Ben reached over and turned off the music. “No doubt you’ve already thought about leukemia. Any blasts?”
“None.”
“Well, I know I’m old-fashioned, but did anyone actually look at a blood smear under a microscope? Most of those automated cell counters are dumber than dirt. They’re notoriously inaccurate, especially when you’re looking for abnormal cells. Wouldn’t surprise me if this turns out to be lab error.”
Luke came around and helped himself to the computer sitting at one end of the desk. He pulled up the boy’s chest X-ray. “Maybe, but look at this.”
Ben reached for his glasses and peered at the screen. He grabbed one of his eyebrows and began twirling it into a cone-like shape. “And you say this boy came in with respiratory failure?” he asked.
“That’s right.”
The twirling gained speed. “Well, I’ll be damned. A focal bronchial pattern, and not overly impressive at that. You’d think the lungs would be all shot to hell.” Ben looked over the rim of his glasses at Luke. “What did his chest sound like?”
“When he first arrived, his lungs were completely clear. At the end, just before he coded, I heard a few crackles and rales but he was still moving air in and out.”
Ben looked back at the X-ray. “I’ll be damned.” His eyebrow was spinning at a furious rate.
“I was hoping I could get you to do the autopsy.” Luke slid into the chair next to the tarantula tank. Charlotte was nowhere in sight.
“If I understand what you’re telling me — this boy lands on our doorstep, dies in our E.R., and we don’t know why — then this is a coroner’s case. You know that.”
“Would the coroner let you do this case? That is, if you asked?”
Ben snapped his fingers. “In a New York minute. They got the same problem I do. Too much work and too little staff.”
“I want to know why this boy died, Ben. If you do the case, I know I’ll get an answer.”
Ben cleaned his ear with a finger. “Are you planning on taking a bite out of me after you finish butterin’ me up?”
“Thanks.”
“Whoa, partner, I didn’t agree to anything.”
“But you’re going to.”
Ben massaged his chin. “Ah, hell. Have someone bring the body down here. I’ll call one of the M.E.’s and tell ’em what we’re doing.”
“You doing it tonight?”
“Hell no. I got a life, you know, and last time I checked, I was busy enjoying it. But there’re a few things I wanna do before the body cools.”
“Like?”
“Like grabbing some bone marrow,” Ben said. “Those cells are sensitive little critters, and the marrow might look a lot different by Sunday.”
“Sunday?”
“We’re having friends over tomorrow, and next week’s gonna be busy, so I guess that leaves Sunday for the autopsy. If you wanna stop by, I’ll be here bright and early.”
“See you then.”
As Luke turned for the door, Ben asked, “You see the article in yesterday’s paper, the one about Zenavax issuing stock on the New York Stock Exchange?”
Luke showed him a disinterested look.
The pathologist didn’t seem to notice and went on: “They’re doing an IPO, selling shares to the public. Burns my butt, the way those people are getting rich off your daddy’s work.”
In a very real sense, Luke’s father had given birth to Zenavax Corporation. Its products, vaccines based on an entirely new concept of immunity, were derived from breakthrough work by a research team at University Children’s — a team led by his father, Elmer McKenna. The elder McKenna’s creation, a radically different type of influenza vaccine, represented a quantum leap forward.
Unlike other flu vaccines, the one his father had developed protected against almost every strain of the virus that killed hundreds of thousands of people around the globe each year. And due to the vaccine’s unique properties, a single immunization provided recipients with lifetime immunity against the pervasive disease.
“Did you know that Zenavax has a market value of nearly three billion dollars?” Ben said. “Get a copy of the article. You may find it interesting.”
Luke tapped the tarantula’s tank. “I doubt it.”
“It lists the company’s officers and shows what each of them’ll be worth when their stock options vest in a few weeks.” Ben slapped the desk with both hands. “Guess how much that woman’s gonna be worth?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Two million bucks.”
That woman was Kate Tartaglia, the same woman whose phone calls Luke had yet to return. She was also the microbiologist who had abandoned his father four years ago, taking what she had learned from the elder McKenna and trading it in for the lofty salary and stock options that Zenavax had offered her. At the time, she was a little known contract employee on Elmer’s research staff. Few had taken notice when she resigned her position.
But that soon changed. Unknown to anyone at University Children’s, Zenavax was working at the time on a new vaccine technology nearly identical to his father’s. Over the next several months, while the hospital prepared its patent applications at the glacial speed common to most academic institutions, Zenavax paid several visits to the U.S. patent office, submitting applications that incorporated lessons the company had learned from its new employee, Kate Tartaglia. In doing so, Zenavax effectively preempted University Children’s and captured for itself complete ownership rights to the new vaccine technology — all because Luke’s father had never gotten around to having Tartaglia sign one of the hospital’s standard employment contracts, which included nondisclosure provisions and would have given University Children’s exclusive ownership rights to her work.
Ben shook his head. “How do I say this? Your daddy’s an awfully bright fella, and like you, I’m fond of the man. But he needs — what’s the word? — a handler. Someone’s got to keep an eye on him, keep him from stepping in manure while he’s busy thinking those big thoughts.”
His father’s administrative lapse had cost University Children’s a financial windfall that would have funded all of the hospital’s financial needs for the next several decades.
Luke had also paid a price. Kate Tartaglia had been his girlfriend — that is, until she betrayed his father.
Ben seemed unaware of Luke’s connection to Kate. In fact, few at the hospital had ever known about his relationship with her. University Children’s research activities had long ago outgrown their facilities, and Kate had worked in a laboratory at the university campus on the other side of town. Occasionally, her work brought her to the hospital, and it was during one of those visits that his father had introduced them.
Luke figured he’d been lucky to learn where Kate’s priorities lay before their relationship had gone any further. Apparently, loyalty and fair play were not part of her ethos.
He wasn’t sure his father had learned anything from the fiasco. Things like contracts, intellectual property, and patents were more distant from his father’s mind than the moons of Jupiter, and always would be. That his father had managed to retain his position as head of Infectious Diseases at University Children’s was a testament to the sovereignty and dominion of academic tenure.
Luke could almost hear an audible click in his mind, as though tumblers had suddenly fallen into place. The reason for Kate’s earlier calls to the E.R. now seemed clear. She probably wanted to “clarify” the newspaper article for him, assuaging her guilt with some tortured logic.
He silently cheered the fact that he’d changed cell phone carriers and his number about a year ago. Otherwise, she doubtless would have already gotten through to him. He decided to let her conscience continue to simmer in its own bitter juices. He’d return her calls in a few days, if ever.