The Shadow Box (76 page)

“Who's this asking the questions? This isn't you.”

“Guy named Yahya I mentioned. He's better at it.”

The document was a blueprint of Rast's entire network. It listed every location where the counterfeits were pro
duced and how they were distributed. It listed dozens of
people, men and women who were on his payroll, and
what services they had provided. Several were high-placed
executives with rival firms.

Julie sat at his bedside while Michael read through the
transcript. He read parts of it twice, in particular the sec
tion on Bronwyn K
e
lsey and what else she had done for
them. On at least two occasions she had lived with other
men who were suspected of cheating the Baron. Both men were soon murdered. Their deaths were made to look like
street crimes. Michael had to pause, for a time, to clear his mind before he went on.

He knew, by the end, that he would never get his hands
on Philip Parker. Four times, in the last ten pages, Parker
had begged to die.

He closed the document.

“Marty Hennessy wants a body.”

”I know.”

“Will he get one?”

“He'll get the parts he needs.”

Michael stared, for a while, at the photo in the Ad-
Chem brochure.

“We do this my way,
”
he said to the gangster. “Not
yours.”

“Split the difference,” said Julie. “We do it Johnny's way.”

Fat Julie had brought Doyle's Priva-Fone with him.
Julie handling the dialing. Fallon placed calls to each of
the seven names on Arnie Aaronson's list. He spoke only to their secretaries. He left identical messages for each.

Five called him back within the hour. The sixth called
him from an airplane en route to London. The seventh
called from his vacation home on St. Croix. He read a
prepared statement to each of the seven. Included were
items from Johnny G.'s notebook and several from Par
ker's confession.

At its end, he asked that each of them meet with his
respective chief executive. He would give them four hours.
At the end of that time, he and the seven CEOs would
meet by way of a conference call.

“Will they call you?” asked Julie Giordano.

“Sure.”

“Their lawyers will let them?”

Michael nodded. “The lawyers will be listening. They'll
need to know how much we have.”

Fat Julie began pacing the ward. “Let me understand
this,” he said. “These guys are all crooks?”

“Not at all. Not the way you mean.”

“How many ways are there?”

The answer Michael gave him was, he felt sure, essen
tially what Aaronson had told Doyle. They're trying to
run companies. They're doing their best. They've all
skirted the law, or built plants in countries where they
could buy the law
because that's how you get done what you're in business to do. Illegal is not the same as wrong.
It's certainly not the same as evil.

“Michael
...
are they all making counterfeit drugs
or not?”

“Yes and no.”

They're not, he explained. At least not willfully. But in
many if not all of their plants, there is theft of ingredients,
theft of finished product, and massive product overruns
that never show up on the books. These men, these seven
CEOs, know that it's happening in each of their firms.
Not on the scale of AdChem, perhaps, but it happens. As `
Aaronson said, they try to contain it. They'll try
to contain
this as well.

Julie left him alone. If it's going to be a four-hour wait,
he said, he'll go upstairs and sit with Johnny.

The conference call took place after lunch. It took
twenty minutes to make all the connections. Most had a
hollow sound. Michael knew that they had him on speaker
phones, some of which had been set up in boardrooms.

“First
I’ll
read a list of names,” Michael told them.
“They're on your payroll but they've also been on Rast's.
If they're listening to this, you might want to ask them
to leave.”

He read the names. He heard gasps and denials and the
shuffling of chairs. He heard “Out,” “Just go,” and “Go
wait in my office.” He thought he heard the sound of a
face being slapped.

Michael did his best to put the remaining listeners at
ease. He blamed none of them, he said, for
what happened
to Arnie. It would also save time if they would put
thoughts of extortion out of their minds. He had no wish to go public. He wanted nothing for himself.

All he wanted was this. One way or the other, they
would undertake to buy AdChem out. He didn't care who bought what or how they would split it up. He didn't care
whether they ran it or shut it down as long as they put
their own managers in place within hours of AdChem agreeing to sell.

“Do you care what we offer?” asked one of the voices.

“Per share? The fifty-two-week high plus one dollar.
Except for the shorts, I want nobody burned.”

“The family owns seventy percent,” said another.
“Who says they'll sell?”

“They will. They'll want to be out of this,”

“When we tell them what you're threatening to
publish?”

”Uh-huh.”

“That's illegal, Michael.”

“That's why you have lawyers.”

In fact, thought Michael, it's why most of these guys
play golf. More deals like this are made on golf
courses . . . because they're hard to bug . . . than in all
the boardrooms put together.

“Michael . . . you're aware, are you not, that the FBI
is already interested in AdChem?”

“They don't have what I have.”

“To say nothing,” someone added, “of the SEC, the
New York police, and especially the FDA.”

“That's why you know senators. Just get it done,
gentlemen.”

A long and hollow silence.

“But leave the FDA to me,” Michael added.

Parker, in his tortured deposition, had named more than
that list of executives. He identified nearly a dozen men
and women who were in the employ of the Food and Drug
Administration. The few names he had given to Johnny—
Turkel and a couple more—were only AdChem's first
cracks in the door. Those few had recruited the others.

Michael would help the FDA clean house. It would be
done quietly. In return, he would ask for certain changes in policy, in particular those that Johnny G. had found noxious.
The agency would agree to pose no obstacle to the disman
tling of AdChem. The current director would have to resign.

Johnny G. will have to be satisfied. This was not quite
the nuking he probably had in mind but in the long run
it was better. But let's hope, thought Michael, that it won't
be Johnny's legacy.

“When these guys buy the stock,” asked Julie Gior
dano, “it goes up, right? Not down.”

“Up.”

“So I lose my ass? That's my end in this?”

“You and Doyle both. Let that be a lesson, you prick.
You were going to go into the business.”

“That was . . . that was only a flight of fancy.”

Fallon couldn't help smiling. ”A flight of fancy? Fat Julie Giordano says he has flights of fancy?”

Julie reddened. “You want another kind of flight? I'll
throw you out that fucking window.”

''Ah...I
might have another idea.”

“I'm listening.”

“Later. Let's get this rolling first.”

“Mike
...
we haven't talked about Rast.”

“You had Parker. Rast is mine.”

“Except he's gone. He's back in Germany behind
some moat.”

”I know.”

“So you'll do what? By over there with a Louisville Slugger?”

No answer.

“You thought about that, didn't you. You give me crap
about flights of fancy and, meanwhile, you been laying
there dreaming how you're gonna pound some old man into dog shit.”

Michael had to look away.

“Forget it, Mike. It just isn't in you.”

Another week passed. The bandages on his hands had
been removed. Two-a-day sessions with a therapist were
quickly restoring their function. The arm and shoulder
were healing nicely. The bullet near his kidney had not
been removed. The surgeon had decided it could wait. The knee might not need surgery after all. Dr. Berman found
Michael in the day room. He told him that he could go
home.

Myra Lovelace came with a change of clothing. A nurse
helped Michael dress. His right arm was in a sling. He
told Myra that he'd take a cab later. He wanted to go sit
with Johnny for a while. He found Brendan Doyle already
there. Doyle had come unannounced.

“He knows me,” said Doyle, excited. “He knows who
I am.”

“You're sure? How can you tell?”