BLIND TRIAL

by Brian Deer

  “I think that’s best.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Well, let’s get to it. The company’s standard operating procedure in the case of an allegation of research misconduct…”

  “Research misconduct? Laughable.”

  “… is that we carry out a recorded interview and archive the recording. You’ll get a copy.” She fumbled with her phone.

  “Laughable.”

  “Perhaps. But we’ve still got to do it. You can decline to cooperate, if you wish. Or seek legal advice, if you wish.”

  “Won’t be necessary. It’s all bullshit.”

  “Okay then. Now, Frank, the first thing. Why not let us get this one out of the way right now. Is that alright with you?”

  “What?”

  “Just tell me, did you tell an MSM volunteer, who we understand you’d just informed had seroconverted positive for HIV, and I quote the allegation, that you, or rather he, ‘Should have thought about that when you were taking it up the ass’?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “Nope.”

  “It’s an awfully specific form of words. Not easy to get wrong.”

  “Never said it.”

  “So, Dr. Honda, what, simply made it up?”

  “Exactly. She’s lying. Some of my best friends are gay. I’d never say anything like that.”

  Doc Mayr looked again at the tablet. “Alright. I hear what you say. I’ve asked, and you’ve answered.”

  “So there.”

  “On a more general matter, then. How do you explain the very high lost to follow-up figures here? The highest of all our centers.”

  “Can’t.”

  “You haven’t looked into this? Not even when Doctorjee was out here?”

  “It’s an anomaly. Random anomaly.” Wilson scooted to the table. “And this is San Francisco. Half our volunteers are so cranked out on methamphetamine they can’t find their way home without calling 911. The other half spends what we pay ’em on drugs.”

  “Yes, I can see it’s an anomaly. Have you any hypothesis?”

  “If I had a hypothesis, it wouldn’t be an anomaly, would it? It would be a potentially explained phenomenon.”

  “What I’m getting at is, do you think there might be a reason for your figures being twice everybody else’s?”

  “What the heck. I’m sure that trial’s all light and loveliness seen from the ninth floor on Tenth Street. But out here, where the real work’s done, they’re all fags and junkies heading straight to hell.”

  “You’re not helping yourself.”

  “They’re unreliable. That’s what I’m saying. And here’s the joke in this randomized, placebo controlled, double-blind study of yours. Half of them come through here say they know when they’re getting placebo. So why keep coming back if you know you’re not getting the vaccine?”

  “Perhaps there’s the financial incentive. And, of course, the science.”

  “Peanuts and monkeys.”

  “Thank you. So, the lost to follow-ups were mostly on the placebo arm, were they? Dr. Honda never told us that.”

  “Possibly. How would I know? You folks won’t send me the unblinding. I’ve asked Doctorjee for it about two hundred times.”

  “It’s in the database.”

  “Individually for the clients, yes. If I go through all our 1,603 volunteers’ files, one-by-one. I need our results tabulated.”

  “You’ve had the full dataset for all ninety-five sites.”

  “Riddled with Chinese and Africans. I need our results, not theirs.”

  “Table 12.” Doc Mayr returned to the iPad. “And did you say… Let me see now… Did you by any chance tell a volunteer… actually a Latina volunteer, ‘See you in three months, if you haven’t been deported’?”

  “I did not.”

  “Is Dr. Honda lying about that?”

  “Course she is. Bitch.”

  “This was in reception, apparently. We’re given to understand Ardelia Chambers was present.”

  Wilson backed from the table and returned to his desk. His nose scrunched. Broken veins swelled. “She misheard.”

  “Dr. Honda too. Both misheard?”

  “Must have.”

  “And then…” Doc Mayr tapped the iPad. “Did you say to Nurse Aderonke in respect of an IV drug user, and, again, I quote the allegation, ‘Can you do her bloods, if she’s got any left?’”

  “Course, I didn’t. What you take me for?”

  “Is Nurse Aderonke making it up as well?”

  “How do I know? Let’s just say her English is suboptimal, shall we? But we don’t have to get so personal.”

  “I see. As I say, I’ve asked, and you’ve given your answers.”

  Doc Mayr checked her phone was still recording, then tapped the tablet screen twice. Ben glimpsed a letter: formal, with a signature, like the one he’d gotten from Crampton.

  “Think carefully about this.” She held the device further from her face. “Did you tell a volunteer not to come back?”

  “Another damn lie. One after another. This is getting ridiculous. She’s plain got it in for me. From the day she came here. I’m getting to regret agreeing to this conversation, dignifying that woman’s lies. I can see I made a mistake in being open and honest.”

  “Rafael Juan Ramirez?”

  “What? Who?” Wilson whirled, rolled across the office to a wall of bookshelves, and pulled a bound volume of Scientific American.

  Doc Mayr peered at the iPad. “WV008010. Rafael Ramirez. Clementina Street.

  “We now find we are in the fortunate position of being somewhat oversubscribed… I am therefore glad to tell you that we will no longer require you to attend the center for further sessions.”

  Wilson threw down the volume and made for the door. “Hell, I’m not taking any more of this crap. Think what you want. I’ve had enough of this. Ha.”

  Sixteen

  SUMIKO HONDA clicked and scrolled through the latest issue of the Lancet medical journal but felt too angry to read it. She switched to her calendar, where holes loomed in her schedule. Tomorrow: short sessions. Thursday: two clients. She’d no full list for a week.

  She closed the calendar and gazed at her workspace: more evidence of Wilson’s malevolence. Through two open doors, she saw into consultation suite 7: a big, well-furnished room, with natural light. But what passed for her office was a windowless closet, with scratched steel furniture, a flickering fluorescent tube, and greasy brown carpet squares. The wall behind her desk was shared with a restroom. All day she heard toilets flush.

  So far, Tuesday had been a right royal bummer: a washout from the minute it started. She’d woken at seven, checked her aquarium, and found one of her favorite fishes was dead. Driving to the hospital, soon after eight-thirty, the transmission failed on her Volkswagen Beetle. And at ten, when she asked about the visitors from Atlanta, Ardelia said “for sure” Dr. Mayr was expected, but “no” Sumiko’s input wasn’t required.

  That latter development took her aback. Why would the company people snub her? Who was it who reported Wilson’s conduct? Who did the right thing and spoke up? They ought, at least, to hear her concerns. And now it was time to go home.

  Thirty minutes back, she’d listened at Wilson’s door. Through the wood, Trudy Mayr was unmistakable. Then a cough and a mumble. Yes, a man was there too. That could only be Ben Louviere. It must be. He’d told her he was the vaccine chief’s special assistant. He might at least have stopped by.

  He’d seemed so unlike the other BerneWerner staffers. In his DePaul & Furbeck T-shirt and blue surf shorts, he was more an athlete or an artist than a suit. He was courteous, attentive. He acknowledged her fears. And the way he jumped in front of that train… But when she called him Sunday evening, he sounded distant, preoccupied, as if his interests were already elsewhere.

  She reopened the Lancet, clicked to the job ads, the
n heard squeaks in the corridor outside.

  HE LEANED on the doorframe. “You busy, or what?”

  “Oh, hi Ben. You’re here. No, not at all. Thinking how to get home. Want a coffee?”

  He didn’t want a coffee: he was wired already. “I’m up for whatever you got.”

  She led him to a kitchen on Wilson’s corridor and pulled two china cups from a shelf. She seemed somehow different to the way he remembered. Less lady. More doctor. Still hot.

  In DC, she’d struck him as a pretty relaxed person: a slim and tight, wildcatting whistleblower. But now, filling a kettle under white, fluorescent light, she looked tenser than a migraine headache.

  She shoveled the cups with instant Nescafé. “Will Dr. Mayr be long, do you know?”

  “No idea. Probably hours.”

  “Only it’s my car’s actually off the road, and I’m hoping to get a ride from someone. So, I don’t know whether to wait or not to speak with her.”

  “You come to the right place. We got a rental at the airport.” Ben thumbed over his shoulder. “Left it in some parking structure, that way.”

  Sumiko lowered her voice and pointed with a finger. “Actually, it’s that way. But near enough.”

  After two gulps of coffee and a shared ginger biscuit, she led him downstairs and along a cement path to where he’d left a powder white Nissan Sentra.

  Now there was no doubt about it: the foxy lady was back, joking about the seatbelt like she’d never worn one before and fingering the parking brake. As the car turned onto Twenty-Second Street and climbed Potrero Hill, on the city’s east side, she even drummed on her knees to Metallica.

  But she hadn’t forgotten Wilson. That was too much to hope for.

  “Can I ask you a question?” she said. “And please be honest.”

  “Course. That’s important. Ask away.”

  “Honestly, do you think she’s really going to do something about him? I mean, not just try to make me think she’s investigating by coming out here. Do you think she might actually nail him?”

  Ben slowed at an intersection and took a sideways glance through a pair of Maui Jim Beachcomber shades. He’d bought them that morning at Hartsfield-Jackson airport while waiting for Doc Mayr to show.

  “Certainly. Of course. Why wouldn’t she? She’s been giving him a proper hard time you know. Recorded and everything.”

  “Good.”

  “Says she’ll interview Ardelia, Nurse Aderonke, and anybody else who knows anything. ‘Source data verification,’ she says, as well. Going to check all kinds of records and stuff.”

  “That sounds hopeful, I suppose.”

  Now she sneaked a glance at him, as if she figured he wouldn’t notice. And it wasn’t just a glance, but a checkout. “Where are you staying? You know you look very tired. You must have gotten up early this morning.”

  This lady was getting personal. She was definitely up for something. She was about as hard to read as a boarding pass.

  “Booked at the Hyatt. On Union Square.”

  “That’ll be expensive. So, it’s real, this inquiry then? It’s not only to keep me sweet?”

  “Course it’s for real. It’s a special assignment. And that’s from senior management.”

  She looked at him again: the full up and down. From his shades to his chest to his crotch to his foot as it moved from brake to gas. Here was a boarding pass to a warm, wet place. Dinner and a fuck and a raise.

  Her gaze persisted. “You know anything about fish, by any chance?”

  “Fish? What, you mean like salmon and stuff?”

  “No, I mean tropical fish. Tropical fish is my hobby. And one of my latest has died, and I can’t think why. It’s a Banggai cardinalfish.”

  Ben pursed his lips and nodded. “Banggai cardinalfish? Ahh. Good choice. Usually, it’s the temperature of the water, or sometimes the food you’re giving them that can be a factor. Otherwise, it might be some kind of illness.”

  “I wondered if one of the others might have killed it.”

  “Can happen too with those, possibly.” Now he was the fish doctor. Fish, he knew nothing about.

  “Would you like to come up and take a look.”

  ON THE CREST of Potrero Hill, at Twentieth and Missouri, Sumiko pointed to a three-story apartment building with wooden siding the color of duck eggs. It straddled the corner, with three front doors, and awesome views north and east: the first downtown and a slice of the Bay Bridge; the other across water to where a black-hulled container ship rode an orange smog in front of Oakland.

  “That’s my place,” she said, as he spun the wheel to park with the Sentra’s nose to the sidewalk. “Up there on the top, with the curtains.”

  He edged the car forward till its tires bumped the curb, locked the brake, killed the engine, and looked up. It was hardly three hours since he landed at San Francisco, and his assignment was on track for completion. Fuck first, then dinner, phone Hoffman, fuck again. Then plan a few days of fun together.

  “Nice location and…” He stopped mid-thought, distracted by a spooky coincidence. He’d parked alongside another white sedan and noticed that it too was a Sentra. The same powder white, the same four doors, the same charcoal interior and silver multi-spoke wheel trim. Also factory new. Identical.

  “Hey, Potrero Hill Autos.”

  Sumiko gasped. “Yes, and I think…” Her words faltered. “I think, yes, and ahh, I think…”

  Together, they gazed at the car to their right and especially its front nearside window. The drivers’ seat was occupied by a black-haired man: a man they’d both seen before.

  “Actually, Ben, now I remember… I’m afraid I need to make some phone calls about my Beetle. The transmission’s failed, and I’m waiting on an estimate. Maybe a better idea, let’s think, let’s think, would be to meet up tomorrow. Would that be better?”

  This wasn’t good. He’d been up for the fish. “Whatever you think.”

  “I’d like to.”

  Who was that guy? He’d been in Washington last week, with the Japanese outfit, Sanomo. He was Dr. Mitsubishi… Dr. Murayama… What the fuck was he doing out here?

  “Isn’t that, you know, what’s his name? You know the guy I mean? He’s still wearing the same tie. You remember?”

  Sumiko looked away. “Yes. You’re right. Yes. That’s Dr. Murayama. This is surprising. I’d better have a word with him now.”

  Ben popped his seatbelt and beat her onto the sidewalk. “Dollar Rent-A-Car?” He raised a thumb.

  The Japanese stared back, with a startled, phony grin, and called through the window. “Yes, Dollar.”

  Sumiko climbed out. Murayama did the same. Everybody smiled. What else?

  “Why, Dr. Murayama,” she said. “What a surprise. Nice to see you again, so soon.”

  He was dressed the way he’d been every day in DC: black suit, white shirt, and red tie. “Yes, I couldn’t wait. You are making me wait. I hope for an answer to my proposition. So I came.”

  WEDNESDAY JULY 23

  Seventeen

  WEDNESDAY MORNING, the 1280 West building, West Peachtree, upper Midtown, Atlanta. Theodore Hoffman squatted in the parking garage and rubbed his dry palms with excitement.

  It was 09:18, and only a handful of vehicles remained on this, the fifth of 1280’s forty floors. Three bays to his left, sat a gray Mazda 6 that hadn’t been driven for a year. In the bay beside the Mazda, a red Chevy Malibu which minutes ago squealed up the ramp. And next to the Malibu, his ’86 Crown Vic, freshly serviced after her run to DC.

  None grabbed his interest. He’d eyes only for another, still shrouded in silver polypropylene. He’d not seen this vehicle in eighteen years, since he warehoused her in upstate Michigan. The Flint Trucking Company dropped her off last night while he gulped canapés at Symphony Hall. For one week only she’d grace this garage and then be cocooned at the company’s Athens labs, safe from the cruelties of time.

>   Hoffman rocked on his toes and considered his options for effecting a satisfying reunion. He could drag the cover slowly, letting it linger on her body, as if unveiling at an automobile show. He might tease her free lightly: unwrapping fine china. Or snatch like the tablecloth trick.

  Inches from his fingers, a tie protruded from a grommet. But not yet. He’d business to attend to. Last night, Ben called and left a breathless voicemail wanting “urgent instructions what to do.” Sanomo’s Murayama had turned up in Frisco with a “proposition” for Sumiko Honda.

  The general counsel rose and tapped his phone.

  “This is Ben. Leave a message, or WhatsApp me at this number. Get back to you quick as I can.”

  Hoffman hung up and pressed the phone to his chin. For a moment, the kid’s voice lingered. The accent was different: Ben was from Chicago, while his daddy grew up in Detroit. The son sounded eager, while the father always chilled. Henry was as laid back as the Buddha. All the same, that voice was a message in a bottle, or the light from a distant star.

  Time hadn’t erased Hoffman’s last visit to the Louvieres. There was Henry, Tony Demarco, and Marty O’Toole playing draw poker on a spring Sunday evening. Little Benny, nearly three, bumped his peddle-truck round the living room in bare feet and elephant pajamas.

  The kid struck the table, climbed into Hoffman’s lap, stabbed a wet finger, and read his hand.

  “Dymon, haar, cub, cub, cub.”

  “Jesus G. Christ. Time for bed.”

  Now Hoffman tapped a website with the Frisco Hyatt’s number, and they located a bigger Benny outside the restaurant.

  “The fuck’s going on? That Sanomo guy’s there?”

  “That’s right, sir. Yeah. Right outside her apartment, he was. Says he’s a tourist, but Dr. Honda was seriously shifty. In fact, they both were. They were lying. He was dressed in a business suit. Fresh shirt and everything. I reckon something shady’s going down.”

  “What he say?”

  “Not much. Thought I was an Uber driver till he remembered me from the conference. But he did get from Dr. Honda that Doc Mayr’s in town. Didn’t say what we’re here about while we were talking, but he was definitely very interested, I’m telling you. From the way he was acting, all shuffling his feet on the street, she probably didn’t need to tell him. I reckon he knew already.”