Big Medicine (A John Tall Wolf Novel Book 5) Page 4

  Well, they could, of course, conceive a child during one of their visits with each other, but once the baby was born surely they’d have to change their circumstances. Wouldn’t they? The thought that they might not was another disturbing idea.

  Their final abiding concern was what they should do about Coyote?

  John had come into their lives when they’d saved him from being eaten by the largest coyote either of them had ever seen. Apart from its size, the animal had seemed to be an ordinary member of its species, except for the extraordinary sense of malice it had seemed to bear the Wolfs when they’d taken its meal away.

  The creature had acted as if it would neither forgive nor forget.

  Not even after it had gorged on its next prey.

  Hayden and Serafina still rued their decision not to kill the beast. Unlike most professionals trained in empirical modes and methods, the Wolfs made room for the mystical in their thinking. They’d seen too much and knew too much to limit themselves to reproducible laboratory results.

  They knew gods, ghosts and goblins had been part of the human experience since the species began to walk upright. Many such beliefs were nothing more than the attempts of small, fragile creatures — i.e. people — to understand far greater forces of nature. That was inarguable, except for those people who did argue with it.

  When it came to modern medical science, masses of research produced new advances seemingly on a daily basis. For all that, there were still many things no doctor could explain: the sudden, non-traumatic death of someone judged to be perfectly healthy or the spontaneous remission of a normally fatal disease.

  There was also the phenomenon known as the placebo effect: a positive health result achieved not by a supplied “sugar” pill but by the expectation the pill would effect a beneficial outcome. A common explanation was the body’s own chemistry could mimic that of a prescribed pharmaceutical.

  Such was the best guess of the scientific community.

  That same group of empirical thinkers, however, largely refused to accept that negative expectations could be planted inside someone else’s head with harmful or even fatal results. But that was often exactly the intended outcome that practitioners of what was called sympathetic magic, or sometimes voodoo, envisaged.

  Usually such dark psychic manipulation required a physical link, say a lock of hair, a tooth, a fleck of skin. In the case of Coyote, the Wolfs had just the connection they needed. When they’d saved John from the beast that had intended to devour him, Serafina had pelted the animal’s snout with a rock. Both blood and fur from that coyote had adhered to the missile.

  Serafina, of course, had bagged the stone in plastic and kept it all the intervening years.

  You never could tell when you might need a tool to mess with someone’s head.

  If there were a paranormal link between the animal who had sought to eat John and Marlene Flower Moon, well, then they had a dedicated line into her every dream. Both Hayden and Serafina felt that was indeed the case.

  That direct connection was also a feedback loop. They could feel both fear and anger building in Marlene’s mind as they tormented her. She might seek them out, looking for vengeance or at least relief.

  They were ready for that. Whatever the outcome of their battle, they were sure they could cause Marlene enough pain to make her rethink any hostile plans she might have for their son. They’d rescued him once, and now they intended to make sure there was no second attempt to take their son’s life.

  At least by Coyote.

  Any good parents would do as much.

  United States Patent and Trademark Office — Alexandria, Virginia

  The Director of the USPTO was an African-American woman named Hezzie Jones-Greer. After getting a Bachelor of Science degree in molecular and cellular biology at the University of Illinois, she’d gone on to the University of Chicago for her law degree. So said the diplomas hanging on her office wall. The woman herself was tall and lean with caramel colored skin and pale blue eyes.

  On the drive down to Alexandria from DC, John had sent her a text from his government phone, so the note came up with his name and title, John Tall Wolf, Director, Office of Justice Services, BIA. His message said. “Three Indians, none of us little, two full blood, one half-blood, would appreciate the professional courtesy of seeing you at your earliest convenience. We’ll be brief.”

  John thought the one-government-agency-director-to-another card might be a good one to play. The three not-so-little Indians joke would help if Ms. Jones-Greer had a sense of humor. Turned out, she did.

  Her reply said, “I’m coffee and cream myself. Come on by.”

  Having been forewarned, Hezzie Jones-Greer had three guest chairs set out in her office for her visitors. She gave everyone a smile and shook hands with each of them. She saved Alan White River for last, held his hand the longest.

  She told him, “Stealing that locomotive and filling it with your people’s sorrows was a brilliant act of civil disobedience, Mr. White River. I’m going to see the Super Chief at the train museum the next time I get home to Chicago. I’m so glad you’ve been released from prison.”

  White River nodded humbly and said, “I have not yet been freed, just paroled to the custody of my great-grandson here. I have to stay in his close keeping for two years or until I die, whichever comes first.”

  John gave the old man a look of surprise.

  “What,” White River asked, “did I forget to tell you?”

  “Either that or I’m rapidly losing my memory,” John said.

  Not wanting to get involved in a family spat, Hezzie said, “How may I help you, Director Tall Wolf?”

  She gestured for everyone to take a seat.

  Giving White River one more glance, John turned to his hostess. “Dr. Yvette Lisle has had some very significant research data stolen. Potentially, it might be highly valuable both in terms of saving lives and making money. I’m investigating the theft. It occurred to me that the person behind the crime might try to apply for a patent on Dr. Lisle’s work. My thought was if we alert you to the nature of the work, your agency might flag any incoming patent application and help us catch the thief.”

  Hezzie had been nodding along to John’s narrative, but stopped when he finished. She’d put on her thinking cap. The one she’d earned in law school. No doubt the USPTO had its own rules and regs to consider, as well as any intellectual property laws.

  She looked at Yvette Lisle and asked, “Will you please outline for me just what was taken from you? You don’t have to give away any trade secrets but please be specific enough that I’ll know what to be looking for.”

  Dr. Lisle verbally sketched the nature of her work and more generally her approach to it.

  Hezzie paused to let the information sink in, and then asked, “Do you know the criteria for a grant of patent?”

  Dr. Lisle nodded. “I do. An invention must be statutory. That is, it must fall within the guidelines of the patent law. It also must be new, useful and non-obvious.”

  Hezzie smiled. “Very good. Do you think your work meets those standards?”

  “I do. My work, I think, is more than innovative; it’s groundbreaking. That makes it both new and non-obvious. It also is likely to save an untold number of human lives. That would inarguably make it useful.”

  “And do you think you’re close to completion of your work?”

  “I think I’m close to starting clinical trials.”

  “Okay, that works for me, too. It’s also the good news. What’s more problematic is that just about every country in the world grants its own patents. You know that, right?”

  John fielded that question. “I hadn’t thought of that. The thieves could go elsewhere.”

  “That’s right,” Hezzie said, “but if that’s the case, they’d probably choose an advanced country that wouldn’t mind bumping heads with the United States. China comes to mind; so does Russia. What I’d suggest you do there is hire a first-rate intellec
tual property rights lawyer with global connections. I can recommend three firms, if you like, and you could choose one.”

  “Yes, please,” Dr. Lisle said.

  “Okay, I’ll text the names and phone numbers to Director Tall Wolf. One thing I’ll need to flag an application in our system is a copy of the police report describing the theft you suffered,” Hezzie said.

  “I can provide one,” John told her.

  “Okay, involving the local cops would help buttress things.”

  “How about I get the FBI involved since part of Dr. Lisle’s funding comes from the federal government?” John asked.

  “That’d be even better,” Hezzie told him. “It’s been a pleasure to meet all of you. Sorry about your difficulties, Dr. Lisle.”

  “So am I,” she said.

  Los Angeles, California

  “What’s the case?” Rebecca Bramley eagerly asked Emily Proctor

  “Employment fraud. Happened to a nephew of a friend of my dad.”

  Rebecca understood the link to the prospective client, but not the cause of action.

  “I’ll need more information,” she said. “You know, what we’re actually looking at here. That and how we can help this guy.”

  “Sure, I felt the same way when my dad came to me. Here’s what happened. You know about Silicon Beach, don’t you?”

  Rebecca shook her head. “I’m still pretty new here.”

  “Okay, Well, everybody knows about Silicon Valley.”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, Silicon Beach is L.A.’s equivalent to that. It’s a corridor of high-tech companies along the coast stretching from LAX, the city’s airport, north to the Santa Monica Mountains. Some people would generalize Silicon Beach to include all of L.A., but mostly it’s snugged right up against the ocean. At least, I think of it that way.”

  “Okay, I’m with you so far. So where does the fraud come in?”

  “Well … do companies up in Canada use non-compete clauses when they hire people?”

  Rebecca tried to think if she’d ever heard of that. “Damned if I know. I was in the public sector, and nobody in Canada competes with the RCMP. I’d think, though, that if it’s prevalent in the U.S., we probably have it at home, too, at least to some degree.”

  “Okay, so here’s the thing. Just about anybody who goes on a payroll in white-collar America these days has to sign a non-compete agreement to get hired. That means if you quit your job you can’t go to work for another company that does anything like what your old company does. Courts will usually demand such agreements be reasonable in duration and scope, but going to court for any reason is an expensive proposition, and then you might lose.”

  Rebecca made a disapproving face. “Sounds awful to me.”

  “Me, too. If enough people put up a stink, there’ll be a law getting rid of the restrictions or at least loosening them considerably. But, here and now, non-compete agreements are broadly used and often legally upheld, according to what my dad tells me. If you’re a creative person in the arts or high-tech, it can really put you in a box in terms of job mobility.”

  “Sounds like indentured servitude.”

  “Close,” Emily said.

  “So that’s the fix this guy is in. He signed one of these non-compete agreements?”

  Emily shook her head. “He says he didn’t. He says he refused to sign both the non-compete and its off-premises ideas clause.”

  “What the heck is that?” Rebecca asked.

  Emily said, “It’s a paragraph that basically says if you get a bright idea at home or out riding your bike, the company owns the commercial exploitation rights to that idea, too.”

  “That’s horrible. Who’d ever agree to something like that?”

  “People who can’t be picky about finding a job, but not our guy. He says he made the company, a start-up at the time he was hired, redraft his employment contract without the offending clauses. The company wanted him badly enough to agree.”

  “So where’s the problem?” Rebecca asked.

  “The problem is there are now two signed and dated employment contracts: Our guy has one in his possession; the other is in the company’s hands.”

  Now Rebecca understood. “Each contract favors the party who holds it.”

  “Right.”

  “Both contracts are countersigned by the other party?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And our prospective client has come up with an idea of great value? Something he dreamed up at home, no doubt.”

  Emily grinned. “You must’ve done good police work up there in Canada.”

  “I had my moments. So what’s the advantage the company has? What’s tilting things in their favor? It has to be that way or the guy wouldn’t need us.”

  “The company has a video,” Emily said. “It shows our guy signing their version of the contract — with three witnesses watching him do it.”

  “To which our potential client replies?”

  “He says it never happened. He’s never met or even laid eyes on any of the three witnesses in the video. There’s a problem with that, though.”

  “What?” Rebecca asked.

  “In the video, after he signs the agreement, he shakes everyone’s hands.”

  “And the rebuttal to that is?”

  Emily said, “A classic: ‘Who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?’”

  Rebecca sighed. “This doesn’t look promising.”

  Emily shrugged. “You like a good challenge, don’t you?”

  That was exactly the right button to push, Rebecca thought. She wondered how Emily knew that. Maybe just an on-the-mark guess by one female soon-to-be-former copper about another. A woman didn’t get ahead in any police department without more than a little spunk.

  It was good to know from the start that she and Emily were simpatico.

  “Yes, I do,” Rebecca said. “Please tell me, though, that this guy can pay our fee.”

  “He’s stone broke. All his cash and credit are tied up in his new company, I was told.”

  Rebecca sighed, thinking: Take this office’s first case on spec? No way, José.

  She wondered if that was still a current American idiom.

  If so, was it now considered politically incorrect? So much to learn.

  Then Emily refocused the discussion. “It’s okay, his father is willing to pick up the tab, and that guy’s so loaded you’d think he’s got his own printing press at the U.S. Mint.”

  That put things back into the realm of possibility, but Rebecca had one more condition to add. If it turned out to be a deal-breaker, so be it.

  “Junior has to put some skin in the game,” she said. “Besides our regular fee, if we save his financial backside, he hands over 100 shares of his new company to McGill Investigations International. Agreed?”

  Emily smiled and nodded. “Yeah, I like that.”

  The White House — Washington, DC

  The governing administration of the United States had changed the previous Friday, as had the occupants of the White House, but the uniformed officers of the Secret Service were holdovers from the Grant Administration. When John rolled up to the Southeast Gate — after dropping off Alan White River and Dr. Lisle at her lab — the officers on duty recognized him. Even so, one of them took a look at his BIA credentials. You never knew when a Russian agent might try to pass himself off as a six-foot-four Native American.

  “How goes it, Officer?” John asked. “The new boss treating you all right?”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Director. You ask me, we should have female presidents from now on. At least if they’re like these first two.”

  That opinion might have been influenced by the officer’s own gender.

  She added, “You’re here to see …”

  She paused to think of how to describe John’s host. He wasn’t the president’s henchman as James J. McGill had been, but the word hadn’t been given whether he should be addressed as the First Gentleman or somethin
g else.

  John resolved her quandary by suggesting, “The president’s surfing instructor?”

  The officer fought it but couldn’t keep a smile off her face.

  “Yes, sir: Mr. DeWitt.”

  “That’s who I’m here to see.”

  “Very good, sir.” She gave him his visitor’s pass and told him how to find DeWitt’s office.

  Before heading off to seek a parking space, John asked the officer, “Do you think I’d make a good Secretary of the Interior?”

  She thought for a second before saying, “I think that’d be a bit of type-casting, sir, if you don’t mind my saying so. I’d hold out for Secretary of State if I were you. You’ve got the height to look down on all those foreign guys. Make them think they’d better not mess with us.”

  John nodded and laughed before driving off.

  He found a spot to park his car and made his way to the East Wing. That was where, back in the old days, the First Lady had her office. DeWitt had chosen not to occupy that fairly generous space. He’d set up shop in what had been the First Lady’s secretary’s office. A cunning move, John thought.

  He’d pre-empt any would-be critic who might accuse him of being either unduly ambitious or half the man he used to be. There was, after all, still floral print wallpaper in the former First Lady’s digs, chosen by its last female occupant.

  John knocked on the door to Byron DeWitt’s new professional lodgings.

  “Is that my art-therapy instructor come-a-calling?” DeWitt sang out.

  Opening the door, John said, “No, it’s just me, but my mother once showed me how to string colored beads in a Meso-American style. I could share that with you.”

  DeWitt grinned and said, “Maybe next time.”

  John closed the door behind him and took a look around. The room had a view of the South Lawn, the better to see the President depart and arrive on Marine One, John thought. The furnishings looked both tasteful and comfortable but in no way ostentatious. Photos and paintings of California landscapes and city scenes hung on the walls.