Chapter 3: George Bruce Cortelyou

The first thing I did was change the bedroom and bathroom linens in Matt’s apartment. Everything in the washer; then fresh sheets, pillowcases, towels. Kitchen napkins too. I wasn’t trying to remove the Matt-scent; that was baked into the condo. I just liked ... fresh. Clean.

I didn’t even try to not think about the times, good times, that he and I had spent here. Laughter, bed, laughter, food. I got a little teary a couple of times, but my sobbing days were in the past. At least I hoped so.

I double-checked both of his gun safes. The smaller one had his pistols and my Heckler & Koch. The garage safe held his rifles and two shotguns, one sawed-off. Ordnance disposition was another subject I’ll decide on later. As was what to do with his shiny black Audi.

As part of my new travel-philosophy, I was using Uber and Lyft and an occasional hailed-taxi instead of a rental car. It was a relief not to continually be navigating unknown neighborhoods. Although DC was becoming more familiar to me.

I paid a courtesy call on Constance Grayson first thing Wednesday morning. Before my ten o’clock with Barton Diller.

I had filled Constance in on my latest assignment — working with, working for — Gloria Allen.

“She’s a remarkable woman, Winter.” Of course Constance would know her.

“She told me that attorneys chase shadows. And detectives chase the men who cast those shadows.”

“Women too. But that’s very ... perceptive of Gloria. Almost poetic. Now, can we help you with anything?”

‘We’ encompassed the junior senator from Wyoming, Harper Wainwright.

“Thank you, Constance. It’s too early for me to have a handle on things. And pharmaceuticals ... well, I don’t know much about the industry.”

“You’ll learn. And it’s people, always people. No matter what the discipline.”

I smiled, “You sound like Daddy.”

We were in the senator’s large office in the Hart building, not the private one in the Capitol Building. This one was full of staff, constituents waiting to see the senator, congressional aides on congressional missions. A beehive.

The Queen Bee said, “Come say hello to Harper.”

Well. As of today, I had a cheek-buss, shoulder-hug, relationship with a sitting United States Senator. Of course he was standing ... never mind.

As she walked me to the hallway, threading our way among quietly busy staffers, Constance said, “Give my best to Barton. He’s a good one, Winter.”

Barton Diller may well be a good one, but he had the round, damp face of a little boy who’d never quite been able to please his mother. Moist handshake as well.

But the 56-year old man exuded warmth. Charm. Bright blue eyes glistened with, I assumed, intelligence.

Barton was dressed like a power broker from the 80s. Navy suit-pants, black belt with a gold buckle. Aggressively red suspenders over a blue and white striped shirt. Heavily starched, with a collar pin telling a paisley Windsor knot where to stay.

“My girl take care of you? Coffee? Water? Bit early for a nip.”

His girl, Nora, was the only other person in the office. I knew he had a staff of over thirty people. Probably in some back-office location with less expensive rent than this place on Connecticut Avenue.

Barton had the second of five floors of a handsome, old redbrick building. Two rounded turrets stood sentry on the front corners. The classic structure, according to a discrete brass plaque, had been built in 1894 by Captain Archibald McNally, a seafaring trader specializing in spices.

Nora looked like she was maybe 95-years old, 96, around in there. When I entered the reception area, she turned down the volume on “Post Bail Ballin” from Lil’ Wayne’s “Free Weezy Album”. She smiled and showed me in.

Barton’s inner office resembled the library of a men’s club. Handsome wood paneling, floor-to-ceiling bookcases, shiplap ceiling stained black, a massive rolltop desk. He patted it proudly, “Picked it up at auction. 1992. Belonged to Elihu Benjamin Washburne.”

“Hmm.”

“Secretary of State. Under President Ulysses Simpson Grant.”

“I didn’t know that. Or forgot.”

“No surprise, Washburne fell ill and had to resign after eleven days.” Barton patted the desk again, fondly.

I looked around the office more closely. Lots of old, old furniture. But this wasn’t an antiques showroom — this was a functioning workplace. Full of industry. And reference material.

Those books weren’t for show. They hadn’t been designer-purchased, leather-bound sets. They were the tools of Barton’s trade. Some law books, industry journals, pharmaceutical magazines, government pamphlets ... dogeared with penciled notations. He reminded me of ... well, me. Do all the digital research in the world, then go old-school.

We settled in at a round mahogany table covered with stacks and piles and ... stuff. He tapped the table and said, “Belonged to Ev Dirksen.”

I said, “Illinois.” This guy I’d heard of.

Barton smiled at me, the political savant, “Gloria asked me to school you.”

I nodded, gave him interested, “Yes. About how a new drug acquires a name. Apparently it’s quite the process.”

He sat back, hands folded across an ample tummy. Content, like most of us were, to be the one in the know. He smiled, “We’ll get to that, Winter. Tell me about yourself.”

My favorite subject. But I am a professional detective, licensed, and I was determined not to fall under the spell of a charm offensive. Barton was one of those people with the rare ability to make the other person feel special, the most interesting human in town. He looked directly at me, listened attentively, beamed, nodded, encouraged.

Forty-five minutes later, I finished up, “Constance Grayson said to give you her regards.”

He nodded, “Remarkable woman. Harper has to fight to keep her. Jackals. DC is full of jackals.”

A light on his desk phone started blinking and Barton tapped the screen on his iPhone. Nora tottered in and I could hear Kendrick Lamar’s “The Blacker the Berry” wafting in from her desk.


Nora said, “Senator Mac.”

“Kentucky Mac?”

“Yep.”

“I’ll call him back, thank you, Nora.”

Barton turned to me, “Come to order, class.”

I smiled gamely. A student once again.

“When a client comes to me, that kickstarts the creative process. We’ll study the drug. Research the market. We’ll go through thousands of potential names. Then we start winnowing. We’ll end up with ten potential names. Each will have a rationale, a backstory, a probability path.”

“Probability path?”

“How difficult it will be to work each individual name through the approval labyrinth.” He smiled, “That’s industry code for how much it’s gonna cost you.”

“Got it.”

“It’s a nuanced process — Creation Engineering.”

“Nuanced?”

“Here’s one example. Of thousands. Besides coming up with a name, steering it through bureaucratic swamps, we have to consider the pronunciation — how difficult it is to say, how people with different accents would fare, how other languages would be involved when it rolls out on the international market.”

“I see.”

“And then there’s handwriting. Some doctors, prescribers ... well it’s almost an illegible scrawl. I suspect it’s a med school elective. Anyway, we have to make sure the script can’t be misread as an entirely different medication. That could be fatal.”

“Wow.”

“In a way, drug names are like baby names.” He smiled, nice smile, “For this decade, these were the most popular — Emma, Sophia, Olivia. Boys — Jacob, Noah, Mason.”

“Huh.”

“Pick another decade.”

“The 90s.”

“Jessica, Ashley, Emily. Michael, Christopher, Matthew.”

This was interesting in some odd way I didn’t quite understand.

He said, “Okay, drugs. Some prefixes and suffixes go in and out of popularity. “Pro’ and ‘Oxy’ for example.”

I nodded.

“We focus-group a name before we go into the approval process. Names with X and Z usually do well.”

“Huh.”

“But it’s even more complicated because each new drug has to have three names.”

“Three?”

“That’s right. There’s the chemical name — ingredients. Based on the rules of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry.”

“Should I be taking notes? Recording this?”

“You could, but my girl prepared a file. Flash drive too. You can take it all home.” He smiled, “Everything will be on the final.”

“Got it. So, there are two more names?”

“Right. Let’s say Macklin wants to market a new drug here in America. One agency, the United States Adopted Name Council assigns a generic name to the active ingredient. And that name has to be reviewed and cleared by the International Name Program run by the World Health Organization.”

“This isn’t like choosing between Heather and Jennifer is it?”

“Nope.” Cheerfully. “But the most difficult approval is with the third name.”

“Okay.”

“This is the name that Macklin will use to market the product commercially. As its own brand. The FDA is a stickler on brandnames.”

“And that’s where you come in. Your company.”

“Actually, long before the brandname process. We’re a turnkey operation. A hand-holder from start to success. Brand strategy, name creation, trademark screening, market research, safety research, regulatory affairs, design, packaging, copyright, brand protection through competitive analysis. All of it analog and digital, national and international.”

Like Daddy, I’m more interested in people than process. “And why is it that you’re joining the fight against Macklin?”

He leaned back, folded his hands over his tummy again, “One reason is that Macklin does everything I do in-house. I can’t get an appointment with them. Neither can similar companies like the BRAND INSTITUTE.”

“But the real reason? The main reason?” Dogged detective, on the case.

“Macklin is evil. Now, other pharmaceuticals contributed to the epidemic. Certainly they did. Some started earlier. Some were more prolific manufacturers. But nobody pushed pills as ruthlessly as Macklin did. And nobody hid the family name better than Hugh Macklin.”

Some bitterness there. Good. I like retribution. Revenge. And just plain fucking up the bad guy.

I flew back home Thursday morning. I could get used to this first class stuff. And having a Carmen Ortega orchestrating everything. But after a week of Los Angeles seminars and then a long classroom day with Barton Diller, I was starting to weary of the educational process.

Although Barton had been a gracious host. He and his girl and I lunched on Spicy Thai Salads, 440 calories, from sweetgreen. And sipped single malt Glenmorangie Signet, neat, through the afternoon. Nora turned up Nicky Minaj’s “The Pinkprint” album as we ate. And sipped.

He told me, “Name approvals. In the FDA, the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research rejects about one out of five of the proposed names. Their Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research is even stricter.”

I kept from yawning. Discipline. Maturity. Manners. Nora poured another round. I made it through the afternoon. Maybe I’d learned something that would be useful, maybe not.

Nora came in without knocking one more time. Another flashing light, “It’s Wodehouse. The hatrack.”

Barton jumped over to his desk, grabbed the headset, gathered himself, took a breath, “Hello, Pelham, how are you? And Ethel May? Excellent.”

I knew exactly what he was doing. Trying to tamp down a child’s Christmas excitement.

“Hatrack? Oh yeah, I remember. Bit beat up, wasn’t it?”

After about five minutes, he reluctantly capitulated, “Oh, all right. May as well take it off your hands. I can find a corner for it somewhere.”

Nora whispered, “George Bruce Cortelyou. Secretary of Commerce and Labor. 1903 and 04. Roosevelt. First one.”

Interesting cat, Barton Diller. And the entire name-generation process was more fascinating than I had anticipated.

Nevertheless, I was ready to put detect back in detective. I turned to Macklin Innovation Labs. To their Security setup. If our quest to fuck Macklin up became directly adversarial, this was where the return fire would come from. Probably. Maybe.

Even though it might turn out to be mostly redundant to Gloria Allen’s own research efforts, I tasked Jessie and Jesse Sullivan, “Everything you can find out on Macklin Security. Personnel, biographies, past actions. Anything that jumps out at you.”

It was a Friday night and the three of us were in their little Waldo bungalow. It was around ten, and two different pub-crawl trolleys were making the rounds. They’d hit the Plaza, then Westport, then finish up at closing time back in Waldo. I’d be home long before the bars let out.

Not that I hadn’t closed a few in my time. And my time wasn’t over, not by a long shot. By a lot of shots. But for now ... duty called.

Although duty included an enormous thin-crust pie from Waldo Pizza. And a hearty burgundy straight from the box. Both courtesy of Gloria Allen. Well, more accurately, Gathers and Gates. With an ampersand.

I placed a thick Gloria Allen file on their computer desk. And the thumb drive. “Here’s everything the Gloria Allen team could find on security.” Left unsaid: ‘can you guys do any better?’

The diminutive redheads were in their usual nighttime attire — PJs. One pair, shared. Jessie wore the Kelly green top, casually buttoned and barely rump-covering. Jesse wore the bottoms low on his slender hips. Both were natural redheads. Both seemed perfectly at ease.

Well, why not? We were old friends. This was their home. We were in their office, which was the second bedroom of their two-bedroom house. What they got up to after I left ... well, that was their own fucking business. So to speak.

Back in the day, I heard my share of lines. Get-into-my-panties lines. Okay, more than my share.

One sophisticate — older dude in high school — came up with a new one. He hadn’t known it, but it wouldn’t really have been necessary. I was pre-sold.

He had me lying down on the sofa in his parents’ basement rec room. Hand under my blouse. Another between my thighs, “God invented sin so that we may know His mercy.”

Macklin Innovation Labs is, technically, headquartered here in Kansas City. In the Power & Light District. And, Hugh Macklin lives in town, spends some office time here. But the real activity center is in New York. That’s where marketing, legal, security, distribution, and research is based. And where Hugh Macklin has a massive apartment downtown in the former police headquarters on Centre Street. In what’s left of Little Italy.

The Macklin lab itself had migrated from Kansas City to an industrial tract outside of Edison, New Jersey back in the early 90s. Convenient to their Sixth Avenue offices. Around forty miles.

Not everyone who lives in Kansas, that hemorrhoid of a state, is a clot-faced wet. For example, Phillip and Rebecca and Mindy Montgomery used to live there. Vanessa, Walker, Pilar, and I had been guests at their Mission Hills home several times. Which the Montgomerys still own. I guess people of means hang on, real estate-wise.

But Mission Hills was also the ancestral home of the Macklins. Yet another strike against the pill-pusher. Fucking Kansas.

Credit due, Hugh Macklin had commissioned an architecturally striking downtown office building. Modern and sleek and rounded, the 14-story curved glass edifice had won several regional AIA awards. Like the nearby H & R Bloch building. Everything’s up to date in Kansas City.

Except. Macklin had changed the name of his building. Of his company. From MACKLIN INNOVATION LABS to INTERNATIONAL INNOVATIONS INCUBATOR. His PR department press-released: “Triple-I. A new name, a bolder game.”

The conversion to Triple-I was public, legal, official. They even changed their NYSE symbol.

One thing that didn’t change — Hugh Macklin owned a majority, a controlling majority, of Class B shares. Which meant that the major decisions on acquisitions, mergers, and, significantly, Board members were his to make.

What most people didn’t then understand, and still don’t — dropping the corporate name ‘Macklin’ coincided with the opening skirmishes of the nationwide investigation into opioid manufacture and distribution.

Locally, here in the greater Kansas City metro area, Hugh Macklin stepped up his public generosity. A gift to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. The amount of the donation was never disclosed, but enough zeros were involved to name a wing — ancient Oriental paintings, silks, jewelry, tapestries — after Hugh’s father.

In addition to the money, Hugh Macklin donated almost 200 Far Eastern artifacts from his own collection.

The black tie dinner to celebrate the Grant Macklin Wing was the social highlight of the Spring season for a certain stratum of society. Well, KC society.

He poured even more money into the University of Missouri, Kansas City. Hugh Macklin funded a good portion of the endowment intended to create a second campus, this one downtown.

And the Macklin support in the educational field wasn’t confined to his hometown. Hugh Macklin moved around the country, aggressively funding chairs, scholarship programs, research labs, campus buildings. And the company, now Triple-I, recruited just as assertively. They hired tenured professors, graduate assistants, students still in undergraduate schools.

There was an unceasing hunger for top talent in the pharmaceutical industry.

So. The public face of the increasingly generous Macklin family. The private face of INTERNATIONAL INNOVATIONS INCUBATOR. Triple-I.

This week’s New Yorker drawing: Death, carrying a scythe, wearing a hooded sweatsuit and sneakers, faces a woman.