She stepped back, and Leethe entered, carrying his own more battered but equally expensive attachй case. Peter and David stood where they were, like minor servers at some arcane Mass, while Bradley strode around the table, hand out, high-wattage smile agleam as he said, "Ah, Mr. Leethe, at last we meet. Bradley Cummingford."
Leethe took Bradley's hand as though it were part of the membership ritual for a club he wasn't sure he wanted to join. Then he lifted an eyebrow at the room, gazed at David and Peter, and said, "Farewell to elegance, I see."
"This seems more businesslike," Peter said.
"It certainly does."
Bradley gestured at the chair he wanted Leethe in. "Do sit down, Mr. Leethe," he said.
"Thank you."
As Bradley returned to his own place at the head of the table, Leethe followed him partway and took a chair midway along the side, facing David and Peter, with the allegedly uneasy-making door down to his left. David and Peter both looked at Bradley, to see how he'd take this development, but Bradley didn't appear to have noticed it at all. Sitting down, picking up his pen, smiling again at Leethe, he said, "It does seem to me we do have some goals in common here."
"That's because we have the same clients," Leethe said.
"Ah, if only that were so," Bradley told him. "In fact, our firm has done some work for NAABOR over the years, but on this matter, I'm sorry to say, we have not been retained."
Gesturing at David and Peter, Leethe said, "I meant the doctors here."
"Oh, Mr. Leethe," Bradley said. "We aren't going over that stale ground, are we?"
"I suppose not," Leethe agreed, and shrugged. "I want my position clear, that's all." Raising that eyebrow at David and Peter, lifting his hands from the table to gesture with upheld palms, like a slow-motion demonstration of pizza-tossing, he said, "You want something. Something you couldn't discuss with me without the presence of your friend here."
"We want our invisible man," Peter said.
Leethe's smile could give you frostbite. "We all want the invisible man," he said.
"You're looking for him," Peter pointed out. "You have . . . people, looking for him."
"Granted."
"We want to be a part of it, when he's found."
Bradley said, "Well, no, Peter, that isn't exactly what you want."
Peter looked at him in surprise. "It isn't?"
"May I?"
"Go ahead."
To Leethe, Bradley said, "David and Peter here created that invisible man while employees of your client. To the extent that a human being may be property, therefore, he is the property of your client, or the discoveries and techniques he embodies are your client's property. However, legal practice, medical practice, scientific practice, all agree that while your client holds ultimate ownership, or whatever rights would take the place of ownership in this instance, David and Peter are the ultimate authorities as to when their creation is in a fit and proper condition to be turned over to your client. As of this point, since the experiment was altered by the experimental subject away from the original intentions of Peter and David, and since they have not as yet had the opportunity to examine the subject to see what other unforeseen effects may have been caused by this flawed experiment, they wish me to put NAABOR and the American Tobacco Research Institute on notice, through you, their agent, that the experiment must be considered at this point in time tentative and inconclusive and incomplete, and that David and Peter are thoroughly averse to turning over to your clients any experimental data, including but not limited to the invisible man himself, until they are satisfied with the results of their researches. It is only a completed discovery or invention they are required to deliver to your client and toward which your client would enjoy a proprietary relationship." Opening the manila folder, he said, "I have a number of citations of court cases tending towards—"
"That's all right," Leethe said, patting his right hand toward Bradley's manila folder, as though to tell a dog he didn't feel like playing fetch. "We can citation one another for a month, if we wish," he said, "but I don't think we need waste the time, do you?"
"Fine," Bradley said. But he left the folder open, and lifted from it a packet of white paper. "I have prepared," he said, "a statement outlining the position I've just described, that David and Peter acknowledge that at the end of the day all research results adhere to the American Tobacco Research Institute, and the institute acknowledges David and Peter's right to withhold material they consider flawed or incomplete. They will sign copies today, and we'd like a qualified officer of the institute to sign it as well. Here you are," he said, and handed copies of the two-page statement to each of the other three.
It was what Bradley'd said. David and Peter read their copies, and read their own names under signature lines mid-way down the second page, and both noticed that the subject of the discussion remained determinedly vague. Invisible men were never directly mentioned, which was a pity; what a thing it would be, to have on a legal document.
Leethe took a lot longer to read it, then removed his own Mont Blanc pen from his inner pocket and said, "I think we need to add here, "Not to be frivolously withheld.'"
"Where's that?" Bradley asked. Leethe pointed to the spot, and Bradley considered it, then shrugged. "Of course. If you feel you need it."
"I would be happier."
"Then by all means. Peter, David, would you write that in on your copies?"
He showed them where and what to write, and they did, and then he had them sign their copies and initial the addition, then exchange the copies and sign and initial, then take Bradley's and Leethe's copies and sign and initial them, and it was all very like buying a house.
Bradley kept one signed copy, and gave the rest to Leethe, who put them away in his attachй© case and said, "As a matter of fact, I also have something here for signature."
Bradley waited politely, and Leethe took out his own little stack of papers and put them on the table, saying, "The first point is, the American Tobacco Research Institute never approved experimentation on human beings."
"Oh, now!" Peter cried. "It was accepted from the very beginning that at some stage field trials would have to be done, and that means human volunteers, everybody knows that."
"I have searched the relevant files," Leethe assured him, while his fingers demonstrated by running up a slope in midair. The hands then swept to the sides, palms down, clearing snow. "I found nothing." The hands met in prayer. "If it isn't on paper," Leethe said, "it doesn't exist."
Before either Peter or David could reply, Bradley interjected, "Granted."
Peter stared at him, betrayed. "Granted?"
"It would have been better," Bradley gently suggested, "if you'd gotten that understanding in writing at the outset, but we're not going to worry about it now." While Peter continued to look shocked, and almost mutinous, Bradley turned to Leethe and said, "We accept the point. We also accept the fact that the particular experimental subject under discussion was not a volunteer."
"Which the institute," Leethe added, the first finger of his right hand playing metronome, "would never have approved."
"Agreed."
"At this point," Leethe went on, "the institute, not acknowledging any onus of responsibility in this matter, but certainly aware of an accrual of goodwill that has grown between the doctors and the institute over the last years, is prepared to assist the doctors in finding the missing experimental subject—"
"You're already looking for him!" Peter cried.