I thought I’d make the lacquered administrator nervous instead.
“What progress are you making on opening an adult trauma center?” I asked, loud enough to be heard over the cocktail party noise and, if truth be told, even a little louder than necessary.
What people call ‘an embarrassed silence’ ensued. But only briefly.
The lacquered administrator was more than a match for my pushy question and me. He made a move worthy of Fred Astaire in his suave Top Hat film and made his escape without even looking at me, let alone answering my question. He turned gracefully and glanced across the room, and then he swiveled back and made little depreciating ‘sorry about this’ and ‘need to see about that’ murmurs all accompanied by backwards motion and hand-waving. He was gone in the twinkling of an eye.
Tom and then other men looked at each other and frowned. Then by mutual consent they gave up and the group dispersed. Tom turned to me.
“Was that one of the lower-level administrators?” I asked, having never seen him before.
“There’s no one lower than Mandel Griffiths,” Tom said dryly.
“So no progress on a trauma center?” I asked.
“We need that here. There’s no doubt,” Tom said seriously. “But adult trauma centers are very expensive and you see what kind of compassionate, visionary leadership we have to deal with.” Tom nodded his head in the direction Mandel Griffith had taken when he’d danced away. “I’d say the odds were slim, but the community pressure is getting to them.”
Good, I thought. Now I’ll definitely look for that website.
“Did Kelly get to your house all right?” he asked, obviously wanting to talk about anything other than Mandel Griffiths, the lowly administrator, and his complete lack of vision and compassion. Of course, Kelly would not have been my choice as a new topic of conversation.
I steered him toward the bar that was set up along the wall on the far side of the room while I pondered how best to answer the question.
Honesty, I thought, stick to honesty.
“She was late, but she made it finally. I really don’t think she likes having to come over when you’re out, Tom. It makes her feel like you think she’s a baby.” Somebody had to tell him and Kelly wasn’t having much success.
Tom stopped walking and disengaged his arm from mine.
“She’s a young girl and this is the city.” He even stuck his chin out.
He’d actually used those same words when we’d talked yesterday about Kelly’s coming over. Did I say Tom listened? I take it back. Where his daughter is concerned, he’s just as thick as any other father. Maybe more so as he was a new custodial father. I started to argue and then stopped. Not with a hundred over-dressed people surrounding us all carrying hard hats. It was not the time for this conversation.
“Come on,” I said, taking his hand. “I’m thirsty.”
He came along reluctantly, but loosened up a little as I played surreptitiously with his fingers. He greeted friends and made brief introductions along the way as we struggled through the crowd to get two watered-down drinks. As I weaved my way through the crowd, saying hello six or seven times to people I would never remember, my mind was on Kelly and Tom. Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll tell him that how he raises Kelly is his business, but no more leaning on Carol, Giles and me. Right. I knew I sounded like Scarlett O’Hara.
We finally obtained our drinks and escaped from the crush close to the bar. We wandered around and joined a small crowd clustered in front of some sketches of what the final building would look like. The proposed outside wasn’t too bad as it was drawn, with raised columns drawing the eye upward and masking the sheer size of the building. Of course, it was also surrounded by beautiful landscaping and happy, healthy people strolling in and out. It didn’t exactly say ‘sick and injured people welcome here.’
Two men up front were answering questions.
“Yes, that’s correct. There will be valet parking. Here.” A very large man pointed with a blunt finger to the sketch. “And you do have to tip,” he said. A ripple of laughter went through the crowd. The guy seemed witty; perhaps that was a way he’d learned to deflect attention from his sheer size. He was huge. Probably about six and a half feet tall and he had flaming red hair. His large frame was carried by enormous shoulders. Really, he had wrestler or weightlifter shoulders and was still in pretty good shape, though he could be in his mid-forties or even older. Still the shoulders were impressive for someone who probably now spent a lot of time behind a desk. People call Chicago the “City of Big Shoulders,” probably because of its brawling, upstart history. Boy, did this guy fit right in. He gave the impression of leashed power and his civilized formal attire only served to underline that contrast. He should have been wearing a fur vest and a helmet.
Next to him stood another man who looked like a midget, but in actuality was probably no shorter than Mandel Griffiths, the lowly administrator. He was slender, almost reed-like compared to the beefy-barbarian guy. Architect and contractor, I’d bet. The reedy man was answering a question from someone in front, but so softly I couldn’t hear. Tom and I moved wordlessly away.
Tom was almost immediately buttonholed by a tall, gray-haired man in a dark suit, no tux. He was about Tom’s height and spoke rapidly into Tom’s ear, his agitation evident in his tense body. Tom smiled apologetically at me and listened. I let my attention wander over the room and spotted one person I knew, the new head of campus security, Commander Nicolas Stammos.
I had wrangled some release time to “consult” with campus security as part of my new employment arrangement, but it was still not clear exactly what that meant. My new department chair, Adelaide Winters, had decided what that meant was I was on the faculty committee that was a liaison to the campus police to handle student complaints and so forth. I’d been to two meetings now, and at the second I’d met Stammos when he’d come to answer questions about the Maddox investigation. He’d looked to me like a Greek resistance fighter from World War II. He was short, but he could have given the contractor a run for the money in the shoulders area. He had pockmarked, swarthy skin, and black hair with no trace of gray. He was probably pushing fifty, and I found that a tad suspicious, but I also couldn’t imagine Stammos putting dye on his hair.
I watched him as he moved across the room, away from where Tom and I were standing. He went toward the rear wall where there was a staircase. His tux fit him well, must not be a rental, and he moved rapidly, with purpose. He was no mingler. I took a sip of my drink. I had no intention of crossing the room to speak to him. I found him immensely intimidating.
That intimidating manner had alienated the faculty on the liaison committee too, though his presentation had been excellent. His deep, slightly accented voice had been gripping when he had claimed Jimmy Maddox was ‘one of ours’ and that the campus police were working closely with the city police to find his killer. But most faculty had been critical of him after he’d left. In Chicago, the level of trust in the police would not have filled a shot glass, and with good reason. That attitude of suspicion and even hostility spilled over onto the campus police as well. There were mutterings about an unspecified ‘cover up’ or snide remarks about the campus police as ‘glorified crossing guards.’ Stammos was no crossing guard. He was a decorated former New York City police captain. The campus police in general, at least the ones I’d met, were competent professionals. I’d made a friend on the force, Alice Matthews, and we grabbed coffee together on campus when
