Only Brendan Driscoll, perhaps the worst offender in the company, had managed to thwart the system. He wrote love letters, short stories, and poetry on his computer, he visited porn sites on the Internet. When Markham was traveling, he would sometimes talk to his friends on the telephone for half the day (for of course the phones were integrated to the computer system, as well). But Driscoll got away with it all because Markham wouldn't let him go.
But now Ross sat at his terminal. Driscoll had a password for his personal files, but Ross had his own "operator privilege" password, and it trumped Driscoll's. He typed in his own initials and password, a secondary directory came up, and Ross involuntarily, unconsciously broke a tight smile.
The Mandarin Oriental Hotel, one of the crown jewels of San Francisco, presented a look and feel of restrained opulence that Malachi Ross found appealing. It was also within easy walking distance of his office, and taking the leisurely stroll on this glorious evening was even more pleasurable than usual. After the grueling few days he'd just spent-not only in the immediate wash of Markham's death, but dealing with fallout from the "CityTalk" broadside-he'd take any comfort he could, wherever he could get it.
There had been some comfort back at Parnassus-more on Eric Kensing in Driscoll's computer files than he would have thought possible. There was correspondence about his wife, Ann, Markham's responses to what appeared to be intimations of a kind of (at least) emotional blackmail that Kensing had used to keep his job, memos to file, references to cash payoffs, private reprimands, ultimatums. Amazing! He'd printed it all out and told Joanne to deliver it to the district attorney by messenger.
He printed out a few other files, as well. These he put in his own briefcase, then deleted the originals from the computer.
Nancy and the girls were up at Lake Tahoe for the weekend. He'd told her she ought to have their pilot Darren fly them on up without him. He'd been working around the clock all week as it was, and in all likelihood that schedule would continue through the weekend and for the foreseeable future.
He'd told her on Wednesday night. They were in their bedroom getting ready to go out to dinner. The door was open to the hallway. They could hear the girls just outside, playing with Bette, their nanny. Nancy gave him a quick pout. She would miss him terribly, especially that way. Glancing at the open door, the voices twenty feet away, she unzipped her skirt and, stepping out of it, dropped it to the floor. Turning her back to him, she leaned over and rested her elbows on the antique Italian writing desk by the end of their bed. Over her shoulder, she smiled in that "I dare you, we've got maybe two minutes" way she had, and whispered urgently, "It would be easier to go if you gave me something to remember you by."
"Good evening, Dr. Ross, and welcome again to Silks. You look like you're enjoying a particularly pleasant memory."
He snapped out of his reverie, smiled perfunctorily. "Hello, Victor. Nice to be here again."
"Right this way," the maître d' intoned. "Your guest has already been here for a few minutes."
His guest was Ron Medras, a very well put together, athletic, mid-forties senior vice president with Biosynth, which until about eight years ago had been a small drug manufacturing firm. It had carved out a nice, survivable niche producing generic, mostly over-the-counter knockoffs of aspirin, Tylenol, baby's cold and flu formula, and anti-inflammatories. At about that time, caught up in the feeding frenzy for mega-earnings and exploding stock prices that were overtaking the Silicon Valley, Medras and several other like-minded executives at Biosynth decided that three-bedroom homes in Mountain View or Gilroy were all well and good, but six-bedroom mansions in Atherton or Los Altos Hills, all in all, were better.
Biosynth knew it could easily produce equivalent, or near-equivalent, product of the stuff that was making billions and billions of dollars for Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Pfizer. What it didn't have was marketing, aggressive marketing to big clients-hospitals and HMOs. Instead, it merely worked the chain drugstores that comprised the bulk of its sales. That would change.
Tonight, Medras was on a typical sales call. Ross was not his biggest client by a long shot, but he remained an important one. This was because there was often resistance when a new drug of any kind came on the market, and Ross had been willing over and over again to list Biosynth's new products on the Parnassus formulary nearly as soon as they were in production. This often had a snowball effect. San Francisco wasn't a huge market, but it had very high visibility. That made it plenty big enough for Biosynth's purposes. When Medras went to companies ten or twenty times the size of Parnassus, he'd be able to say to them: "This stuff is so good the main health care provider in San Francisco has listed it on its formulary." And, either impressed or reassured, the other medical directors would buy.
A couple of preprandial drinks accompanied ten or fifteen minutes of expressions of regret and sympathy from both men over the loss of Tim Markham, remembrances of good moments with him, praise for his vision, leadership, personality. But in this phenomenal setting, with an hors d'oeuvres plate of perhaps the best sashimi in the Western Hemisphere, it was difficult to sustain a somber mood. By the time the wine steward offered Medras a tasting sip from the bottle of '89 Latour that they'd ordered to go with their Asian lamb chops, they'd moved along to more enjoyable topics. They passed a pleasant hour discussing their golf games, new toys (Medras had just leased a new Saratoga aircraft), investment tips and opportunities.
Ross had developed a taste for hazelnut in the form of Frangelico liqueur, and he was enjoying his second snifter with his coffee when Medras finally got around to what they'd both come to talk about. Biosynth had been developing a new product for the past year or so. Top secret up until now, it had been waiting for FDA approval, and Medras had it on good authority that the good word would be coming down in the next month or so. The company had gotten ahold of a process that enabled them to make insulin at one-fifth of what it now cost to produce.
Ross put down his snifter. "Are you talking one-fifth as in twenty percent?"
Medras nodded, avarice lighting his eyes. "And we would pass the savings along directly to you."
Ross quickly did the math in his head. "A dollar a dose? Copays would cover that by themselves. It would move the whole item from the red to the black."
"Yes. We believe it would. Although, of course, there are some issues."
"There always are." But Ross knew that if a company such as Parnassus came onboard in a big way, many of these problems could be mitigated. Complaints about possible rare side effects, for example, might not be forwarded to the government. And if the new insulin made it to his formulary, its credibility could be nearly instantaneous.
"I wanted to let you know about this," Medras went on, "because the sales force will be calling on your medical staff over the next couple of weeks. We'd like to have enough samples out there, with enough history, so that when we go on sale for real, people feel comfortable with the product, doctors and patients alike. This is really an incredible breakthrough, Malachi. It could really make a difference."
Ross believed him, although he didn't have to. The FDA would make sure. And if somehow it failed anyway, Ross didn't consider it his job to be the FDA's watchdog.