Read Online A Patent Lie by Paul Goldstein - Free Book Online

he?”
    “A legend.”
    “Alan can be a pain in the ass, but he's a talented scientist. He's won all the prizes but the Nobel. It takes vision like his to design this kind of research, much less pull it off. Looking for an AIDS vaccine is like running a marathon, except no one gives you a map to show you the route or even how far it is to the finish line. If there is a finish line.”
    Seeley said, “I need to be sure he got there all by himself, and that Lily Warren wasn't there, too.”
    Renata said, “Lily Warren?”
    Leonard said, “Twenty years ago, if you asked the best scientists in the business how long it would take to come up with a true AIDS vaccine, they would have told you ten years. If you asked them the same question today, do you know what they'd say?”
    “Ten years?”
    “AV/AS is as close to a real vaccine as anyone's come. It's not like a polio vaccine or measles. It's not a cure-all. Maybe in ten years we'll have a vaccine that is. But right now, this is the best chance we have to save some of these people. Maybe the only chance.”
    Renata said, “Do I know Lily Warren?”
    “She worked with Alan at UC, before he came to work for us.”
    “And,” Seeley said, “she went to work for St. Gall.”
    Leonard said, “St. Gall used her to try to get a look at Alan's notebooks. They were desperate to develop a vaccine strategy. From the papers he was publishing, they knew he was onto something, but they didn't know what.”
    Seeley said, “How do you know that?”
    “One of our security guards found her in Steinhardt's lab alone, after hours.” Leonard chewed as he spoke. “You've got a first-year lawyer on your team who made herself a hero on this. She was going through our security reports, trying to find evidence of industrial espionage, and when she sees Warren's name on one of the reports, she remembers that she was on St. Gall's witness list. That's why St. Gall agreed to stipulate priority. They'd look like common thieves if this came out at the trial.”
    First the stipulation, then the story behind it. What else was his client hiding from him? “Barnum never told me this.”
    Renata had finished her dinner and risen from her place. “I have an early day tomorrow. Like Mike.”
    Leonard didn't hear her. “Ed must have forgotten. Our deal with St. Gall is, they don't challenge our priority, we don't go to the DA with criminal charges.”
    Seeley felt Renata standing behind him. “Did Pearsall know about the deal?”
    “Of course he did,” Leonard said. “He brokered it.”
    “I'm glad you came,” Renata said. “Are we going to see you tomorrow night?”
    Before he could answer, Leonard said, “Joel Warshaw's having a benefit at his house tomorrow night. He wants to meet you.”
    Warshaw was Vaxtek's chairman, but that didn't mean Seeley had to go to parties at his house. “I have a trial to prepare for.”
    “Joel doesn't come in to the office,” Leonard said. “He works out of his house. This is a command performance.”
    All the more reason not to go, Seeley thought.
    “Come by here first,” Renata said. “We'll drive over together. It's just a few blocks.”
    “I'll see if I have the time.”
    Leonard gave Renata a brusque wave as she left the room. Seeley, although she hadn't touched him, had for the briefest moment the sensation of her hands lifting from his shoulders.
    In the living room, Leonard added a log to the fire and took the easy chair across from Seeley. “This is how it used to be, isn't it? The Seeley boys, taking care of each other.”
    Seeley didn't know if it was the wine, or the end of what was probably a long day, or maybe just the person Leonard had become—altogether, they hadn't spent more than two or three days with each other in the thirty-two years since Seeley left home—but it occurred to him, as it had in Buffalo, that there was an unquenchable hole at the center of his brother's life, one that for some reason he thought he could fill