BLIND TRIAL Brian Deer (best novels for beginners TXT) 📖

station as a bare-shouldered lady emerged. Maybe she was a scientist or a physician, he wondered. Maybe she used overheads, like Sumiko. Maybe she’d a pointer, like Sumiko at the conference: a tap on a keyboard, a jingle of bangles, and a red dot dancing across a screen.

She’d phoned last night—right after his mother—with some story about the San Fran center. She said she’d found a “secret letter,” the “clearest breach of the protocol.” She was practically wetting herself with elation.

“Yep,” he’d responded, as his mind wandered hopelessly to what he’d learned only minutes before. “That’s shocking… No… Ahh… Yes… Really?”

A telephone beeped at Darlene’s desk. “Yes, of course,” she murmured. “I’ll send him up.”

Fourteen

ALONG A gray-carpet corridor two floors above marketing Theodore Hoffman fondled a basketball, ready to take his next shot. During months of practice, he’d honed his technique until from his desk, on the northeast corner of the building, he was nailing the hoop—nearly twelve feet west—on at least two attempts in ten.

According to Building Services, his was the third biggest office, surpassed only by Marcia Gelding’s and the boardroom. But what it gained in size, it lost out in technology: Hoffman would only read documents on paper. Two trays on his desk were piled with correspondence. An eight-chair conference table was stacked with cardboard folders. And one end of a three-seat emerald leather couch was heaped with lawsuit filings.

Today’s schedule listed lunch with the Chamber of Commerce: something about Black Lives Matter. In the meantime, he took shots and dictated memoranda over the latest board-level situation. Some group in Houston was threatening a class action claiming forty-seven suicides on Vendrecol. Of course, there were suicides. Those people were sick. Why else were they using the product?

The ball lingered in his left hand while his right tapped an icon on his cellphone’s voice-recorder app. “Advise Sandra Chin to get our contact in Victims of Vendrecol to press urgency on the group. Rumor we’ll offer five million, max, to settle.”

As he spoke, Corinna Douglas, his senior secretary (forty-eight, stretched knitwear, smell of shower soap and coconut) entered with hands raised for protection. “Now don’t you throw that.” She laid a file on the desk. “And I’ve got Mr. Louviere, you wanted, outside here. Throw that and I’ll sue. I swear.”

Hoffman launched the ball. It missed Corinna and the hoop before rolling out of sight beneath the couch.

HE WAS dressed in white, like Truman Capote, or the organist at a Mormon wedding. The resemblance to his daddy was enough to blow your hair back. Same build. Same mouth. Same eyes. For sure, no mutt jumped the fence with Suzy Louviere: the man himself could be standing there now.

“You find that laptop?” Hoffman thrust a paw. “Just kidding. You saved that woman’s life.”

“Don’t know about that, sir.” They shook, firm but brief. “She only sprained an ankle. No big deal.”

“Sure, you know. Marcia’s heard.” He pointed to the couch. “And I want to tell you personally, you’re doing a great job. I was wrong to get so riled last week.”

Ben sank in emerald leather and spread his legs. He was looking too comfortable already.

“They catch the guy?” Hoffman knelt and retrieved the ball. “That dumbfuck asshole who knocked her down?”

“Nope. Nobody gave a shit.”

“Didn’t call the cops then?”

“Waste of breath. Some jerk not looking. Or least not looking at her.”

Hoffman took another shot, missed the hoop, and the ball bounced feebly on the carpet. “Get a description?”

“Looked like Jimi Hendrix.”

“Fuck. What an asshole. Out-of-control asshole. But I guess it might least get her off our ass, though. Take her mind off whining about Wilson.”

Ben leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, thumbs under his chin, nose pointing down, eyes raised. Then he unleashed The Look: the Louviere Look. It was years since Hoffman last saw it. Gazing blue through black eyebrows, like a dog in long grass. A little open-mouthed, tongue in cheek. It was a look that said, trust me; a look that said, together; a look that said there’s them and there’s us.

Then The Look disappeared. “Except she’s still whining about Wilson.”

Hoffman laced his fingers and popped his knuckles. “Fuck it. You’re kidding? What now?”

“Was gonna tell you this morning. She called last night. You’d think she was breathing through her butt. On and on she went, for half an hour.”

“And?”

“And is she went to the San Fran Clinical Evaluation Center yesterday. Place was all shut up, she said. Found some crap about some guy Wilson bumped off the trial.”

Hoffman poked his phone to close the voice-recorder app. “So, she’s everything but thrown under a subway train and, inside twenty-four hours, she’s going through Wilson’s records? That what you’re saying?”

“Yeah, well, wouldn’t anybody?”

“They would? Why?”

Ben blinked at the windows. “Why? Isn’t it obvious?”

“Not obvious to me.”

The kid gazed at his feet and stroked a gray loafer. “Conspiracy, she reckons. That’s her word, ‘conspiracy.’ Says Wilson probably wants her killed or something. Big Pharma. Deep State. All that stuff.”

Nature, or nurture? Hoffman wondered. These behaviors must surely be genetic. Ben’s daddy always figured himself the best gambler not in politics. But Hoffman knew his tells. Every one. If Henry gazed at his feet, it signposted a lie. If he drummed with his fingertips, then he’d worked out a plan. And if he raised both hands and scratched behind his ears, it meant he wasn’t getting his way.

“Bullshit, junior. She don’t think nothing like that. Just making up trouble while she’s got the chance, while she figures we’re all jumpy over the license.”

“You’re right. She is. She’s looking to make trouble. Says she’s printed off a list of something from the database.” The kid’s paws moved to the sides of his head. Then he rasped behind his ears, as if filing his nails. Such habits cost his father pretty big.

Hoffman yawned and bounced the ball. “Here, go one-on-one.”

The kid had the benefit of youth and enthusiasm but lacked the seniority for success. When the outcome looked