Peter Lovesey: Diamond Solitaire

"Sammy, were you trying to reach me, because if you were, you could have timed it better, my friend." While listening, he settled deep in the seat and propped his feet over the row in front. "The hell with that I sure hope for your sake this item of news measures nine point nine on the Richter scale."

What he then heard was enough to cause visible disturbance in Manfred Flexner. He withdrew his feet from their perch. He crouched forward as if it might enable him to hear better. His free hand raked through his hair.

Six minutes later, shaking his head and trying to stay calm, he reeled out of the opera house into the plaza of Lincoln Center and took some gulps of fresh air. At this time of night the esplanade was thick with sables and minks, the audiences from the ballet and the Philharmonic jostling the operagoers in the scramble for taxis. Flexner had his chauffeur waiting across the street with the limousine, so he had no reason to rush, but he wasn't going home yet.

He stared into the floodlit fountain for a while. Inside the last half hour he'd interrupted an opera, lost his companion and slipped forty points on the international stock markets. He needed a drink.

The world was not a happier place next morning. He watched the Alka-Seltzers fizzing in the glass on his desk and brooded on what might have been. Pharmaceuticals were Manny Flexner's business.

Pharmaceuticals.

And here he was relying on the product of a rival company. He'd worked all his life in the expectation one day of finding a market leader like Alka-Seltzer mat would become a steady seller for the foreseeable future. His was the traditional story of a Lower East Side boy with a head for business who'd made some bucks driving taxis, lived frugally for a time and invested his earnings. Realizing, as all entrepreneurs do early in life, that you get nowhere using self-help and savings, he'd borrowed from the bank to buy a share in a small business supplying labels to pharmacies. When self-stick labels came in, he'd just about cornered the market, and made enough to borrow more cash and move into the supply side of pharmaceuticals. The 1960s and 70s had been a prosperous time in the drug industry. Manny Flexner had taken over a number of companies in the U.S.A. and expanded internationally, buying shrewdly into Europe and South America. One of the Manflex products, Kaprofix, a treatment for angina, had become a strong source of income, a steady seller throughout America and Europe.

The story had a downturn. The pharmaceuticals industry relies heavily on the development of new drugs; companies cannot survive without massive research programs. In the early eighties, scientists working for Manflex had identified a new histamine antagonist with potential as a treatment for peptic ulcers. It was patented and given the proprietary name of Fidoxin. The potential market for antiulcer drugs is enormous. At that time, Smith Kline's Tagamet dominated the field with sales estimated at over a billion dollars. Glaxo was developing a rival product called Zantac that would eventually outsell every drug in the world. But Manny Flexner was in there and pitching.

The early research on Fidoxin was encouraging. Manflex invested hugely in studies and field trials designed to satisfy the federal panel that advised the Food and Drug Administration, for no drug can be marketed without the FDA seal of approval. By 1981, Manflex was set to beat its rivals in the race to a billion-dollar market. Then, at a late stage, long-term side effects were discovered in patients taking Fidoxin. Almost every drug has unwanted effects but the possibility of serious renal impairment is unacceptable. Reluctantly, Manny Flexner had cut his losses and abandoned the project.

Too much had been gambled on that one drug. Through the 1980s Manny had been unwilling to sink so much into any research project. The recession in 1991 had hit Manflex harder than its rivals. Thanks mainly to the old standby, Kaprofix, the company still rated in the top ten in America, but had slipped from fourth to seventh. Or worse. Manny didn't care to check anymore.

Today was the worst yet He had the Wall Street Journal in front of him. Overnight, his stock had plummeted again in Tokyo and London. The reason?

"The biggest firework display in history is what they're calling it," he told his Vice Chairman, Michael Leapman, throwing the paper to him. "A twenty billion lire fire. The flames could be seen thirty kilometers south of Milan. How much is that, Michael?"

"About twenty miles."

"The lire, for God's sake."

"Not so bad as it sounds. Say seventeen million bucks."

"Not so bad," Manny repeated with irony. "An entire plant goes up in smoke, a quarter of our Italian holding, and it's not so bad."

"Insurance," murmured Michael Leapman.

"Insurance takes care of plant and materials. There were research labs in that place. They were testing a drug for depression. Depression. I hope to God some of the stuff is left because I need some. Research is irreplaceable, and the market knows it. Do we have" any news from Italy? Is it a total write-off?"

Leapman nodded. "I spoke to Rico Villa an hour ago. The scene is a heap of white ash now." He crossed the room to the drinks cabinet and took out the scotch. "Can I pour you one?"

Manny shook his head and indicated the Alka-Seltzer.

"Then you don't mind if I do?" Thirty-seven, six foot two, and blond, Michael Leapman was less volatile than his boss. He was half Swedish. Supposedly the Swedish half kept him from throwing tantrums. He'd joined Manflex five years ago through no action of his own, when Flexner had bought the small company he managed in Detroit; Leapman had proved to be the only valuable acquisition from that takeover, a creative thinker with fine organizational skills. He'd developed a good rapport with his tough little boss. Within a year he'd been invited to join the board.

"Anyone died yet?" Manny enquired in a voice that expected nothing but bad news that day.

"Apparently not. Seven people were hospitalized, two of them firemen. They inhaled fumes. That's the size of it."

"Environmental damage?"

Leapman raised an eyebrow. His boss wasn't known for his green sympathies.

"That could really put us in trouble," Manny explained. "Remember Seveso? The dioxin fumes? Wasn't that Italy? How many millions did the owners have to shell out in compensation?"

Leapman helped himself to a generous measure of Scotch. "No poison fumes reported yet."

The tension in Manny's face eased a little. He took off his glasses and wiped them with a tissue that he took from a Manflex dispenser.

"We can ride this," Leapman said confidently. Providing reassurance was one of his most useful talents. "Sure, it's going to bruise us. The markets will mark us down for a week or two, but we're big enough to absorb it. The Milan plant wasn't a huge moneymaker. Rico kept reminding us it was in need of modernization."

"I know, I know. We were going to inject some capital later in the year."

"Now we can give priority to the two plants near Rome."

Manny replaced his glasses and studied Leapman. "You don't think we should rebuild in Milan?"

"In the present economic climate?" His tone said it all. Rebuilding was out.

"You're right. We should consolidate with what we have out there. We can sell the Milan site." Having weighed the options, Manny seemed satisfied. "What I want now is for someone to go to Italy and tidy up, sort out the staffing problems, salvage anything we can from this mess." He hesitated, as if casting about for a name. "Who do you think? Would you say David can handle it?"

"David?" The name wrongfooted Leapman. He was fully expecting this assignment for himself.

"My boy."

"No question." He knew better than to try and talk the boss out of handing the assignment to his son, whatever he privately thought Young David Flexner-young, but by no stretch of imagination still a boy-conspicuously lacked his father's enthusiasm for the business world, yet Manny cherished the unlikely hope that he would make a contribution eventually. After four years in business school and three on the board of Manflex, David should have been ready for responsibility. In reality, all his energies went into amateur filmmaking.