FORTY-NINE
Vernon walked into his office at eight a.m. the next morning to find Bobby and Daphne already in theirs. He could hear them even before he passed by the door of their eerily dark room. They were fighting about something; they always were. They never agreed about stocks, bonds, IPOs, hedge funds, the Dow, NASDAQ—anything. It was almost like a deeply sworn feud that provided, together with a basic exchange of knowledge, their principal entertainment.
Divesting himself of coat and laptop, Vernon went back to the dark doorway. The only light came from five computer screens. Light pulsed, shadows moved. Vernon thought of Plato’s cave. (It came as a surprise to people that Vernon had taken a first at Oxford in philosophy.) The cold bluish light of their separate screens washed over their faces, Bobby’s and Daph’s, as if submerging them. Three other computers tuned to different networks, different sources of financial information were lined up on a long table where they could view them when they needed to. It had long been a marvel to Vernon that they could share these cramped quarters and not go crazy. Perhaps the nature of the work was already so crazy that they could factor in their own without noticing.
“I want you to look into this bunch”—he tossed Nell’s folder on Bobby’s desk—“see what’s going on with this drug. And with its stock offerings.”
Bobby tore himself away from his screen. You could almost hear the rip. Even as he talked, he kept peeking at it. “Wyeth? That American pharmaceutical company? It’s Wyeth-Ayerst Labs—yeah, that’s the one that put out that diet drug called fen phen the FDA is pulling off the market. Bad, bad news that thing was.”
“Anyway, I have a friend with a passion for horses and this company makes this drug”—Vernon nodded toward the folder. “They get it from the urine of pregnant mares. Premarin, it’s called.”
Daphne made a face. “Horse urine?”
“I’m sure the horses share your opinion. Unfortunately, they have nothing to say in the matter.”
Daphne swiveled her chair around. “Wait a minute; I’ve heard of that. It’s for menopausal women. Some sort of estrogen, a hormone-replacement drug?”
“Good for you,” said Vernon. “Especially considering you’re only twenty-five.”
Bobby leaned forward, frowning. “But that must take a hell of a lot of horses.”
“Oh, it does.” Vernon described the way the urine was collected.
“God,” said Daphne, “that is horrible.”
“Wait. I haven’t even told you the downside. Most of the foals are shipped off to slaughterhouses. A few are kept to replace the mares that die.”
“God,” she said again. “Do the women taking this stuff know this?”
“I doubt it. If they knew, most would find some other drug. And there are perfectly good ones out there that do the job and without the questionable side effects.”
Bobby cocked his head. “Sounds like you’ve been researching this.”
“I have. So what I want you to look for is some way of making life less than pleasant for this pharmaceutical company. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Eyes on screens, they both waved him away in friendly fashion.
Vernon opened his laptop, leaned back in his chair and thought about Nell. He always thought about Nell.
He looked at his screen and thought about Nell. He was thinking about taking SayWhen public. No, he was thinking about Nell.
Samantha put her head round the door and tapped on the doorframe. “I’m going to the caff for breakfast take-out. What do you want?”
“Oh. Pork pie with a ploughman’s.” He thought about Nell.
“That’s not breakfast, Vernon.”
“What?” He looked at her.
She shook her head. “That’s lunch, not breakfast.”
“Oh.” He rubbed his head. Then he ordered an egg sandwich, bacon and coffee. And thought about Nell. He looked at Samantha. “Is that breakfast?”
“That’s breakfast.” She tapped her knuckles against the door again, her silver ring rapping it.
“A blueprint,” said Bobby, when Vernon later went back to the room, “for success.” He turned his computer screen so that Vernon could see it. “This company’s PR people must be first rate. You market Premarin, first by covertly selling menopause to American women as a disease, making them think they’ve just got to have hormone-replacement therapy; second, you assure everyone the horse farms are meeting ‘guidelines’ ”—Bobby made squiggles in the air to indicate the quote marks—“not government guidelines but ones laid down by Wyeth itself and, of course, by employing its own inspectors to make sure the guidelines are met; third, you stomp all over any competition, especially any bunch that wants to make a generic. You’ve locked in your patent for half a century, of course. Now, by following this simple recipe you wind up as the only manufacturer of this drug, making a billion and a half a year. And think of this: it’s not a drug taken intermittently because of illness; it’s one the woman is taking for the long haul—in other words, forever.”
Daphne was chewing gum and staring at her screen. “I don’t believe this; I mean, how could this corporation get away with this? They took out the patent in ’42 and have had no competition. These poor horses—” She turned her screen toward Vernon so that he could see the picture of the mares in their stalls. “They’re tied so they can’t move or lie down. Even calves in crates aren’t much worse off. These mares are pregnant for God’s sake. And they can’t move. Are we back in the Dark Ages?”
Vernon looked at the screen, at the condition of the horses, at the narrow, narrow stalls. He shook his head. “Maybe we never left it.”
“Where’d you get this literature?”
“From the girl who was in my office a few days ago; you met her. She got the folders from a stud farm in Cambridgeshire. It looks as if someone was apparently going to try to market this stuff in the UK.”
“Never,” said Daph, “they’d never get away with it. In the States, yes, you can get away with keeping seventy-five thousand horses in these deplorable conditions—”
Bobby sat back in his swivel chair. “You’re saying Americans are more callous than we are?”
“No, Booby, I’m saying America is so much bigger than we are.” She balled up paper and threw it at him, then turned back to her screen, punched in some commands and said, “The Premarin Web site.” The page showed the face of a smiling woman. “Why’s she smiling? Look at the side effects: possible nausea, increased risk of blood clots and uterine cancer . . .” She scrolled past a few pages. “Here it is—description: ‘material derived from pregnant mares’ urine.’ You can’t say they never told us. Except this writing is as tiny as fairy tracks. Who could read it without a magnifying glass?”
Bobby didn’t appear to be hearing her, lost in one of his own stock-option meditations. “We could try selling short.”
Daph looked at his screen. “Uh-uh. I don’t like the downside potential.” She pushed her glasses up on her nose. “It’s unlimited. Bobby likes it; I don’t.”
“I wouldn’t have expected anything less of both of you,” said Vernon, leaning down to look over Bobby’s shoulder.
Bobby loved all things chancy; he was staring at the display of the drug company’s stock options.
Daph had the same readout on her screen. She shook her head and clucked her tongue like a prissy schoolmistress. “It’s too strong, Bobby. You can’t short it.”
“Tell me something I don’t know, for God’s sake.” He looked round at Vernon. “I could post something on the Net. A rumor here, a rumor there.” He turned his thumb down, pushed it toward the floor. The stock would make the same trip, his look said.
Vernon’s return look was like a knuckle in the eye.
Bobby shrugged. “Just a thought.”
“Corporate assassin,” said Daphne. Then to Vernon,
“He’s going to land us all in the nick, Vernon, one of these days.” Then to Bobby. “You can’t short it, Bobby.”
Daphne, Vemon knew, really liked this sort of fox chase. “You’d sell your own gran for some dicey stock options,” he’d told her once. Now, he looked at her screen. The stock was still climbing, fractionally, but definitely on an upswing. Then it held steady.
Bobby’s fingers danced across his keyboard. He said, “Here’s something interesting.” Business World, a dependable money magazine, reported that another hormone-replacement drug was about to enter the market.
Daphne asked, “How can it if this pharmaceutical company holds the patent?”
Bobby shrugged. “What they’re really worried about is a generic. Look at this.” He scrolled down the page. “A synthetic alternative to estrogen is going on the market. Called Evista.”
Daphne had pulled up another article. “Listen. ‘One of its antidiabetics was causing almost universal dizziness, weakness, slurred speech and other symptoms and would almost certainly be up for review.’ I’m quoting here. There’s a report coming out on it.”
“When?” said Vernon.
“Couple of days, it looks like.”
“Get Hodges to go over it.” Dr. Hodges was a retired physician and more or less on Vernon’s payroll as a consultant for anything health related. “Then get Mike West to get hold of the report the minute it comes out.” West was a lawyer in the States, also retained by Vernon’s investment firm. “Also, see if you can turn up any studies on the other one—Evista?”
“Okay.”
“Keep watch, baby,” Vernon said, squeezing Bobby’s shoulder. Daphne’s mouth was hanging open, as it often was when she was watching the screen. “Babies, I mean,” said Vernon.