Paul Goldstein - A Patent Lie

“Gail told me the judge won't let you talk to the press. Isn't asking me to talk to her the same thing?”

“I'll give you whatever information you need. The notebook dates, Steinhardt's travel dates.”

“I don't know anything about how Alan keeps his notebooks.”

The acting was not as polished as it had been at Barbara's Fish Trap.

“You're not going to be deported for telling the truth about Steinhardt.”

“What if Gail asks what I was doing in Alan's lab that night?” She twisted the braided silver bracelets on her wrist. “My agreement with St. Gall is that I can't talk about that.”

“You told me that you went to see Steinhardt about co-authoring a couple of articles.”

“Do you think anyone will believe that? Did you believe me?”

“Did Steinhardt ever list you as a co-author when you were both at UC?”

“Alan and I had a relationship. You know that. It was over, but in some ways he can be very loyal.”

The high heels. The eyebrows plucked into thin parentheses. In his mind, Seeley winced at the pain women subjected themselves to, and for what? To get the nod from a vain little prince like Alan Steinhardt.

Seeley said, “Did it occur to you that your boyfriend set you up? Letting his company's security guard find you. Making it look like industrial espionage, so that Vaxtek could blackmail St. Gall because one of its researchers was in their labs alone at night. That's why St. Gall was willing to stipulate that Steinhardt was the first to invent AV/AS. They thought Vaxtek was going to expose them for having a spy on their payroll.”

“And that's why, if I go to the press, St. Gall will get me fired and I'll lose my visa.”

Seeley glanced at his watch. “I have to get back to the trial.”

Lily got up and walked to the tall window looking out onto the street. When she came back to Seeley, she was trembling.

He held her gently by the arms. “Don't tell me you took something from Steinhardt's lab.”

She looked at him and dropped her head. The groan that escaped from her was an animal's cry, pained and despairing. She said, “I didn't take anything from Alan.”

“I didn't think you did.”

“Do you want to know what happened that night?” When she looked up tears had filled her eyes.

“Tell me.”

“I brought Alan a sample from my own lab.”

“You stole a sample from St. Gall?”

“That's how a lawyer would look at it. But it was my sample. It was my work. It was the approach I started working on at UC. The guy who ran my lab at St. Gall thought it was a dead end, so I played by the rules and followed their orders. That's how corporate science works. But early mornings-four or five o'clock-when no one was there, I continued doing my own work. I believed in it. I kept my own notebooks.”

Seeley remembered Lily's claim to have discovered AV/AS. Every one had dismissed her as a crackpot. “When you got your results, why didn't you show them to St. Gall?”

“I did. But you can't go to the FDA with results in a petri dish. That's all I had. I was young, a woman, and Chinese, and this wasn't the team's product, so St. Gall wasn't rushing to run trials on it. I told you, this is how corporate science works.”

“So you gave it to Steinhardt.”

Telling the story seemed to calm her. “It was only when Vaxtek filed its lawsuit and the head of my lab at St. Gall looked at Vaxtek's patent that he realized it was the same as my work.” She stifled a laugh. “Of course it was the same. It was my discovery! So they picked up my work and threw a lot of money at trials and got to market first.” “Does St. Gall know it was your sample that Steinhardt used?”

Lily shook her head. “After Vaxtek gave them the security guard's report, about my being in Alan's lab, they wouldn't believe anything I told them. They thought the results were Alan's, not mine. They thought I stole Alan's work.”

Seeley had to get back to the trial. “Did Steinhardt promise you credit for your work?”

“He said we'd be co-inventors-him for his work at Vaxtek, and me for my work at UC before I went to St. Gall.”

“But when the patent issued,” Seeley said, “there was only one name on it. His. St. Gall stipulated priority and dropped you as a witness. And they had the vaccine in their lab all the time.”

Seeley saw at once how the trial had to end. If a story in the Chronicle that Steinhardt had lied about the dates of his discovery would give any juror who saw it second thoughts about the validity of Vaxtek's patent, then an article that Steinhardt had in fact stolen the discovery from another researcher would effectively destroy the company's case. But only Lily could make that happen.

Seeley said, “Why did you decide to work in this field?”

The emotion of moments earlier had dissolved and the tears disappeared. Quietly, she said, “To save lives,” and then after a moment, “the same reason you're trying to destroy your own client's case.”

“Do you have any idea how many lives you could save by giving your story to the Chronicle?”

“I'm not a hero like your Dr. Cordier. I'm just a scientist.”

“For God's sake, Lily, this is your invention that Steinhardt's putting his name on. How is that different from some party hack in China doing the same thing?”

“Even if I told Gail the story, why would anyone believe me?”

“Because it's true.” Even as he spoke, Seeley knew that she had appraised the situation more astutely than he had. Gail Odum might believe her, and Odum's editor might let her run a story with only one source. But Vaxtek and St. Gall would drown the story in a flood of press releases and news conferences. And quietly they would arrange for Lily's deportation.

Seeley said, “You have to do this for yourself.”

“I liked you a lot better when you were letting me seduce you.” She traced the bruises on his face with a finger, hurting him. “I worry about you. You remind me of the dissidents at home. My parents. Beaten, exiled, sent to prison.”

“This isn't China.”

“There are people who create trouble for themselves wherever they are. I think you're one of them.”

Seeley said, “You have to trust me.”

“I trust you, Mike, but I don't trust the real world to come through the way you want it to.”

“I need your help. Just talk to Gail Odum.” As he spoke, Seeley watched his reflection in her eyes, and found himself listening to his own words. What he saw and heard was that he was as much a dissembler and user of people, as much an avoider of reality, as was his brother. For the briefest moment, he felt weightless, as if the earth had been pulled out from under him.

Seeley said, “We can make this work.”

She pressed a finger to his lips. “Can you really promise that?”

Seeley saw the pain in her eyes. “No, I can't.”

“That's better. If you really care about me-and I think you do-you'll trust me with this.”

“You're right.”

“About caring for me?”

“About both.”

At four in the morning, Seeley was still awake, stretched out on his bed in shirt and trousers, too restless, but also too exhausted, to get under the covers. He left Lily fifteen hours ago. If it took her two hours, even three, to call Gail Odum, the story exposing Steinhardt and Vaxtek's fraud could appear in this morning's edition of the Chronicle. She and Odum had talked before; this was no stranger calling with a wild tale. Big stories made it from street to press in less than half the time.

He had left a message at the hotel front desk for the Chronicle to be delivered to his room as soon as it arrived, and when there was a sharp metallic rap of a key against the door, he knew it was the bellman with the paper. The man was sullen and reeked of off-hours cigarettes. Seeley handed him a twenty-dollar bill from the night table, as if it were a bribe to ensure that the story would be in the paper.