“I saw your dad in court,” Moses said, as he kept pacing. “Sitting about ten feet from me.”
“A lot of us saw him in court,” Adam said.
Kook and Tank and Cynthia were nodding.
Alix felt ill.
Cynthia said, “Your father’s company is the gold standard for product defense. There are other companies that can do some of what he does: Exponent, Gradient, ChemRisk, the Weinberg Group, Hill & Knowlton…”
Alix started at the names of companies she recognized from her father’s own work history. Cynthia continued, “A lots of firms can help a company ‘tell their side of the story,’ as your dad apparently likes to say, but Banks Strategy Partners is the best. Your father does the PR and George Saamsi does the science, and they’ve got a hundred people under them to help make their plans happen.”
“They’re kind of like the Williams & Crowe of product defense,” Kook said. She was rocked back on two legs of her chair, watching the proceedings with a smirk on her face. “Mercenaries for hire. Top gun to the top bidder, you know?”
“You’re lying.”
“About what?” Adam asked. “That your dad got a million-dollar bonus, or that he’s got a hundred other clients just like Marcea?”
“My dad doesn’t kill people,” Alix said.
“Actually, what I think you’re claiming is that he doesn’t murder people,” Moses said. “I think we’d all agree with that. We know your dad isn’t a murderer, because, otherwise, he’d be locked up like all the other serial killers. That’s what Texas has got death row for, right?”
“Ipso facto,” Cynthia said. “If he’s not in jail, he must not be a murderer.”
“So, yeah,” Moses said, “according to the cops and the laws, your dad isn’t a murderer. And Marcea Pharmaceuticals isn’t either, and none of the paid scientists who did all the screwy studies are murderers, either. They’re all upstanding citizens with nice houses and nice families who go to work every day and come home and kiss their nice kids good night. They go to Little League games on the weekends and donate to their churches and volunteer at the local homeless shelter, and they probably pet their dogs, every day. They’re all double-plus-good people living the double-plus-good American dream.”
“But people are still dead,” Tank said.
Kook had stopped smirking. She rocked forward and brought her chair down so she was looking Alix in the eye from across the table. “It’s kind of funny when you think about it. If you go to a school and shoot a bunch of kids, we call that murder. But if you’re a CEO who keeps a cholesterol drug on the street for an extra three years and you take out fifty thousand people with heart attacks, you get a bonus and your face on the cover of Forbes.”
Alix was feeling more and more trapped. Part of her wanted to scream at them that they were all insane, but another part wasn’t sure. A cruel worm of doubt twisted inside her. How much did she really know about the work Dad did? How much did she really understand?
It doesn’t matter, Alix told herself. Just play for time. Just keep them talking. Play for time.
She took a deep breath, trying not to show them how rattled she felt. “I don’t know the CEO of Marcea,” she said. “I’ve got no connection to these people.”
“We don’t care about Marcea,” Moses said. “Just like we don’t care about DuPont. Or General Electric. Or Bayer. Or Dow Chemical. Or Merck. Plenty of people know about them. There are whole books written about this stuff. Investigative journalism articles. New York Times. LA Times. Chicago Tribune. 60 Minutes. Lots of people know what these companies get up to.” He looked at her seriously. “I mean, sure, I admit, at first I wanted to get back at Marcea, but then I started seeing all these crazy connections. I started seeing all these companies using the same tricks.”
“I’d like to think I helped a little with that,” Cynthia said drily.
“Credit where credit’s due.” Moses inclined his head. “It almost takes a genius to dig all this up. To see all these companies coming up with the same strategies. And at that point, you realize that Marcea isn’t the problem. I mean, sure, they’re evil, but they don’t know how to keep their heart attack pill on the market on their own. They need your dad for that.”
Cynthia said, “Everywhere we looked, Banks Strategy Partners popped up. Even when another product-defense company was involved, a lot of times it turned out that they subcontracted back to BSP. Simon Banks is the best there is, and everybody in the industry knows it.”
“When you absolutely positively have to confuse the hell out of an issue,” Kook said, “call Banks Strategy Partners.”
Moses said, “You know what they call BSP? The people who hire them? The people who use your dad’s methods?”
Alix didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to hear it.
“The Doubt Factory,” Moses said. “It’s a good name, right? Because, really, that’s what your dad produces. He doesn’t make products. He makes doubt.
“If you want everyone to ignore those FDA studies that say you’re killing people with your drug, you go to Simon Banks and buy a little doubt. You sprinkle it all over the issue. You spread it around. Pretty soon, the Doubt Factory has people so confused that you can go on selling whatever the hell it is for just a little longer. Aspirin. Tobacco. Asbestos. Leaded gasoline. Phthalates. Bisphenol A… the list goes on.”
“Azicort,” Tank said with a cough.
Moses glanced over at Tank, nodding. “Azicort. For sure we’re interested in Azicort.”
“What’s that?” Alix asked.
Kook smiled sweetly. “Oh, nothing. Just an asthma drug that causes comas and death.”
“We think,” Cynthia interjected.
Kook rolled her eyes. “Oh come on. We know it. How many people were in Tank’s class action? Like, fifty?”
Cynthia said to Alix, “We know Kimball-Geier Pharmaceuticals hired BSP about a year before Tank had a near-death experience, which, given your dad’s track record, looks pretty suspicious.”
“But I didn’t do anything,” Alix protested. “This isn’t my fault. I wasn’t involved with any of this..”
“Yeah, well,” Tank said with another cough, “neither were we.”
20
“SO…” ALIX STARED AT ALL of them. “You want to… what? Ransom me or something?”
“Nah, girl,” said Kook. “That’s them. They’re the ones who care about money. Money isn’t shit.”
“It beats starving,” Alix shot back.
Moses snorted. “Adam, how much you got in your bank account?”
“I’m down now.” He shrugged. “Probably still about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
“You are such a shit!” Cynthia said. “You’ve been holding out!”
Adam smiled unapologetically. “I figured we’d still have expenses. Might need to throw another party and earn some more. Why? What are you down to?”
“Forty, maybe? Seitz life was expensive.”
Adam grinned. “Nice threads, though. You got to admit you dress fine these days.”
“I got sixty K,” Kook volunteered.
“I don’t have any money,” Tank said.
“That’s ’cause your lawyers sucked ass,” Kook said.
“You see?” Moses said to Alix. “Most of us already got money.”
“You, too?” Alix challenged Moses. “How much money do you have?”
“Me?” Moses waved his hand at the factory around them. “I got mine tied up in real estate.” He laughed. “It’s not about money, at this point. We’ve all got our blood money, straight from the source. Every one of us, we’ve all been paid. We got it from lawsuits and settlements. We got it from reparations…. The problem is that people like your dad think money matters. The people who hold your dad’s leash are all about money. It’s all they understand—keeping the money spigot turned on full bore. Us?” His expression turned cold. “Don’t ever think this is about money. It’s about a whole hell of a lot, but one thing’s for sure, it’s not about the goddamn money.”