Whiplash

"I do not know what to tell the family. They look to me to keep scandal away from the door. But now? I have failed." Gerlach knew Dieffendorf had always worshipped at the feet of the Schiffer family. They'd always insisted the managing director be a medical doctor, and Adler was, having earned his medical degree in endocrinology. What Adler really excelled at, Gerlach thought, was looking both wise and benevolent. Gerlach wondered how many people besides him knew Dieffendorf was the most ruthless man in the room. Gerlach had often wondered if Dieffendorf's precious Schiffer family knew how skilled their managing director was at subtly skewing data so the drug in question was seen as effective enough, or safe enough, to pass review. He was renowned for it, in fact, impressed even the staff writers hired to ghostwrite many of the review articles presented by physicians to the major U.S. medical journals, a longtime practice by the drug companies only recently discovered, causing much chagrin in the medical journal review boards. It was a pity. But Gerlach knew that when one door closed, another opened, like the American FDA's recent approval of drug testing conducted outside the U.S., where the pharmaceuticals would be able to do just about anything they pleased. Didn't the idiots realize this? Not only were they making it cheaper for the drug companies, it meant the bribing of local officials would increase exponentially. Who would care about illegal drug tests run on local natives in backward countries? No one cared now. Gerlach couldn't see anything changing. As long as Dieffendorf and Helmut Blauvelt kept the problems plausibly deniable, the results pleased the family more than their consciences would bother them. But now Blauvelt was dead. It didn't matter, Dieffendorf would soon sniff out another Blauvelt. There were more Blauvelts in this world than anyone imagined. Gerlach said, "Helmut's murder really bothers you, doesn't it?"

"Why do you sound so surprised? I have known and trusted Helmut for ten years. There are others, of course, and I will be forced to rely on them, but I have never trusted anyone like I trusted and depended on Helmut."

"Yes, I too am sorry for it." Gerlach looked over at his boss of more than twenty years, the one always seated on the royal throne, the bastard. But there was one area where Gerlach was the king and so he dug out his knife. He smiled at Dieffendorf, and said in a complacent voice he knew Adler hated, "I miss my wife."

"I miss Claire too," Dieffendorf said, staring out the window, swinging his foot rhythmically back and forth until Gerlach wanted to kick him. "It is a constant ache." Dieffendorf's wife had died of breast cancer six years earlier. He'd even tried two experimental drugs. Nothing had worked.

"I know," Gerlach said as he turned back to the closet to hang up one of his three Savile Row white dress shirts.

Dieffendorf looked over at Gerlach now, his voice meditative as he said, "It was such a shock when your precious Mathilde was struck by that hit-and-run motorcycle driver last year. I remember you couldn't stop crying at her funeral."

"Yes, it was very difficult. It was good to have all my friends there to support me."

Dieffendorf paused a moment, then added, a drip of acid on his tongue, "Laytha, your wife of eight months, is your son's age, Werner." Beneath the drip of acid there was a note of disapproval in his deep resonant voice, but he was masking his envy, Gerlach knew it.

And envy was what Gerlach had wanted to hear. "Actually, Laytha is younger than Klaus by nearly a year," he said comfortably, and gave Dieffendorf a sly smile. "I told you she has a sister who is also very lovely, and very well educated. I believe she just turned twenty-five."

"I prefer not to agitate my children, all of whom are older than this sister." Dieffendorf pushed himself up to his feet. It seemed each year slowed down some other part of him. He saw himself in fifteen years with no moving parts at all. It crossed his mind that when everything stopped moving, he'd just fall over and die. That would be preferable to cancer.

"Why are we talking about your wife? Good grief, Werner, we must decide about our interview with the American FBI agents we'll see tomorrow."

Gerlach shrugged. "There is no other choice but to tell them part of the truth, which, I suspect, they probably believe themselves-Caskie Royal is responsible for the Culovort shortage in the United States, he pressed forward on his own authority. He may also be responsible for the murder of Helmut Blauvelt. They know nothing about Renard. I see no reason to enlighten them.

"If they find Royal, they can surely extract a confession from him, discover why he planned the shortage, and that he acted on his own. You are skillful, Adler, you will steer them away from considering any company involvement. They will close their case. Then we will go home and I will be with Laytha." Gerlach calmly hung up the third shirt.