Thorpe had been playing poker with his peremptory challenge to the retired career counselor.
“And close to the chest?”
“Yes, that, too,”Thorpe said. “We should have lunch next week.”
Seeley said, “The week after would be better.”
“Of course, after you've put on your case. Our clients will want us to discuss settlement one last time.”
Thorpe went through the double doors-briskly, Seeley observed, shedding his courtroom torpor, making his way in the direction of the thirty or forty chanting protesters. One shook a placard at him, PILLS NOT PROFITS, but Thorpe moved past the crowd to where the news cameras and microphones were. Seeley knew that Thorpe wouldn't answer the reporters' questions so much as he would use the press to send Wall Street a message prepared by St. Gall's public relations and investor relations departments.
A slight-figured young woman in jeans, turtleneck, and down vest came up to Seeley, her hand outstretched.
“Michael Seeley? I'm Gail Odum from the Chronicle.”
The business reporter. For a disconnected moment, Seeley imagined that the stenographer's pad in her other hand was Pearsall's, and that she had found a notebook Seeley missed.
“What did Lily Warren tell you about your case?”
Seeley said, “You don't even know if I called her.”
“She told me you met, but she wouldn't tell me what you spoke about.”
Across the plaza, Thorpe was talking to a news crew, and several of the protesters had moved behind him to be on camera. Palmieri was a few feet away from the crowd, but Seeley couldn't see whether he was listening to Thorpe or talking to one of the protesters, a tall, rangy man with curly blond hair. When Seeley turned back to Odum, Barnum was coming toward him from the courthouse.
Seeley said to Odum, “Why would it matter to you, what we talked about?”
An automobile horn blared at the intersection, and Seeley didn't know if she heard him.
“I know that Lily and your inventor, Steinhardt, worked together at UC before they split up and went to work for competitors. Then your client sues St. Gall and she gets fired. It has to be connected to your case.”
The parties' stipulation on priority nowhere mentioned Lily's presence in Steinhardt's lab at Vaxtek, and Lily, desperate to keep her visa, would not have told Odum about the incident.
“Maybe it was a coincidence.” Seeley was aware of Barnum standing behind him, listening.
“Or,” Odum said, “maybe there's a romantic angle.” The reporter had a nice scent about her, nothing as intense as perfume-soap, maybe, or her shampoo.
Seeley said, “I'd think that would be for the gossip page, not the business section.”
Odum laughed. “At the Chronicle, the business section is the gossip page.”
She had a nice laugh, too, and Seeley guessed that she used it to pry out facts.
Trailed by a cameraman, the television newsman who had interviewed Thorpe was coming toward Seeley. Several yards behind, the tall curly-haired protester separated himself from the group and followed.
Seeley said to Odum, “If anything comes up that's newsworthy, and that I can give you, I will.”
Odum said, “On the phone, you promised that if I got Lily to call you, you'd give me an exclusive.” The smile looked genuine. “And let me decide whether it's newsworthy.”
As she went away, Barnum leaned into Seeley. “You didn't tell me you talked to the Chinese girl.” Seeley turned from the approaching television crew to keep the conversation private. Barnum said, “All you need to know is that St. Gall stipulated priority. You're running off in all directions. The Chinese girl. The police about Bob Pearsall. You've got a trial ready to start.”
“And, if Steinhardt is going to testify, I don't want any surprises.”
“What kind of surprises?”
“That's what I'm trying to find out.”
There was a clatter of equipment behind Seeley. “Jeff Fox, Counselor! KBAY television news!”
Seeley turned. The sprayed, blow-dried hair and unnaturally pink face gave the reporter the appearance of a heavily retouched photograph. Below the showy tie and jacket he had on worn jeans and scuffed running shoes, but the camera, just a few feet away, wouldn't catch them.
The reporter held the microphone an inch from Seeley's mouth. “Vaxtek is a tiny company in South San Francisco. Tell us what your client's chances are of winning this case against a multinational giant like St. Gall.”
“That's what the trial's for, isn't it?” Seeley watched bewilderment creep into the buffed and polished face. “So a jury can listen to the evidence and weigh the facts, and then decide who has the stronger claim.”
The car horn blared again. The reporter said, “But your opponent, Emil Thorpe, just explained to our viewers why your client's case is so weak.”
Thorpe's remarks had doubtless brimmed with confidence that St. Gall could not possibly lose. And when, in two weeks his client did lose, the company's public relations staff would hand him a statement that explained why the loss was really a win.
Seeley put on his widest actor's smile and looked squarely into the camera. “I'm sure Mr. Thorpe has already more than fulfilled your viewers' need for entertainment this evening.” He turned away abruptly before the reporter could follow up, and found himself inches from the curly-haired activist.
In black jeans and a sleeveless sweater over what looked like a Hawaiian shirt, the man was younger and taller than he had appeared from a distance, and Seeley experienced the rare discomfort of having to look up to someone who wasn't a judge sitting on a bench.
“This trial is an outrage,” the man said, smiling directly at the news camera. Only the golden puff of a goatee spoiled his scrubbed all-American good looks. “How can this man defend a patent that will make it impossible for millions of people to get a lifesaving drug?”
Before Seeley could answer, the newsman signaled his cameraman to come in closer and Barnum shouldered his way to the camera. “We've spent half a billion dollars on AV/AS,” Barnum said. “That makes it our property.”
The protester said, “So you get rich while people die.”
“We have a responsibility to our shareholders.”
“So they get rich while people die.” The protester's smile turned into a mocking laugh.
Seeley didn't like trying a case in the media, but Barnum could say something truly damaging, and he worried that one or more jurors would forget Judge Farnsworth's closing request to stay away from the news.
Seeley edged in front of Barnum. “Unfortunately,” he said to the camera, “discoveries like AV/AS don't just happen. What Mr. Barnum is saying is that they consume money, lots of it.”
“What's worse,” the protester asked him, “that your client loses its investment or that millions of people lose their lives?”
Seeley said, “You could also feed starving people by letting them steal wheat from the field, but if you did that, how many farmers are going to invest in seed and fertilizer for next year's crop? It's the same with research. A company's not going to invest in making the next breakthrough discovery if it knows a competitor's going to be able to rip it off just like the last one.”
“Jonas Salk didn't try to get a patent on the polio vaccine. He gave it away free.”
The protester reminded Seeley of the idealistic young artists he represented pro bono when he practiced in New York. “That was fifty years ago,” he said, “and Jonas Salk was a saint. How many saints do you know with the cash to bring a drug like this to the market?”
The man, his smile uncertain now, said, “The government should pay for the research and give the drugs away free to anyone who needs them.”
“How comfortable are you letting politicians decide what kinds of drugs get developed? If it were up to the politicians, do you think we'd have the AIDS therapies we have today?”
“And you think we should trust businessmen with that decision?”
Seeley said, “There's no reason to trust businessmen any more than politicians. But you can trust the profit motive. If these therapies are what people want and will pay for, drug companies will produce them.”
“That's my point,” the curly-haired man said. “Your client will produce only what people can pay for.”
“But, the alternative is no AIDS treatments at all.”
Seeley leaned into the protester, turning him away from the camera and speaking quietly so that the
