Michael Palmer - Side Effects

"And my career is my career. No, father, I have far too much to lose. I am afraid Mrs. Sandler will just have to make it on her own."

"Perhaps you are right, " Becker said. The men shook hands formally, and William Zimmermann let himself out. Twelve miles away, on the fourth floor of the Berenson Building of Metropolitan Hospital of Boston, in Room 421, Ellen Sandler's nose had again begun to bleed. Monday 17 December "Now, Suzy, promise Daddy that you will mind what Mommy tells you and that you will never, never do that to the cat again… Good..

.. I have to go now, sugar. You better get ready for your piano lesson..

.. I know what I said, but my work here isn't done yet, and I have to stay until it's finished… I don't know. Two, maybe three more days … Suzy, stop that. You're not a baby. I love you very much and I'll see you very soon. Now, tell Daddy you love him and go practice that new piece of yours… Suzy?…"

"Damn." Arlen Paquette slammed the receiver down. He had protested to Redding the futility of remaining in Boston over the weekend, but the man had insisted he stay close to the situation and the Omnicenter. As usual, events had proven Redding right. Paquette stuffed some notes in his briefcase and pulled on his suitcoat. Right for Redding Pharmaceuticals, but not for Suzy Paquette, who was justifiably smarting over her father's absence from her school track meet earlier in the day.

How could he explain to a seven-year-old that the very thing that was keeping him away from home was also the sole reason she could attend a school like Hightower Academy? He straightened his tie and combed his thinning hair with his fingers. How could he explain it to her when he was having trouble justifying it to himself? Still, for what he and his family were gaining from his association with Redding, the dues were not excessive. He glanced down at the photographs of Kate Bennett piled on the coffee table. At least, he thought, not yet. The cab ride from the Ritz to Metropolitan Hospital took fifteen minutes. Paquette entered the main lobby through newly installed gliding electronic doors and headed directly for Norton Reese's office, half expecting to have the woman whose life and face he had studied in such detail stroll out from a side corridor and bump into him. "Arlen, it's good to see you. You're looking well." Norton Reese maneuvered free of his desk chair and met Paquette halfway with an illdefined handshake. Theirs was more an unspoken truce than a relationship, and no amount of time would compensate for the lack of trust and respect each bore the other. However, Paquette was the envoy of Cyrus Redding and the several millions of Redding dollars that had sparked Reese's rise to prominence. Although it was Reese's court, it was the younger man's ball. "You're looking fit yourself, Norton,"

Paquette replied. "Our mutual friend sends his respects and regards."

"Did you tell him about our speed freak outfielder and the letters to the press and TV?"

"I did. I even sent a packet of the articles and editorials to him by messenger. He commends your ingenuity. So, incidentally, do I." Try as he might, he could put no emotion behind the compliment. Still, Reese's moon face bunched in a grin. "It's been beautiful, Arlen, " he gushed.

"Just beautiful. I tell you, ever since that story broke, Kathryn Bennett, MD, has been racing all over trying to stick her fingers in the holes that are popping open in her reputation. By now I doubt if she would know whether she had lost a horse or found a rope."

"You did fine, Norton. Just fine. Only, for our purposes, not enough."

"What? " Reese began to shift uneasily. "A diversion. That's what Horner asked me for, and by God, that's what I laid on that woman. A goddamn avalanche of diversion."

"You did fine, Norton. I just told you that."

"Why, she's had so much negative publicity it's a wonder she hasn't quit or been fired by the medical school." Reese chattered on as if he hadn't heard a word. "In fact, I hear the Medical School Ethics Committee is planning some kind of an inquiry."

Paquette silenced him with raised hands. "Easy, Norton, please, " he said evenly. "I'm going to say it one more time. What you did, the letter and all, was exactly what we asked of you. Our mutual friend is pleased. He asked that I convey to you the Ashburton Foundation's intention to endow the cardiac surgical residency you wrote him about."

"Well, then, why was what I did not enough? " Reese realized that in his haste to defend himself, he had forgotten to acknowledge Redding's generosity. Before he could remedy the oversight, Paquette spoke. "I'll convey your thanks when I return to Darlington, " he said, a note of irritation in his words. "Norton, do you know what has been going on here?"

"Not… not exactly, " he said, nonplussed. Paquette nodded indulgently. "Dr. Bennett, in her search to identify the cause of an unusual bleeding problem in several women, has zeroed in on the Omnicenter. Although the women were Omnicenter patients, we see no other connection among them."

"The… the work you're doing… I mean none of the women got…"

After years of scrupulously avoiding the Omnicenter and the people involved in its operation, Reese was uncertain of how, even, to discuss the place. Paquette spared him further stammering. "From time to time, each of the women was involved in the evaluation of one or more products," he said. "However, Carl Horner assures me that there have been no products common to the three of them. Whatever the cause of their problem, it is not the Omnicenter."

"That's a relief, " Reese said. "Not really, " Paquette said, his expression belying his impatience. "You see, our Dr. Bennett has been most persistent, despite the pressures brought about by your letter."

"She's a royal pain in the ass. I'll grant you that, " Reese interjected. "She has tested several Omnicenter products at the State Toxicology Lab, charging the analyses, I might add, to your hospital."

"Damn her. She didn't find anything, did she? Horner assured me that there was nothing to worry about."

Paquette's patience continued to fray. "Of course she found something, Norton. That's why I'm here. She even had Dr. Zimmermann phone the company to tell us about it."

"Oh. Sorry."

"Our friend in Kentucky has asked that we step up our efforts to discredit Dr. Bennett and to add, what was the word you used? distraction?… no, diversion, that was it-diversion to her life. We have taken steps to obscure, if not neutralize, her findings to date, but there is evidence in dozens of medicine cabinets out there of what we have been doing. If Dr. Bennett is persistent enough, she will find it. I am completely convinced of that, and so is our friend. Dr. Bennett has given us one week to determine how a certain experimental painkiller came to be in a set of vitamins dispensed at the Omnicenter. If we do not furnish her with a satisfactory explanation by that time, she intends to file a report with the US Pharmacopia and the FDA."

"Damn her, " Norton Reese said again. "What are we going to do?"

"Not we, you. Dr. Bennett's credibility must be reduced to the point where no amount of evidence will be enough for authorities to take her word over ours. The letter you wrote was a start, but, as I said, not enough."

Once again, Reese began to feel ill at ease. Paquette was not making a request, he was giving an order-an order from the man who, Reese knew, could squash him with nothing more than the eraser on his pencil. He unbuttoned his vest against the uncomfortable moistness between the folds of his skin. "Look, " he pleaded, "I really don't know what I can do. I'll try, but I don't know. You've got to understand, Arlen, you've got to make him understand. Bennett works in my hospital, but she doesn't work for me." There was understanding in Paquette's face, but not sympathy. Reese continued his increasingly nervous rambling.