A Patent Lie (10 page)

Seeley looked around the room with its corny nautical decorations hanging from the ceiling and walls. Behind the cashier's stand was a small open kitchen, with the cooks' busy white backs. Every fifteen seconds the booming of a foghorn punctuated the background buzz of conversation.

While they ate, Lily, with Seeley's encouragement, talked about herself. She grew up in China, came to the United States on a student visa for graduate and postgraduate work, married Warren, a Canadian software engineer living in the United States, and ended the marriage two years later when she failed her husband's expectations of a dutiful Asian wife and refused to give up her career to have children. By this time, she had already started publishing articles in immunology under her married name, and so continued using it after the divorce. When Steinhardt left UC for Vaxtek, he offered her a position in his new lab, but she went to St. Gall instead, converting her F-1 student visa to an H-1.

Unlike other lawyers, Seeley took little pleasure in recounting trial stories, but when Lily asked him about patent cases he'd worked on, she seemed genuinely inquisitive. He was telling her about a case seven years ago, involving a drug-coated stent that had so revolutionized cardiovascular surgery that demand from surgeons across the country overwhelmed his client's capacity to supply the market, when a shrewd light went on in her eyes.

“I bet that instead of trying to shut down the infringers, you just asked the court to make them pay a license fee.”

Her quickness stunned him. “How did you know?”

“Greed is an unattractive quality. Your client couldn't supply the market by itself. Patients needed the stent. It would have been bad strategy to ask for more.”

“If we said it was all or nothing, the court probably would have struck down the patent and given us nothing.” For the first time in a long time, Seeley was enjoying a conversation.

“That's the difference between science and law,” Lily said. “In law you can divide things up so everyone gets something. In scientific research there's only one winner and lots of losers.”

The way she said the word told Seeley that Lily would not accept being one of the losers.

“Had a lawyer ever done that in a patent case—not try to shut down his competition?”

Seeley shook his head. “Sometimes the hardest part of a case is convincing the client to do the right thing.”

“And you're always so confident about knowing the right thing to do?”

When Seeley returned her smile he realized that he was flirting with her. “In trials, sure.”

The waitress cleared away their plates and flipped her pad open for dessert orders. “The Snickers bar pie is one of our specialities.” Lily shook her head and said tea would be fine. Seeley asked for coffee.

“You enjoy eating, don't you?”

“Sure,” Seeley said, “when the food's as good as this.”

“Do you like dim sum?”

When Seeley nodded, she said, “In China people have it for breakfast or lunch. I like it for dinner. And mine's better than what you can get in a restaurant.”

Seeley didn't know where this was going.

“Your reflexes outside the courtroom could be better. That was a dinner invitation.”

“Just like that?”

“Why not?”

“I'm going to trial in three days.”

“You still have to eat dinner. My apartment's in Half Moon Bay—it's only forty minutes from the city.”

“Why?”

“I already told you. If I'm going to talk to you, I need to know you better.”

“When you left UC, why didn't you go to Vaxtek with Steinhardt?”

“How about next Tuesday?” She had taken a leather-bound calendar from her purse.

“I'd like that. But finish telling me about you and Steinhardt.” Tell me, Seeley thought, what your feelings were for this arrogant peacock.

“When he went to Vaxtek I'd already worked with him for three years. It seemed like a good time for me to move to a different lab.”

“Did you have him over for dim sum dinners?”

The porcelain cheeks colored, and Seeley wondered how seriously he had overstepped.

But her voice was even; she seemed neither angry nor embarrassed. “I had a relationship with Alan, if that's what you mean.”

Either Steinhardt was lying when he said that her crush was unrequited or Lily was. Seeley decided to believe her, even though he couldn't picture her in Steinhardt's arms nor him in hers.

She read his reaction as surprise. “Which stereotype are you sticking me with—cool, dispassionate scientist or chaste Chinese lady?”

“Neither. It's just that—”

She laughed. “I like discovering things, finding out what goes on behind the professional front that people wear. Alan is a very interesting man, and even though it didn't last long, I'm glad we had a relationship.” This time she enunciated the word carefully, as if it might explode. She looked directly at Seeley. “You're an interesting man, too. Even enigmatic.”

“How so?”

“You come on tough and in control, but when the waitress asked you what you wanted to drink, the way you looked at that row of beer bottles, you could have been a teenager mooning over a pretty girl.”

Seeley reminded himself to be more careful the next time he took a scientist to lunch.

“I can understand your leaving Steinhardt's lab, but why'd you go to a place the size of St. Gall? I'd think you'd be afraid you'd get lost there.”

She studied Seeley and waited a moment before she spoke. “That's what Alan said. But it was either that or get lost in his shadow. Alan's not the kind of person who shares credit.”

This made more sense to Seeley than what she said before. “But when, out of nowhere, he tells you he wants to publish articles with you, you go to his lab to see him.”

“I believed him. People change.”

Sure they do, Seeley thought. In the case of people like Steinhardt they get worse.

“Alan was right about St. Gall not giving me the recognition I deserved.”

“They were ready to have you testify in court that you invented AV/AS.”

“That was only after Vaxtek sued them, and it was their lawyer's idea. They thought a woman scientist would play well to a San Francisco jury.”

Emil Thorpe would know exactly what worked with a San Francisco jury. “So, before anyone knew there would be a lawsuit, you went to see Steinhardt and he left you alone in his lab—”

“He had to go to his office to get the UC notebooks.”

“And a security guard found you.”

“It wasn't a big deal. As soon as Alan came back he told the guard I was with him.”

“But the guard wrote in his report that you were there alone.”

She saw where Seeley's questions were going: that Steinhardt had set her up, creating an appearance of industrial espionage, with her as the spy. “No one would have known I was there if one of the lawyers in your office hadn't connected the guard's log and the witness list.”

“And St. Gall dropped you as a witness because they thought you stole Vaxtek's secrets.”

“Isn't that why you're asking all these questions?”

“Why did St. Gall make you promise not to talk about what happened?” “They fired me, but they got me a job at a small start-up they're financing in Half Moon Bay.”

“Are you happy there?”

“I'm in a holding pattern. It's mostly busywork. St. Gall wants to keep their eye on me until the trial is over.”

“You could get a job anywhere. Dozens of companies would hire you.”

“Not without a visa. All St. Gall has to do is call Immigration and I lose my H-1.”

That was the hold that St. Gall had on Lily. Deportation. It was why they didn't need her signature on a secrecy agreement.

“You're a citizen of this country,” she said. “You have no idea what it's like to live with the constant threat that, if you look at somebody the wrong way, you get deported.”

“Is your family still in China?” If family was neither an attraction nor a consolation for Seeley, it might be for Lily.

“My parents are in their sixties. They live in Wuhan.”

Seeley was certain she was going to tell him more, but she glanced quickly at a mirror in her purse and, after removing a business card, snapped the bag shut. “Have you ever done science, Michael?”

“Football practice got in the way of biology lab when I was in college.”

“Then you have no idea how different my world is from yours.” While she spoke, she wrote on the back of the card. “Whatever else is wrong with your country, America is still the best place in the world to do science. It's one of the few places where a woman can hope to get recognized for what she does.”

The dining room had emptied. A lone waitress leaned against the cash register. Warren handed him the business card, on which she had written her address and Tuesday, 7:30.

Seeley said, “You must want something very much to risk having St. Gall see you with me.”

She sipped her tea. “You're afraid that something is going to come out in court and ruin your case.”

Seeley nodded, once again admiring how quick she was. “And you've told me what you're afraid of. So why don't you tell me what it is you want?”

“Look, Michael, we each have our own reasons, but the way things are arranged, St. Gall's not going to say anything, in court or out, and I'm not, either. So this secret you think I'm hiding is not going to be a problem for you.”

Her logic was as impeccable as she was. But it was lawyer's logic, and for Seeley that had never been enough.

SEVEN

It felt illicit being in his brother's house with him not there. Renata told Seeley that Leonard was working late and would meet them at Joel Warshaw's party. “Leonard loves parties,” she said. “Take your tie off. The only one there with a tie will be the headmaster.”

“Headmaster?”

“It's a benefit for the Hill School. Joel's on the board.” Renata's hands went to Seeley's collar and deftly loosened the tie, opened the top button, and slipped the tie from its knot. She let one hand stay fl at on his chest. “Healthy heartbeat,” she said and handed him the tie.

Seeley looked down at her, flustered.

A quizzical smile played on her lips. “Next time,” she said, “I'll use an anesthetic.”

It was late October, but the evening was balmy and Renata suggested walking the short distance to Warshaw's house. The light sleeveless dress clung to her slender figure, and she threw a sweater over her shoulders on their way out the door. “You made a conquest, you know.”

Seeley didn't know who she meant, and didn't want to hear that it was her.

“Judy Pearsall called this afternoon and asked if you were going to be at Joel's. She's on the school's board—she's on lots of charity boards—but she doesn't usually come to these things.”

“She said she'll be there?”

“No, but the way she asked about you, I'm sure she will.”

Judy didn't impress Seeley as someone who chased strangers on a whim. He said, “She doesn't believe the police, that her husband killed himself.”

“How could any wife believe that?”

“Especially if her husband's life insurance has an exclusion for suicide.” Seeley didn't like to think that about Judy, but the apartment with its good address, high ceilings, and fine plaster walls was not cheap, nor was her daughter's private school tuition.

“I'm sure you have a soft spot for widows and children, but Judy doesn't need insurance money. She's from one of the old San Francisco fortunes—sugar, something like that.”

They were crossing a broad avenue, and parked cars lined both sides of the street ahead. For some reason, in this flat, well-paved town, almost all of the vehicles were mammoth four-wheel-drive SUVs.

Renata said, “I'm sorry I never met your wife.”

“Clare.”

“Do you have a lady friend back in Buffalo?”

Before he could answer, Renata said, “Here's Joel's.”

“No,” Seeley said.

White-jacketed valets collected keys and cars at the entrance to the property. Warshaw's house, at the end of fifty yards of cobblestone drive, was two stories of light-colored stucco, fl at-roofed and vaguely French, as if the architect had Versailles in mind with the rooftop balustrade and stacked quoins where the two wings joined the main part of the house. Contemporary sculptures, two of them brightly painted, dominated the sloping lawn. The other, of twisted rusting iron, Seeley recognized as the work of a former client in New York. The wail of a saxophone pierced the air.

With Renata, Seeley passed through a bright, high-ceilinged foyer to a flagstone terrace. The band, saxophone still soaring, was on the terrace, and more sculptures followed a gravel pathway that wound through three or four acres of lawn ending in a line of redwoods.

A striped tent the size of a house had a small stage and rows of folding chairs inside. An amateur-sounding auctioneer, his voice amplified by loudspeakers hidden in the trees, was soliciting bids for a spa weekend for two at Big Sur donated by a resort. Guests, wineglasses in hand, moved between tent and terrace. A few of the older men were in blazers and sport shirts, but most, like the younger ones, were in jeans or rumpled shorts, polo shirts, and running shoes. The women, glossy blondes, formal in skirts and heels, looked like they had dressed with more elegant companions in mind. The faces were lean, tanned, and, for all the smiles, fierce.

Renata touched Seeley's elbow and whispered, “Your new groupie.” He turned to see Judy approaching them. Renata gave her a quick greeting. “I'm going to find the drinks,” she said, and left.

“It's good to see you,” Judy said. “Bob used to meet Joel here, rather than at the office.” She frowned. “Apparently the CEOs down here like to stay close to home.”

Like kids in a sandbox, Seeley thought. “Is this for Lucy's school?”

She shook her head. “Lucy goes to school in the city.” She saw the question in his expression. “I went to Hill School when it was all girls. They started admitting boys fifteen years ago.” Again, her expression told Seeley that she didn't approve.

“Was there a reason you asked Renata if I'd be here?”

Her mouth moved for a moment, but no words came—Seeley realized that he had been too direct—but she quickly recovered. “What does someone do if they think the police aren't looking sufficiently into a crime?”

“You could hire a private investigator.”

She shook her head. “I don't think so.”

“You could have a lawyer look into it. Have you talked to any of your husband's partners?”

“Heilbrun, Hardy's a San Francisco firm. That's where its influence is. They don't know anyone in San Mateo.”

Seeley remembered Barnum saying that he had started out as an assistant district attorney in San Mateo. “Do you know Ed Barnum? Vaxtek's general counsel.”

The noise from the tent had grown and Seeley noticed that more guests were crowding into it.

“He called me. He said he talked to the police and they were doing everything they could do. But—”

“But you don't trust him?” He knew what was coming.

“I know we've just met, but I trust you.”

Why, he asked himself, hadn't Lily been as trusting. “I don't know anyone in San Mateo.”

“I know this sounds silly”—her eyes didn't waver—“but you remind me of Bob, and I suppose that's why I trust you. I know you're busy with the trial, but I was hoping you might make a few inquiries.”

Seeley could think of no way to say no. It wasn't the demands of the trial that concerned him; he could handle those. What he couldn't manage were Judy's expectations and the possibility that he would fail them.

“What have the police told you?”

“Nothing, really. Bob spent the day at his office. They're trying to track down who he had lunch with, but they know he had dinner with Chris.”

“Palmieri?”

She nodded. “Would that be unusual?”

“They were preparing for a major trial. It would be unusual if they didn't have dinner together.”

“They went to an Italian place in the Marina they both liked. Chris was the last person to see Bob.”

Not the last, Seeley thought, just the last one the police knew about.

“Were there any new people your husband met who he talked about?”

She started to shake her head, then stopped. “When I took Lucy to the airport this afternoon—she's on her way to France with the school choir—she told me that once, when Bob picked her up from choir practice, she saw him sitting in the auditorium with the other parents, but when practice was over, he was gone. She went into the hall, and he was by the staircase, talking to another man, a stranger.”

“When was this?”

“Maybe a week or so before Bob died.”

“Did she describe the man?”

“No. Bob told her he was involved in a case he was working on.” She looked away for a moment. “God, I miss him.” It wasn't a complaint, just a statement of fact.

“Have you told the police about this?”

She shook her head. “I just learned about it.”

“Do you think she could describe the man?”

“I suppose so. She comes home in five days. The trip was planned long before Bob died. We're trying to make everything as normal as we can.”

“Did she tell you anything else about the man?”

For the first time since they met, Judy smiled. “Maybe it was going to France, her remembering.”

“What's that?”

“Lucy said the man spoke English, but he had a French accent. Could that be a connection? That the man Bob was talking to was French?”

“I'll make some phone calls,” Seeley said.

“That's all I was hoping for.” Her eyes, filled with hope, told Seeley what he already knew—that he should have said no.

Seeley nodded in the direction of the tent. “Are you interested in the auction?”

“No,” she said, turning to go. “I just came to see you.”

The crowd now overflowed the tent and Seeley took a place by the entrance. He recognized the trim white-haired man on the stage as a former pro quarterback, and later coach, who had gone on to make a comfortable fortune with a string of auto dealerships. The white tennis shirt and light-colored slacks showed off his tan and he moved about the stage with an athlete's grace. He spoke softly into a handheld microphone about his connections to the Hill School—his daughter was a graduate and his grandson was the school's present quarterback—and then, raising his voice and blinking into the make-shift spotlight, he cried, “So let's do something for the kids!”

A younger man who had been waiting at the back of the small stage came forward, took the handoff of the microphone with a flourish, and started the bidding. “Thanks to the generosity of the San Francisco 49ers organization, and our longstanding friendship with the coach, we're auctioning off a full game day, including access to the field and locker rooms, access to the press box, and dinner and photographs with the team. Bidding starts at $5,000!”

The bidding moved rapidly around the tent with hands gesturing eagerly. At the side of the stage, an older man in tie and blazer—the headmaster, Seeley concluded—watched intently, as solemn and self-possessed as the prime minister of a small country, his eyebrows rising at each $500 increment. Seeley saw Renata, her arm linked with Leonard's, behind the raised arm of a bidder. When the arm lowered she saw him and tipped her wineglass in his direction.

At $18,000, the bidding slowed, and when it reached $22,000, it stopped. The coach came to the auctioneer's side—Seeley saw at once that this had been planned; it was an act—and leaned into the microphone. The crowd was going to have to do better for the kids, he said, and, just to make it more interesting, he was throwing in travel to the game on the team's private jet, lodging for the night at the team hotel, and all meals with the team. “But,” the coach said, “I don't want to hear any bids unless they go up a thousand dollars at a time.”

A few feet from Seeley, just inside the entrance, a man's hand shot up. “Twenty-three thousand!” Under the youthfully cut gray hair, the man was red-faced and glassy-eyed, and it didn't surprise Seeley to see a large tumbler half filled with whiskey and ice in the other hand. The woman next to him, jewelry flashing, rubbed his back vigorously.

“Twenty-four!” The bid came from closer to the stage. The bidder rose from his chair and repeated, “Twenty-four!”

The bidding moved even more quickly than before, to twenty-five thousand, then thirty. The other bidders dropped out at thirty-five, and it became just the two men trading bids. The auctioneer turned to one man, then the other, before his rival even shouted his new bid. With each bid, the coach punched the air.

The bidder close to Seeley said to the woman, whose hand was still on his back, “I can't stop him. I knock him down, he just gets up.” His face was bloodred. “Forty-two thousand!”

“Forty-three!”

“Well, just keep getting up and you knock
him
down!”

“Forty-four!”

The bidding stopped at $45,000 and the buzz in the crowd height-ened. Faces turned to the man by the entrance. “Go,” the woman barked into the man's ear. “Go! Go!” He wouldn't look at her, but just shook his head.

The coach stepped forward and this time he took the microphone from the auctioneer. His voice still mild, he said, “I want twice this money for the kids. I don't want to hear fifty thousand, I want one hundred thousand, and I know one of you men has it in you to do it.”

There was a collective hum before the crowd went silent again.

“For my part of the deal, I'll double the pot: whoever wins gets to take his best buddy on the trip with him. But this time, the bids go up five thousand dollars.”

“Fifty thousand!” cried the bidder by the entrance.

A heavy hand clapped Seeley's shoulder. “If he was smart,” the voice said, “he'd offer to take the other bidder to the game. They could split the bid and the auction would be over. They'd each save themselves a bundle.”

Seeley turned and at once recognized the face, pale and moonlike behind rimless glasses, from the cover of a business magazine. Joel Warshaw's only arresting feature was his melting, almost liquid brown eyes, the kind that gets beagles extra pats on the head.

“Fifty-five!” came the cry from close to the stage.

Warshaw said, “You know the Bible story, half a baby is better than none.”

“If I remember right,” Seeley said, “it's half a loaf.” How deformed was the man's character that he would so profoundly mangle the point of the Old Testament story? “It's for charity.”

Warshaw shook his head. “Charity's no excuse for stupidity.” His hand touched Seeley's elbow. “Take a walk with me.”

Seeley followed Warshaw down the gravel path. It had grown dark while he was watching the auction, and spotlights mounted in the trees now illuminated the sculptures and the grounds. The saxophone was gone, and the only sound was an occasional roar from the auction tent. Warshaw bent to adjust a pink-ribboned stake, one of dozens planted every twenty feet or so along the periphery of the property. He was a round man, and the effort of bending and rising showed in his face. The business magazine story put Warshaw in his late thirties, but the unlined face made him look younger.

“Deer,” Warshaw said, wiping his hands on his trousers. “They knock the stakes over.” He continued on toward the trees, not turning to see if Seeley was following, but speaking to the void in front of him. “You're thinking, it's been five, ten years since this property was developed, why does he keep the construction stakes?”

Seeley had worked for self-absorbed men like this before, but never comfortably.

“If you don't mark your boundaries,” Warshaw said, “before you know it, you've lost your property lines and your neighbors are parking on your front lawn. Until the town fathers change the zoning and let me put up a fence, I have the gardener tie on new ribbons every spring.” He prodded a stake with a toe to straighten it. “Leonard tells me you think my patent claims are too broad.”