Page 66 of Not a Word

“Before I show you, I ask you one more time, for real. Can I trust you? Because this is it. This is the whole ball game. I think they’re watching me. If something happens to me, I need backup. Someone else with the courage to take them on. If it’s just me, I go to the Times or the Post or whoever, maybe they think I’m some kind of nut at first, but if there’s two of us, then we’ve—”

“For the love of— Evelyn, you want me to be a goddamn whistleblower? I can’t— I couldn’t.”

“So you’re okay with it?”

“I’m not saying that. For fuck’s sake, Wiffel-Smith is the General Motors of the drug world. Whatever you’ve got in that case, I don’t care what it is, it’d be like going after Godzilla with a peashooter.”

“You think?” She unzipped the case, brought out several papers, and handed them to Brent. He shifted his chair slightly so that he could get some light on the documents.

“What . . . am I looking at?”

“Memos from the desk of Graham Wiffel. Copies, by the way.” She gave him a sly grin.

Brent started reading. “How did you get all this?” he asked, his voice filled with a terrified sense of wonder.

She smiled.

“You’d be surprised what people will toss into the trash, thinking no one will ever see it. But overnight custodians, with the right financial incentive, will happily pass it all on to you the next day. Sometimes, Wiffel tears things up, but as long as it’s not shredded, it’s not that hard to piece together. A little Scotch tape and you’ve got yourself a smoking gun.”

She pointed at the papers in his lap, made a go ahead gesture.

“Read. Fake testimonials. Bribes. Bogus studies. All to make more and more money. This is straight from Wiffel himself. Plans on how to maximize profits at the expense of human misery. They want people addicted. They don’t give a flying fuck about improving anyone’s quality of life.”

Brent picked up a page and started reading. At the top, a red EYES ONLY stamp. It was a ten-point “action plan” from the president himself to counter growing negative publicity about their product and still increase sales. Proposals included secret payouts to major personalities and media outlets for positive stories. A video team would produce testimonials from patients crediting Wiffel-Smith with changing their lives for the better, and the actors who would play these patients could be sourced from various talent agencies. People alleged to have overdosed on Oxy-Mirac would be investigated and evidence “found” that they had a history of drug abuse. Details of how to conduct smear campaigns were included.

Brent looked up. “Oh my god. It’s dynamite. I mean, literally dynamite.”

“No shit,” Evelyn said.

Brent read on, still shaking his head. “They’re soulless,” he said. “They’ve got the moral rectitude of an alligator. Christ.”

“You already knew all this. We all knew it. Not what’s in those memos, but the general drift. You knew it but wouldn’t admit it to yourself.”

He set the papers down, looked at Evelyn. “Maybe.”

“What are your boys’ names?”

“What?”

“Your sons. What are their names?”

“Holden and Reece.”

“How would you explain it to them? What it is you do? You think what you’ve been doing would make them proud? Are you the man they would want you to be? One day, it’ll all come out. If it’s not through me, through somebody else. This kind of depravity will implode from its own meanness. You have to ask yourself, do you want to get ahead of it? Or hang in till the bitter end, when your shares in the company aren’t worth wiping your ass with?”

He said nothing.

“I can’t do this alone. I want someone along for the ride. And it’s going to be a fucking bumpy one too. Crane?”

“Yeah?”

“He makes a New York rat look like a chipmunk. He’s dangerous. Soon as he gets an inkling about what I’ve got, I’m toast. That’s why I have to move on this. Skipping local media. New York Times, baby. Walk in like Daniel Ellsberg did at the Post with the Pentagon Papers. I want to be able to tell them I’ve got someone who can back me up.” She paused, then grinned. “That’d be you.”

She pointed to the papers in his hand. “Those are your copies. Mine are in the car. I’m heading for the border, then straight on to New York. Eight, ten hours if I don’t get pulled over for speeding. I’ll be there by daybreak.”

“And if don’t back you up on this?”

“Don’t break my heart, Brent. Do it for your boys. Make ’em proud.”