“I see.” Oliver smoothed his hair. “You don’t like gays.”
Marge’s eyes widened. Shockley winced. “I didn’t say-”
“Fine, you didn’t say,” Oliver said. “Let’s drop the PC crap, Doctor. He’s overtly gay and he’s proud of it.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Marge said.
“Absolutely not. You are what you are and we all know what Decameron is.” Leaning in close, Oliver said, “Reggie boy made me do a little squirmy-wormy when I was around him. Might make me squirm a lot if I had dealings with him. Did you have dealings with him, Doctor?”
Oliver sat back in his seat and waited, giving Shockley a chance to size him up. Hoping he caught the bastard by playing on his fears and weaknesses. Because men like Shockley were public image, never dared to admit prejudice until they were safely ensconced within the paneled walls of their clubs.
Shockley eyed Oliver. Unsure how to proceed.
Marge stepped in, playing good cop, giving Shockley the needed escape. “Did you have professional dealings with Dr. Decameron, Dr. Shockley?”
Shockley waited a beat. “Some.”
“What kind of dealings?”
Shockley weighed his options…to talk or not to talk. “Next to Dr. Sparks, Dr. Decameron is the most actively involved in our trials of Curedon.”
Oliver said, “Does he work out of Dr. Sparks’s lab or your labs in Virginia?”
“Both.”
“How’d that work? Does he fly in and out?”
“Yes.”
“Lots of back-and-forth travel?”
“Yes,” Shockley answered. “Lots of back-and-forth travel. As a matter of fact, the travel was the main reason we started working with Dr. Decameron in the first place. The flying became prohibitively time-consuming for Dr. Sparks’s hectic schedule. After the initial negotiations for Curedon were in place, Dr. Sparks handed the task of overseeing Curedon trials to Dr. Decameron.”
He paused.
“Actually, he first gave the assignment to Dr. Berger, then to Dr. Decameron.”
Marge asked, “Why the switch?”
“I don’t know why,” he said quickly. “I do know that Dr. Berger is also a practicing cardiac surgeon. Perhaps he was also scheduled too tightly for the travel. Actually, I was glad about the switch. Despite what you’ve implied, I have nothing against homosexuals.”
“Why were you glad about the change?” Oliver asked.
“Because…” Shockley tried again. “Once I…understood Dr. Decameron, I found him easier to deal with.”
“Easier than Dr. Berger,” Marge clarified.
“Yes.”
“How’s that?”
“A better team player. Quicker. Faster. Cutting edge. More willing to try unorthodox approaches if conventional ones weren’t working. I found Dr. Berger to be a very, very cautious man. Which is always a good thing when you’re testing out a new drug. But he was cautious to the point of being mulish. Had it been up to him, I’m sure Curedon would still be relegated to Sparks’s homespun lab. You know, if you’re going to do good for humankind, eventually you have to take the drug out to the market and test it on humans. There’s only so much you can infer by testing the drugs on primates.”
“Berger didn’t feel the drug was ready to be tested on humans?”
“He never actually espoused that opinion, no,” Shockley said. “Because Sparks always called the shots, of course. But the D.C. labs were frustrated by Berger’s pickiness.”
“Maybe some would call that exacting,” Oliver said.
Shockley’s smile was mean. “There’s being exacting…and there’s being ridiculous.”
“Ah,” Oliver said. “I guess it takes a person of very high intellect to know the difference.”
Marge shot Oliver a look, and he backed off. He asked, “Did you express your lab’s frustration with Dr. Berger directly to Dr. Sparks?”
“Of course not. We had complete confidence in anyone who represented Dr. Sparks. And I don’t want to imply that we were unhappy with Dr. Berger. We just felt that Dr. Decameron was…”
Oliver said, “More with the program?”
Shockley’s smile was condescending. “Better suited to the job.”
“Dr. Decameron told us the initial trials of Curedon looked promising.”
“Yes.”
“He’s also told us that some of the latest data was not so promising.”
Shockley said, “There are always wrinkles. That’s why we have trials before the drug is presented to the public, my friends.”
“Would you have the latest results?”
“Not at my fingertips.”
“Could you get them for us?”
“No. They aren’t your business.”
Marge said, “We can get them from Dr. Decameron.”
“So do that.” Shockley’s smile was smug. “You know, I am trying to help you out. But you can’t expect the company to just open up its data banks for you. First, it would serve no purpose. Second, it’s confidential information. For all I know, you two might be industrial spies.”
Oliver couldn’t help it. He broke out laughing, swinging a look Marge’s way. “My Ph.D. in chemistry must be showing.”
Shockley frowned. “Are you putting me on, Detective?”
Oliver said, “Yes, sir, I am putting you on. I apologize.”
Shockley glared at him. Oliver flashed him the peace sign. “No disrespect meant.”
Mollified, Shockley folded his hands and said, “Besides, you wouldn’t get a thing out of the trial data. Just a bunch of numbers and figures. Impossible to interpret unless you’re intimately involved in the trials.”
Meaning you dumbshits couldn’t understand them anyway. Marge said, “What do you think about Sparks ’s other colleague, Elizabeth Fulton?”
“I never dealt with her.”
“Never?” Oliver asked.
“Yes, I believe I did say never, Detective.”
Oliver said, “You spent lots of money developing and refining a drug like Curedon, right?”
“Researching and refining,” Shockley corrected.
“Yes, you’re right, of course. Sparks developed the drug.”
“Yes, he did.”
Oliver said, “Say you spend lots of money researching and refining a drug, and it turns out to be a bust. What happens?”
“We move on.”
“You take a huge loss just like that?” Oliver said.
“We move on,” Shockley repeated.
“Then how do you stay in business?”
“Our profits exceed our losses.”
Marge thought of something that Decameron had brushed upon. “How about this, Doctor? We all know there’re a million different names for the same aspirin tablet out there, right?”
“I’ve never analyzed all the different acetylsalicylic compounds. I can’t answer that yes or no.”
“You’re being picky, Doctor,” Oliver said.
“I’m being exacting.”
Marge was not about to be put off. “What if a drug proved to be safe and effective. But not much more effective than what’s available on the shelves.”
“Or what’s in the pharmacies,” Oliver stated.
Marge said, “Do you still market the drug?”
“I can’t answer that, Detective.”
“Not even evasively?” Marge asked.
Shockley smiled, but said nothing.
Marge said, “I mean why would drug companies spend all this money to put something on the market when it’s not a big improvement over what’s already out there.”
“Like we have a million types of cold medicines,” Oliver said. “Or a million types of toothpastes.”
“Or a million types of cola sodas, Detectives.” Shockley made quote signs with his fingers when he stated the word million. “Or all the different brands of cigarettes, coffee, orange juice, yogurt, etcetera, etcetera.”
“Different strokes for different folks,” Oliver said.
“I couldn’t have phrased it better,” Shockley said.
“Is Curedon more effective than what’s out there?” Oliver asked.
“Detective, we’re back to where we started.”
“Are the trials going to continue now that Dr. Sparks is gone?”