Barnum would use his bulk, Seeley thought, to hide Palmieri from the jury. “That's fine,” Seeley said. “So long as there's room.”
“I might as well tell you now, I'm not like other GC's you've worked for. They see a trial coming and they run the other way. My first job out of law school was in the San Mateo County DA's office. I like going to trial and, when I get there, I keep a tight grip on the wheel.”
Seeley said, “I'm sure you've taken the company's trial work to a new level.”
After Barnum left, Leonard said, “You haven't lost it, have you? Your talent for pissing off a complete stranger.”
“My only interest is in winning this case. But I'm not going to let your general counsel abuse my team.”
Leonard unfolded and buttoned a sleeve of his sport shirt. “Ed's okay. Give him some room.” He buttoned the other sleeve. “Steinhardt's waiting for you. I'll take you to his office.”
Seeley followed Leonard down a carpeted corridor lined with rows of cubicles, only a few of them occupied.
“Once we scale up and go to market, every one of these desks is going to be busy with marketing and backup.”
They crossed a wide corridor, and linoleum tile replaced the carpeting.
“What you told Ed, that there aren't any holes in the case-you're sure?”
Seeley said, “There's no case that isn't a crapshoot. Things come up. But, as far as I can see, you're in good shape.”
Leonard put a hand on Seeley's arm, pleased. “We can crack open a bottle of champagne tonight.”
Leonard's dismay when Seeley told him that he'd decided to stay at a hotel and not at his house in Atherton left Seeley no choice but to accept his brother's dinner invitation.
The walk to Steinhardt's office took them past laboratories that looked little different from the high-school labs at St. Boniface, where he and Leonard were students thirty years ago. There were more plastic containers than Seeley remembered, and there hadn't been laptops on the scarred black lab counters, but the shelves lined with reagent bottles were the same, as were the spaghetti of tubing that looped down from fat-globed flasks into glass beakers and the neatly labeled drawers, the refrigerator posted with black-and-yellow warnings, and the exhaust hood under which the class clown manufactured his stink bombs. White lab coats hung from hooks along the walls. Somehow science had made all these extraordinary leaps using little more than a high-school junior's lab tools.
Seeley said, “How closely did you monitor Steinhardt's work?”
Leonard heard the concern behind the question. “You just told me there weren't any loose ends.” His good humor had evaporated.
“I want to make sure Warren isn't a problem.”
Leonard took Seeley's arm and steered him around a jumbo-size doormat at the entrance to one of the labs. The white vinyl mat looked as sticky as flypaper and was clotted with shoe prints. “Real high tech,” Leonard said. “It's to get the crud off your shoes when you go into the lab.”
He continued on, holding Seeley's elbow. “I review Steinhardt's work as closely as anybody's. When he started getting results, I looked even more closely. But remember, Mike, I'm running seven fully staffed labs here.”
“Did you review his lab notes?”
Leonard gave him a hard look. “You're not listening, Mike. If I get three or four hours at night to review the science we do here, I've had a good day. Most of my time I spend explaining to the FDA why AV/ AS is safe and effective. Do you know how many trips I had to make to Washington to get us on track for phase-three trials? It's a full-time job just convincing our insurance companies that they're not going to be defending liability lawsuits the day after we go to market. The World Health Organization's watching us. So are the nonprofits. And there's the AIDS activists. You'll see them when you go to court.”
“I'd think they'd be supporting you.”
“This is the globalization crowd. They say we're going to use our patent to gouge the Africans on price. We haven't told them, but in sub-Sahara we're prepared to price AV/AS as low as fifteen dollars a dose.”
“Why don't you tell them that? The AIDS group.”
“Because then I would have to explain to the American AIDS groups how, if we can go to market for fifteen dollars in Kenya, we can justify charging two hundred fifty dollars here. They don't understand that fifteen dollars doesn't support this kind of research.”
Seeley wondered where the money went. Vaxtek certainly wasn't spending it on offices or laboratories.
They were at the door to Steinhardt's office. Leonard, his voice suddenly thick, said, “You don't approve of how I do my job.”
“It's none of my business, Len, to approve or disapprove.”
“I'm looking forward to dinner tonight. Renata, too.” Leonard tried to make it light, the charming host, but the emotion in his voice reminded Seeley that, whatever his accomplishments as a physician and executive, part of his brother was still the kid hiding out behind the living-room couch.
The open box of imported chocolates on the marble end table, not a single piece removed, told Seeley everything he needed to know about Alan Steinhardt. The chocolates, the translucent silk drapes, Oriental rugs, antique furniture, and the scale of the room-the office was at least five times the size of Leonard's-were all for show. Steinhardt might at one time have been a dedicated researcher, but the surroundings made Seeley wonder how much of his energy he now invested at the laboratory bench. A recording of a string quartet played from speakers hidden in the ceiling.
A side door opened and Steinhardt entered the room, moving quickly but gracefully. He tilted his head and arched an eyebrow in the direction of the room he had just left. The scientist's fingertips no more than grazed Seeley's hand. “You must forgive me. There are always crises in the lab and-I am sure someone told you-I must be on a plane to Paris in three hours. You will excuse me if I keep our meeting brief.”
“That's up to you,” Seeley said. “We can go over your testimony now or the day before trial.” “I don't think a rehearsal will be necessary.”
Steinhardt's narrow face, the neatly trimmed goatee and mustache, the slicked-back gray hair were moderately forbidding. Seeley imagined that it was a long time since anyone had called him Al. Still, he thought that with some sandpapering he could turn the scientist into a passable witness-not lovable but authoritative. A juror who was looking for a father's approval might be persuaded to believe in him.
“As I said, it's your decision. But I'd recommend that you leave yourself some time. Right now, you're my lead witness and St. Gall is going to go after you on cross-examination like you're the only thing that stands between them and a profitable fourth quarter. If you're not prepared, you're going to wind up looking look like a real horse's ass.” He stopped to make sure the scientist was paying attention. “The press loves it anytime a prominent witness gets torn apart on cross-examination.”
“The press?”
“The local papers will be there. I'm sure the Times and Wall Street Journal will send stringers. This is a big case. Time should have someone. Maybe Newsweek.”
Steinhardt's expression darkened. He shot the cuffs of his white lab coat. The coat looked like it had been custom-tailored to his small, trim frame. “What would I need to do?”
“You can start by telling me what AV/AS is about.”
“If you need me to explain that to you, I'd say you're not the man to conduct my case.”
“This isn't for me,” Seeley said. “It's for the jury. You're the one who's going to have to explain the science to the jury.”
Steinhardt considered that, and for a moment stood even more erect. He gestured to Seeley to take one of the antique upholstered chairs and took one himself. Then he checked his watch and appeared to change his mind. “I could give you the five-minute version, but I expect you will have questions. This will have to wait until I return from Paris. I promise you, it will be a brief trip.”
“If I were you, I'd cancel the trip.”
“You obviously fail to understand. I have an important paper to deliver. Not to go would be out of the question.”
Seeley had worked with scientists before, and it was a puzzle to him why anyone would spend good money to
