“But why did they take the books?” asked Charles. Fear blunted the edge of his anger. As much as he hated administrative authority, he also feared it. It had been that way ever since college where he’d learned that an arbitrary decision from the Dean’s office could affect his whole life. And now the administration had invaded his world and arbitrarily taken his lab books which for Charles was like taking a hostage. The contents of the lab books were associated in his mind with helping Michelle, despite how far-fetched that was in reality.
“I think you’d better ask Dr. Morrison and Dr. Ibanez that question,” said Ellen. “Frankly, I knew it was going to come to something like this.”
Ellen sighed and tossed her head in an I-told-you-so fashion. Charles watched her, surprised at her attitude. It added to his feeling of isolation.
Leaving his lab, he wearily climbed up the fire stairs to the second floor and walked past the familiar row of secretaries and presented himself to Miss Veronica Evans for the second time in two days. Although she was obviously unoccupied, she took her sweet time looking up over her glasses at Charles.
“Yes?” she said as if Charles were a servant. Then she told him to wait on a small leather couch. Charles was certain that the delay was made to impress upon him that he was a pawn. Time dragged while Charles could not decide which was the stronger emotion: anger, fear, or panic. But the need to get back his lab books kept him in his place. He had no idea if they were technically his property or the institute’s.
The longer he sat, the less certain he became that the books detailing his recent work would be a strong bargaining point. He began to wonder if Ibanez might actually fire him. He tried to think what he could do if he had trouble getting another research position. He felt so out of touch with clinical medicine that he didn’t think he could do that. And if he got fired, he wondered with renewed panic if he’d still be covered by health insurance. That was a real concern because Michelle’s hospital bills were going to be astronomical.
There was a discreet buzz on the intercom panel, and Miss Evans turned to Charles imperiously and said: “The director will see you now.”
Dr. Carlos Ibanez stood up behind his antique desk as Charles entered. His figure was backlit from the windows, making his hair and goatee shine like polished silver.
Directly in front of the desk were Joshua Weinburger, Sr. and Joshua Weinburger, Jr., whom Charles had met at infrequent mandatory social functions. Although close to eighty, the senior seemed more animated than the junior, with lively blue eyes. He regarded Charles with great interest.
Joshua Weinburger, Jr. was the stereotypical businessman, impeccably attired, obviously extremely reserved. He glanced at Charles with a mixture of disdain and boredom, switching his attention back to Dr. Ibanez almost immediately.
Seated to the right of the desk was Dr. Morrison, whose dress mirrored Joshua Weinburger, Jr.’s in its attention to detail. A silk handkerchief, which had been carefully folded, then casually flared, protruded from his breast pocket.
“Come in, come in!” commanded Dr. Ibanez good-naturedly.
Charles approached Dr. Ibanez’s huge desk, noticing the conspicuous lack of a fourth chair. He ended up standing between the Weinburgers and Morrison. Charles didn’t know what to do with his hands, so he stuck them into his pockets. He looked out of place among these businessman with his frayed oxford-cloth shirt, his wide out-of-style tie, and poorly pressed slacks.
“I think we should get right to business,” said Dr. Ibanez. “The Weinburgers, as co-chairmen of the board of directors, have graciously come to help us manage the current crisis.”
“Indeed,” said Weinburger, Jr., turning slightly in his chair so as to look up at Charles. He had a tremor of his head and it rotated rapidly in a short arc to and fro. “Dr. Martel, it’s not the policy of the board of directors to interfere in the creative process of research. However, there are occasionally circumstances in which we must violate this rule and the current crisis is such a time. I think you should know that Canceran is a potentially important drug for Lesley Pharmaceuticals. To be very blunt, Lesley Pharmaceuticals is in precarious financial condition. Within the last few years, their patents have run out on their line of antibiotics and tranquilizers, and they are in desperate need of a new drug to market. They have committed their scarce resources into developing a chemotherapy line, and Canceran is the product of that research. They hold the exclusive patent on Canceran but must get the drug on the market. The sooner the better.”
Charles studied the faces of the men. Obviously they weren’t going to dismiss him summarily. The idea was to soften him up, make him understand the financial realities, then convince him to recommence work on Canceran. He had a glimmer of hope. The Weinburgers couldn’t have risen to their positions of power without intelligence, and Charles began to formulate in his mind the way he would convince them that Canceran was a bad investment, that it was a toxic drug and would probably never be marketed.
“We already know what you discovered about the toxicity of Canceran,” said Dr. Ibanez, taking a short puff on his cigar and unknowingly undermining Charles. “We realize that Dr. Brighton’s estimates are not entirely accurate.”
“That’s a generous way of putting it,” said Charles, realizing with dismay that his trump card had been snatched from him. “Apparently all the data in the Canceran studies done by Dr. Brighton has been falsified.” He watched the reaction of the Weinburgers out of the corners of his eyes, hoping for a response but seeing none.
“Most unfortunate,” agreed Dr. Ibanez. “The solution is salvaging what we can and going forward.”
“But my estimates suggest the drug is extremely toxic,” said Charles desperately, “so toxic, in fact, that it might have to be given in homeopathic doses.”
“That’s not our concern,” said Joshua Weinburger, Jr. “That’s a marketing problem, and that’s the one department at Lesley Pharmaceuticals that is outstanding. They could sell ice to Eskimos.”
Charles was dumbfounded. There wasn’t even the pretense of ethicality. Whether the product would help people made no difference. It was business—big business.
“Charles!” said Dr. Morrison, speaking for the first time. “We want to ask if you could run the efficacy and toxicity studies concurrently.”
Charles switched his gaze to Dr. Morrison and stared at him with contempt. “That kind of approach would be reducing inductive research to pure empiricism.”
“We don’t care what you call it,” said Dr. Ibanez with a smile. “We just want to know if it could be done.”
Joshua Weinburger, Sr. laughed. He liked aggressive people and aggressive ideas.
“And we don’t care how many test animals you use,” said Morrison generously.
“That’s right,” agreed Dr. Ibanez. “Although we’d recommend you use mice since they’re considerably cheaper, you can use as many as you’d like. What we’re suggesting is doing efficacy studies at a very wide range of dosages. At the conclusion of the experiment, new toxicity values could be extrapolated and then substituted for the falsified data in the original toxicity study done by Dr. Brighton. Simple as that, and we’d save lots of time! What do you say, Charles?”
“Before you answer,” said Morrison, “I think I should warn you that if you refuse, it will be in the best interests of the institute to let you go and seek someone who will give Canceran the attention it deserves.”
Charles looked from face to face. His fear and panic had disappeared. Anger and contempt remained. “Where are my lab books?” he asked with a tired voice.