Her bank was two blocks north of the supermarket and on the way to the kids’ school. She pulled into the parking lot and lucked out with a spot right by the ATM. There was no line, and she took the open machine on the far left. Deposit envelopes were tucked in a slot next to the machine, and she pulled one out, slipped her check in, and licked the flap. It tasted tart, but she swallowed the glue residue and tucked the check in the opening. She glanced at the account balance and grimaced slightly. Why was money so hard to earn and so easy to spend? She returned to her car and dropped the slip of paper into the console between the two front seats. The dashboard clock read 3:15, the exact time her kids were released from classes. She swung out onto the road from the parking lot and gunned the car. She’d make it in time.
The taste from the envelope lingered on her tongue, and she scraped the top side against her upper teeth. First the grocery store charging three cents for plastic bags, now foul-tasting glue on the envelopes.
Why were the simple things getting complicated?
10
The law firm of Stevens and Hilbrecht was tucked away on the second floor of one of the old historical buildings on Harrison Street. On the side of the building was a prominent ghost sign in white paint on red brick, promoting the long-defunct Bronx Lounge. Parking was in a secluded lot behind the building, and Gordon left his BMW in the stall closest to the alley and entered through the rear door. A musty smell tickled his nostrils and he sneezed a couple of times. It happened every time he visited his lawyer.
The stairs were wooden and creaked slightly under his weight. He reached the second-floor landing and veered right, down the hall and into Christine Stevens’s office. Her receptionist and paralegal, Belinda, was manning the scarred wooden desk and smiled as he entered.
“Hi, Gordon,” she said cheerfully. “Christine said to send you right in when you arrived.”
“Thanks, Belinda.” He tried to force a smile, but he couldn’t seem to force his lips to make the journey. He strode down the hall and into the second office on the left. A mid-thirties woman sat in the pewter and tanned-leather chair behind the desk, a pair of reading glasses perched on the end of her nose. She was diminutive, no more than five-four, with a slender figure that probably fit into a size two, three at best. Her hair was dark brown with a few lingering streaks of color she’d tried months back and realized she didn’t like. Her face was chalk white and bony, and her teeth were too big for her mouth when she smiled. But this Friday morning, she wasn’t smiling. She pointed to one of the chairs facing her desk, and Gordon sat. The chairs were more tanned leather on pewter frames and decidedly uncomfortable. They melded with the rest of the room, which was sparsely decorated with spindly halogen lamps and cold metal sculptures.
“I’ve been on the phone for fifteen hours on this file, Gordon,” she said. Christine Stevens charged by the hour and didn’t make idle conversation. “And I don’t have very good news.”
Gordon was stone-faced. “Just tell me what you found.”
Christine Stevens focused on some papers on her desk. “Veritas Pharmaceutical is a medium-size company if you compare it to the Big Pharma companies, but that doesn’t mean it’s small potatoes.”
“Big Pharma?” Gordon asked.
“Marcon, Frezin, GlasoKlan-the big guys in researching and marketing new drugs. They’re collectively referred to as Big Pharma. I don’t think it’s meant as a term of endearment. These are the guys who spend up to eight hundred million to bring a new drug to the market. Their research and marketing budgets are in the ozone. We’re talking big-time here, Gordon. Anyway, Veritas is a few billion short of fitting in with the big boys.”
“Okay,” Gordon said.“What did you find out aboutTriaxcion?”
She flipped over a few pages. “Not the best drug on the market. There have been some rumblings over the past couple of years that Triaxcion might cause peripheric tissues to mutate slightly, rendering A-positive blood incapable of coagulating.”
Gordon stared at her. “What?” he finally said. “What are you saying?”
“Billy was A positive, Gordon. And when he slashed himself with the chain saw, he bled to death because his blood wouldn’t clot. And Billy was taking Triaxcion for his hair loss. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to put two and two together.”
“That drug caused Billy’s death?” Gordon said quietly.
Stevens leaned back in her chair. “I can’t say that with total conviction, Gordon. If you were to ask me if I thought Triaxcion was responsible for Billy dying, I would say yes. But proving it in a court of law won’t be so easy. I’ve spoken with twelve other lawyers who have clients with family members they suspect have died as a result of Triaxcion, but none of them feel they have what is necessary to go to court.”
“Each one of them has a body, Christine,” Gordon said tersely. “What more do they need?”
“Definitive proof. Veritas isn’t going to lie down and die on this, Gordon. This drug is worth hundreds of millions of dollars to these guys. They have a legal department that rivals Microsoft. Forty-two lawyers, three times that many paralegals, and an investigative budget in the tens of millions. They’re going to protect their patent and their legal right to keep the FDA approval until someone can prove beyond any doubt that the drug can be fatal. And we don’t have that proof.”
“Billy wasn’t a bleeder, Christine. When we were kids, he used to get cut all the time. His blood always clotted. Something caused things to change, and the only variable is Triaxcion. I say that’s definitive proof.”
She shook her head. “If you’re going to initiate a class-action tort suit against a major pharmaceutical company, you’d better have the evidence and the money to back it up.”
“We have both,” Gordon said.
“No,” Christine said slowly, “you don’t. You have a few million dollars, Gordon. Maybe twenty or thirty tops. If we’re going after Veritas, we’ll have to bring in another firm, a major player, with at least twenty lawyers on retainer. You’ll have a fight that will last years and eat up every dollar you’ve ever earned. You’ll lose the mill, spend more time in court than at home, and in the end, probably lose. And you’ll lose because they have the connections-inside the FDA and on the Hill in D.C. You’ll lose because you’re angry at what happened, but they’re ruthless. You’re a decent person, Gordon, and these guys eat decent people for breakfast. You’ll lose because sometimes life just isn’t fair.”
Gordon was silent. He stared at her with tired eyes. “And this is one of those times,” he finally said.
She nodded. “I can take the case, Gordon. I can bring in medical and pharmaceutical experts and have them testify. I can build a solid legal team and fight a good fight. I can bring public awareness to the drug’s side effects. But I can’t win, Gordon. I know that going in.”
“Then what do I do, Christine?” he asked.“Just accept the fact that these people killed my brother and get on with my life?” She didn’t answer. “How can I do that, Christine?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know, Gordon. But I do know this. Billy wouldn’t have wanted you to destroy yourself over this. It was his mistake with the chain saw that caused the accident. And he chose to take the drug to stop his hair loss. There are always choices in life, Gordon, and your brother made a couple of bad ones. Don’t get me wrong, I’m on your side. But if you want to pursue this, it’s against my advice.”