Vaughan sighs.
Enough.
He stands up out of the chair and straightens his jacket.
The ironic thing is that this… this clarity has only kicked in over the last few days, a week at most. It’s ironic because that’s more or less when he decided to call it a day. He’d been so tired, and sick most of the time, that it seemed pointless to continue. Everything was in place, and all he had to do was set things in train.
Which he did.
But then, as arrangements for the press conference were being finalized, this new medication he’s been on suddenly started to work-the dreams, the vivid memories, but also renewed energy and a general feeling of well-being. He wasn’t really going to go sailing in Palm Beach, that was just to yank Craig Howley’s chain, nor was he serious last night when he hinted to Meredith that he wouldn’t say no to a blowjob-but… these ideas didn’t come out of thin air either.
He is feeling better and stronger.
And he doesn’t care one whit that the medication is untested, and possibly dangerous.
It’s worth it.
Because we’re all going to die, so what difference does it make? When he first got sick in his mid-seventies he figured, not unreasonably, that his days were numbered, that death was probably just around the corner. But it proved to be a long, wide corner, a half-moon crescent of a thing that just wouldn’t quit-and now, nearly ten years later, here he is, still alive, still breathing, still on various medications. The thing is, most of his friends and contemporaries are dead, he’s attended a lot of funerals, looked into a lot of graves, but if anything, his sense of his own mortality has blurred somewhat, and dimmed. It’s like, alright, already, he’s gone through the scary phase, worrying about it day and night, shitting himself over it-and now he’s come out the other side. If he’s still here, then he’s still here. He doesn’t want to have to waste any more time thinking about it.
So, about a month ago, when he had a chance conversation with Jerome Hale, former head of research at Eiben-Chemcorp, Vaughan decided he was going to take some positive action. Hale was talking about what he believed Eiben currently had in the pipeline, a suite of in-development products that were offshoots of MDT-48, a designer smart drug that had nearly destroyed the company about a decade earlier when a batch was siphoned out of the lab and found its way onto the streets. MDT was way too powerful and dangerous a drug ever to find a place in the mainstream commercial market, but researchers at Eiben had been trying ever since to develop second-generation and much-toned-down versions-one of which, apparently, according to Hale, was targeted at geriatrics and was reputed to combat a range of conditions, including extreme fatigue and dementia. He added that this was still years away from even going to first-phase clinical trials, but wasn’t it interesting?
By which he meant, given their own involvement in these events all those years ago-his as head of research and Vaughan’s as proprietor of the parent company.
Vaughan nodded in agreement, yes, for sure-but he actually found it much more interesting than that. Without telling Jerry Hale what he was doing, he proceeded to track down an old contact who still worked at Eiben, and then, using a combination of arm-twisting, outright intimidation, and eye-watering amounts of money, he managed to coax a sample out of the Eiben lab.
First he was warned about possible side effects. Then he was told that the formula required a buildup in the system and not to expect any results for at least a week. But when nothing had happened after two, and with his general condition deteriorating rapidly, Vaughan sort of resigned himself to the inevitable and triggered the succession process with Howley.
And then, go figure, the medication kicked in.
Originally given enough for a month, he now has less than a week’s supply left.
Which is an issue he’ll have to address very soon.
Vaughan wanders out of the library. He went in there to take a quick nap. Normally at this time of the day, after lunch, he’ll go to bed for at least an hour and sleep soundly. He’ll then spend another hour fighting grogginess and trying to reconstitute himself so he can function for the remainder of the day. Recently, though, he’s finding that ten minutes in an armchair is all he needs, and that no recovery time is required either.
The only problem now-given that he’s officially, ironic air quotes, retired-is that he doesn’t have anything to do.
As he moves along the floor of the hallway, with its mother-of-pearl-encrusted black marble tiles, he taps out a quick, slightly giddy soft-shoe shuffle.
He’ll have to see about that, though, won’t he?
On his way to the Bloomberg studios on Friday afternoon, Craig Howley flicks through his notes. He likes to be prepared, to have a sprinkling of figures and statistics at the ready. It won’t be a hard interview, in the sense that he won’t be asked any particularly hard questions, but he does want to get certain points across, and that can sometimes be hard to do without coming off like a used-car salesman.
He also flicks through his datebook. Normally at this time of year he and Jessica go to the country on weekends, but with the Kurtzmann Foundation benefit happening on Monday night, Jess is up to her eyes in last-minute arrangements, so she’s staying put. He will, too.
Maybe catch up on some reading.
He glances out the window. They’re on Lexington, the Tower just a couple of blocks away.
As he’s gathering up his notes and papers, his phone rings.
It’s Paul Blanford.
Howley’s done a little extra homework since their lunch earlier in the week-on Eiben-Chemcorp, on its board, on the sector in general-and he’s fairly sure now that he’s got Blanford by the balls. As CEO, Blanford has been perfectly adequate, but with the company’s $47 billion in annual sales built on blockbuster drugs such as Narolet and Triburbazine-drugs whose patents are due to expire in the near future-the board is, well, pretty jumpy. What’s more, Howley knows of at least three members who are said to be unhappy with the CEO’s performance. Any public hint of another R &D leak, therefore, and it’d be curtains for Blanford.
“Paul?”
“Craig. How are you?”
“I’m good. Any luck with that thing?”
“Not yet, but I’m all over it, believe me. I just need another couple of days.”
The key thing here is, while Howley can ostensibly hold out knowledge of this leak as a threat, what he really wants is the same thing Blanford wants, for the leak to be plugged. But as long as Blanford has no idea what Howley’s interest is, and as long as he’s reluctant to ask about it, which he clearly is, Howley feels he has the advantage. Full disclosure-i.e., any mention of Vaughan’s involvement-would transfer some of that advantage back to Blanford, and while this is probably inevitable, it’s something Howley wants to put off until the last possible moment.
First, however, they need to find the leak.
“Why is it taking so long?” he asks.
“Well, R &D is our biggest division, Craig, and I can’t just charge around the place making accusations. You know that.” Blanford has a rep for being nonconfrontational, so this can’t be easy for him. “I mean, I have put out some feelers, but it’s a tricky one.”
This isn’t the way Howley would handle it, but he doesn’t have the time to argue his point now. “You know where to reach me, Paul.”