Five Days in Paris (23 page)

“We both know why we're here, don't we?” he said, looking deep into Peter's eyes. “And I know you don't agree with me,” he said carefully. His whole body seemed to be coiled with anticipated tension, he looked like a cobra about to spring. And Peter felt like his prey, as he prepared to defend himself, and the integrity of the company, but Frank had anticipated him, and he was prepared to pull rank if he had to. “I think you're just going to have to trust my judgment here. I've been through this before. I've been in this business for nearly fifty years, and you've got to believe me when I tell you I know what I'm doing. It's not wrong to go to them now. By the time we put this product on the market officially, we'll be ready. I wouldn't take a chance on this if I didn't think we can deliver.”

“And if you're wrong? If we kill somebody? Even one person …one man, woman, or child …what then? What do we say? How do we live with ourselves? How can we take that chance by asking for an early release date?” Peter was like the voice of his conscience, but Frank thought it was the voice of doom, and he accused him of being an old woman like “that idiot in Paris.” “Suchard knows these things, Frank. That's why we hired him, to tell us the truth. Even when it's bad news we have to listen. I know he's no longer an issue here, but we opened a Pandora's box we can't just ignore. And you know it.”

“I'd hardly call ten million dollars' worth of additional research in two months 'ignoring it,' Peter. And we've turned up nothing. Face it, he sent us on a witch-hunt …worse than that, it's a wild-goose chase. There's nothing there. We're talking about an element which 'could' react, or 'might' cause an extraordinarily rare series of circumstances on a million-to-one bet, on the off chance that everything lines up wrong and we wind up with a problem. Now for God's sake, you tell me, does that sound reasonable to you? Hell, you can take two aspirins with a drink and have that go sour on you. So what's the deal here?”

“Two aspirins and a drink won't kill you. Vicotec will if we're not careful.”

“But we
are
careful. That's the whole point. Every drug has its risks, its side effects, its downside. If we weren't willing
to
live with that, we'd have to close our doors and start selling cotton candy at the state fair. For chrissake, Peter, stop busting my chops on this, be sensible. I want you to understand I am going to override you on this. I'll go to the FDA myself if I have to, but I want you to know why. I want you to know that I truly believe Vicotec is safe, I'm willing to stake my life on it!” he said, and by the time he finished what he had to say, he was shouting at Peter. He was red in the face, and agitated, and his voice had gotten louder and louder as they sat in the conference room, and as Peter watched him, he suddenly saw that Frank was shaking. Frank was in a complete state over it, he was perspiring, and gray, and he stopped for a moment and had a sip of water.

“Are you all right?” Peter asked quietly, watching him. “This
isn't
worth staking your life on. That's really the whole point. We have to treat this clinically, and address it calmly. It's a product, Frank, that's all it is. I want it more than anyone, but in the end, it'll either work, or it won't, or it may work, but maybe it'll just take longer than we wanted to get it ready. Nobody wants to get it on the market more than I do. But not 'at all costs,' not as long as there's a single factor we're not sure of. There's a loose wire in here somewhere. We know that. We've seen signs of it. Until we find it, we can't let anyone use it. It's as simple as that.” He spoke concisely and clearly, and the more agitated Frank got, the calmer he was.

“No, Peter, no …it's
not
that simple!” Frank bellowed at him, provoked to even greater fury by his son-in-law's maddening coolness. “Forty-seven million dollars in four years is not 'simple' by any means. Just how much money do you think we're going to pour into this for chrissake? How much money do you think there is?” He was getting nasty, and Peter refused to rise to the bait as he addressed him.

“Enough to do it right, I hope, or kill the product. We always have that option.”

“The hell we do!” Frank was on his feet shouting at him. “Do you think I'm just going to throw nearly fifty million dollars out the window? Are you crazy! Whose money do you think it is? Yours? Well, think again, it's mine, and the company's, and Katie's, and I'll be goddamned if you're going to tell me anything. You wouldn't even be here today if I hadn't bought you, lock, stock, and barrel for my daughter.” His words hit Peter like a club and took his breath away, and suddenly all he could think of were his father's words eighteen years before when he had told him that he and Katie were getting married.
'I'll never be anything more than a hired hand, son
…
don't do it.
“ But he had, and look what had happened. This was what they thought of him eighteen years later.

Peter was on his feet too by then, and if Frank Donovan had been even a few years younger, and a little less crazed, Peter would have hit him. “I'm not going to listen to this,” Peter said, feeling his whole body shake as he restrained himself from hitting him, but Frank wouldn't give it up. He grabbed Peter by the arm and went on shouting.

“You'll listen to anything I goddamn tell you, and you'll do whatever I want here. And don't give me that holier-than-thou look, you sonofabitch. She could have had anyone, and she wanted you, so I made you what you are today, so she wouldn't have to be embarrassed. But you're nothing, you hear me, you're nothing. You start this whole goddamn project here, you cost us millions, you make promises, you see rainbows, and then when there's a little problem that some French prick thinks he sees in a dark room, you stab us in the back and want to squeal like a little pig all the way to the FDA. Well, let me tell you something, I'll see you dead before I'll let you do it!” But as he said the words, he clutched his chest, and began to cough frantically. His face was so red it was almost purple, and it was obvious he couldn't breathe. He clutched both Peter's arms then, and Peter was supporting the older man's full weight as he began to fall, and Peter almost went with him. For an instant, he couldn't believe what had happened, and then he knew. He set him down quickly on the floor, and dialed 911 as fast as he could, and gave them the details. Frank was vomiting by then, and still coughing, and as soon as Peter set down the phone, he knelt next to him, turned him on his side and tried to support his weight, and keep his face out of his own vomit. He was still breathing, though with extreme difficulty, and he was barely conscious, but Peter was still reeling from everything the old man had said to him. He had never known he was capable of so much venom, so much that it may have killed him. And all Peter could think of as he crouched holding him was what Katie would say if he died. She would blame Peter for it, she would say it was his fault for being so difficult and challenging him on Vicotec. But she would never know what Peter had just heard, what her father had said to him, the unforgivable things he had just hurled at Peter. And he knew, just as the paramedics came, that no matter what happened afterwards, it would be impossible to forget, or forgive him. These were not just affronts conjured up in a fit of rage, these were deep, ugly weapons that he had been hiding for years, concealing from him, and keeping to use on him one day. They were hurtful daggers that had run him through, and Peter knew he would never forget them.

The paramedics were working on Frank by then, and Peter stood up and backed away. His own clothes were covered with vomit, and Frank's secretary was standing in the doorway in hysterics. Several people were in the hall, and one of the paramedics looked up at Peter and shook his head. His father-in-law had just stopped breathing. The other two paramedics took the defibrillator out, and ripped his shirt open, just as half a dozen firemen came through the doorway. It looked like a convention, and they all knelt, working on him for half an hour, while Peter watched them, wondering what he was going to tell Katie. He was just beginning to think there was no hope at all when the paramedics told the firemen to get the gurney. His heart was beating again, irregularly, but it was no longer in fibrillation, and he was breathing. Frank looked up at Peter blearily, with an oxygen mask on, but he didn't say anything, and Peter touched his hand as he went by him. They were carrying him to the ambulance, and Peter had had the secretary call his doctor. They were waiting for him at New York Hospital with a team of cardiologists. He had come within a hair of dying.

“I'll meet him there,” Peter told the paramedics and hurried to the men's room to see what he could do with his pants and jacket. He kept a clean shirt in a drawer, but the rest of him was a mess. Even his shoes were covered with what Frank had vomited on him. But even more than that, Peter still felt covered by the ooze of what he'd said to him just before that. The viciousness that he had hurled at him was so vile it had almost killed him.

And five minutes later, Peter emerged from the men's room in a clean shirt, pants that had been cleaned as best he could, a sweater, and clean shoes. He went to his office to call Katie. Luckily, she was still at home, she had been just about to go out and do some errands. And as she answered the phone, Peter almost choked on his own words. He didn't know how to tell her.

“Katie …I …I'm glad you're home.” She wanted to ask him why, he had been so strange with her lately, clingy in an odd way, and depressed. He had watched television a lot a few weeks before, and then not at all. He had been obsessed with CNN for a few days, and he had been so strange about wanting to take a vacation with her.

“Is something wrong?” She glanced at her watch. She still had a number of things to do for Mike before he left for Princeton in the morning. He needed a rug for his room, and she needed to get him a new bedspread. But she was suddenly caught short by the tone of her husband's voice when he answered.

“Yes …there is …Katie, he's all right now, but it's your father.” She almost stopped breathing when he said it. “He had a heart attack in the office.” He didn't tell her how close he'd come, or that his heart had actually stopped beating for a few seconds. The doctors could tell her that later. “They just took him to New York Hospital and I'm on my way there now. ? think you should come in as soon as you can. He's feeling pretty rocky.”

“Is he all right?” She sounded as though the bottom had just fallen out of her world, and it had, and for an ugly moment Peter couldn't help wondering if she would have sounded like that if it had been him instead of her father. Or was Frank right? Was he just a toy they had bought and paid for?

“I think he'll be all right. It looked a little grim there for a minute, but the guys from 911 were great. We had paramedics here and the fire department,” and there was still a policeman outside calming everyone down, and taking a report from Frank's secretary, though even she didn't know exactly what had happened. They were waiting to talk to Peter, but it all seemed pretty straightforward. But as Peter listened to his wife, he realized that she was crying. “Take it easy, sweetheart. He's fine. I just think you should come in to see him.” But he suddenly wondered if she'd be in any shape to drive. He didn't want her having an accident on the way in from Greenwich. “Is Mike around?” She sobbed into the phone that he wasn't. He could have driven his mother in if he'd been there. Paul only had a learner's permit, and wasn't a good enough driver to come all the way in from Greenwich. “Could you get one of the neighbors to drive you?”

“I can drive myself,” she said, still crying. “What happened? He was fine yesterday. He's always been in such good health.” He had, but there were mitigating factors.

“He's a seventy-year-old man, Kate, and he's under a lot of pressure.”

She stopped crying then, and her tone was hard when she asked the question. “Were you two having an argument about the hearings again?” She knew they'd been planning to meet about it.

“We were discussing it.” But they were doing more than that. Frank had been hurling abuse at him, but he didn't want to say anything about it to Katie. What her father had said had been too hurtful to repeat, particularly in light of what had happened after. If he died now, Peter didn't want Kate to know that had come between them.

“You must have been doing more than 'discussing' if he had a heart attack,” she said, accusing him, but he didn't want to waste time with her on the phone and he said so.

“I think you should come in. We can talk about all this later. He's going to cardiac ICU,” he said bluntly, and she started crying again. Peter hated the thought of her driving. “I'm going over now, and see what's happening. I'll call you in the car if anything changes. Make sure you leave your phone on.

“Obviously,” she said with a cutting edge to her voice as she blew her nose. “Just make sure you don't say anything to upset him.”

But Frank was beyond listening to anyone when Peter got to New York Hospital twenty minutes later. He had to talk to the police first, sign some forms the paramedics had left, and he got caught in endless traffic on his way to the East River. And when he got there, Frank had already been heavily sedated. He was being closely watched, and his face had gone from florid to gray now. His hair was disheveled, there was still dried vomit on his chin, and his bare chest was covered with wires and sensors. He was attached to what looked like half a dozen machines, and he looked both extremely sick and far older than he had an hour before. And the doctor told Peter honestly that Frank was by no means out of the woods yet. He had had a major heart attack, and there was still a risk that his heart would go back into fibrillation. The next twenty-four hours were crucial. And looking at him,
it
was easy to believe all of it. What was impossible to believe was that two hours before, he had actually looked youthful and healthy when Peter walked into his office.

Peter waited for Kate in the lobby downstairs, and he tried to warn her before she came up. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and her hair was a mess, and she had a wild-eyed look of panic as she rode up in the elevator with her husband.