“Why didn’t Alison stop him?”
“She is either indebted to him or afraid of him.”
We arrived at a restaurant only recently opened. It was a very high-end eatery that was part restaurant and part nightclub. After helping Marilena through the entry, we were coolly received, I won’t say greeted, by a fashion plate who dutifully led us to our table. I wondered how someone so young and whose only claim to fame was seating people to eat could have already become such an arrogant pain in the ass.
We arranged ourselves and ordered drinks. Omar remarked that he had been told by several friends that this restaurant was worth a try. He only hoped that the food was more appealing than the attitude of the hostess. Drinks arrived and after hearing the litany of not specials, but “off-the-menu chef’s exclusives,” we ordered.
Omar began, “Thank you again for meeting with us. We need to talk. I asked Barry to join us because he, your brother Ron, and I were collaborating to make changes at the society. If indeed you plan to join the board and make an impact on the society, we would like to share with you our concerns and what we had been doing with Ron’s help to make changes.”
“Barry, help me understand your area of expertise and your role with the society.” Marilena asked Ledderman.
“I am a business and technology consultant. My little firm — I own the company, there are only five of us — helps large organizations acquire business entities and technology in strategic transactions. We have worked for the society for over ten years, due mostly to Alison Montgomery’s predecessor. Working for a charity is not our company’s primary business, but we do have skills that are not found inside the society, and we do all we can to help. The president before Montgomery was a retired admiral who was truly a great man. Working for him was a pleasure even though he was a taskmaster. He put the mission of the society in the forefront of everything.”
“Barry and his team have helped us in countless ways from negotiating on our behalf with our vendors and assisting us with technology implementation in order to help us develop our venture philanthropy program.”
“Venture philanthropy?” I asked.
“It’ll be great but only if we can keep Alison Montgomery from screwing it up,” Ledderman said with a little disgust creeping into his voice.
Omar jumped in to keep the conversation on track. “You need to understand a little of our traditional business model to see how exciting venture philanthropy is.”
“How would you describe your business model?” I asked.
“Archaic, frustrating, and quite frankly, in the way of finding a cure for CID. Don’t get me entirely wrong. Most of the other health-focused charities suffer in the same way in spite of the fact that many very good people work for them. Charities that are not in the chronic disease arena and have a focus on some non-health related cause have far better business people than we do and have been very successful.”
“Give me an example,” I said.
“The NRA or the AARP come to mind,” Omar said. “They support a parochial issue; they are not embarrassed about it, are professionally managed, and are operated like real businesses that drive for results without apology. In comparison, our successes, even given the considerable sums we raise, are miniscule. If our constituencies, those either having CID or having a loved one with it, fully know how inept we were when compared with an organization promoting gun owner rights, they would be incensed and rightfully so. After all, our mission isn’t a political cause like lobbying the congress for some group of farmers. We are fighting a life-robbing disease that afflicts innocent sufferers. Our cause is unimpeachable. We have the moral high ground. The problem is that due to our arrogance we are largely ineffective.”
“How and why do you see the society as arrogant?” I asked.
“I believe that it is the combination of two things. First, our mission is one based on science with very smart scientists in our midst. And, second, as I said before, we are morally superior. The two together put us in a place where we certainly can’t learn anything from mere business people who can’t be as smart as our scientists and certainly are not as trustworthy being the greedy business types that they are.” A smile formed on Omar’s face as he said this last part, and he looked at Barry. “Barry, here, is a perfect example. He’s made a tremendous amount of money, but it is not due to his intelligence. It is because society’s misguided principles financially reward the for-profit sector even though they aren’t as smart or as principled as we superior humanitarians! It’s just not fair!” His words were cynical, his jabs at his friend understood by Ledderman knowing that Omar was in reality stating that the organization he worked for had little to base any arrogance upon.
“Get back to your business model,” I said.
“Oh, yes. I’m sorry. My current personal dislike for my organization can get in the way. Our business model is simple. We send children out to play in traffic. Many, many do so, and their very numbers insure two things: fifty-cents and a dollar per mile sponsorship adds up to a lot of money, and sadly one or two of them will die each year supporting our cause.”
“What do you mean?” asked Marilena in some shock at Omar’s statements.
“We run hundreds of walk and bike fundraising events each year. Our average donor, our bread and butter, is not the big society type writing us a check for a hundred grand but rather a neighbor of little Kathy or little Jimmy sponsoring the child’s bike ride in the name of our cause. The neighbors’ check will average fifteen dollars. We just get lots and lots and lots of them. Hundreds of millions of dollars.”
“You said some die?” I asked.
“Yes. Each year, one or two people will get struck by a car or truck while participating in an event. This last year was especially difficult. We lost two children at two separate events but on the same day, both in plain view of their parents who were also participating. What I am saying is that given the hard work, and in some cases the ultimate sacrifices of our donors, we should be better stewards of the money entrusted to us.”
“And you are not?” Marilena said with more surprise.
“We spend the minority of what we take in on research. The rest gets mysteriously spent in what is called in fund accounting, program-related costs, and administration. We live life well. Salaries are high, some executives travel first class, we stay at very expensive hotels, and even our research dollars are suspect. Let’s begin with the research spending. The money is handed out to educational centers in the form of research grants. It is mostly an institutionalized program to keep graduate students employed. Very little actual research into CID actually gets accomplished. Even worse, if you were to go to a premier research facility like the Marklin and ask them to comment on the research work being sponsored by our grant, they would tell you that all too often, the science is bad science. The bottom third of our grant money is easily wasted on science that the rest of the medical community will not only ignore but distance itself from. Putting it simply, the traditional grant model spends a lot of money and in return, we get papers, not therapies. And if the papers are of such value, why is there no mechanism for promoting them to other researchers? There isn’t even a database available that tells you what papers have been written with our grant money and a synopsis of their findings. That’s because little of it has actual value. We report the number of papers written, not discoveries made that will help find a cure for CID.”
“That’s pretty damning,” I said quietly while thinking of the money our family has donated to healthcare advocacies.
Ledderman joined the conversation with, “That’s what we have been trying to fix with venture philanthropy.”
“How does that work?” again from Marilena, who, like me, was both fascinated and distressed by what we were hearing.
Ledderman continued, “It’s a simple, yet powerful departure from the academic grant model. We take donor money and invest it in commercial initiatives developing therapies or diagnostic tools for
people with CID. Our money has real and tremendous impact. For example, there are over fifty compounds that show promise for someone with CID that are languishing on the shelf with early stage pharma companies because they lack the resources to do clinical trials. In over sixty years since the society was formed, we have seen the delivery of only five drugs that are approved for people with CID. None of them is a cure. They treat only some symptoms, and the side effects can be worse than the disease. Over half of our constituency doesn’t take any of them.”
“I don’t understand. What’s the hold up? Why don’t you do more of the venture philanthropy? Get the trials started for the other compounds?” I was sure that I was missing something simple.
“Like all organizations, we resist change. There are departments staffed with well-paid people administering those grants. Diverting their grant money diminishes their departments’ worth and political clout. Their arguments are fallacious,” Omar continued. “The society response to venture philanthropy has been that it too closely aligns greedy commercial business with donor money. Let’s stick with a model that isn’t working instead of making a change to something that may make us look like a partner to a commercial venture.”
“You’re kidding?”
Omar looked at me and said seriously, “I only wish I were.”
“What is Alison’s take on this?”
Omar’s lips compressed into thin lines while Ledderman exhaled in open disgust. Omar said, “This is a place where Barry and I disagree. I believe that Alison just doesn’t understand the issue and is being manipulated by those in the society who have built empires around the current programs. Barry thinks that she knows exactly what the issue is and for some unknown reason is fighting us.”
Marilena said, “That is actually promising that you have differing views and you debate them. Barry, what are your reasons for suspecting Alison of any malfeasance?”
Omar nodded and said, “Telling them about it is a good idea, Barry. We’re among friends. Tell Tom and Marilena what has been bugging you. Although I haven’t yet decided that Alison is anything more than incredibly naive, there are some things that I have seen lately that trouble me.”
Ledderman looked down at his drink, gathered his thoughts and began, “Ever since we lost the Admiral, the society has made decisions that I don’t understand. We make mistakes, and instead of fixing them in the open, as he would have, we hide them. We are no longer the central organization directing the resources delivered by the chapters on their behalf. We are taking and reorganizing to control more money without seeming concerned about fighting the disease. Omar is on the fence about whether it is the executive team’s inexperience or whether they know what they are doing, and that is for some reason not in support of the mission. I’m not on the fence, at least not anymore. Let me give you some examples of what is going on at the CID Society.
“Last year the home office fought a war with the chapters to have them move their donor databases into a national repository for safe keeping. The chapters, by and large, are as sophisticated or even more so than the national about data management. There was no risk. It was a plain and simple grab at the contact info for the donors. The national now mails them directly soliciting their money.
“Montgomery, the least qualified senior executive in existence today, routinely makes really bad decisions. Two months ago, she decided to take the three largest bike event fundraisers on a reward trip. Where did she decide to take them along with her friends on the senior staff? Italy! Two weeks in first class accommodations! If that ever got out, it would look really bad. Imagine if your child had died raising money that was spent on an Italian boondoggle.
“We have several items that we are working to hide because of the bad press they would generate. A former employee in our office has stolen over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars of donor money over the last two years. We fired her but neglected to get her building pass. She has been coming in every Saturday and going through the mail that the mailman leaves at our office door and pulling out the checks. She has even been sending them back thank you letters so they don’t follow up! After discovering this, the energy was put into keeping it a secret and not fixing the problem with new protocols and safeguards.
“Then, there’s that idiot Treece. He’s mister touchy-feely consultant for Montgomery; one of those soft science guys whose work can’t be objectively measured — a modern day shaman. He does the love-in meetings where people get to describe what cartoon characters the society reminds them of and to have their personalities profiled so that the others can better understand them. He’s a fruitcake. Last week I had to sit in one of his group gropes because Montgomery believed it would bring us together. What a load of crap.
“But the part I really don’t understand is why Montgomery’s two most influential staff members are such evil bitches, and she sees them as key to the society’s success! Well, one still is; the other just died.”
“I take it you mean Townsend. Who is the other?” I asked guessing that I already knew.
“Canfield is the other and is just as bad as Townsend was, only she is sneakier and not as in-your-face. And then on top of that, what is the deal with that butterball Standish? You heard that bullshit in the meeting with Lindy Price? And Montgomery did nothing. What’s he got on her?”
At that moment my cell phone rang. I looked at it, and it was Jim O’Dale. I thought it best if I took this one, opened the thing, and spoke into it, “Hi, Jim.”
“Tom, where are you?” His voice had an anxious note that I had not heard before.
“We’re at dinner at a restaurant in the meat packing district.”
“Then you’re near the address you gave me earlier?” he asked.
“Yeah, just around the corner. What’s up?”
“After you called me today, I started having second thoughts about April’s safety. So, I called my counterpart at the precinct you’re in right now. I told him the background and asked him to have a couple of uniforms drop by the apartment and keep an eye on her until you got there.”
“And?” I quickly asked, not liking where this was going.
“They’ve been there twice in the last hour and knocked on the door several times with no answer. They don’t have a court order or probable cause to bust in. They called it in and headed back out on patrol, figuring they’d stop by again later. I got that uneasy feeling in my gut, and I’m in my car headed there now.”
“I’m two blocks away. I’ll be there in less than five.” I hung up.
The issue of whether Alison Montgomery, albeit an inspirational and charismatic personality, was fundamentally naive and possibly never capable of filling an executive role or just inexperienced and needing some time and a lot of support to grow into her position would have to be left for a later conversation. Either was disconcerting, neither mattered. O’Dale’s news couldn’t be ignored.
SAVING ANGELS
AND FLYING DEMONS
“That was Jim O’Dale. He had some patrol cops go to April’s. She’s not there and he’s worried. So am I.” Building in my gut was one of those feelings that could not be ignored.
“What about April?” Ledderman asked having only partially understood what I had quickly said. He was still seated along with Omar and Marilena at our dinner table. Well, they had been anticipating dinner and were about to find out that it would be delayed.
I was already on my feet and yelling to them, “Come on! April is just around the corner. We need to move out now!”
“OK, I’m lost. April’s six months from now.” Ledderman said in resigned voice. I didn’t have time to explain. He’d find out soon enough.
I pulled a C note bill from my billfold, crumpled it into a ball and pitched it at the waiter who was returning with a second round of drinks. Between strip joints and aborted dinners, hundred dollar bills were leaving me at a faster than normal rate. The Benjamin hit him in the face and bounced to his tray, landing in a glass containing
an amber liquid — most likely Omar’s beer. Grabbing Marilena by the hand and leading the others, we moved quickly to the door. I ignored the soulless hostess, and she ignored us as we hurried out the door. As we moved outside, I retrieved Katrina’s note and glanced at the address to confirm my memory.
Turning right at the sidewalk, I took off, part walking, part running, still keeping Marilena’s hand tightly in mine. I was moving as fast as I could without losing my three companions: Marilena trying her best to keep her high-heeled feet under her as I pulled her behind me, Omar and Barry huffing and puffing with each step as they tried to keep pace. We were so close that if I left them and ran ahead, I would only beat them to the address where April was hiding by twenty or thirty seconds, and that was only if I could find it right away. It was better to keep together.
“April was a friend of Ron’s, and she may be in danger! We need to find her now!” I yelled this at Omar and Barry as I made the first right at Greenwich Street and headed south. The door I was looking for was less than one hundred feet ahead and on our side of the street. My small expeditionary force was too winded to express their happiness at having arrived. Their exertions, however, were not over yet.
The door was not locked, and I pushed my way through it. April’s address indicated a unit on the fourth floor, and it was a walk-up. Not waiting to hear any complaining, I started up the stairs taking them two at a time. The others fell in behind. Reaching the third floor landing while the others were just arriving at the second, I slowed and took the last two half-flights as quietly, but as quickly as I could. You could only turn left out of the staircase and down the hall. The hallway was dimly lit with low-wattage light fixtures every twenty feet or so. April’s door was the third on the right.
I stood at the door and pressed my ear to the wood, ignoring the rough and splintered texture. The building didn’t get the maintenance attention that Ron’s did. I couldn’t hear anything inside the unit. Marilena arrived with the boys behind her. She signaled them to be quiet.
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