_Sunday, April 5
8:49 A.M.
_Stone Aimes was staring at the e-mail on the screen of his Compaq
Armada and feeling an intense urge to put his fist through its twisted
spiral crystals. What do you do when you've come up with an idea that
could possibly save thousands of lives using simple Web-based
technology and then the piece gets spiked by your newspaper's owners at
the very last minute because it exposes some important New York
hospitals to unpleasant (but constructive) scrutiny?
What it makes you want to do is tell everybody down on the third floor
to stuff it and walk out and finish your book-- undistracted by
corporate ass-covering BS ... or, unfortunately, by a paycheck.
Around him the newsroom of the New York Sentinel, a weekly newspaper
positioned editorially somewhere between the late, lamented New York
Observer and the Village Voice, was in final Sunday countdown, with the
Monday edition about to be put to bed. The technology was state of the
art, and the room flickered with computer screens, blue pages that gave
the tan walls an eerie cast. Composition, spell-checking, everything,
was done by thinking machines, and the reporters, thirteen on this
floor, were mostly in their late twenties and early thirties and
universally underpaid.
The early morning room was bustling, though it felt to Stone like the
end of time. Nobody was paying any attention to him but that was
normal: everybody was doing their own thing. Besides, nobody else
realized he'd just had a major piece killed at the last minute. Now he
felt as though he were frozen in place: in this room, in this job, in
this life.
The book he had almost finished was going to change a lot of things. It
would be the first major explication of stem cell technology for
general readers. Stem cells were going to revolutionize everything we
knew about medicine and the research was going further than anyone
could have dreamed. The possibility of reversing organ degeneration,
even extending life, was hovering right out there, just at humankind's
fingertips. It cried out for a major book.
He had read everything that had made its way into the medical journals,
but the study that was furthest along was privately funded and now
cloaked in secrecy. It was at the Gerex Corporation, whose head
researcher was a Dutch genius named Karl Van de Vliet. The company had
been bankrolled by the medical mogul Winston Bartlett after Van de
Vliet lost his funding at Stanford.
Winston Bartlett, of all people . . . but that was another story.
Thirteen months earlier, the Gerex Corporation had trolled for
volunteers on the National Institutes of Health Web site, referring to
a pending "special study." The notice suggested the study might be
using stem cell technology in some fashion. If that study was what
Stone Aimes thought it was, it would be the first to use stem cells in
stage-three clinical trials. Nobody else was even close.
Karl Van de Vliet was the ball game. Unfortunately, however, his study
was being held in an atmosphere of military-like secrecy. Why? Even the
identities of the participants in the trials were like a state secret.
Since Winston Bartlett owned Gerex, it surely had been ordered by him.
You had to wonder what that was all about.
Whatever the reason, Stone Aimes knew that in order to finish his book
with the latest information he had to get to Van de Vliet. But Bartlett
had forbidden any interviews, and Gerex's clinic, called the Dorian
Institute, was off-limits to the public and reportedly guarded with
serious security.
But, he thought, perhaps he had just come up with an idea of how to get
around that. . . .
He stared a moment longer at the dim reflection coming back at him from
the antiglare screen, which now informed him that his cover feature had
been chopped. Truthfully, it was happening more and more; this was the
third time in eight months that a major muckraking piece had been axed.
Also, as he stared at it, the reflection told him he wasn't getting any
younger. The hairline was no longer where it had been in his college
photos--it was up about half an inch--and the blue eyes were sadder, the
lines under them deeper.
Still, the tousled brown hair was thick enough, the brow mostly
wrinkle-free, and he still had hope. He wasn't exactly young anymore,
but neither was he "getting on." The "Willy Loman" years remained
safely at bay. He was thirty-nine and divorced, with an ex-wife, Joyce,
who had departed to be a garden designer in northern California, taking
with her their daughter, Amy, on whom he doted. He had a one-bedroom,
rent-controlled apartment in the East Nineties, on the top floor of a
fashionable brownstone. He was socially unattached, as the expression
goes, but he was so compulsive about finishing the book that he spent
weekends hunched over his IBM Aptiva, nursing a six-pack of Brooklyn
Lager and writing deathless prose. The truth was he was lonely, but he
didn't allow himself to think about it.
He'd always vowed he'd amount to something by forty. And now it was as
much for Amy as for himself. She lived with his ex-wife near El
Cerrito, California, and she meant the world to him. The mortifying
part was, he was a week behind with this month's support check. And he
knew Joyce needed the money. It made him feel like a callous deadbeat
dad when the real culprit was an unlucky confluence of inescapable
bills. He'd make it up next week, but he'd sworn he would never let
this happen.
That was why he had a larger game plan. Get out of this frigging day
job and finish the book. The time for that plan to kick in was
approaching at warp speed. This last insult was surely God's not-so-
subtle way of informing him that his future was in the freelance world.
Every day out there would be a gamble, but he could write anything he
damn well pleased.
There was a parable set down by the ancient Taoist philosopher Lao Tzu
that Stone Aimes reflected on more and more these days. It was the
story of two oxen: One was a ceremonial sacrificial ox who, for the
year before he meets the axe, was feted with garlands of lotus flowers
and plied with ox goodies. The other was a wild ox who had to scrounge
in the forest for every scrap. But, the story went, on the day the ax
was to drop, what wouldn't that ceremonial ox give to change places
with that haggard struggling, underfed wild ox?
That's the one he empathized with. The one who was out there, half
starved but free.
The Sentinel was an iron rice bowl that normally never let anybody go
except for grossest incompetence or flagrant alcoholism. On the other
hand getting ahead was all about office politics, kissing the managing
editor's hindquarters, and copying him on every memo to anybody to make
sure nobody else took credit for something you thought of.
On the plus side, he knew he was a hell of a medical journalist. There
was such a gap between medical research and what most people knew, the
field cried out for a Stephen Hawking of health, a medical Carl Sagan.
The way he saw it, there was room at the top and he was ready for a
major career breakthrough. He had done premed at Columbia before
switching to journalism, and these days he read the Journal of the
American Medical Association from cover to cover, every issue, along
with skimming the many other journals now on the web.
The piece that just got cut was intended to show the world that
investigative journalism was alive and well and trying to make a
difference. He'd documented that hospital mistakes were actually the
eighth leading cause of death in the United States. The Institute of
Medicine estimated that medical errors caused between fifty and a
hundred thousand deaths a year--rivaling the number from auto accidents
or AIDS. (He'd gotten enough data to be able to quantify how many of
those deaths were in leading New York hospitals.) Yet there was no
federal law requiring hospitals to report mistakes that caused serious
injury or death to patients.
The reason seemed to be that the medical lobby--he'd named names--had
successfully turned back all attempts by Congress to pass such a law,
even though it was a formal recommendation by the Institute of
Medicine. The problem was, once you admitted you screwed up, you could
get sued.
So there was no formal accountability.
But (and here was the constructive part) if patients' medical records
were put on the Web--everything, even their medications--it could make a
big dent in the all-too-frequent hospital medication foul-ups. That
alone could cut accidental hospital deaths in half.
He'd pitched Jay Grimes, the managing editor, to let him do a five-
thousand-word piece for the Sentinel. Jay had agreed and even promised
him the front page. Jay liked him, but since all the real decisions
were made by the owners, not-so-affectionately known as the Family,
there wasn't much Jay could do to protect his people. Stone now
realized that more than ever.
The e-mail on his Compaq's screen was from Jane Tully, who handled
legal affairs for the paper. Apparently, Jay didn't have the balls to
be the hatchet man, so he'd given the job to Jane, who could throw in a
little legal mumbo jumbo for good measure. And she hadn't even had the
courtesy to pick up the phone to do the deed. Instead, she'd sent a
frigging e-mail:_ See attached. Corporate says legal implications
convey unacceptable risk. Consider an op-ed piece. That way the
liability will be all yours. Love and kisses.
_And of course, by "Corporate," she meant the Family (or, more likely,
their running-dog attorneys down on Nassau Street).
It was really too bad about Jane. She was a young-looking thirty-six
and had her own legal practice with a large law firm in midtown, but
she always dropped by before her Sunday brunch to answer any legal
questions that might be pending before the Sentinel was put to bed.
Stone knew pretty well how her mind worked. He should. Jane Tully was
his former, very former, significant other.
They d lived together for a year and a half on First Avenue in the East
Sixties. But she was type A (tailored Armani suits and always on time)
and he was a type B (elbow patches and home-cooked pasta). The
denouement had been seismic and full of acrimony and accusations.
So was she killing this major piece out of spite? he wondered. Just to
prove one last time who really had the _cojones_?
Actually, it would have been nice to think so. That would put a human
face on this gutless travesty. But the attached memo had enough legal
jargon that another reason was immediately suggesting itself. The
owners of the paper, the Family, the fucked-up twins Harry and Bosco
and their mother, Adeline, the heirs of Edward Jordan, actually were
afraid of a lawsuit. The attachment had the fingerprints of the
Family's attorneys all over it. Jane was just carrying out marching
orders.
And sure enough, there at the bottom was a second message, unsigned and
not part of the original memo. She had written clearly ITMB.
That was their old code for "I tried my best."
Well, Jane baby, who the hell knows. Maybe you did.
Damn, it wasn't supposed to be like this. He wasn't trying
to be a Carl Bernstein, for chrissake. For once, all he wanted was to
report a story exactly the way it was, and then try to help. He
ultimately wanted to fix, not fault.
He hit a button and printed out a copy of everything, then minimized
the screen, grabbed his jacket, and walked down the hall. Was this the
moment to quit? It was, except he couldn't afford to. He'd never
managed to put enough aside to take off a year and live on air and
write and still get that fifteen-hundred-dollar check out to Joyce and
Amy every first of the month.
He got to the bank of elevators and pushed the button for the third
floor and stepped on. The inspection sticker framed just above the
controls actually told the whole saga of why his cover story about
sloppy procedures in New York and national hospitals had been killed.
The building was owned by Bartlett Enterprises, the real estate holding
company of Winston Bartlett.
The Sentinel held a very favorable lease, renewable for another ten
years at only a 5 percent increase when it rolled over in seven months.
The Jordan family had gotten it in the early 1990s, when New York real
estate was still in the toilet from the stock market crash of '87, and
for once Winston Bartlett really screwed up. Now it was about a fifth
of the going price per square foot.
So naturally he was about to do everything he could to break the lease.
He was that kind of guy. The Jordan family, owners of the Sentinel,
probably figured that a big lawsuit by the AMA or somebody would
overtax their legal budget and give Bartlett a shot at their soft
underbelly. Thus no boats were to be rocked.
The elevator chimed and he stepped off on three. This floor had subdued
lighting and understated birch paneling, pale white, in the reception
area. It was as though power didn't need to trumpet itself. Everybody
knew who had it
He waved at Rhonda, the receptionist, and strode past. She glanced up,
then said, "Does she know you're coming?"
She knew full well he was headed down to see Jane. Unlike most
organizations, which take Sunday off, this was always a big day for the
Sentinel, with all hands on deck.
"Thought I'd give her a little surprise."
"No kidding." She was reaching for the phone. "I think maybe I should--"
"Not necessary." He was charging down the hall, feeling knee-deep in
the thick beige carpet. "I've got a feeling she's expecting me."
Jane's door was open and she was on the phone. But when she saw him,
she said something abruptly and hung up. He strode through the door,
then slammed it. The decor was bold primary colors, like her take on
life. Explicit.
"Okay," he demanded, "what the hell's going on? How about the real
story?"
"Love, you know you can't hang the Family out with that kind of
liability," she declared, then got up and came around her desk and
cracked open the door half a foot. "And you're the one person here I
can't have a closed-door meeting with. It'll just get people talking
again."
"Good. Let the world hear. It's time everybody on this floor learned
what a bunch of gutless owners we have." He watched the crisp way she
moved, picture-perfect inside her deep blue business suit, complete
with a white blouse and a man's red tie. Seeing her here, hair clipped
short, glasses, in an office brimming with power, you'd never guess she
liked nothing better than to be handcuffed during sex.
"Stone, have you ever considered growing up?" She settled back into her
chair. The desk was bare except for her notebook computer, an expensive
IBM ThinkPad T25. Power all the way. "The Family's attorneys are just
trying to keep us from getting dragged into court. At least until we
can get the paper's lease on this building renewed. We're going to need
to focus on that negotiation, not be distracted by some massive libel
suit brought on by an irresponsible, mudslinging piece. You practically
accused the AMA of bribery, and you named three senators. One from New
Jersey, for chrissake. Stone, there might be a time for that, but this
is not it."
This was exactly the reason he'd expected. What it really meant was,
the Family was scared stiff of Winston Bartlett. They figured he was
going to go to court to try to break the Sentinel's lease.
"Let me ask you a question. Whatever happened to journalistic ethics
around here? Remember that Statement of Purpose they have everybody
sign before they could be hired. 'All the news, without regard'. . .
you know. We were both so damned proud to be a part of that. Now you're
helping them kill anything that's the slightest bit controversial. Is
that what we've come to?"
"Stone, what the New York Sentinel has come to is to try and stay out
of legal shit till their lease is renewed." She brushed an imaginary
lock of hair from her face, a residual gesture she once used to stall
for time when she actually did have long hair. "Just let it go, won't
you? To get the signed and notarized documentation we'd need to run
that piece-- assuming we even could--would cost a fortune in time and
resources."
Well, he told himself, there was possibly something to that, from a
legal standpoint. But this was not the moment to let sweet reason run
riot.
"Okay, look, if you or the Family, or whoever the hell, believe I'm
going to go quietly, you'd better get ready for some revisionist
thinking. If this piece gets spiked, after all the work I put into it--
and dammit, Jane, you know I can document everything I write; that's
the way I work--then I bloody well want something back from this gutless
rag. Actually, it's something I want from you."
"You're not really in a position to--"
"Hey, don't try to ream me twice in the same morning." He walked around
her desk and gazed down at the street. The Sunday-morning traffic was
light. He also noticed that there was a public phone on the corner.
Good, he'd be using it in about eight minutes. Then he took a moment to
reflect on how nice it was to actually have a window. Of any kind. "You
know the saying, the pen is mightier than the sword. I'm about to prove
that once and for all, but there's something I need I need a half
hour's face time with one of Bartlett's employees. A certain Dr. Karl
Van de Vliet. He runs a company that Bartlett bought out, called the
Gerex Corporation. Strictly for fact-checking. They've got some
important clinical trials going on at a clinic in New Jersey that I
need to hear about."
She looked at him in sincere disbelief.
"Stone, how on earth am I supposed to--"
"You talk to the Family's lawyers. They've gotta be talking to
Bartlett's attorneys by now. Make it happen."
"And why exactly--?"
"Because I have a book contract, Jane. And in the process I need to
find out everything there is to know about Winston Bartlett's biggest
undertaking ever. He has bankrolled something that could change the
face of medicine."
"You're doing a book about Bartlett?" Her astonishment continued
growing and appeared to be genuine. "Jesus, you didn't tell--"
"Hello. That's because who or what I write about on my own dime is
nobody's effing business around here."
Now he was thinking about Winston Bartlett and wondering why he'd never
told her the most important piece of information in his life. It was
how he was connected to the man. He often wondered if maybe that was
why he was doing this book on stem cells, knowing that half of it would
end up being about Bartlett's self-serving, take-no-prisoners business
career. His infinite cruelty. Was the book actually revenge?
"You know you'll have to get permission to reprint anything you've
published in the Sentinel. The paper owns the rights to--"
"Didn't you hear me?" He smiled. "It's a book. My book. There's no
editorial overlap."
"Who's the publisher?"
"They exist, trust me."
His small publisher wasn't exactly Random House, but they were letting
him do whatever he wanted.
"It didn't start out being a book about Bartlett, per se," he went on,
"but now he's becoming a central figure, because of what's going on--or
possibly not going on--at Gerex."
She was losing her famous poise.
"What . . . what are you writing?"
"The end of time. The beginning of time. I don't know which it is. You
see, the Gerex clinic in northern New Jersey has clinical trials under
way on some new medical procedure involving stem cells. At least that's
what I think. They've clamped down on the information, but I believe
Van de Vliet, who's the head researcher there, is perilously close to
one of the most important breakthroughs in medical history. I just need
to get all this confirmed from the horse's mouth."
"Is that what you want to interview him about?"
"He was available for interviews until about four months ago. I
actually had one scheduled, but it abruptly got canceled. Bang,
suddenly there's a total blackout on the project. They just shut down
their press office completely. When I call, I get transferred to his
CFO, some young prick who likes to blow me off. For starters, I'd like
to know why it's all so hush-hush."
"Stone, private medical research is always proprietary, for God's sake.
Sooner or later he undoubtedly hopes to patent whatever he's doing. A
privately held corporation doesn't have to report to anybody, least of
all some nosy reporter."
That was true, of course. But Stone Aimes knew that the only way his
book would be the blockbuster he needed to get free of the Sentinel was
to tell the real story of what Gerex was in the process of achieving.
And to be first doing it.
For which he needed access.
"Make it happen. Because, like it or not, Winston Bartlett is about to
be the subject of a major volume of investigative journalism. I've
already got a lot of what I need." That wasn't precisely the case, but
there was no need to overdo brutal honesty. "The only question is, does
he want it to be authorized or unauthorized? It's his choice."
Winston Bartlett, Stone knew all too well, was a man who liked nothing
better than to see his name in the papers. In fact, he used the free
publicity he always managed to get with his jet-setting lifestyle to
popularize his various business ventures. Like Donald Trump, he had
made himself a brand name. So what was going on here? Was he just
playing his cards close to the chest, waiting to make a dramatic big
announcement? Or was he keeping this project secret because he was
worried about some competing laboratory beating him to a patent?
Or was he hiding something? Had the clinical trials out in New Jersey
gone off the track? Was he keeping the project hush-hush because
something was going on he didn't want the public to hear about? Had
stem cell technology turned out to be an empty promise? Or had there
been some horrible side effect they didn't want reported?
"So could you just raise this with his attorneys? Because if he lets
Van de Vliet talk with me directly, he can be sure I'll get the story
right. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. It's up to him."
"Stone, I hope you have an alternative career track in the advanced
stages of planning. Because the minute the Family gets wind of this,
that you're writing some tell-all about Bartlett, they're going to
freak. Even if you're doing it on your own time, you still work here.
At least for the moment. Your name is associated in the public's mind
with the Sentinel."
He knew that, which was why this was going to be all or nothing.
"Just do me this one itsy-bitsy favor, Jane. It's the last thing I'll
ever ask of you." He was turning to walk out. "And look on the bright
side. When the Family finally sacks me for good and all, you won't have
to write me any more nasty memos telling me to be a good boy."
He walked to the elevator and took it down. The next thing he had to do
was make a phone call, and this was one that required a pay phone.
He'd thought about it and decided one possible way to encourage
Bartlett to open up was to try to bluff him, to make the man think he
knew more about the clinical trials than he actually did. There was
only one way he could think to do that.
In premed days Stone Aimes had shared a dorm room at Columbia with Dale
Coverton, who was now an M.D. and a deputy director at the National
Institutes of Health. His office was at the National Heart, Lung, and
Blood Institute.
One of the nice things about having friends who go way back is that
sometimes, over all those years, something happens that gives one or
the other a few chips to call in. Such was the case with Stone Aimes
and Dale Coverton.
Dale's oldest daughter, Samantha, a blond-haired track star and math
whiz, had--at age thirteen--developed a rare form of kidney cancer and
needed a transplant. She was given six months, tops, to live.
Stone Aimes had done a profile of her in the paper he worked for then,
the New York Globe, and he'd found a transplant donor, a young girl on
Long Island with terminal leukemia, who was able to the knowing she'd
saved another person's life. The two had met and cried together, but
Samantha was alive today because of Stone Aimes. It was a hell of a
chit to call in, and he'd sworn he never would, but now he felt he had
no choice. The truth was, Dale Coverton would have walked through fire
for him. The question was, would he also violate NIH rules?
Stone hoped he would.
He stopped at the pay phone at the corner of Park and Eighteenth
Street, an area where nine people out of ten were wearing at least one
item of clothing that was black. It also seemed that six out of ten who
passed were talking on cell phones. He took out a prepaid phone card
and punched in the access number and then the area code for Bethesda,
Maryland, followed by Dale's private, at-home number. It was, after
all, Sunday morning.
"Hey, Atlas, how's it going?" That had been Dale's nickname ever since
he lifted two kegs of beer (okay, empty) over his head one balanced on
each hand, at a Sigma frat blast their senior year. It now seemed like
an eternity: for Dale, two wives ago, and for Stone, one wife and two
live-togethers.
"Hey, Truth and Justice, over and out." It was their all- purpose old
code phrase for "I aced the quiz. I hit with the girl. I'm doing
great."
"My man, I need some truth," Stone said. "Justice may have to wait."
A big delivery truck was backing up against the sidewalk, its reverse-
gear alarm piercing and deafening. The mid-morning sun was playing
hide-and-seek with a new bank of clouds in the south.
"That thing you told me about? Is that it?" Dale's voice immediately
grew subdued. He was a balding blond guy with just enough hair left for
a comb-over. Beyond that, his pale gray eyes showed a special kind of
yearning. He wanted truth and justice to prevail.
"Don't do anything that won't let you sleep nights. But this situation
is very special. I was hoping I wouldn't have to come to you about what
we talked about last month, but I'm running out of time and ideas." He
paused, listening to the sound of silence. "I suppose it's too much to
ask."
"Well, I still haven't seen any data or preliminary reports. The NIH
monitor for those particular clinical trials is a woman called Cheryl
Gates and she's not returning anybody's phone calls. The truth is, she
doesn't have to. But another possibility is, she doesn't actually know
beans and she's too embarrassed to admit it. If somebody wants to keep
a monitor in the dark for strategic commercial reasons, it's easy
enough to do."
"Well, how about the other thing? The thing we talked about. The list?"
He sighed. "I was afraid you might come to that. That's a tough one,
Truth and Justice."
"Hey, you know I didn't want to ask. But I'm running out
of cards."
He sighed again. There was a long silence and then, "You know you're
asking me to give you highly restricted access codes to the NIH Web
site. We shouldn't even be talking about it. So officially the answer
is no. That's for the record."
"Strictly your decision." But he had his fingers crossed, even as he
was ashamed of himself for asking in the first place.
"Maybe this is God's way of letting me even up things a bit. It can't
be something easy or it doesn't really count, does it?"
"I could end up knowing more about these trials than the NIH does,"
Stone said. "Because it doesn't sound like you guys actually know much
at all."
"Let me think about it and send you an e-mail tonight. Whatever comes
up, it'll be 'scrambled eggs.'"
"Thanks, Atlas."
"Scrambled eggs" was a reference to a made-up code system they'd used
in college. A name or number was encoded by interlacing it with their
old phone number. This time the interlaced number would be an access
code for proprietary NIH data.
"I do not think I'm long for the world here at the Sentinel. We're
forming a mutual hostility society."
"I sure as hell hope you've got a new career concept ready for the day
when they give you the ax." Dale's attempt at a light tone did not
quite disguise his concern.
"Funny, but that's the second time I've received that advice in the
last half hour. I deem that unlucky."
"Stone, sometimes I think you ought to try not living your life so
close to the damned edge. Maybe you ought to start practicing a little
prudence, just to see what it feels like."
"I'm that wild ox we used to talk about I like to scrounge.
But I also like to look around for the biggest story I can find. I'm
trying to get an interview with a guy on Bartlett's staff. Maybe our
'scrambled eggs' will flush him out."
"Just take care of yourself and keep in touch."
"You too."
And they both hung up.
Was this going to do the trick? he wondered. As it happened Stone Aimes
already knew plenty about Bartlett's business affairs. He had been a
lifelong student of Bartlett the man, and as part of his research into
the Gerex Corporation he had pulled together an up-to-date profile of
Bartlett's cash-flow situation. If you connected the dots, you
discovered his financial picture was getting dicey.
Bartlett was overextended and, like Donald Trump in the early 1990s, he
needed to roll over some short-term debt and restructure it. But his
traditional lenders were backing away. He had literally bet everything
on Van de Vliet. If his research panned out, then there was a whole new
day for Bartlett Enterprises. That had to be what he was counting on to
save his chestnuts.
The funny thing was, Bartlett didn't really like to spend his time
thinking about money. One of his major preoccupations was to be in the
company of young, beautiful women, usually leggy models.
Bartlett also had an estranged wife, Eileen, who reportedly occupied
the top two floors of his mansion on Gramercy Park. Rumor had it she
was a paranoid schizophrenic who refused to separate or give him a
divorce. She hadn't been photographed for at least a decade, but there
was no reason to think she wasn't still alive and continuing to make
his life miserable.
Another tantalizing thing to know about Winston Bartlett was that he
had bankrolled a Zen monastery in upstate New York twenty years ago and
went there regularly to meditate and recharge. He had once claimed in a
Forbes interview, that the monastery was where he honed his nerves of
steel and internalized the timing of a master swordsman.
The Forbes interview was also where he claimed he had quietly amassed
the largest collection of important Japanese samurai swords and armor
outside of Japan. For the past five years he had been lobbying the
Metropolitan Museum of Art to agree to lend its dignity to an adjunct
location for his collection, and to name it after him. The Bartlett
Collection. Winston Bartlett lusted for the prestige that an
association with the Met would bring him.
At the moment some of his better pieces were housed in a special
ground-floor display in the Bartlett Building in TriBeCa. Most of the
collection, however, was in storage. He had recently bought a building
on upper Park Avenue and some people thought he was planning to turn it
into a private museum.
Well, Stone thought, if the stem cell project works out, he could soon
be rich enough to buy the Metropolitan.
He walked back to the lobby of his building and stood for a moment
looking at himself in the plate glass. Yes, the older he got, the more
the resemblance settled in. Winston Bartlett. Shit Thank goodness
nobody else had ever noticed it.