by Ken Brigham
After a whirlwind courtship—much wining and dining, several Sunday afternoons in the university’s skybox at the football stadium just across the river, countless tumblers of George Dickel bourbon and branch water consumed—the courtship was consummated at a carefully choreographed private dinner at the Bartalak Belle Meade manse.
Cy had a favorite caterer that he used for special occasions like this. Beth was there, of course, but was relegated to her familiar place at the periphery of the action. She wore the red dress that Cy selected for her. The dress was backless, cut low enough in the front to reveal (with the aid of an uplifting undergarment) some cleavage, and short enough to display an only slightly immodest amount of her muscular, tanned legs. Beth knew that she was not a beautiful woman, but she had a good body that she was proud of. She was entirely comfortable with her body and didn’t mind at all appearing as a decoration. She wasn’t very good at conversing with Cy’s business-related friends and was perfectly happy to display enough of herself to minimize the need for making clever conversation.
Mitchell Rook was a dapper high rolling lawyer with a quick tongue who was clearly not impressed with the Bartalaks’ carefully constructed trappings of wealth and success. Those were just the basics for doing business in this city. Will Hadley was a stereotypical country club type—aging elegantly, insincerely solicitous. After greeting them when they arrived, Beth barely spoke to either of them.
Rory Holcomb was different. Flashy sharkskin suit, gray ostrich cowboy boots, bolo tie neatly anchored by a turquoise and silver medallion. Beth knew the uniform. She grew up doing everything she could to impress such a man without much success. Holcomb’s outfit could easily have been selected from her father’s extensive wardrobe. That was a while back, but fashion didn’t change for these men. Why should it?
The others didn’t seem to be paying much attention to Holcomb, and he sought Beth out at the fringe of the group as they had a pre-dinner drink and made small talk. It felt to Beth like they connected, like old friends. It was a relief to Beth that there was someone important to her husband with whom she felt comfortable. The attraction wasn’t sexual, it seemed to her, for either of them. Just a feeling that they had something in common. Rory Holcomb looked out of place in this group, and Beth felt the same way. Maybe that was the connection.
Dinner was served in the large dining room. The size of the polished cherry table could be modified by choosing the number of leaves to insert, and Cy had supervised the arrangement so that two people could be seated on each side and he could preside at the head of the table. Beth was seated beside Holcomb on one side with the other two guests opposite them. The table was small enough to make the occasion intimate without being crowded.
Dinner was served by three white-coated waiters who were moonlighting from the club. On that evening, two of the waiters were elderly black men and the other one was a younger Hispanic. The ethnicity of the waiters varied at these business dinners depending on Bartalak’s reading of the probable biases of the guests. He thought that the guests that evening were likely to be sufficiently steeped in the city’s southern history to appreciate, like most patrons of the club, his choice of waiters.
Nothing substantive was discussed during the meal. After finishing the main course and polishing off the last of several bottles of wine that had been selected by the caterer and were roundly complimented by the guests, Cy suggested that they have dessert, coffee, and brandy in his study. Brandy and coffee were arranged on a side table and the guests were invited to serve themselves. Once comfortably seated with their libations in the several oxblood leather chairs that had been carefully arranged so that the host was at the focal point of the group, the waiters appeared and passed trays of an assortment of finger food desserts.
Bartalak had met with each of the three on several occasions over the previous couple of months and they all had a pretty good idea what he was trying to sell them, but there had been no formal presentation before this evening. There was an expectant lull in the conversation as Cy instructed Beth to hand out the slick brochure with Renaptix, Inc. printed in large blue italic letters on the tan cover (the well-known university colors were blue and tan). When the brochures were distributed and the three guests had had a chance to leaf through them, Bartalak began his spiel. He relished these presentations.
He began by repeating what was basically his stump speech: commercializing laboratory discovery was essential to getting new drugs to the people who need them; initial investments in promising new discoveries were what made it possible to start the process; big returns on those initial investments were essentially guaranteed if the initial clinical studies were as good as the preclinical data, etc. He then used the tables and graphs in the brochure to go through the basic theory of how the drug worked and the promising preclinical data from animal studies. He moved on to the business model for Renaptix, Inc. emphasizing the amount of investment already made in the drug by the university and from federal research grants, documenting the patent status, outlining the funds needed to do the initial clinical studies, and projecting the earning potential for the initial investors. When he finished the presentations, he invited the men to refresh their brandy and said he would be happy to answer any questions.
Beth had been sitting quietly beside her husband, her crossed legs prominently displayed, as he spoke. She got up, walked to the side table where she poured generous amounts of brandy into the proffered glasses of the three high net worth individuals, as Cy referred to people like this. She made eye contact with Rory Holcomb but they didn’t speak. When everyone was reseated, there were questions.
“How solid is the IP, Cy?” Mitchell Rook asked.
Cy noticed that Rook had drunk very little over the evening and had barely freshened his glass of brandy during the break. Rook was clearly the brightest of the three and the only one who worried Bartalak. He wasn’t so much worried about whether Rook would invest in the start-up. If not, there would be someone else. It was something about the lawyer that Cy couldn’t quite put his finger on. Maybe Rook was too smart. Maybe that was the problem. And Cy was always suspicious of high rollers who didn’t drink.
“Rock solid, Mitchell,” Cy responded. “A composition of matter patent for the drug has issued. As you know, that’s the strongest possible protection of intellectual property. We still have pending patents on some processes for synthesizing the drug, but even if they don’t issue, we’re in good shape IP-wise.”
Will Hadley, well into his cups at this point, raised his hand like a college student before asking. “What about safety? Any doubt about that?”
“None at all, Will,” Bartalak responded. “We’re almost finished with the tox studies that are required for the IND, and they look great so far.”
“Excuse me, Cy,” Rory Holcomb drew up his long legs, leaned forward in his chair and rested his elbows on his knees. “But, what the hell is tox, and what the hell is an IND? If you want me to put any money in this, you’re going to have to talk in plain English.”
Bartalak sighed, smiled, and looked directly at Rory. “Sorry, Rory,” he said. “Tox is short for toxicology, studies that determine whether there are any negative effects of the drug. And before you can do any studies of a new drug in people, you have to get FDA …uh, that’s the Food and Drug Administration…approval and that requires submitting an Investigational New Drug or IND application that describes all of the animal results and includes extensive studies of toxicity in several animal species. We’re in the process of compiling the IND, and we’ve had several discussions with the FDA people. I don’t see any problem with getting the application approved.”
“Another thing,” Rory said, apparently satisfied with Bartalak’s explanation of the IND. “I dug up this picture on the Internet, a diagram of a big funnel that shows ten thousand potential drugs entering the big part of the funnel and only one coming out the other end as something that can go to market. One in ten thousand looks like pretty long odds
to me. I’m as up for a good gamble as anybody, but not with odds like that. Just as well buy lottery tickets.”
“You’re right about that, Rory,” a broad and confident smile broke across Cy’s face. “But those are data compiled from the entire drug development experience. That’s not where we are with this drug. We’re way down the funnel because the university and the federal government have put in the money to do all of the work needed before going into humans. Federal grants get reviewed by the smartest folks in the country, and the university doesn’t throw money at things that don’t have a good chance of working. If you remember your funnel figure, you’ll recall that after successful preclinical studies, the odds go down to one in five. Meaning that one of every five drugs that get into human trials come out as approvable and marketable and, I hasten to add, profitable products. Since the work on this drug has been reviewed and supported by a lot of smart people, I think our odds are a lot better than that. I’m not saying there’s no risk, but considering the potential payoff, they aren’t unreasonable. Add the fact that we can make a lot of money by selling to big pharma before the phase III studies are finished and even if the drug never sees the light of the marketplace day, it starts to look like a pretty sweet deal, don’t you think?”
The three men looked at each other, sipped at their drinks, and thumbed absently through the brochures without speaking for a while. Bartalak sat quietly, letting the facts sink in. Beth sat at his side, legs crossed, hands folded demurely in her lap.
“Uh, Cy,” Will finally spoke up. “Who’s going to do the human trials?”
“We are,” Cy answered. “We have plenty of patients for the phase I-II trials and my team is expert at this sort of thing. I’ll head the team. My lovely wife, Beth, here,” he placed an arm across Beth’s shoulders, “is our data expert. You may not have suspected it, but this beautiful lady holds a Ph.D. in biostatistics and is a magician with data. She is amazing.”
Beth smiled broadly and blushed. Cy often complimented her in groups like this but never when they were alone. She wished it was the other way around, but took what she could get.
“And I have a brilliant neurologist to handle the logistics of the clinical studies. She couldn’t be here this evening,” in fact she had not been invited. “But trust me, she is the best possible person for these kinds of studies. We’ve got a crack team.”
Even though Cy hadn’t used her name, it took a considerable amount of effort on Beth’s part to suppress a grimace at the reference to Katya Karpov.
After sitting quietly for a while, Rook asked. “Can you direct the studies? Isn’t there a conflict of interest problem? I assume you stand to profit from the success of the drug, don’t you?”
“You don’t need to worry about that, Mitchell,” Cy answered. “I can handle any appearance of COI with the university. We may need an oversight committee to review things occasionally, but I can work that out. I’ve done this before, you know.”
“So I’ve heard,” Rook mumbled to himself.
After a brief pause, Bartalak said. “Well, it’s getting late, and if you don’t have any more questions, maybe we should call it an evening.”
Cy was pretty sure that his timing was right. Timing was critical is closing a deal like this. He was expert at staging the performance. He knew the script by heart. He had been there before. The questions had been good; they were obviously interested. You didn’t want to push too fast. They were sold, but they didn’t know it yet. They needed time to digest the matter and to convince themselves that they had thoroughly critiqued the opportunity. But he had sold them. He was sure of it.
Cy continued, “I really appreciate you guys coming tonight and I hope you are as excited about this as I and my colleagues at the university are,” again deliberately invoking the prestige of the university. “And, you know, it’s not about the money when you get down to it. It’s a chance to do something for people who are victims of a devastating brain disease,” he stared off into the distance for a few seconds, as though contemplating the good of mankind, then turned back and looked directly into the eyes of each one of his three guests.
He continued, in his most sincere tone, “It would be a pleasure to work with you to make that happen.”
His summation completed, they all stood, and Cy and Beth saw them out, shaking hands and bidding them goodnight. Beth’s eyes met Rory’s again as he exited the front door, but they didn’t speak. Several months would pass before the two of them would connect again.
After the door was closed and the three men were walking to their cars, Mitchell Rook said to no one in particular, “Cyrus Bartalak may be the ugliest man I have ever seen.”
The others nodded.
Rory Holcomb asked, “Where did he come up with that strange name for the company, Renap… something or other?”
Dr. Hadley answered, “I asked him about that. He said it was a play on the words regeneration and synapse.”
“That doesn’t help me,” Holcomb responded.
“Synapse, that’s where the impulses get transmitted in the brain,” Hadley explained.
“If you say so,” Holcomb sighed.
Mitchell Rook wondered whether, if the drug worked, Rory Holcomb might stand to benefit personally from it.
Over the next week, Bartalak met with each of his three angels individually, and they each agreed to invest a million dollars. Renaptix, Inc. became a reality and the phase I-II studies of Cy’s drug, designated RX-01, were launched.
Chapter 11
“So, Hardy, my man, what have you discovered?”
The day was warm and the alley was quiet, so Shane suggested that he and Hardy sit on the balcony. Although an overhanging awning shaded the space where they sat, the sun was bright and reflected harshly from the surrounding buildings. Shane had poured himself a glass of sherry and offered to pour Hardy one, which he refused. Shane was determined to introduce his colleague to some of the finer things, and Hardy Seltzer was equally committed to avoiding any pretense of being someone whom he clearly was not. He was enjoying Shane, was amused by his idiosyncrasies, but Hardy wasn’t into idiosyncrasies. He was who he was and wasn’t about to pretend otherwise.
“Couple of things,” Hardy responded.
Shane interrupted. “What was it about the autopsy? You were a trifle obtuse on the phone.”
“Not obtuse,” Hardy said. “I told you everything that the coroner told me. He thought there was something unusual about the brain but said he’d have to wait for the microscopic examinations and would probably need to consult with the experts at the university before he could say anything conclusive.”
“Any idea when he would decide to do his job?” Shane sounded impatient; although he was working on it, patience did not come naturally to him.
“Said he’d let me know. Jensen is an odd duck. Hard to read.”
“Pathologists tend toward oddity, I suspect,” Shane answered. “Their usual audience isn’t particularly sensitive to quirks of personality. But, then, I suspect most of us are potential odd ducks, as you say, if we weren’t so concerned about what others think of us.”
Well, it was true that Shane Hadley was a bit of an odd duck, Hardy thought, and maybe the comment was meant to disparage Hardy’s stolid persona, but he wasn’t going to worry about that.
Hardy said, “Let me tell you about the gun.”
“Yes, yes,” Shane said. “Please do.”
Shane stared pensively into the warm space that blanketed the alley in the afternoon sun. His eyes were drawn to the spot where Bonz Bagley’s body lay that Sunday morning. And he envisioned again the slight figure running away from the scene listing ever so slightly to starboard with each step.
“I visited the dealer you identified. After a little persuasion, he admitted selling a gun like the one we’re trying to find. Although it was several years ago, he remembered the sale because it was the rarest and most expensive gun he had ever sold. And also because he sold it to Jody Dako
ta, the country music star.”
“As in Little Jody Dakota, the Opry performer of a bygone era?”
Hardy was surprised that Shane knew enough about country music history to know who Jody Dakota was.
“That’s right,” Hardy answered. “I did a brief computer search and you’re right. His stage name was Little Jody Dakota and he was sort of a novelty act but very popular back in the day.”
“Yes, yes,” Hardy said. “Back before the genre’s gentrification.”
“An interesting way to put it, gentrification.”
It was not a word that Hardy would have thought of using to describe how the music had evolved over the years. In fact, it was probably not a word he would have used for any reason.
“Perhaps that’s not the right word to describe it,” Shane said, then continued, “Has Little Jody ever had difficulties with the law?”
“I did have a look at the police records, and apparently he’s had a skirmish or two. He was a drinker and sometime brawler.”
“Hmm,” Shane responded. “The ‘little man’ syndrome?”
“Something like that. There was one episode when one of his band members accused him of attempted murder, but nothing came of it. Looked like an overreaction to a bar fight.”
“Interesting, though.”
“Yes.”
“Does the wee one still live in the city?” Shane asked.
“I checked that as well,” Hardy responded. “Apparently he has a farm out in Hickman County.”
“That’s strange,” Hardy responded. “So he has fled the entertainers’ ghettos and hid out in the boondocks?”
“Looks that way. No log McMansion on the lake. No Williamson County horse farm. Hickman County is not anybody’s notion of the high life.”
“No glitterati there, I suspect,” Shane said. “But interesting. You’ll need to venture into the boondocks it appears.”
“Yep. On my agenda.”