When Seeley returned her smile he realized that he was flirting with her. “In trials, sure.”
The waitress cleared away their plates and flipped her pad open for dessert orders. “The Snickers bar pie is one of our specialities.” Lily shook her head and said tea would be fine. Seeley asked for coffee.
“You enjoy eating, don't you?”
“Sure,” Seeley said, “when the food's as good as this.”
“Do you like dim sum?”
When Seeley nodded, she said, “In China people have it for breakfast or lunch. I like it for dinner. And mine's better than what you can get in a restaurant.”
Seeley didn't know where this was going.
“Your reflexes outside the courtroom could be better. That was a dinner invitation.”
“Just like that?”
“Why not?”
“I'm going to trial in three days.”
“You still have to eat dinner. My apartment's in Half Moon Bay-it's only forty minutes from the city.”
“Why?”
“I already told you. If I'm going to talk to you, I need to know you better.”
“When you left UC, why didn't you go to Vaxtek with Steinhardt?”
“How about next Tuesday?” She had taken a leather-bound calendar from her purse.
“I'd like that. But finish telling me about you and Steinhardt.” Tell me, Seeley thought, what your feelings were for this arrogant peacock.
“When he went to Vaxtek I'd already worked with him for three years. It seemed like a good time for me to move to a different lab.”
“Did you have him over for dim sum dinners?”
The porcelain cheeks colored, and Seeley wondered how seriously he had overstepped.
But her voice was even; she seemed neither angry nor embarrassed. “I had a relationship with Alan, if that's what you mean.”
Either Steinhardt was lying when he said that her crush was unrequited or Lily was. Seeley decided to believe her, even though he couldn't picture her in Steinhardt's arms nor him in hers.
She read his reaction as surprise. “Which stereotype are you sticking me with-cool, dispassionate scientist or chaste Chinese lady?”
“Neither. It's just that-”
She laughed. “I like discovering things, finding out what goes on behind the professional front that people wear. Alan is a very interesting man, and even though it didn't last long, I'm glad we had a relationship.” This time she enunciated the word carefully, as if it might explode. She looked directly at Seeley. “You're an interesting man, too. Even enigmatic.”
“How so?”
“You come on tough and in control, but when the waitress asked you what you wanted to drink, the way you looked at that row of beer bottles, you could have been a teenager mooning over a pretty girl.”
Seeley reminded himself to be more careful the next time he took a scientist to lunch.
“I can understand your leaving Steinhardt's lab, but why'd you go to a place the size of St. Gall? I'd think you'd be afraid you'd get lost there.”
She studied Seeley and waited a moment before she spoke. “That's what Alan said. But it was either that or get lost in his shadow. Alan's not the kind of person who shares credit.”
This made more sense to Seeley than what she said before. “But when, out of nowhere, he tells you he wants to publish articles with you, you go to his lab to see him.”
“I believed him. People change.”
Sure they do, Seeley thought. In the case of people like Steinhardt they get worse.
“Alan was right about St. Gall not giving me the recognition I deserved.”
“They were ready to have you testify in court that you invented AV/AS.”
“That was only after Vaxtek sued them, and it was their lawyer's idea. They thought a woman scientist would play well to a San Francisco jury.”
Emil Thorpe would know exactly what worked with a San Francisco jury. “So, before anyone knew there would be a lawsuit, you went to see Steinhardt and he left you alone in his lab-”
“He had to go to his office to get the UC notebooks.”
“And a security guard found you.”
“It wasn't a big deal. As soon as Alan came back he told the guard I was with him.”
“But the guard wrote in his report that you were there alone.”
She saw where Seeley's questions were going: that Steinhardt had set her up, creating an appearance of industrial espionage, with her as the spy. “No one would have known I was there if one of the lawyers in your office hadn't connected the guard's log and the witness list.”
“And St. Gall dropped you as a witness because they thought you stole Vaxtek's secrets.”
“Isn't that why you're asking all these questions?”
“Why did St. Gall make you promise not to talk about what happened?” “They fired me, but they got me a job at a small start-up they're financing in Half Moon Bay.”
“Are you happy there?”
“I'm in a holding pattern. It's mostly busywork. St. Gall wants to keep their eye on me until the trial is over.”
“You could get a job anywhere. Dozens of companies would hire you.”
“Not without a visa. All St. Gall has to do is call Immigration and I lose my H-1.”
That was the hold that St. Gall had on Lily. Deportation. It was why they didn't need her signature on a secrecy agreement.
“You're a citizen of this country,” she said. “You have no idea what it's like to live with the constant threat that, if you look at somebody the wrong way, you get deported.”
“Is your family still in China?” If family was neither an attraction nor a consolation for Seeley, it might be for Lily.
“My parents are in their sixties. They live in Wuhan.”
Seeley was certain she was going to tell him more, but she glanced quickly at a mirror in her purse and, after removing a business card, snapped the bag shut. “Have you ever done science, Michael?”
“Football practice got in the way of biology lab when I was in college.”
“Then you have no idea how different my world is from yours.” While she spoke, she wrote on the back of the card. “Whatever else is wrong with your country, America is still the best place in the world to do science. It's one of the few places where a woman can hope to get recognized for what she does.”
The dining room had emptied. A lone waitress leaned against the cash register. Warren handed him the business card, on which she had written her address and Tuesday, 7:30.
Seeley said, “You must want something very much to risk having St. Gall see you with me.”
She sipped her tea. “You're afraid that something is going to come out in court and ruin your case.”
Seeley nodded, once again admiring how quick she was. “And you've told me what you're afraid of. So why don't you tell me what it is you want?”
“Look, Michael, we each have our own reasons, but the way things are arranged, St. Gall's not going to say anything, in court or out, and I'm not, either. So this secret you think I'm hiding is not going to be a problem for you.”
Her logic was as impeccable as she was. But it was lawyer's logic, and for Seeley that had never been enough.
Paul Goldstein
A Patent Lie
SEVEN
It felt illicit being in his brother's house with him not there. Renata told Seeley that Leonard was working late and would meet them at Joel Warshaw's party. “Leonard loves parties,” she said. “Take your tie off. The only one there with a tie will be the headmaster.”
“Headmaster?”
“It's a benefit for the Hill School. Joel's on the board.” Renata's hands went to Seeley's collar and deftly loosened the tie, opened the top button, and slipped the tie from its knot. She let one hand stay fl at on his chest. “Healthy heartbeat,” she said and handed him the tie.
Seeley looked down at her, flustered.
A quizzical smile played on her lips. “Next time,” she said, “I'll use an anesthetic.”
It was late October, but the evening was balmy and Renata suggested walking the short distance to Warshaw's house. The light sleeveless dress clung to her slender figure, and she threw a sweater over her shoulders on their way out the door. “You made a conquest, you know.”