Fatal Reaction

apartment, we began to unpack the cartons of Thai food we’d picked up on the way. As he pulled plates from the cupboards and set the table I poured him a beer.
    “Drink this,” I said, handing it to him. “You’re going to need it.”
    He took the glass and eyed me suspiciously. “Why?” he asked.
    “Just drink.”
    Stephen raised his glass and drained it.
    “Okay. Now tell me what’s going on,” he said.
    “Mimi called me today,” I said, refilling his glass.
    “Oh, no. Did she send us a bill already?”
    “When we get Mimi’s bill you’re not going to need a drink, you’re going to need anesthesia. No, she brought the architect over to look at the back bedrooms this afternoon.”
    “And?” he prompted.
    “And there’s a small structural problem with the apartment.”
    “What is it?” asked Stephen, accepting the refill.
    “The ceiling is caving in on the second floor.”
    “What?”
    “It seems that Paul Riskoff got the co-op board to allow him to build a playground for his children on the top of the building. But you know Riskoff. He didn’t run out to Toys ‘R’ Us and pick up a plastic sandbox and a blow-up wading pool. He put about a hundred tons of dirt on top of the roof. He planted trees—big trees. Unfortunately it looks like the roof isn’t structurally strong enough to support it.”
    “This can’t be happening....” he moaned. My heart went out to him. Little did he know that in the grand scheme of things the problem with the roof was the relatively good news. I poured him another beer. He drained it.
    “Anything else?” he asked.
    “Azor’s been named in another wrongful-death complaint involving Serezine.”
    “Oh, no!” he wailed, laying his head down on the table in front of him. I couldn’t tell whether he was angry or just afraid.
    I produced a copy of the complaint from my briefcase and poured myself a beer while he read through it quickly.
    “This is bullshit,” he announced, looking up from the last page. “Serezine is contraindicated during pregnancy.”
    “Meaning even if she was taking it she shouldn’t have been?” I ventured, wondering whether that, in and of itself, would help us in court or whether it just meant that the doctor who’d prescribed it was another deep pocket to be sued.
    “That’s right. It contains tribulytarin which has been known to cause birth defects. No doctor in their right mind would prescribe it for a pregnant woman.”
    “What if she was given it after she delivered the baby?”
    “Then she wouldn’t have been on it long enough for the drug to have reached a therapeutic dose. It takes at least a six-week course of the drug before it begins to work. This whole lawsuit is complete bullshit.”
    “Let’s just hope it’s not the kind of bullshit a jury will believe.”
    “What do you mean by that? I mean, I’m very sorry about this young woman and her baby. But it’s not our fault. You know her family is just looking for someone to blame and everyone wants to go after a drug company because they think we’ve got the most money.”
    “Even if you’re right, you’re still going to have to defend yourself against it,” I told him.
    “So what you’re saying is that right or wrong, it’s still going to cost us a fucking fortune,” he continued, working up steam. “The goddamned lawyers are the only ones who are going to make out like bandits. What does Tom Galloway have to say about all of this? When he got the news I bet you he ran right out and put a down payment on a condo in Aspen.” Considering that drugmakers are probably the only people more widely vilified than attorneys, he’d generally be more reluctant to slam somebody else’s profession, but in these circumstances I had to admit he had a point.
    “He doesn’t know yet,” I told him. “He’s out of the office because of a death in the family. He’ll be back tomorrow. I’m just relieved you think the drug didn’t have anything to do with this young woman’s death and that of her baby.”
    “Serezine is a drug of last resort, Kate. They don’t give it to you unless they’ve tried everything else first and nothing has worked. It’s a very expensive drug to produce and it’s effective for only some patients. We knew We were going to take a lot of flack the minute we decided to put it on the market. But for some patients, People who have literally spent years in padded cells and straitjackets, it gives them their life back.” He