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 we could squeeze in the time. I’d tried to stand up for the campus cops, and draw their attention to what Stammos had said rather than vague stereotypes, but I had not endeared myself to my faculty colleagues as a result.
I continued to scan the room, but I didn’t see anyone else I knew, except a tall student working as a waiter. For campus cops, I knew there would be a duty roster for a big reception like this. Today, big gatherings were by definition security risks, and not just because free food and drinks were being served. The fact that the university hospital was spending so many millions on a fancy new building when health care services for the surrounding poor communities were almost non-existent was generating a lot of ill will and even protest, witness what was happening outside. I didn’t see any of the university teaching faculty I knew either. Not surprising though. The hospital circle and the teaching university circle did not often overlap and I doubted they’d socialize.
Besides, this was in the nature of a fundraising event and even the highest ranks of academics today don’t command the salaries they once did. I imagined the tickets for this event were in the neighborhood of $500 each. As Tom’s guest I hadn’t paid my own way, but I guessed the cost from the fact that both crab and shrimp were on the trays of the circulating waiters.
The tense guy was still hissing in Tom’s ear, so I turned slowly around to look at the shape of this building in the making. It was kind of interesting to see the bones of the thing before the actual plaster smoothed over all the innards. At the opposite side from the stairs Stammos had approached was another, obviously temporary staircase that led up to the first tier of the floors that surrounded the atrium. A crowd was gathering at the foot of the stairs and they were donning their hard hats. Probably a guided tour. Suddenly, Tom took my arm, startling me out of my reverie. The agitated man had disappeared. Tom looked where I was looking.
“I’d like for you to see this place, but not like that.” Tom nodded his head in the direction of the tour group, and I could see that Mandel Griffiths was preparing to lead it. I agreed. That was an item on the evening’s program to be avoided at all costs.
“You’ve seen it? When?” I asked.
Tom shrugged.
“I came through with the Dean last week. This operating room thing is a fiasco. How can we even think of doing Level One Trauma and have so few operating rooms? We have our operating suite cut in half, but have our own private elevator. It’s insane.”
Tom’s face was grim as he gazed at the upper tiers of the exposed building, obviously contemplating riding up and down in his private elevator with no place to operate on patients.
“Come on,” I said. I drew him toward the place where I’d seen Stammos head to another set of stairs, nearly hidden behind a roped off area with small machinery and tools. I gestured in that direction.
“Show me. Give me a private tour.”
I didn’t have to tug him very hard. We deposited our wine glasses, still mostly full, on the tray of a passing waiter, walked over to the roped off area, and quickly ducked under. Nobody stopped us, so we continued on up the stairs.
When we’d climbed halfway, I felt a tug on my cape.
“Let’s say hello as long as we’re up here,” said Tom, drawing me back down a step and into his arms.
“Let’s,” I agreed, leaning into his warm lips. This evening was improving by the second. When we freed ourselves, I took a second to retie his bow tie that had come completely undone. I felt a sudden pang for my dead husband, Marco. How many times had I done that for him? I turned, confused and curiously ashamed. I tried to shutter my face, smoothing it out so the pain wouldn’t show and hurt Tom. Even touching Tom had, at first, elicited the same jolt of guilt, but I was overcoming it. Gradually, I guessed, intimacy with Tom would seem normal. That would be the ultimate betrayal then. I shivered and tried to focus on climbing unfinished stairs in heels in the semi-dark.
“The surgery suite is on the third floor,” Tom said quietly as we continued our climb. I wondered if he’d seen my sudden discomfort. I could feel his eyes on my back.
We took a quick peek out of the stairwell as we turned to go up the next fight, but we didn’t stop. When we got to the third floor, Tom took my hand. Used coffee cups and fast food wrappers littered the floor along with loose nails and stray boards. This area had not been cleaned up for the tours, obviously. We probably shouldn’t be up here at all, but as long as we