Hush Money (17 page)

I drove back to Boston and over to the university and took the information and the pictures with me. I fell in beside Lillian Temple as she came down the steps of the library carrying her briefcase. She appeared to recognize me, but she didn’t appear to take any pleasure in it.

“Hi,” I said.

“I’d prefer that you did not bother me while I’m at work,” she said.

“Don’t blame you,” I said. “You know anything about the Sea Mist Inn?”

“Excuse me?”

“Sea Mist Inn, place up in Rockport where you and Robinson Nevins spent last Labor Day weekend.”

She stopped dead in the middle of the quadrangle.

“Labor Day?”

I took the photographs from my inside pocket.

“I showed these pictures of you and Robinson,” I said. “And the woman on the desk recognized you.”

She stared at the photographs.

“This came on you kind of sudden,” I said. “Should we sit on this bench, while you think about it?”

Without comment, she plopped down on a bench beside some evergreen bushes near the entrance to the administration building. She was staring at the pictures I still held for her.

“Those pictures don’t prove anything,” she said finally.

I put them back into my inside pocket.

“No, but they’re suggestive, coupled with what the Sea Mist lady told us, and what Robinson Nevins said.”

Again she was silent, staring at the place where the pictures had been. She let out a long breath.

“Well,” she said, “you seem to have invaded my whole life.”

“Just doing my job, ma’am.”

Lillian looked at me somberly.

“Not a job one can admire,” she said.

If Lillian had a sense of humor, I had no idea how to access it.

“So,” I said. “Since we can assume you know Robinson Nevins was heterosexual, a question presents itself.”

Lillian continued to look at me with blank sobriety, which might have been her attempt to look stern. Lillian’s mind didn’t seem to move very quickly, even for a professor. While the question had come upon her rather suddenly, it was a pretty obvious question. I waited.

Finally she said without affect, “What question?”

“Why you reported to the tenure committee a story about Robinson Nevins that you had considerable reason to doubt.”

“He could have been bisexual.”

“Yes he could have. Did you think he was?”

“I didn’t know he wasn’t.”

“Did you ask him?”

“Of course not.” She was, maybe genuinely, outraged. “One’s sexuality is neither my business nor yours.”

I looked at her for a while, aware of my breath going in and out.

“It’s breathtaking,” I said. “You have ruined a man’s career by repeating a slanderous allegation you know to be false, and you still find a way to mouth moralistic platitudes when you’re caught.”

“I’m sorry you think the right to privacy is a moralistic platitude.”

“I am also not sure if you know that you keep diverting the topic or not. I don’t think you’re smart enough, but now and then I’m fooled.”

She stood, holding her briefcase with both arms, as if I’d tried to cop a feel.

“I do not have to sit here and allow you to berate me,” she said.

“No you don’t,” I said. “And neither will the Dean of Liberal Arts, when I discuss it with him.”

She sat back down again, hugging her briefcase a little closer.

“You’d go to the dean?”

“Yep. Probably go to Bass Maitland, too. And probably the student newspaper.”

She was horrified. The look of haughty incomprehension had been replaced by wide-eyed staring fear.

“I want a lawyer,” she said.

“Sure,” I said. “Go get one. I’m not a cop. You’re not under arrest. But I now know that Robinson Nevins got jobbed in his tenure hearing, and I know by whom, and I can prove it, and I will. What I don’t know yet is why, but I’m not sure
why
matters.”

The class break had ended and the next period had begun. The quadrangle was relatively empty. Some students sat on the library steps smoking, and listening to headphones, and talking and thinking about sex. In the small plot of dirt where the evergreens grew by the steps of the administration building, some tough-looking city birds, starlings mostly, and a few sparrows, pecked industriously for whatever birds peck after. In front of the university, MBTA trains stopped and let people out and took people on before they tunneled back underground.

Finally in a voice that sounded almost girlish Lillian said, “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Probably not,” I said.

She took her left hand off her briefcase and began to play with the hair at the back of her neck.

“A university faculty is special. It is a place, maybe the only place, where the ideal of a civil society still flourishes.”

“I can see that,” I said.

If she heard me she didn’t show it.

“Robinson is a decent man, but he… he has no place on a university faculty. He is not… how to say this… he is not consistent with the current best thinking on racial matters.”

“How is he at teaching English?” I said.

“That’s a fallacy. A university faculty is not simply about teaching, it is about creating and passing on culture. The university is a place where the best minds must be allowed freedom to contemplate the most basic human issues. A university faculty is the progenitor and propagator of culture.”

I was certainly glad I had said “by whom” a while ago.

“Would you say Robinson is out of step with current racial thinking in the sense that he does not see it as genocidal to teach dead white men in his classes?”

“That’s part of it, though of course you would put it in a way that makes it sound puerile.”

“So you felt obligated to lie about him to the tenure committee because he was not the right kind of black guy,” I said.

“Again you have demeaned my point,” she said.

“Someone ought to,” I said. “I’m glad I could be the one.”

“I did what I thought best in the larger context.”

“Let me get one thing clear,” I said. “This bastion of civility you’ve been speaking of, is Amir Abdullah a tenured member of it?”

“Yes.”

“I refute it thus,” I said.

She came out of her abstraction trance enough to look puzzled.

“Is that a quote?” she said.

I couldn’t stand her anymore. I stood.

“Samuel Johnson,” I said. “Look it up.”

I left.

The stuff from Last Stand Systems was obviously computer-generated, though it was pretty professional-looking with colors and right-justified margins and typefaces that someone had thought about. It was also dreck. The centerpiece of their promotional literature was a newsletter titled
Alert!
which warned against the encroaching mongrelization of the white race, the feminization of the American male, the homosexual assault on marriage, the debasement of American Christianity, and the arrival of the Antichrist. There was a thoughtful discussion, complete with footnotes and bibliography, of a secret plot which festered deep within the power centers of the federal government, abetted by Zionism, whereby this country would be handed over to the One Worlders at the UN. The author signed himself Octavio Smith, Ph.D. The writing was grammatical and wooden.

I put
Alert!
down and picked up the other stuff. There was a letter from the CEO, Milo Quant, explaining that Last Stand’s mission was to restore the America our fathers had founded. There was also an application for membership, and a calendar of upcoming Last Stand events. I filed the application which required a $100 fee and looked at the calendar. It was mostly a list of Quant’s public appearances. The closest one was at the state college in Fitchburg, Mass., Friday night, sponsored by a student group. A don’t-miss opportunity.

Last Stand Systems, Inc., seemed the most unlikely organization to be flying a black homosexual radical activist named Amir Abdullah up to Maine for the weekend. But they had, and there was no plausible explanation that I was able to come up with. It was also possible that they had sent out a squad of well-scrubbed shooters to chase us away from him. Again I couldn’t think why. Maybe they were using him as a recruiting ploy. Enough exposure to Amir Abdullah would make anyone a racist homophobe.

My office door opened. It was Susan. She had a small bag of Key lime cookies she’d bought somewhere and wanted to share them with me over coffee. Sharing meant Susan ate most of one cookie, and I ate all the rest in about the same amount of time. I had no problem with that.

“There’s a fund-raiser at the ART Friday night,” Susan said. “I’d like us to go.”

She had put the cookies out on a little paper plate and was making coffee.

“Oh darn,” I said. “I have to drive out to Fitchburg State and listen to a speech by a racist homophobe.”

“Well,” Susan said, “I couldn’t ask you to give that up. Decaf all right?”

“Sure,” I said. “Want to can the ART and go with me?”

I watched her as she spooned the coffee into the filter. She always made it too weak.

“Yes,” she said, “but I can’t. I’m on the board, you know. I just hate to go alone.”

“Bring Hawk,” I said. “He’s got a good sense of humor.”

“Oh my,” Susan said.

We were silent for a moment, both of us thinking about Hawk at the fund-raiser.

“Whyn’t you add another heaping spoonful of coffee,” I said.

“Won’t it be too strong?” she said.

“No, and a pinch of salt.”

“Okay,” she said and did what I said, although I could tell by the set of her shoulders that she knew the coffee would be salty and much too strong to drink. She turned on the coffeemaker and stood looking down at it while it began to brew.

“I’m missing you,” she said while she watched.

“Yeah, I’m missing you, too.”

“I feel like we haven’t seen enough of each other,” Susan said.

“Working couples,” I said.

“Do you think we can get away soon, just the two of us, somewhere?”

“Yes,” I said. “A mystery ride?”

“I’d love that,” Susan said.

“I’ll put something together for us.”

“I don’t want to tour the new ballpark in Cleveland,” Susan said.

“And you don’t want to go to Cooperstown,” I said, “and visit the Hall of Fame.”

“That still leaves a lot of options for us,” Susan said.

“I guess so,” I said. “I wonder if KC Roth would like to see the Hall of Fame.”

“She’s probably in it,” Susan said. “They probably retired her diaphragm.”

“Her diaphragm?”

“I’m an old-fashioned girl,” Susan said.

“And not a jealous bone in your body.”

“Not one,” Susan said.

The coffee had brewed enough to fill two cups. Susan poured it and put the pot back, added milk and Equal, and brought the two cups to my desk.

“Why are you going to listen to a speech by a racist homophobe?” she said.

“His name popped up in the Robinson Nevins case.”

“Really.”

I was on my second cookie. Susan had a small bite out of hers. The coffee was just right. I knew she thought it was just right too, but wasn’t saying so because she was stubborn.

“Last weekend a plane came to Logan and picked up Amir Abdullah and took him up to Bangor. The plane belonged to Last Stand Systems, Inc., of Beecham, Maine, and this speaker is the CEO of Last Stand Systems, Inc., which appears to be at the far right end of the family values movement.”

“Is that being put kindly?” Susan said.

“Very,” I said. “We asked Amir about this. He denied that it happened.”

“So what will you learn by going to the speech?”

“Don’t know,” I said. “See what this guy looks like. Hear what he sounds like. Maybe I’ll get to ask him about Amir. Mostly I don’t know exactly what else to do, so I’m going to do that. You know, keep looking until I see something.”

“I know very well. We do somewhat the same thing in therapy.”

We finished our cookies and drank our coffee.

“Coffee’s just right,” I said.

“I thought it was a little strong,” Susan said, “and a tad salty.”

I grinned at her. I got up and walked around my desk and stood in front of her.

“I love predictable,” I said. “Will you give me a big lingering open-mouthed kiss?”

Susan patted her lips with a little paper napkin that had been in the bag with the cookies. She stood.

“Yes,” she said. “I will.”

“I’ve moved back into civilization,” KC said, when she was seated across from me with a glass of white wine.

“Chestnut Hill?” I said.

She shook her head.

“Not enough dollars,” she said. “Place in Auburndale, the first floor of a nice two-family.”

We looked at menus and ordered. KC had another glass of white wine.

“I… I have to say things,” she said.

“Okay.”

“I… I’m sorry about some of the crazy things I did. Calling you up and leaving you notes.”

“No harm,” I said.

“I was just… crazy, I guess. Crazy time, you know?”

“I know.”

“And of course I want to thank you for saving me.”

“Just had to convince you to save yourself. Your ex-husband was more useful than I was.”

“Yes. Burt was there for me. Sometimes I think I made a mistake. I could be there now in a nice house with someone taking care of me.”

“You can take care of yourself,” I said.

“I didn’t do much of a job of it before,” she said.

“Your ex-husband send you money?” I said.

“Alimony.”

“Enough?”

“Enough to be independent,” KC said.

“Or dependent.”

“Sure, men always say things like that. You have no idea what it is like to have been a married housewife forced suddenly to take care of herself.”

“You’re right,” I said.

She sipped her wine. The restaurant was busy. Legal Sea Foods are always busy.

“You think I should get a job?” she said.

“I think if you supported yourself and didn’t take money from your ex-husband, in the long run you’d feel better about things.”

“I wonder if he’s seeing anyone.”

I didn’t say anything.

“He was there for me,” KC said.

“And he urged you not to misunderstand,” I said. “He reminded you that you and he had different lives to live.”

“Of course you’d stick up for him. Men always stick up for each other. The old boys’ network.”

“I’m not so old,” I said.

“Oh pooh,” she said. “You know what I mean.”

The waitress brought chowder for KC and lobster salad for me. KC took the opportunity to order another glass of wine. We each had a taste of our lunch. KC’s wine came and she had some.

“But,” she said, “I didn’t ask you to lunch to complain.”

“Oh,” I said.

“I just wanted the chance to let you know that I understand how much you’ve done for me.”

“My pleasure,” I said.

“Is he-whose-name-shall-not-be-mentioned going to be in jail a long time?”

“Ask me after his trial,” I said.

“What if he doesn’t go to jail?”

“He will.”

“But what if there’s, you know, a miscarriage of justice?”

“Then we’ll take the necessary steps,” I said.

“You’ll still be there for me?”

“It’s sort of what I do, KC.”

“But I haven’t even paid you.”

“I know.”

“What if he comes back and I still can’t pay you?”

“We’ll work it out,” I said.

“I… I just don’t think I can cope if I don’t know you’re there.”

“Where?” I said.

“You know, there for me.”

“As I said, that’s sort of my profession.”

“You mean you’re there for anyone who hires you.”

“More or less,” I said.

She was taking in more wine than chowder, which was a shame because the chowder at Legal was very good. I finished my lobster salad.

“When you were sitting by my bedside,” KC said, “after the… that awful thing happened to me, I thought maybe I might be more than just someone who had hired you to be there.”

I didn’t like the way this conversation was going.

“Part of the service,” I said.

She put her hand out and placed it firmly on top of mine, and stared into my eyes.

“God damn it,” she said, “can’t you see I love you?”

I felt like I’d wandered into a remake of
Stella Dallas
.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I rescued you from a bad situation. And you need to be in love with someone to feel secure and you don’t have anyone else to love at the moment, and I’m handy and you think I’m it.”

“Don’t tell me what I feel,” she said.

“Are you still seeing the therapist Susan recommended?”

“Drive all the way to Providence twice a week to talk about my father? I don’t think so.”

“Susan can get you someone up here.”

“You think I’m crazy?”

“I think you need help in figuring out who to love and who to trust and what you need.”

“Talk talk talk. Why can’t men ever simply feel?”

“You need help in not generalizing, too,” I said.

She stood up so suddenly that she knocked over her empty wine glass. She came around the table and threw her arms around me and kissed me on the mouth. I sat stock still feeling like a virgin under siege. Flight seemed unbecoming. KC was pushing the kiss as hard as a kiss can be pushed. I remained calm. When she broke for air she leaned her head back and stared into my eyes some more.

“I love you, you bastard,” she said. “Don’t you understand that I love you.”

“If you don’t let go of me,” I said, “and sit back down, I will hit you.”

She straightened up as if I actually had hit her, and stared at me, and began to cry. Sobbing loudly, she turned and ran from the restaurant. Everyone in the place watched her leave, and then looked at me with either disapproval (almost all of the women, some of the men) or sympathy (several of the men, one woman). My waitress remained unperturbed. She brought me the check.