Cure

8

March 25, 2010

Thursday, 12:45 p.m.

As he backed his new Mercedes SUV into a plum parking spot by the Neopolitan Restaurant, Michael Calabrese could not help but marvel how one’s course though life could change. Just three years earlier he was making the same trip, but the situation had been entirely different. Back then he was scared to death and had reason to believe he might be killed. It was so bad that in the back of his mind he was beginning to plan on trying to disappear. At the time he was the placement agent for Angels Healthcare LLC, which was about to go public while not having revealed it was insolvent. That day he was visiting Vinnie Dominick with the unenviable task of having to tell Vinnie of the regrettable situation that was unfolding. The problem was that Michael had talked Vinnie into investing a huge portion of Mob money, more than fifteen million dollars, into the company.

Just thinking about the situation still brought a shiver of fear down Michael’s spine, despite what ultimately happened. Angels Healthcare went on, as Michael had originally believed, to have a truly amazing IPO and was now a thriving company, returning to Vinnie and the Lucia organization hundreds of millions and to Michael himself millions. Instead of being considered a lackey, Michael was held up to be a genius and a favorite son of the Queens neighborhood of Rego Park, where he and Vinnie had grown up together.

Now out of the car, Michael had to wait to cross Corona Avenue, as it was a four-lane road with lots of traffic. When a spot opened up, Michael dashed across and then slowed to walk. This time, Michael was arriving as a welcome guest. After Ben’s visit that morning, Michael had called Vinnie Dominick to request a lunch visit for himself and Saboru Fukuda, with the explanation that he had some good news about iPS USA.

As Michael approached the restaurant, he had to smile. Besides its name, Neapolitan, it was so obviously American Italian that it was like a joke. With vain hopes of being more elegant than it was, the façade was fake brick that came in fiberglass sheets, which didn’t even come close to appearing real. Under its windows were fake window boxes sporting out-of-season plastic flowers. No customers were coming in or out as the restaurant was not open to the public for lunch. The noonday meal was open only to Vinnie, his dedicated minions, and guests. For the owner it was a small price to pay to do his evening business, which was quite a business. The restaurant had a mythic appeal due to its long history of association with the underworld, particularly in the thirties, during prohibition.

Inside, Michael pushed through the entrance drape and paused until his eyes adjusted. To the left was a newly constructed U-shaped bar with glasses hanging down from a wooden valance structure running around the area’s ceiling. Off to the side, near a cluster of small cocktail tables, was a fake fireplace whose fire was a rotating drum covered with crinkled aluminum foil. The logs were made of concrete. The origin of the fake fire was a red bulb hidden behind one of the fake logs. Above the mantel was a large, dark painting of the Virgin Mary holding the Christ child in a huge tarnished gilt frame.

To the right were the coveted booths extending down into the depths of the restaurant. The first two were occupied, one by Vinnie’s close associates, several of whom Michael recognized as former schoolmates. There was Richie Herns, who had taken over Franco Ponti’s position as head enforcer. Franco was in prison along with Angelo Facciolo, the two people who had always terrified Michael. Freddie Capuso, who’d been the class clown, was there as well. There were three other physically impressive guys Michael didn’t know.

Vinnie Dominick was seated at the next table. He caught sight of Michael and waved him over. Sitting next to Vinnie was his girlfriend, Carol Cirone, who had lunch with Vinnie every day except Sunday, when Vinnie stayed home with his wife and family. Next to Carol was Saboru Fukuda, a slight, elegant man in a superbly tailored glen plaid suit. To Michael he looked more like a Fifth Avenue ophthalmologist than the head of a branch of the violent Yamaguchi-gumi Yakuza organization.

As Michael approached the table, Vinnie slid across the vinyl seat and stood.

“Hey, brother,” Vinnie exuded, and enveloped Michael in a brotherly hug. He too was dressed to the nines, with even more panache than his Yamaguchi-gumi guest. Whereas Saboru had a carefully folded dark brown pocket square in his jacket’s breast pocket, Vinnie had a wildly colorful Cartier silk that billowed out with an explosion of color.

With his arm still draped over Michael’s shoulders, Vinnie tapped Saboru on the arm to get his attention. “Hey, psycho! Mikey’s here,” Vinnie said. He and Saboru had spent significant time together as their business relationship had blossomed, and Vinnie had come to use the word psycho versus saiko from saiko-komon, as humorous wordplay. Saboru found it entertaining, once it had been explained to him.

Saboru stood, quickly bowed, and gave Michael a business card. Michael took the card after a quick, awkward bow and dispensed one of his own. Back at his desk in his office, he had a collection of Saboru’s cards.

“Sit down, sit down!” Vinnie repeated to Michael but then remembered Carol. “Listen, sweetie, we have to talk business. How about you sit with the men for a little while.” He gestured to the group at the next booth.

“I want to sit with you people,” Carol whined.

“Carol, dear,” Vinnie said slowly, without raising his voice, “I said how about you sit at the next table.”

Michael felt the hackles on the back of his neck rise. Vinnie had a short-fuse temper and a penchant to be violent. For a few moments Vinnie and Carol stared each other down. The entire room was silent until Carol wisely relented and slid out from the table. With a pouty expression and a petulant air she changed tables. The moment she did so, conversation returned to the room.

“Please,” Vinnie said, gesturing for both of his guests to sit. As if by magic, a waiter appeared and asked Michael what he preferred to drink, gesturing to an open bottle of Sassicaia, Vinnie’s favorite, and then at an ice bucket containing a pinot grigio and a bottle of San Pellegrino.

“So what’s the good news?” Vinnie questioned once Michael had his wine and water. When it came to business, Vinnie was impatient. He didn’t mind small talk, but it was for after business, not before.

Leaning over toward Vinnie and in a voice that suggested importance, Michael said, “Yesterday an exclusive agreement was signed with Satoshi Machita for iPS cells.”

For a moment there was silence. Vinnie and Michael merely stared at each other. The only sounds in the room were from those at the neighboring table, who were busily entertaining Carol. Back when Michael had first explained iPS USA to Vinnie, he’d gone into great detail about the unbelievable promise of stem cells and the regrettable entanglement that the promising science and fledgling industry had encountered with the highly emotional abortion issue. He then explained how induced stem cells skirted the issue. Aware of Vinnie’s innate intelligence, Michael had also explained the patent issues involving stem cells and how important it would be to control the big patents. It was Vinnie who finally broke the silence.

“And it’s this iPS cell patent that’s going to be the mother of all patents?”

“That’s what Ben Corey believes, and the guy’s a genius who wants to control regenerative medicine.”

“And we’ll be right there with him,” Vinnie proclaimed.

“Right there,” Michael agreed.

Vinnie picked up his glass of wine and held it out to the others. He had a wry smile on his face. “I never knew that it was health care where all the real money was. First hospitals and now biotech. I love it.”

They all clinked classes and drank.

Vinnie turned to Saboru. “I told you this guy was great,” he said, nodding toward Michael.

“Thank you!” Saboru said several times, nodding first toward Michael and then toward Vinnie.

“Now I want to bring up another subject,” Michael said, putting down his wineglass and moving forward on his seat as if he was about to tell a secret. “I met with Dr. Corey just this morning. With the new contract signed, the market value of the company will soar. There’s no telling what its value will be. On top of that, this morning he confided in me that there is a new company that controls a patent for a process that will speed up the production efficiency of making induced stem cells. He’s interested in either acquiring the company or, at the very least, exclusively licensing its intellectual property. The question is, do either of you want to acquire more equity before the IPO? If so, this would be the time.”

There were questions from both Vinnie and Saboru, which Michael fielded, cleverly honing his client’s interest so that if Ben wanted or needed more equity, it would be immediately available.

After an interruption with the waiter coming to take their lunch orders, Michael then broached the third, last, and most sensitive subject on his agenda — namely, Ben’s interest in distancing iPS USA from their respective organizations. When he finished and fell silent, he could sense a change in mood. Clearly both Vinnie and Saboru were not pleased, feeling blindsided by the issue’s even being broached.

“It’s rather late for Dr. Corey to feel he’s not interested in our help,” Saboru said. It was Saboru who’d engineered the theft of the lab books from Kyoto University and getting Satoshi and his family from Japan through Honolulu to New York City, the same route he used for drugs and child porn.

“I agree,” Vinnie said in that particularly calm voice that Michael feared and that all too often presaged a temper tantrum of one sort or another.

“There is no disrespect intended here,” Michael quickly added. “It is only something that Dr. Corey feels will be in the best interest of the company if and when the company goes public. If such association were to suggest itself during any due diligence, the company would probably have to cancel the IPO to avoid a full SEC investigation.”

“He knows that the Lucia holdings are held secure under a series of shell companies, does he not?” Vinnie questioned.

“Of course he does,” Michael added quickly to defuse the situation, “and he’s tremendously thankful for what you gentlemen have done for the company. He even mentioned that some significant additional equity would be involved to recognize your special contributions if it comes to that.”

At that point Michael felt as if he’d been saved, as several waiters burst from the kitchen with a wide variety of steaming pastas for the first course. Relieved, Michael sat back and took in a deep breath. From his perspective the downside of dealing with criminal organizations is that one always felt as if he was standing on the edge of a precipice.