given thought to submitting his completed manuscript to all of them, but then had reconsidered. The honor of publishing his work would go only to The New England Journal of Medicine, most prestigious and widely read of them all. The New England Journal of Medicine. Ferguson tapped out a recall code, and in seconds, the title page of his article was displayed on the screen. STUDIES IN ESTRONATE 250 A Synthetic Estrogen Congener and Antifertility Hormone John N. Ferguson, MD It would almost certainly be the first time in the long, distinguished publication of the journal that an entire issue would be devoted to a single article. But they would agree to do that or find the historic studies and comment in Lancet or The American Journal of Medicine. Ferguson smiled. Once The New England Journal's editors had reviewed his data and his slides, he doubted there would be much resistance to honoring his request. For a time he studied the page. Then, electronically, he erased the name of the author. There might be trouble for him down the road for what he was about to do, but he suspected not. He was too old and too sick even for the fanatic Simon Weisenthal to bother with. With a deliberateness that helped him savor the act, he typed Wilhelm W. Becker, MD, Phd where Ferguson's name had been. Perhaps, he thought with a smile, some sort of brief funeral was in order for Ferguson. He had, after all, died twice-once in Bataan, forty years ago, and a second time this night.

  With the consummate discipline that had marked his life, Willi Becker cut short the pleasurable interlude and advanced the text to the spot at which he had left off. Because of a pathologist named Bennett, Cyrus Redding had picked up the scent of his work at the Omnicenter. Knowing the man as well as Becker did, he felt certain the tycoon would now track the matter relentlessly. There was still time to put the work on paper and mail it off, but no way of knowing how much. He had to push.

  He had to fight the fatigue and the aching in his muscles and push, at least for another hour or two. The onset of his scientific immortality was at hand. Furtively, he glanced at the small bottle of amphetamines on the table. It had been only three hours. Much too soon, especially with the irregular heartbeats he had been having. Still, he needed to push. It would only be a few more days, perhaps less. Barely able to grip the top of the small vial, Becker set one of the black, coated tablets on his tongue, and swallowed it without water. In minutes, the warm rush would begin, and he would have the drive, however artificial and short lived, to overcome the inertia of his myasthenia. "You really shouldn't take those, you know, father. Especially with your cardiac history."

  Becker spun around to face his son, cursing the diminution in his hearing that enabled such surprises. "I take them because I need them," he said sharply. "What are you doing sneaking up on me like that? What do you think doorbells are for?"

  "Such a greeting. And here I have driven out of my way to stop by and be certain you are all right."

  Three blocks, Becker thought. Some hardship. "You startled me. That's all. I'm sorry for reacting the way I did."

  "In that case, father, it is I who should be sorry."

  Was there sarcasm in his son's voice? It bothered Becker that he had never been able to read the man. Theirs was a relationship based on filial obligation and respect, but little if any love. For the greater portion of his son's years, they had lived apart, Becker in a small cottage on the hospital grounds where he worked, and his wife and son in an apartment twenty miles away. It was as necessary an arrangement as it was painful. Becker and his wife had tried for years to make their son understand that. There were those, they tried to explain, who would arrest Becker in a moment on a series of unjust charges, put him in prison, and possibly even put him to death. In the hysteria following the war, he had been marked simply because he was German, nothing more than that. For their own safety, it was necessary for the boy and his mother to keep their address and even their name separate from his.

  Although Becker would provide for them and would visit as much as he could, no one would ever know his true relationship to the woman, Anna Zimmermann, and the boy, William. "So, " Becker said. "Now that we have apologized profusely to one another, come in, sit down, pour yourself a drink."

  William Zimmermann nodded his thanks, poured an inch of Wild Turkey into a heavy glass, and settled into an easy chair opposite his father. "I see you've started putting your data together, " he said. "Why now?"

  "Well, I… no special reason, really. It would seem that the modifications I made have greatly, if not completely, eliminated the bleeding problems we were experiencing with the Estronate. So what else is there to wait for?"

  "Which journal will you approach?"

  "I think The New England Journal of Medicine. I plan to submit the data and discussion but to withhold several key steps in the synthesis until a commission of the journal's choosing can take charge of my formulas and decide how society can best benefit from them."

  "Sounds fine to me, " Zimmermann said. "With all that's been happening this last week, the sooner I see the last of Estronate Two-fifty, the better."

  "Have any further bleeding cases turned up?"

  Zimmermann shook his head. "Just the Sandler woman I told you about. The one who's the friend of Dr. Bennett's. She was treated over eighteen months ago, in the July/August group, the last group to receive the unmodified Estronate."

  "How is she doing?"

  "I think she is going to end up like the other two."

  "Couldn't you find some way of suggesting that they try a course of massive doses of delta amino caproic acid and nicotinic acid on her?"

  "Not without risking a lot of questions I'd rather not answer. I mean I am a gynecologist, not a hematologist. Besides, you told me that that therapy was only sixty percent effective in such advanced states."

  Becker shrugged. "Sixty percent is sixty percent."

  "And my career is my career. No, father, I have far too much to lose. I am afraid Mrs. Sandler will just have to make it on her own."

  "Perhaps you are right, " Becker said. The men shook hands formally, and William Zimmermann let himself out. Twelve miles away, on the fourth floor of the Berenson Building of Metropolitan Hospital of Boston, in Room 421, Ellen Sandler's nose had again begun to bleed. Monday 17 December "Now, Suzy, promise Daddy that you will mind what Mommy tells you and that you will never, never do that to the cat again… Good..

  .. I have to go now, sugar. You better get ready for your piano lesson..

  .. I know what I said, but my work here isn't done yet, and I have to stay until it's finished… I don't know. Two, maybe three more days … Suzy, stop that. You're not a baby. I love you very much and I'll see you very soon. Now, tell Daddy you love him and go practice that new piece of yours… Suzy?…"

  "Damn." Arlen Paquette slammed the receiver down. He had protested to Redding the futility of remaining in Boston over the weekend, but the man had insisted he stay close to the situation and the Omnicenter. As usual, events had proven Redding right. Paquette stuffed some notes in his briefcase and pulled on his suitcoat. Right for Redding Pharmaceuticals, but not for Suzy Paquette, who was justifiably smarting over her father's absence from her school track meet earlier in the day.

  How could he explain to a seven-year-old that the very thing that was keeping him away from home was also the sole
reason she could attend a school like Hightower Academy? He straightened his tie and combed his thinning hair with his fingers. How could he explain it to her when he was having trouble justifying it to himself? Still, for what he and his family were gaining from his association with Redding, the dues were not excessive. He glanced down at the photographs of Kate Bennett piled on the coffee table. At least, he thought, not yet. The cab ride from the Ritz to Metropolitan Hospital took fifteen minutes. Paquette entered the main lobby through newly installed gliding electronic doors and headed directly for Norton Reese's office, half expecting to have the woman whose life and face he had studied in such detail stroll out from a side corridor and bump into him. "Arlen, it's good to see you. You're looking well." Norton Reese maneuvered free of his desk chair and met Paquette halfway with an illdefined handshake. Theirs was more an unspoken truce than a relationship, and no amount of time would compensate for the lack of trust and respect each bore the other. However, Paquette was the envoy of Cyrus Redding and the several millions of Redding dollars that had sparked Reese's rise to prominence. Although it was Reese's court, it was the younger man's ball. "You're looking fit yourself, Norton,"

  Paquette replied. "Our mutual friend sends his respects and regards."

  "Did you tell him about our speed freak outfielder and the letters to the press and TV?"

  "I did. I even sent a packet of the articles and editorials to him by messenger. He commends your ingenuity. So, incidentally, do I." Try as he might, he could put no emotion behind the compliment. Still, Reese's moon face bunched in a grin. "It's been beautiful, Arlen, " he gushed.

  "Just beautiful. I tell you, ever since that story broke, Kathryn Bennett, MD, has been racing all over trying to stick her fingers in the holes that are popping open in her reputation. By now I doubt if she would know whether she had lost a horse or found a rope."

  "You did fine, Norton. Just fine. Only, for our purposes, not enough."

  "What? " Reese began to shift uneasily. "A diversion. That's what Horner asked me for, and by God, that's what I laid on that woman. A goddamn avalanche of diversion."

  "You did fine, Norton. I just told you that."

  "Why, she's had so much negative publicity it's a wonder she hasn't quit or been fired by the medical school." Reese chattered on as if he hadn't heard a word. "In fact, I hear the Medical School Ethics Committee is planning some kind of an inquiry."

  Paquette silenced him with raised hands. "Easy, Norton, please, " he said evenly. "I'm going to say it one more time. What you did, the letter and all, was exactly what we asked of you. Our mutual friend is pleased. He asked that I convey to you the Ashburton Foundation's intention to endow the cardiac surgical residency you wrote him about."

  "Well, then, why was what I did not enough? " Reese realized that in his haste to defend himself, he had forgotten to acknowledge Redding's generosity. Before he could remedy the oversight, Paquette spoke. "I'll convey your thanks when I return to Darlington, " he said, a note of irritation in his words. "Norton, do you know what has been going on here?"

  "Not… not exactly, " he said, nonplussed. Paquette nodded indulgently. "Dr. Bennett, in her search to identify the cause of an unusual bleeding problem in several women, has zeroed in on the Omnicenter. Although the women were Omnicenter patients, we see no other connection among them."

  "The… the work you're doing… I mean none of the women got…"

  After years of scrupulously avoiding the Omnicenter and the people involved in its operation, Reese was uncertain of how, even, to discuss the place. Paquette spared him further stammering. "From time to time, each of the women was involved in the evaluation of one or more products," he said. "However, Carl Horner assures me that there have been no products common to the three of them. Whatever the cause of their problem, it is not the Omnicenter."

  "That's a relief, " Reese said. "Not really, " Paquette said, his expression belying his impatience. "You see, our Dr. Bennett has been most persistent, despite the pressures brought about by your letter."

  "She's a royal pain in the ass. I'll grant you that, " Reese interjected. "She has tested several Omnicenter products at the State Toxicology Lab, charging the analyses, I might add, to your hospital."

  "Damn her. She didn't find anything, did she? Horner assured me that there was nothing to worry about."

  Paquette's patience continued to fray. "Of course she found something, Norton. That's why I'm here. She even had Dr. Zimmermann phone the company to tell us about it."

  "Oh. Sorry."

  "Our friend in Kentucky has asked that we step up our efforts to discredit Dr. Bennett and to add, what was the word you used? distraction?… no, diversion, that was it-diversion to her life. We have taken steps to obscure, if not neutralize, her findings to date, but there is evidence in dozens of medicine cabinets out there of what we have been doing. If Dr. Bennett is persistent enough, she will find it. I am completely convinced of that, and so is our friend. Dr. Bennett has given us one week to determine how a certain experimental painkiller came to be in a set of vitamins dispensed at the Omnicenter. If we do not furnish her with a satisfactory explanation by that time, she intends to file a report with the US Pharmacopia and the FDA."

  "Damn her, " Norton Reese said again. "What are we going to do?"

  "Not we, you. Dr. Bennett's credibility must be reduced to the point where no amount of evidence will be enough for authorities to take her word over ours. The letter you wrote was a start, but, as I said, not enough."

  Once again, Reese began to feel ill at ease. Paquette was not making a request, he was giving an order-an order from the man who, Reese knew, could squash him with nothing more than the eraser on his pencil. He unbuttoned his vest against the uncomfortable moistness between the folds of his skin. "Look, " he pleaded, "I really don't know what I can do. I'll try, but I don't know. You've got to understand, Arlen, you've got to make him understand. Bennett works in my hospital, but she doesn't work for me." There was understanding in Paquette's face, but not sympathy. Reese continued his increasingly nervous rambling.

  "Besides, the woman's got friends around here. I don't know why, but she does. Even after that letter, she's got supporters. Shit, I'd kill to make sure she didn't…" His voice trailed away. His eyes narrowed.

  Paquette followed the man's train of thought. "The answer is no, Norton,

  " he said. "Absolutely not. We wish her discredited, not eliminated, for God's sake. We want people to lose interest in her, not to canonize her.

  She has already involved Dr. Zimmermann, a chemist at the state lab, and a resident here named Engleson. There may be others, but as far as we can tell, the situation is not yet out of control. We are doing what we can do to ensure it remains that way. Dr. Bennett's father-in-law does some business with our company. I believe our friend has already called him and enlisted his aid. There are other steps being taken as well." He rose and reached across the desk to shake Reese's hand. "I know we can count on you. If you need advice or a sounding board, you can reach me at the Ritz."

  "Thank you, " Reese said numbly. His bulk seemed melted into his chair.

  Paquette walked slowly to the door, then turned. "Our friend has suggested Thursday as a time by which he wants something to have been done."

  "Thursday? " Reese croaked. Paquette nodded, smiled blankly, and was gone. Half an hour later, his shirt changed and his composure nearly regained, Reese sat opposite Sheila Pierce, straightening one paper clip after another and thinking much more than he wanted to at that particular moment of the chief technician's breasts. "How're things going down there in pathology? " he asked, wondering if she would take off her lab coat and then reminding himself to concentrate on business.

  The woman was going to require delicate handling if she was going to put her neck on the line to save his ass. "You mean with Bennett? " Sheila shrugged. "She's getting some letters and a few crank phone calls every day, but otherwise things seem pretty much back to normal. It's been..
<
br />   amusing."

  "Well, " Reese said, "I know for a fact that the Bobby Geary business is hardly a dead issue."

  "Oh?"

  "I've heard the matter's going to the Medical School Ethics Committee."

  "Good, " Sheila said. "That will serve her right, going to the newspapers about that poor boy the way she did." They laughed. "Do you think, " she went on, "that it will be enough to keep her from becoming chief of our department?"

  Inwardly, Reese smiled. The question was just the opening he needed.

  "Doubtful, " he said grimly. "Very doubtful."

  "Too bad."

  "You don't know the half of it."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well…" He tapped a pencil eraser on his desk. He closed his eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose. He chewed at his lower lip. "I got a call this morning from Dr. Willoughby. He requested a meeting with the finance and budget committee of the board, at which time he and Kate Bennett are going to present the results of a computer study she's just completed. They plan to ask for six months worth of emergency funding until a sweeping departmental reorganization can be completed."

  Sheila Pierce paled. "Sweeping departmental reorganization?"

  "That's what the man said."

  "Did he say anything about… you know."

  Reese sighed. "As a matter of fact, baby, he did. He said that by the time of the meeting next week, Bennett will have presented him with a complete list of lost revenues, including the misappropriation of funds by several department members."

  "But she promised."

  "I guess a few brownie points with the boss and the board of trustees outweigh her promise to a plain old technician."

  "Chief technician, " she corrected. "Damn her. Did it seem as if she had already said something about me to Willoughby?"

  The bait taken, Reese set the hook. "Definitely not. I probed as much as I could about you without making Willoughby suspicious. She hasn't told him anything specific… yet."

  "Norty, we've got to stop her. I can't afford to lose my job. Dammit, I've been here longer than she has. Much longer." Her hands were clenched white, her jaw set in anger and frustration. "Well, " Reese said with exaggerated reason, "we've got two days, three at the most.