Head Case

by Jennifer Oko

  “Raskolnikov?”

  “The rat.”

  Eugene sighed. “Hold on,” he said. I heard him close a door.

  “Are you there?”

  “Where would I have gone?” I was standing over the cage, stroking Raskolnikov’s brow.

  “Olivia, just trust me on this. Listen to me very closely. You never saw this reaction. You’re new at this game, but you need to understand that for the sake of your career—and mine—this did not happen.”

  “But it did happen,” I protested.

  “Well, considering they’re intent on presenting our new findings at December’s PharmaWorld convention, which will occur just in time for the release of the annual report, I don’t think that’s something Stanley Novartny would want to know. Or the FDA, for that matter. Just keep your nose down and fill in the blanks.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “You will,” he said with such a shattering pitch I started to hear a ringing sound. Then he slammed down his phone.

  I rubbed my ear.

  It wasn’t difficult to understand what Eugene was saying. Figuring out what it really meant for me—or what to do about it—was another matter.

  It had been an exciting few weeks for me. I was putting in sixteen-hour days, basically living in the lab to complete the report, and I was starting to discover some fascinating—if sometimes disturbing—things. And now my supervisor was asking me to keep my mouth shut and my head down, and just do what he told me to do, nothing more, regardless of what I discovered. I wasn’t happy about this, but going to the human resources department to file complaint just didn’t seem like a realistic option. Talk about job dissatisfaction.

  I pulled the study out of the drawer and placed it on my desk. Was this what Eugene was referring to? Had I missed something? What could possibly be in there that was so damning?

  Well, whatever it was, it was about to get worse. I printed out my most recent results and added them to the file.

  “You know what, Ras?” I said to the only person—well, only mammal—I could confide in anymore. “I think I might want to make a copy of all this for safe keeping.”

  I took the whole folder and dumped it into my shiny red Birkin bag.

  39

  July 26 (B.D.)

  11:35 A.M.

  I didn’t become interested in neuroscience thinking everything I learned and everything the knowledge was based on would be ethical, honest, or even done with the best of intentions. Brain science, or more specifically, psychopharmaceutical science, has been loaded from the beginning. Understanding the brain is power, and power corrupts.

  I’m not going to dredge up the disgusting memories of Hitler’s scientific henchman Mengele. I don’t have to. There are a plenty of disturbing stories in our much more recent past. Just take the case of Dr. David Franklin.

  In 1996, Dr. Franklin’s research funding had dried up, and—concerned about his mortgage payment as well as his escalating student loans—he left his academic laboratory and went to work as a sales representative for the multinational pharmaceutical megalith I’ll refer to as Warlam. He arrived at his new job armed with a PhD in microbiology, a resume that included working on ground-breaking studies at the world-famous Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and a sense that he would someday be able to use his scientific knowledge to help develop new life-saving medications. But before he could say “anxiety disorder,” Franklin found himself pushing off-label (and therefore untested) uses for Warlam Pharmaceutical’s ill-selling epilepsy drug Neurontin, claiming it could help alleviate symptoms of everything from attention hyperactivity disorder to bipolar disorder to migraines. Long story short, after just a few months on the job, Franklin starting having some ethical concerns about what his bosses were asking—you might say forcing—him to do (after Franklin had convinced a number of pediatricians to try Neurontin out on some children, the kids’ conditions got markedly worse, not better). So, after a few more months of compiling documents and gathering voice messages and doing what any well-intentioned watchdog would try to do, he took the information to a lawyer. It took eight years for the case to finally settle (Warlam pled guilty and coughed up about $430 million to settle the concerns about illegally marketing the drug), but by then another multinational company had bought Warlam, and all the executives involved in the original campaign were gone. None faced any legal ramifications. The epilogue? That payment was a drop in the bucket, and the now officially defunct marketing campaign continues to pay off. Neurontin still earns millions and millions of dollars for the new company each year, both for approved and for off-label uses.

  The moral of the story? I should have known better. I should have known that when you work for an industry that spends 90 percent more of its budget on marketing than it does into research and development, people like Missy Pander were not going to care what I had to say so long as the Mad Libs read they way they wanted them to. I probably shouldn’t have bothered calling her to set up a meeting and express my concern.

  But I did do all of that. When I arrived, Missy was speaking into a Bluetooth earpiece and pacing back and forth in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, backlit by the midday sun, and looking like a very sophisticated shadow puppet.

  “I don’t think that would be very smart,” Missy was saying in a tone that was either defensive or irritated, I couldn’t tell which. “Look, I’m sure we can work something out. We have a full three months before we present at the convention.” She paused, putting her hand against the glass and looking out at the sea of office buildings unfolding in front of her.

  “Yes, yes. I know what’s at stake … I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think … Yes, I’ll talk to her about it … Don’t be so paranoid, she’s not—”

  I tapped on the doorframe to let Missy know I was there.

  “Oh, my!” Missy grabbed her chest like she was having a heart attack. “Listen, I have to go. She’s here,” she said and abruptly hit the button on the phone to disconnect the conversation. “Olivia! You scared me!”

  “The subway was faster than I thought—”

  “Make yourself comfortable,” she said, waving me in and pointing at a sleek purple suede couch. She settled herself into a large leather Aeron chair and took the earpiece off her head. “Security didn’t call me from downstairs to say you were here.”

  “I ran into Novartny. I came up with him.”

  “Novartny? What did you tell him?”

  “Um, nothing. Mostly we talked about the weather, and then someone in the elevator asked him about setting up a meeting …”

  “Oh, good.”

  “Good?”

  “No, no,” she said defensively. “It’s just that I’d rather not bore him with progress reports until we have something to show.”

  “Oh.” I crossed my legs and pulled the skirt of my dress over my knees. “Well, that’s why I’m here. To talk to you about the progress.”

  She held up her Blackberry as if to say, “that’s what emails are for.”

  “I’m not sure you want this information in an email, Missy,” I said, at which point she closed her eyes and muttered more to herself than to me, “Shit, Eugene was right.”

  I didn’t fully understand what she was referring to, but I did realize that from that moment on, it might be a good idea to keep some of the more provocative findings to myself. At least until I could figure out what to do with them.

  40

  July 26 (B.D.)

  Still the Same Day.

  More Or Less the Same Time.

  Brighton Beach.

  11:38 A.M.

  The telephone rang.

  Polly traced a finger over the illustrated fruit decorating the waxy tablecloth that covered the kitchen table, waiting to see if either Mitya or Ivan Petrovich, who were speaking
to each other in rushed, hushed Russian that she couldn’t understand, were going to answer it.

  It rang again. Both men looked up, but neither one budged.

  Polly pushed her chair back from the table. Stepping over Zhanya, who was still snoring like a bulldog, she grabbed the receiver off the phone that was attached to the wall.

  “Hello?” she said. “Hello?”

  Polly could hear someone breathing on the other end, but whoever it was wasn’t talking. She looked over at Mitya and shrugged. She put the receiver back on the hook, sighed and, gingerly stepping over Zhanya again, pleaded for someone to please let her know her what was going on, what they were talking about.

  “She take,” said Ivan Petrovich. “She eat it.” He mimed dropping something into his mouth.

  “What?”

  “Ivan Petrovich is saying Zhanya took the Ziperal,” Mitya said.

  “And? He already told us that.”

  “Apparently it wasn’t working fast enough.”

  “Right. He said that. And I told her it would take a few days, maybe a week for a real therapeutic effect.” Polly sat down. She pressed herself against the plastic-covered padding on the back of the chair and waited for a better answer. “Well?”

  Mitya pointed his thumb at Ivan Petrovich. “He thought he could make it go faster.”

  “Okay? And?”

  “And he had her quadruple the dose.”

  “Quadruple it?” She looked at Ivan Petrovich. “You told her to quadruple it? Are you insane?”

  “Nyet, nyet,” Ivan Petrovich stammered. “The structure of this medicine, it is similar to molecular …”

  “Jesus,” Polly interrupted him. “So, at the recommendation of a failed ex-Soviet scientist, Zhanya overdosed on Ziperal? And how the hell does that get her to selling pills on Brighton Beach Avenue? Did he tell her to do that as well?”

  “He vehemently denies it,” said Mitya, answering the question for Ivan Petrovich. “I believe him. Even if he had told her to, I don’t think she would have. It just doesn’t make sense. She doesn’t even have enough for herself.”

  “Oh so that doesn’t make sense. And the rest of this does?”

  “No, Polly. It doesn’t,” Mitya said, his irritation rising. “But I know my aunt, and if she has one big fault it’s that she can be overly generous. There’s no way she was selling drugs, no matter how high she may have been. More likely she was sharing it, handing it out and distributing it to some of her friends and neighbors.”

  “Why would she do that?” Polly asked. “It’s not like it’s candy she’s been passing around.”

  “I don’t know,” said Mitya. “I mean she was pretty whacked out, Polly. Look at her.”

  “And that could get the attention of the police? After all these years of turning a blind eye to what’s been going on there?”

  As if to answer the question, the telephone rang again. This time, they let the answering machine pick up.

  “Stratsvye, Zhanya,” a man said in Russian. Hello, Zhanya. “This is Boris Shotkyn. I trust you know who I am. I take it the puppy is well?” He sounded like he had just sucked down an unfiltered cigarette with one deep inhale.

  Mitya jumped up. “Hello? Hello?” he said. He listened attentively, his complexion paling with each passing second.

  “Yes, yes,” he finally spoke up. “I understand. I’m so sorry about this. I’m sure Zhanya had no idea … Right. No, no. She really did not … No, it’s not something we have; we don’t have a large stock, there’s hardly any left … I can see why you might think that, but I swear we really don’t have any more of that ...” Mitya closed his eyes as he listened to the infamous neighborhood thug, the mob hero of his childhood, berate him on the other end of the line.

  “Yes, sir,” Mitya said. “We’ll do what we can. Yes, I will. Thank you.” He hung up the phone.

  “Well, what was that?” Polly asked.

  “What he say?” asked Ivan Petrovich, standing up to help the pallid Mitya back to his chair.

  “It’s what I was afraid of,” Mitya said, speaking very slowly. He grabbed the edge of the table as if it could keep him steady. “Boris Shotk …” He couldn’t get himself to say the full name out loud. “He said Zhanya was handing out drugs on his turf, which was clearly not a good thing to do. He said he sent the cops as a scare tactic, to send a message about who’s in charge.”

  “What? You’re kidding, right?” said Polly. “That’s nuts!”

  “This my fault.” Ivan Petrovich whined, burying his face in his hands.

  “No shit,” said Polly.

  “It is what it is,” said Mitya. “And now we have to fix it.”

  What Boris Shotkyn had told him, and he didn’t parse his words, was that Zhanya was going to have to do some work for him. He said there was growing demand for black market antidepressants in the Brighton Beach medication trade, especially among the elderly. He was convinced that Zhanya had connections and he wanted her Ziperal supply.

  “Supply?” Polly repeated. “What supply? Is there even anything left?”

  “Just what the police confiscated.”

  “I take it they already gave it all to him?” Polly gestured toward the telephone.

  “Gee, what do you think?”

  “Don’t be such a bastard.”

  “Don’t be such an idiot.”

  The three of them sat silently for a moment, Ivan Petrovich staring into his tea, Mitya and Polly glaring at each other.

  Polly exhaled audibly through her nose. “I gave her half,” she said.

  “What do you mean?” said Mitya.

  “I gave her half of what I had. That’s it. That’s all that’s left. A few month’s worth. I was saving it for myself.”

  “You’re taking that shit?”

  “A small dose. It doesn’t matter,” said Polly.

  “Well, we need it.”

  “Or?”

  “Jesus, Polly. Do I really need to spell that out?”

  She bit her lower lip and shook her head.

  Mitya slumped deeper into his chair. “Just tell me you can get some more.”

  ***

  Holy mother of Valium. Now I get it. Now I get why Polly was so weird and desperate that night at the restaurant. That was why she was begging me for more Ziperal. She needed it to save her relationship. She needed it to stabilize her moods. She needed it to save her boyfriend’s aunt.

  God, if she knew how much of it I actually did have at the lab back then, she would have had my head.

  41

  August 21 (B.D.)

  A Few Weeks Later.

  I buried myself in my work. I tweaked the dosing and scanned the brains of rats. I set up controls to monitor the effects of increased dosages of Ziperal. I completed the incomplete forms and sent progress reports over to Missy Pander. She made minor adjustments and then sent them back, along with nice bundles of cash—well, direct deposits into my bank account, but you know what I mean. But I did not talk to Polly. I didn’t tell her how good it felt not to have to worry about money for the first time in my life. I didn’t tell her about how well my research was progressing, how excited I was that I was having success at identifying the specific location in the frontal lobe that regulated boredom, how concerned I was that even though he was enjoying his treatments, if given a dose high enough to have a valid efficacy, Raskolnikov kept passing out. I didn’t tell her about my strange conversation with Eugene Throng. I didn’t tell her anything; we were hardly speaking at all.

  After that night at the restaurant, Polly and I had both pretty much thrown in the towel on our friendship. We started acting like a couple going through a bitter divorce, staying out late (either at work or in the clubs, depending on which one of us it was), skulkin
g about to avoid seeing each other when we were in the apartment, and making forced, empty pleasantries when we did. She still borrowed my clothes without asking, but I didn’t care. I was spending so much time at work that all I really needed was underwear and a lab coat. Obviously I wore clothes in between those two items, but I stopped thinking so much about what it was (“who” it was in celebrity parlance) because the coat only came off when I left the office. Nobody but me, the people on the cross-town bus, and the mirror in the living room ever got to see what was underneath.

  One day, not long after the fight, and after pulling an overnight at the lab, I dragged myself home around noon. It was a Wednesday, I might add, a day when most people are at work.

  Polly wasn’t.

  She was sitting on the spot on the couch where I usually tossed my bag, hunched over and picking lint out of the cracks between her toes.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Watching TV, what does it look like?” she responded without looking at me.

  I looked at her.

  She looked like shit. Even worse than before. Her hair was stringy, like she hadn’t washed it since I’d seen her at the restaurant a few weeks before. It’s amazing how quickly she had deteriorated. I could count the vertebra sticking out from under her shirt. The circles under her eyes looked like hockey pucks. A large whitehead was emerging out of her chin. Her reflection in the funhouse mirror actually looked better than she did. Had I been less absorbed in my marinating anger at that moment, I might have been concerned. I might have asked if everything was okay.

  “Whatever,” I said instead. I went into my room and slammed the door behind me.

  A few minutes later there was a knock.