Senate Cloakroom Cabal (4 page)

An amazed Rufus McAllister had been elated.

The subway's arrival interrupted her thoughts. She saw Senators Crawford and Pembroke in the front car, but chose to sit in the back. She wanted to talk with Crawford, but wanted more to avoid Pembroke. Once the subway reached the Capitol, she debarked and walked leisurely up the wide, marble stairs to the Senate chamber.

Senator Pembroke hurried away as Senator Crawford cut through the President's Room adjacent to the chamber. He liked the high-ceiling room with its frescoes and arabesques overhead and around the walls. Diarist Mary Clemmer Ames had written about them:
“There is not one quiet hue
on which the tired sight may rest.”
He wished he had time to sketch one of Brumidi's pug-nosed cupids, but when?
Oh well,
he sighed and entered the Senate chamber.

He chose to avoid the Cloakroom. Each of the two major political parties had one—the Cloakroom was an inner sanctum free of outsiders. It was the place senators could drop their public faces, where arm-twisting was an Olympic event and compromise the liniment of disagreements. When Lyndon Johnson was majority leader, he was known to lounge on a chaise in there and give audience to the pleadings of his lowly flock.

Crawford hoped the vote would come up quickly. He'd vote
yea
and head back to the office. He wanted to be home in time for the twins' swim practice.

“Senator Crawford,” a female page said, approaching him at his desk. “Senator Kelly would like to see you in the Cloakroom after he votes.”

He smiled. “Thank you, Maci.” He wondered what Kelly wanted and hoped it wouldn't take long. He began to sit, but saw Senator Dalton approaching.

“Gavin,” she half whispered, “have a minute?”

“Senator Dalton,” he said formally.

“You must be feeling pretty good about this education bill.”

“Very. The big job now will be to get the administration to pressure all the states to get on board with it.”

“I'm sure they will. They don't want free money withheld from them.”

“True,” he said. “That was a major point of contention in committee, to get that added. Now, it could well become the enforcer that gets it fully implemented.”

She smiled, lighting up her pretty face. Mariel was good-looking and all, but Roanne Dalton was beautiful. “So how are things?” he asked.

“I've wanted to talk to you, get your advice. I'm concerned about the leader wanting unanimous support of the FDA's imminent disapproval of the cancer drug.”

“The side-effects issue?” Crawford interrupted.

The Senate president announced that the voting would start. The call of the roll commenced.

“Yes. I don't understand why we're involved at all. Besides, the clinical trials showed an overall survival advantage.”

“Wasn't there something about it not clearing all the phases . . . ?” He let that hang.

She explained. “Fred said there were anomalies in the double-blind tests on patients who have tried other sources of therapy or medication. I understood there were some minor problems, but not with the drug itself, only in combination with people being treated for other diseases. I've read where that's not uncommon with drugs that are approved. It's been noted, but left up to the patient's doctor to work out, if they can. On people without that complication, the results of this drug were miraculous. Now Fred says the FDA believes they were hiding—”

“I must admit,” he interrupted, “I haven't been paying a lot of attention . . . I mean, if there are clear advantages between those who used the miracle drug and those who didn't—” He interrupted himself. “Is there something here I'm not aware of?”

“I don't believe so,” she replied softly.

“I tend to go with the leadership on issues. I'll check it out. I'm meeting with Tom after the roll call; maybe I can find—”

“Senator Crawford,” called the clerk.

Crawford turned toward the dais. “Yea.” He turned back to Dalton, who had on a different face. He glanced in the direction she was looking and saw Kelly engrossed in conversation with Pembroke.

“I'll get back to you later,” she said, and walked up the aisle.

What was that all about?
Crawford sat at his desk. He had not been keeping up with the new drug. He'd ask Gordon about it, hoping his AA would know.

Following Kelly's vote, Crawford sought out the majority leader in the Cloakroom.

Kelly dispensed with the niceties. He gave Crawford a broad-brush background, hitting hard on his concerns. It was a drug that Kelly didn't name, but it fit into what Dalton had said.

Pembroke had joined them.

Kelly went on saying that the party needed unanimous support and that one senator was preventing that. “I'd like you to speak to this senator, Gavin, on behalf of the party.”

What happened to the whip?
Crawford thought. Pembroke nodded in affirmation to the various points Kelly was making. Crawford's and Pembroke's families were friends. Their second homes were locally in McLean, and they traveled in the same circles. A few times in heavy snow, he and Pembroke had carpooled, using Pembroke's four-wheel-drive SUV. Crawford's little hybrid was overly challenged in that type of weather.

Kelly was saying, “We have to be extremely careful with this. We don't want the FDA to rush approval on a so-called miracle drug only to find it is plagued with severe side effects.”

“What about clinical trials?” Crawford asked.

“That's just it,” Pembroke jumped in. “We aren't sure about the validity of the testing.”

Crawford realized that this had to be about the drug Dalton had mentioned. “What does the pharmaceutical say?”

“We need to support the FDA, have everyone on board,” Tom responded, ignoring Crawford's question.

That was a quick non-answer,
he thought. “What about our friends across the aisle?”

“They feel there are more critical issues facing us right now and don't want to get into a pissing match over one drug.”

Crawford didn't think that sounded like them.

Kelly went on. “We have bigger fish to fry, such as prescription costs and Medicare discounts. We have a lot on our plate and don't need any distractions.”

Crawford nodded. “I've always been in favor of
too much
testing over not enough.”

Kelly stood. “Good. Glad you see it that way.”

Crawford and Pembroke rose.

“Who is it you want me to talk with?” Crawford asked.

“Dalton,” Kelly replied. “Thanks, Gavin.” He extended his hand and gave a nod to Pembroke. “Thanks to both of you.” He turned away and caught the eye of another senator.

Crawford looked at Pembroke. “I'm . . . eh . . . does Tom think I have an in with Roanne?”

“No. Actually, he sees it the other way. She looks to you as an ally. You know, she seems to have rubbed some folks the wrong way.”

“I wasn't aware of that. She's new, but I thought she had lots of friends.”

“Mostly H.T.'s friends, who accommodate her.”

“Oh,” was all Crawford decided to say. He didn't particularly agree with Pembroke's assessment, but it wasn't worth challenging. “So . . . eh . . . what exactly is her position?”

“She's not following the party line. It's very straightforward. FDA says there are serious side effects. After those major recalls awhile back, Tom doesn't want a distraction caused by an unproven drug. We have too much going with the pharmas already.”

This seemed out-of-step with the way Tom operated,
Crawford thought.
For some reason, he didn't want the whip handling it. He felt uncomfortable
about this . . . it put him in a bit of a bind. He liked Dalton, but he also
liked the progress he had been making in the caucus. Maybe this was a
leadership test. Free discussion had never been a problem amongst the
colleagues. However, Kelly wanted unanimity and had chosen him to get it.

Pembroke interrupted his thoughts. “There's stuff whipping around in Appropriations and in Finance, aside from all the issues with Medicare and the cost of prescription drugs.”

“Yeah, it's piling up. Okay. Has anyone lobbied Roanne about this, prior to me?”

“We don't know what ties she has, or H.T. had, with the pharmaceutical company applying for approval, if any.”

Another non-answer. “What's the name of this drug and the company?”

“It's called Tutoxtamen and the pharma is Rogers, up in New Jersey.”

7

T
he large hotel ballroom was set up auditorium-style, with a raised dais at one end, on which sat a podium and four straight-back chairs.

A banner behind the dais announced:
Rogers Pharmaceuticals,
Inc.'s Annual Stockholders Meeting.

Harley S. Rogers, eighty-three-year-old founder, chairman, and CEO of Rogers Pharmaceuticals, Inc., was ramrod in stature and leadership with a strong timbre to his voice. He normally stayed behind the scenes, leaving his son Sherman, president and COO of Rogers, to be the public face. Harley was absorbed with the product side.

And today the product was his miracle drug, Tutoxtamen.
That damned
FDA fabricated findings saying there were side effects
, Harley rued, standing in the wings waiting to go on. All the test results had been astoundingly positive. Expectations verged on the stupendous. Stockholders, the public, and the media were ecstatic.

The FDA had leaked there were side-effect problems, and his company's stock had fallen precipitously, over forty percent and now teetering— dipping and rising on every whisper of news. Harley estimated he'd lost fifty percent of his net worth.

A scientist first, Harley Rogers had always hoped he'd discover a miracle drug that would rid the world of one of its horrible diseases. He had that now in Tutoxtamen.

Nevertheless, it seemed as though the pharmas had convinced the FDA there was a problem. That was why
he
was coming forward today. The old soldier needed to take the stage and tell everyone his drug worked. He'd illustrate his remarks with hundreds of success stories.

Placebo tests, double-blind procedures performed on over two thousand people of all ages in and out of the United States, proved Tutox, as it was familiarly called, was effective in ninety percent of the people using it—an astounding and unheard of result.

Sherman Rogers joined his father. “How you holding up, Dad?”

Harley flinched. “What? Oh, Sherman. I was engrossed . . .”

“It'll go fine. You've been through worse.”

“It would be a lot worse if it hadn't been for you, son.”

“I'm glad you feel comfortable now with what we'll be doing,” Sherman said softly, patting his father's shoulder.

Three years earlier, a medical trade publication had gotten its hands on an internal report describing some of the remarkable results from Tutoxtamen's early tests and published them. That's when the pharma lobby came a'callin'. They were adamantly opposed to the development of a potential miracle drug and threatened Harley with a
not approvable
by the FDA—unless he cut back to only one of the cancers.