Free Dead End Deal by Allen Wyler

Dobbs stood in the doorway, a white Starbucks cup in each hand.
    “May I come in?” Without waiting for a response, he stepped into the office and set one of the cups on the desk next Jon’s other cup. “Oh, sorry, didn’t know you already had one.”
    “No, that’s fine. Finished it an hour ago.” Jon dropped the cold, barely touched latte in the wastebasket. It hit the bottom with a thump too hard for an empty, exposing his white lie.
    Wayne cocked his head and eyed him. “What’s wrong, did someone die?” He quickly slapped a hand over his mouth. “Oh dear . . . I’m sorry . . . I didn’t mean . . .”
    Jon waved it away. “I know you didn’t. When things go bad, they really go bad. Sorenson just called.”
    Wayne frowned, “And?” while carefully setting his latte on the desk.
    Jon told him the bad news, that their project was dead. Wayne just sat there inspecting his thumb nail, turning it this way and that, ears bright red. When mildly perturbed, Wayne became sarcastic. When outraged, he usually settled into eerie silence. But his ears were the best mood barometer. Jon broke the silence with, “I’ve been thinking.”
    Wayne shot him a tight-lipped questioning look. “About?”
    “Maybe I could talk to Richard Stillman, see if I can persuade him into funding the work. Do the trial with Trophozyme. What do you think?”
    Wayne studied him a moment to gauge his degree of seriousness. Then, with a laugh, “Even if I thought you were serious—which I don’t—I’m not sure you could handle it. Given your history with him, and all.”
    “As far as I see, it’s our only option.”
    Wayne picked at his thumb a moment. “Maybe, but do you seriously believe that arrogant prick would be gracious enough to do something like that? By that I mean, help us out without gloating or rubbing our noses in it?”
    “Yes. If he thought it might help him and Trophozyme. Besides, we’re big boys. We can take some gloating if it gets the work done.”
    Wayne shook his head and crossed his arms. “I don’t know . . . the bad blood between you two . . . ”
    “There’s something I didn’t mention.”
    “I don’t like the sound of that,” Wayne said.
    “Don’t worry, it’s nothing that affects you, but it is relevant. About five months ago he invited me to have lunch. I told him if he wanted to talk, it had to be here in my office. Surprisingly, he agreed. He came over, we talked, he offered me the job of Chief Medical Officer.”
    Wayne’s eyes grew wide. “At Trophozyme? And you didn’t tell me?”
    “I figured I’d never work for him, regardless of how big the salary or what signing bonuses he put out there to entice me. So I didn’t even ask any particulars.” Actually, he told Stillman he’d worked too hard at becoming a surgeon to now leave clinical practice for a life of 100 percent lab rat, that the present university position allowed him to practice neurosurgery in addition to running a lab. Yet he hadn’t been completely truthful with Stillman. Putting aside the personal animosity between them, Jon’s real reason for rejecting the offer was the strong prejudice Gabe instilled in him years ago, that corporate biomedical researchers were not real scientists, they were nothing more than businessmen in disguise. That their ardent claims of wanting “to improve people’s lives” basically served as just a smokescreen for their real motivation: to make money. And lots of it. Nothing more, nothing less. Capitalism at its finest. He agreed with Gabe and wanted no part of Stillman’s world. Early on, when Jon made his first presentation at a national meeting, Stillman stood up and embarrassed him, Gabe’s prodigy, in front of the audience, making public their mutual disrespect.
    “Why are you telling me this now?”
    “Because he acted different than I’d ever seen him, at least to me he did. He seemed to sincerely want him and me to start over, maybe establish a good working