“Oh?” The judge seemed confused.
Victoria was blushing. “Anymore. We were. Then. But now we're not.”
Ker-flumping. Sure sign of the rookie prevaricator.
“And that big rock on your finger?” the judge asked.
“Now I'm engaged to someone else.”
“Proves my point,” Kranchick said to the judge. “Mr. Solomon is undomesticated and incapable of sustaining a relationship.” She turned to Victoria. “I hope it's Mr. Bigby. I preferred him from the get-go.”
“All right, let's get back on track,” the judge said sternly. “Doctor, I'm interested in Mr. Solomon's abilities as a potential parent, not a potential spouse.”
“Mr. Solomon's utterly ill equipped to care for Robert, Your Honor. The boy needs testing and therapy in a controlled setting. Rockland State Hospital would be ideal for him.”
Her cheeks still red, Victoria asked: “Do you perform behavioral therapy at Rockland?”
“A bit. But we really don't have adequate staffing for much of that.”
“Even though one-on-one behavioral therapy has proven to be the best treatment for autism.”
“Perhaps you could tell that to the governor and get us additional funding. Until then, we'll be content to be in the forefront of the most aggressive new therapies.”
“Drug therapies?”
Nice segue. Now go for it.
“Drugs, vitamins, hormones.”
“Tell us about them.”
“Megadoses of magnesium and vitamin B6, plus some new synthetic polypeptides.”
“And the results?”
“Limited success so far. That's why we continue to work so hard.”
“Just so we're clear, what you call ‘therapy' really means testing with experimental drugs, doesn't it?”
“When drug therapy succeeds, it turns out to be quite therapeutic,” Kranchick said.
Damn. The doc's no pushover.
“And when it fails?” Victoria pounced. “What does that turn out to be?”
“Objection. Argumentative.” Zinkavich wiped his cinnamon-coated mouth.
“Overruled,” Judge Rolle said.
“Therapy that fails is the first step to finding what succeeds,” Kranchick said, not backing down.
She's really good. But you're better, Vic. Go get her.
“What about giving autistic children Replengren?”
That stopped Kranchick. She seemed to give great thought to her answer.
Steve prayed that she wouldn't lie. If she lied, they couldn't disprove it.
“Replengren has not yet been approved by the FDA,” Kranchick said evenly.
She didn't lie. She also didn't answer the question. Keep going, Vic.
“It's unapproved because Replengren impaired motor skills in lab rats, correct, Dr. Kranchick?”
“At extremely high doses, far higher than would ever be given to humans.”
“Which brings us back to the question: Do you give Replengren to human patients?”
“At Pedro Mallo, in Buenos Aires, we used Replengren in some strictly controlled human tests, with promising results.”
She's still not answering. Did you notice that, Judge?
Victoria said: “My question has nothing to do with Buenos Aires. Do you give Replengren to patients at Rockland State Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, where you are bound by FDA rules?”
Kranchick's cheeks turned pale, which seemed to brighten her old lacrosse scar. “In a perfect world, you'd never have experimental drugs. You'd plug data into a computer, and out would come the cure for every disease. In a perfect world, every parent would have the resources for the best medical care. Every autistic child would have one-on-one therapy. But the world's not perfect.”
The judge cleared her throat. “Dr. Kranchick, you're not being responsive to the question.”
Zinkavich got to his feet so fast, he knocked a half-eaten cinnamon twist to the floor. “Your Honor, perhaps this is a propitious time for a recess.”
Nice move, Fink. Throwing a life preserver to your witness.
“It's a propitious time for you to sit down and clam up,” the judge told him.
“Doctors must take risks,” Kranchick said, her high forehead beaded with sweat. “Parents should consider the greater good. Sabin gave polio vaccine to prisoners in the 1950s. Some contracted polio, but thousands of children were spared the disease. Same thing with malaria and yellow fever. If it were up to me, all prisoners would be subject to medical tests.”
Victoria moved closer to the witness stand. “We're not talking about prisoners. We're talking about an eleven-year-old boy.”
“We can learn so much from Robert. Children have duties to society, too.” She slipped a hand into a pocket, brought out a lacrosse ball, reached into the other pocket, brought out the second ball. If things heated up any more, Steve figured he should be ready to duck.
“If Solomon weren't so damn selfish, we could have worked something out,” Kranchick said. “But he wouldn't hear of it. ‘Don't stick needles in little Bobby.' No, he's too precious for that. Stick the needles in someone else. No one wants to take the risk. Everyone just wants the benefits.”
Zinkavich fished for an objection, couldn't find one, and said: “Your Honor, could I have a word?”
“Zip it, Z,” the judge said.
“I ask you this, Ms. Lord,” Kranchick rolled on. “What if a child had rare antibodies in his blood, antibodies that could save lives? Wouldn't there be a duty to give blood? Same thing with Robert. Do you know how rare his condition is? I've never seen a subject like him.”
“‘Subject'?” Victoria said. “Like a guinea pig. Like a lab rat.”
“That's just semantics. That's what you lawyers do. You sound just like Solomon. Maybe you should marry him.”
Now both balls were in one hand, banging against each other.
And just who stole the Replengren, Captain Queeg?
“Replengren,” Victoria said. “You still haven't answered the question. Do you administer an unapproved drug to the children at Rockland?”
“The FDA could rule at any time. Tomorrow, the next day, the drug could be approved.”
“And in the meantime?”
The balls click-clacked against each other. “Where would I even get it?”
One last delay. Fighting to the end, the last defender at the Alamo. And speaking of Mexico…
“From Carlos,” Victoria said. “From San Blas Medico. Guadalajara, Mexico. Isn't that where you buy the drug?”
Kranchick opened her mouth-a dark, empty cave-but nothing came out.
Judge Rolle cleared her throat. “Doctor, do you understand the question?”
Still nothing.
“Doctor-”
“Yes, goddammit! I use Replengren, and someday they'll thank me for it. Someday they'll call me up to the stage and give me a shiny piece of metal because I had the courage to say the earth was round when all the fools said it was square. I sit with these families. I see the heartbreak, the shattered lives. Does Stephen Solomon give a damn about that?”
“He gives a damn about Bobby,” Victoria said.
“You don't get it! He doesn't get it. Those prisoners who took the polio vaccine, the ones who got malaria and yellow fever-they're heroes. Robert could be, too. Most likely with no harm to him at all. He could change thousands of lives. He could be the link we're looking for. That's what I'm after. What's so goddamned wrong with that?”
“What's wrong,” Victoria said, “is that you don't get to choose the heroes, Dr. Kranchick. The heroes choose themselves.”
