FanStory.com - The Devil Fights Back

Recap of Chapter 6: Fran breaks into Kevin Glazer’s apartment to try to find evidence of his malfeasance. She discovers a satellite phone that she suspects he’s been using to send and receive calls from a buyer for not only the Dipraxa formula but other patents he has stolen with Brittany Edwards’s help at the patent office.

Fran downloads the sat phone call log and Kevin's computer data to her laptop, which she brings to her hacker friend, Patty Mattson, to see what they can discover. Patty helps her find the Dipraxa data on the computer in an encrypted folder and also finds out from the sat phone call log that the calls were to and from China.

Fran calls her boss, Lou, at the FBI and tells him she’s found the culprit, but she also reveals that they have a bigger problem now because the Chinese are the ones responsible. She agrees to meet Lou to discuss everything the next day.

Chapter 7

Dana

A few minutes past 7:00, I spotted Fran as she entered the restaurant and waved her over to the table. She was smiling. She’s rather large and no raving beauty, but she was attractive tonight, wearing a fashionable sage-colored dress with low heels. She wore a little makeup too.

“You look like a different person tonight, Fran. Did you catch your kudzu planter?”

“I caught him alright. Now I just have to figure out a way to stop the kudzu from spreading. But one step at a time.”

“That’s the ticket.”

Our waitress came by and took our drink orders, and we ordered some bruschetta to share for an appetizer.

“So, where’s hubby tonight?” Fran asked me.

“He’s attending a banquet with his banker friends, or a ‘Bank-quet’ as they advertised it. They’re such a clever bunch,” I said with a smirk. “It sounded pretty boring to me, so I begged off and accepted your invitation instead.”

Fran smiled. “I’m glad you did. You were like chicken soup for the soul last night.”

When our drinks arrived, I said, “Here’s to new friends and chicken soup,” and we clinked glasses.

“You know, Fran, I wasn’t completely forthcoming about Glyptophan when we discussed it last night. I was even a little surprised when you mentioned it because it’s been weighing on my mind recently.”

“Oh? In what way?”

“It’s created a moral dilemma and has further added to some misgivings I’ve been having about my company lately.”

“How so?”

“I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but Big Pharma sort of deserves the poor reputation it has of only being concerned about the bottom line and doing whatever it takes to make it as large as possible.”

“That is the picture most people have of it. Like what sort of things?”

“Well, like spreading misinformation about a competitor’s products.”

“That’s pretty common in more than just the pharmaceutical industry. Is it different somehow when you guys do it?”

“Kind of. In our case, it can sometimes mean life and death, or, in the case of Glyptophan, it’s a quality-of-life issue.”

“Can you be more specific?”

I paused for a few seconds, weighing the matter. “I really shouldn’t discuss this with you, but you know what? Fuck it. I’ve been pretty disillusioned with them lately. I’ve even been thinking about quitting.”

“Over what?”

“Lots of things, but most lately this: I think I told you the inventor of the drug was not too popular with us because he’d beaten us to the punch by a mile with his new drug. My boss wants the pharma reps to lie about it and tell our customers, if they ask, that Glyptophan is having all kinds of problems with side effects during testing and that it’s unlikely it will ever be approved by the FDA. I’d be pretty pissed if I were that inventor and found out that was going on.”

“Oh, he fully expects that sort of thing.”

I looked at Fran quizzically. “You say that as if you know him personally.”

“I should. He’s my brother. I didn’t tell you that last night, because I didn’t want to rub it in that he had developed a drug that would likely make your company suffer financially.”

“Hmm. I wondered why you were curious about it. Now it makes sense. YOUR FRIGGIN’ BROTHER INVENTED IT! Wow, you must be proud of him. From what I’ve heard, the phase-1 trial went smashingly well, and everyone who took part had incredible pain relief.”

“It’s true. Brian’s very encouraged by it.”

“I also heard that he developed it by himself in his own home lab and that he doesn’t work for anyone. How could he afford the expense of that? Are you guys really rich?”

Fran chuckled. “I’m not, but he sure is now that he has a licensing agreement with Detry Pharmaceutical. They paid him a fortune for the right to manufacture the drug if it passes all the human trials. He just got a big bonus for a successful phase-1 trial. But they didn’t give him any money until he’d already developed the drug and the FDA approved it for testing. He built the lab in his home with the money he and his wife had saved.”

“His wife must have had a lot of faith in him. I’ll bet that made a significant dent in their savings.”

“She’s an absolute gem. Her name is Julia Kendrick. Perhaps you’ve heard of her?”

I shook my head.

“She’s a world-famous violinist who tours the globe as a soloist with big-name orchestras. Makes damn good money doing it. Of course, that’s on hold now because she became a mommy this year and will be staying home with the baby for some time.

“She’s amazing, though. About a year ago, she joined this little bluegrass band as its fiddle player. She plays the banjo too, and they have a few gigs around the state from time to time. Can you imagine that? This world-class soloist, playing fiddle in a little bluegrass band. I love her.”

“She sounds very special.”

By this time, our food had arrived. I’d ordered Chilean Sea Bass, and Fran had ordered some sort of pasta dish that looked very tasty. We both dug in, and the conversation halted for a few minutes until Fran said, “You sound like an ethical person, Dana, who’s in a job that’s leaving you very conflicted.”

I smiled and shook my head ruefully. “That certainly hasn’t always been the case. I’m what you’d call a late bloomer in the ethical department.”

“Sounds like there’s a story there.”

“It’s a long one, and if you’re interested, I can give you a few of the highlights. But it’s not pretty.”

“I’m interested.”

She did seem genuinely interested, so I began. “I live and work in Philadelphia now, but I grew up in Butler, Pennsylvania. It’s a small town near Pittsburgh with no claim to fame except that Trump nearly had his head blown off there at a campaign rally last year.

“When I was a kid, I thought I was really hot stuff. I was the queen bee who all the cool girls and boys wanted to be friends with. But we were a mean bunch, and all through school, even through high school, we picked on kids who weren’t in the in-crowd with us.

“There was this one girl I grew up with named Abby St. Claire. She was a scrawny little redhead with freckles and glasses. None of the kids in my crowd, or any crowd really, liked her. She was incredibly smart, but she was also modest about it and wasn’t a showoff. Still, we were jealous of her intelligence and never gave her a chance. We laughed at her and gossiped about her. We were real shits towards her.

“One day in seventh grade, a new kid came to school, and he befriended her. This kid stuttered, and we used to tease him unmercifully too. But they started going together.

“Then one day in ninth grade, my mother took me to an ice skating show, and there was this couple of kids who did an ice dancing routine together, and they were fantastic. The girl was beautiful, but they were wearing costumes, and I didn’t recognize them until they’d finished the routine and she removed her turban. This red hair came spilling out, and I suddenly recognized her. It was Abby and that boy who was now her boyfriend. She must have been wearing contact lenses, and she’d blossomed into a beautiful swan.

“A few weeks later, my friends and I saw them skating on a public pond where we used to skate, and I purposely bumped into her. She fell and broke her wrist, and her boyfriend laid into us. He really shamed me. After that, we left her alone.”

Fran sighed. “Well, we live and we learn.”

“Yeah, but not fast enough.” I stopped for a moment to take a few bites and collect my thoughts for the next part. “I married the captain of the football team soon after high school, but we split up a few years later. It wasn’t a good marriage, and we both cheated on each other.

“I moved to Pittsburgh and became a real estate agent. I was pretty hot in those days and used my natural assets, if you catch my drift, to get some big commissions. I was very successful at it and met my second husband that way. But he turned out to be a louse too, and that marriage lasted only a year.

“Then I moved to Philly and got another real estate job. That’s where I met my third husband. I guess third time’s a charm because we’re still together. Eventually, we moved to Altoona, PA where we joined a country club. Who do I run into there but Abby St. Claire, my childhood target? I hadn’t seen her in 20 years. She’s married with two kids and very successful as the manager of an actuarial department at an insurance company. She was also a damn good golfer. We played together, and she beat me pretty handily.

“I still hated that girl. She was good-looking, and successful, and a terrific golfer. I was good, but not as good as her.”

I stopped for a moment and said to Fran, “This is sounding pathetic, I know. It gets worse. You sure you still want to hear it?”

“Sounds like we’re coming to the good part. Please go on.”

I took a few more bites of the sea bass before it got too cold to eat.

“I happened to notice her daughter, who looked just like her as a kid, practicing on the range. She had a funny swing and wasn’t that good. Then a couple weeks later, I saw her practicing again, and her swing had transformed completely. She was now striping every shot. It was amazing. It was summer, though, and she had on long clothes that covered her body. It was weird, and I suspected something fishy.

“I followed her into the locker room, where she removed this strange-looking body suit that was under her clothes. When she was showering, I stole it from her locker and took it home. I figured this was some sort of training device that improved her swing. I tried it on and tried it out. It was amazing. The damn thing guides you through the swing electronically somehow. You just start back, and it takes over and helps you make a perfect swing.

“I signed up for the club championship and made it to the finals, where my opponent for the final day was Abby. I used the suit to play with, which is strictly against the rules of golf, but I really wanted to beat her. I ended up winning the championship, beating her by a single stroke.

“Later that night, she called me at home and told me she wanted the suit back because she’d figured out I had stolen it and was wearing it. She told me she had invented it and was still testing it because she wanted to market it. I was dumbfounded. She’d invented the damn thing! God, what could that girl not do? I couldn’t face her and left it hanging on the door for her to retrieve.

“I was devastated and brooded for three days about what a shit I’d been all my life. I’d been horrible to her all through school, and now I’d stolen her suit and used it to cheat her out of the title.

“This was a turning point in my life. I called her up and apologized for all the mistreatment I’d ever foisted upon her. We talked for over an hour, and she was gracious and wonderful. The next day we had lunch together at the club, and I told her I would admit to the cheating, give back the trophy, and resign my membership. She urged me not to do that but to keep the trophy and view it as my penance. After that, we became friends. Not close friends, but still friends.

“Since we moved to Philly, I don’t see her much anymore, but we still email occasionally. She became the three ghosts to my Scrooge and helped transform me almost overnight into a much better person. I’m no angel, but I’m a hell of a lot better than I was. I’m much happier now, and I’m forever grateful to her for that.”

I quit talking then, and Fran just smiled and gently nodded her head. “That’s quite a story, Dana. So now you’re facing a moral dilemma about working for a company whose values are at odds with your own. That’s tough. But how about this? Maybe you could help do something about it.”

“What do you mean? Like what?”

“Maybe you could keep your eyes and ears open and find out what they’re up to.”

“You mean become a whistleblower?”

“Why not? You’d be doing the country a big service that way if you could nail them doing something illegal or dangerous.”

I thought about that for a few seconds. “Hmm. Don’t just quit and ignore the problem, but do something about it. What a concept. But there could be some danger in that.”

“Could be.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what, Fran. I could use a little excitement in my life right about now. I’ll think about it. By the way, you’re not really an IT person, are you? You remind me more of a cop, or maybe a Fed.”

Fran just smiled and would neither confirm nor deny it.