Ben leaned on the roof of an open-doored taxi and gazed at the flags with sympathy. In the sticky July heat, they looked how he felt: victims of a higher power’s indifference. He couldn’t think of a time when he felt more depressed since he buried his pet rat, Rocky the Rat.
After the meeting with Hoffman, he’d opened module B: polishing its video wall and refilling rotating racks with brochures for company products. InderoMab—Setting the Standard was the conference week breakout, with BerneB—Quietly Confident bubbling under. Then he’d sat for two hours in the fake doctor’s office snaring MDs with Apple iPads.
“Hi, I’m Ben Louviere. This contains our product data. The device is yours to keep.”
And now he’d got this: Dr. Gertrude Mayr slumped in the taxi, blowing smoke. She’d climbed inside at National airport, burrowed like a dachshund into a leather shoulder purse, and produced a pack of Doral Ultra Lites. “It’s my human right,” she wheezed. “It helps my condition.”
An outstanding ambassador for health.
Heading out to the airport, Ben imagined Dr. Mayr as some svelte senior lady: a senator type. But the figure that emerged from Delta’s 14:10 from Atlanta was more like the Bride of Frankenstein’s aunt. Seventy-four, they said. But she looked ten years older, with a face as granite solid as a card sharp’s. She fell forward more than walked toward ground transportation, arms trailing like broken wings.
He’d tried to be friendly. She was higher up than Crampton, and her vaccine was set to make history. But in the nine minutes it took to cross the Potomac and cut to Twelfth, she conversed on only three topics. First, she demanded help with a book of cardboard matches. Next, she wanted the lowdown on who was at the conference. Finally, she wanted to know was he a scientist?
“Send lawyers now,” she’d snarled, “to carry folks’ bags.”
“This is my first case.”
She didn’t laugh.
Now a smoldering missile flew from the taxi, and a thin, wrinkled hand gripped the doorframe. Having asserted her prerogative, she’d exit the car.
He moved to lend an arm, but she declined it.
“I’m not that sick.” Her accent, due south: Carolinas.
He dodged from her path, paid off the driver with a company Mastercard, and heaved a purple trolley-case from the trunk. Although the five-day conference would finish tomorrow lunchtime, the vaccine chief’s baggage—with about a thousand wheels and zips—weighed enough to pack skirts for the Roman army.
She scuttled across the sidewalk to the revolving glass door.
He followed with the purse and the case.
A silent motor turned and the door gulped air. Then a raucous shout exploded.
“Surprise.”
THERE MUST have been sixty people there, jostling inside the entrance like pre-Ks fighting to pet the rabbits. Physicians, scientists, executives, sales staff, wearing everything from Armani to Dollar Tree. As Doc Mayr spun through, they erupted into applause, calling “surprise,” “bravo,” and “well done.”
Inside the door was a marble platform with four steps down, left and right, skirting a pot of lime green chrysanthemums. Doc Mayr lunged forward and grabbed a brushed steel rail as a pathway opened for BerneWerner’s chief executive: grinning teeth to drive at night by. This was Marcia Gelding—British, auburn-haired in a pink-and-gray trouser suit—looking more like a department store fragrance consultant than the head of a twenty-billion-dollar biotech.
“We’re so thrilled,” she shrieked, with enough Shakespeare to raise Virginia. Half turn. Cheek-cheek. “Darling Trudy.”
The lobby fell silent except for elevator dings and the shuffle of a greasy bossa nova. Ben blinked at the crowd and the crowd blinked back to Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Meditation.” Soaring strings, one-hand piano, woodblock, and maracas. No vocals.
Chaaa ch-ch-chaa chaa. Chaaa ch-ch-chaa chaa. Music to dance with a chainsaw round a corpse.
The chief executive, or “Ms. Marvelous” as they’d dubbed her in marketing, flapped toward a guy with a video camera. “We ready? Are we ready? Now, where’s the award?”
Ben considered the wisdom of shifting to the wings. He must have looked like a ventriloquist between the women. But he knew that camera guy: Freddie Mascarenas, an assistant in Social Media Outreach. Within the hour, his video would hit the fifth-floor production suite at the BerneWerner Building and be posted minutes later on Facebook.
Now half the crowd were holding up phones, and Ms. Gelding posed a three-header selfie. From Washington DC: vaccine chief Doc Mayr… chief executive Ms. Marvelous… and the nonspecifically significant Ben Louviere.
He parked the trolley-case, slid the shoulder purse beside it, folded his arms, and grinned. Hoffman was right: here was an opportunity. Everyone who was anyone would see him.
The CEO sparkled as only she could. “Trudy, we’re so pleased, so delighted by your presence, to present you with something rather special, rather super.”
The vaccine chief’s knuckles tightened white on the rail. “Well, thank you.”
Woodblock and maracas.
“This really is so marvelous, and such a personal thrill.” Ms. Gelding lifted a framed and glazed certificate. “I’m so proud, so delighted, to present you, Dr. Gertrude Mayr, our brilliant Director of Vaccine Development, with the BerneWerner Biomed Outstanding Achiever’s Award.”
Palms slapped palms as Doc Mayr touched the frame. Then the chief executive twisted, stared at him, and raised one eyebrow in command.
Ben unfolded his arms and accepted the object, as if this was his reason to be. Live from DC… Ben Louviere holding shit… Ben Louviere, the module man.
“What a real great honor,” Doc Mayr gushed. “My, what a lovely surprise.”
Now the crowd individualized: sixty faces, sixty noses, one hundred twenty eyes, pointing his way. Over there by reception: the swanky Darlene Ruffin, with whom he shared an office in Atlanta. Over there, serenely smirking: Dr. Viraj Grahacharya, Executive Vice President, Research & Medicine. And over there, with his foot on a brushed steel baggage cart, the man who dropped him in this: Mr. Hoffman.
Ben leaned back until his shoulder touched the doorframe. But then,
