Syndrome Part 22

"I propose we do it the other way around. You go down and look around, take measurements, make sketches, whatever it is you do, and then get back to me with some ideas. That'll be our starting point." He picked up a walkie-talkie on his desk and punched a b.u.t.ton. "Ken, could you please come up. I'd like you to show Ms. Hampton the service floor." He clicked it off without waiting for a reply. "I'm due down at the office. When I get there, I'll have them cut a check for five thousand dollars as a retainer and messenger it over to your shop."

Is this going to work? he wondered. Maybe I should be pushing harder. .

He examined Alexa Hampton one last time as he rose to leave. Yes, she's a rare woman. Wouldn't it be ironic if Karl actually could do something for her heart?

_Monday, April 6

10:49 A.M.

_

As Ally watched Winston Bartlett sweep from the room, she was still trying to take measure of the man. What troubled her was why Grant and Bartlett were both so anxious to get her and her mother out to the clinic. But give Bartlett his due. He could charm the birds off the trees.

She looked around the room, wondering what the old kitchen and staff quarters would be like. Certainly not like this. The library/bedroom had a rich, over-the-top feeling, with a beautifully molded plaster ceiling, a virtual bas-relief of fruits and birds and clouds all meticulously painted. It wasn't the Sistine Chapel but had some of that feeling. The paneling and wainscot were burnished mahogany, and the floor was a mix of hardwoods worked into an isometric design. She decided it was probably the most luxurious private residence she had ever seen.

Citis.p.a.ce was mainly known for its creative handling of lofts in the abandoned commercial buildings of SoHo and TriBeCa. These old mansions of the nineteenth-century moguls were an entirely different world. It was intimidating, but she was sure she could do something below stairs that would retain the period flavor of the building while creating the kind of semiprofessional s.p.a.ce he said he wanted. Still, it was different from anything else Citis.p.a.ce had ever done, so he had no way of knowing whether or not she could pull it off. Again that question: why on earth would he hand her this plum job?

And where was his wife? Although he liked to be photographed with blond starlets, the tabloids always reminded you that he had a wife someplace. The two doorbells were a tip-off that that someplace was here. Best guess: she probably had the top floors.

My G.o.d was Madame Bartlett going to get involved in the renovation? A lot of women with superrich husbands and too much time on their hands come to a.s.sume that that happenstance creates in them a natural gift for interior design. Big problem.

But whatever happened, this could be a sweetheart job. And maybe she'd get a crack at that museum he'd talked about. That was the kind of thing an architect-turned-interior- designer dreamed about.

She looked up to see the j.a.panese man--Bartlett had called him Ken-- stepping into the room. He was all business.

_Monday, April 6

11:08 A.M.

_Winston Bartlett was on the phone to Van de Vliet the moment he stepped into his limo to head downtown.

"She said she's thinking about bringing her mother out to the inst.i.tute, Karl. I believe she's ready to do it. Before she changes her mind, I want you to talk to her and schedule an appointment for tomorrow morning, if you can."

"I'll put in a call to her office."

"Karl, she's not there now. Try her cell. Grant has the number. We need to get moving on this. I've done about all I can at the moment." He was watching the midmorning traffic that was clogging the avenue. He always felt claustrophobic in a limo, even a stretch. The only time he felt free was when he was in the McDonnell Douglas chopper. When he was flying the chopper, against all the laws of civil aviation.

"Don't you think that's a little pushy, W.B.? We shouldn't seem too anxious. Believe me, I've had a lot of experience with ambivalent patients."

"All right. She should be back at her office sometime after lunch."

"I'll wait awhile and put in a call there." He paused. "When was the last time you saw ... Beta One? The situation at Park Avenue?"

"I don't want to discuss it over a cell, Karl." This conversation was definitely a bad idea. "She comes and goes. I think it's getting worse."

"I'll try to get over there late this afternoon and look in on her,"

Van de Vliet said. "I want to see her every day."

"Karl, we can't give up hope. Never give up hope."

He clicked off the phone and thought about his c.r.a.pshoot with G.o.d.

Kristen had wanted to play, to experiment with the Beta. But n.o.body made her undergo the procedure. She should never--

His cell phone rang.

"Yeah."

"Mr. Bartlett," came a female voice with a Brooklyn accent, "it's Bernd Allen calling."

"Put him on."

s.h.i.t, Bartlett thought, this is news I don't want to hear.

Bernd was a Brit who was in charge of day-to-day accounting for Bartlett Medical Devices. He was forty-seven and not a risk taker and he was always worried about something. That was his job. These days he had plenty to be worried about

He had been running a weekly projection of the cash flow at BMD, and the drawdown was now getting perilous.

The flagship product of Bartlett Medical Devices had been the "balloons" used in heart angioplasty that inflate and expand clogged arteries. They were marketed together with stents, miniature metal mesh supports that keep coronary arteries open after angioplasty. The problem was that in 27 percent of the cases, the stents manufactured by BMD caused scar tissue to form, a process called restenosis, and re- block an artery, requiring a repeat of angioplasty or even a bypa.s.s operation. Other manufacturers' numbers were not any better. But a few months back, out of the blue, Hemotronics, a competing company near Boston, had introduced stents coated with drugs that prevented scarring. BMD's piece of the $2.6 billion angioplasty market had plummeted from 13 percent to 4 percent and was still dropping like a stone.

Add to that, two t.i.tanium joint replacements for arthritis patients that they'd pinned their future on--along with millions in cash--still had at least two years of human trials left before

they could hope for FDA approval. Long story short, BMD was in a mature product cycle with its most lucrative hospital hardware, with nothing major in the pipeline for at least two years. They had bet the ranch on the stem cell research at Gerex.

"W.B., I just got last week's numbers back from the green- eyeshade chaps downstairs. As you asked, I had them refine all the a.s.sumptions.

Remember the union contract. There's going to be a three percent wage increase for all hourly personnel at the end of the month. And we didn't hedge our Euro exposure and now it's going against us. That's my own b.l.o.o.d.y fault. And since we don't have any pricing flexibility in that territory at the moment it's like a four percent haircut right off the bottom line. Remember we ran that in a worst-case scenario a while back. Well, chances are we're about to see it for real."

Bartlett had been watching the rate of cash burn and trying not to let the problem be evident. The logical thing to do, start laying off workers in the fabrication divisions, was out of the question. If you had a make-or-break deal cooking, you couldn't afford to look like you were on the ropes.

"Give me some parameters," Bartlett said.

"You know we've already hit our credit lines at Chase about as hard as we dare without them calling for a review. So unless we try to refinance some real property, say the flagship building downtown--and in this interest-rate environment any rational lender would put a gun to our head--we've got to ink this deal with Cambridge Pharmaceuticals in two months max. Right now we're living on borrowed money and it's about to be borrowed time too."

You don't know the half of it, Bartlett thought. I'm already living on borrowed time.

What's more, if word of the Beta gets out, we can kiss the buyout _adios_. The adverse publicity and legal problems ... n.o.body's going to buy into that kind of liability. Not Cambridge, not anybody. Bernd doesn't know about it yet. If he did, then he'd really be worried.

"Bernd, take a deep breath. We're on schedule and we've got to make sure we stay that way. Get hold of Grant and tell

him I want him to double-check the regulatory situation for the Cambridge deal. I know he already has, but I want a memo from our attorneys by noon tomorrow. If there are going to be any roadblocks cropping up, we need to know about them now. We can't afford to be blindsided."

He clicked off the phone and tried to think. In the confines of a limousine, it was hard.