by David Linzee
At five sharp Chancellor Reeve bounded onto the podium and stepped up to a lectern bearing the Adams seal. His speeches were much admired in the public relations and development departments, and this one did not disappoint. It was short and punchy, packed with sound bites that Peter scrawled in his notebook. Amid the crowded bleachers, he felt that Reeve was speaking directly to him—more than he had earlier, when the chancellor had in fact been speaking directly to him. For a few minutes, all the unanswered questions about the Parkdale deal fell away, and there was only a man burning with zeal to save a once robust, now battered neighborhood, as well as make life more agreeable for students and employees. By the time he finished, Peter was ready to pick up a broom or shovel and join in the effort.
Reeve did not take questions but said he would be available, and as he stepped down, reporters and photographers mobbed him. Peter knew he wouldn’t be able to get close enough to hear, so he wandered among the associate provosts and vice-chancellors, who were also answering or avoiding questions from reporters. Some of them were about Don Radleigh and his fortuitously timed buys.
Everybody seemed to be enjoying the party. A line had formed for barbecue, and a man in a pink pig suit, complete with floppy ears and curly tail, was dishing out ribs. Peter guessed that it was Don’s tenant Herb, who was probably grinning behind his mask as he thought about all the potential customers soon to move into the neighborhood. At a table next to him, the skinny, nose-ringed Ethan was handing out ice cream cones, looking much happier than he had the last time Peter had seen him. The Adams University student band was playing bluegrass. Peter saw Don ringed by reporters, three or four deep. He was wearing a handsome, tan gabardine suit. Sunglasses were perched atop his head. His eyes were bright and his cheeks flushed. Renata had said once that he enjoyed attention so much that he couldn’t tell when it was hostile. Peter edged into the outer ring and listened.
A reporter—probably not the first to do so—was asking when Don had heard that Adams was buying his eighty-nine buildings.
“Late yesterday,” he replied. “It knocked me for six.”
“Does that mean you were surprised?”
“Absolutely.”
“Completely surprised?”
Don missed the insinuation. “I didn’t before, but I realize now that it was I who gave Adams the decisive nudge. They were impressed by the confidence I showed in buying so many buildings—including the derelict ones, even those that were just empty shells.”
“But they’re still derelict and empty shells,” said a woman Peter knew was from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “How many of your buildings have you actually had time to rehab?”
“Not as many as I’d like. I love these old buildings. I was looking forward to renovating them. But I had to give them up … for their own good, as it were.”
The reporters exchanged sidelong glances.
Don went on obliviously. “In future years—well, not even years, months—I’ll be walking these familiar streets admiring all the improvements Adams is making. To the buildings themselves, of course, but there will also be bike lanes and racks, security phones on every corner, new trees and parks, and it will give me deep satisfaction to think I played a small part in—”
“What do you say to the rumor that one of these parks will be named after you?” drawled a man from the West End Word. No such rumor was in circulation, and there were chortles and even an outright guffaw as the unsuspecting Don preened himself.
“What’s your reaction to Chancellor Reeve calling you an urban pioneer?” asked a woman from the NPR station.
“Well, I’m quite—”
“Don’t you think ‘urban profiteer’ is more like it?”
A hard blow from the side sent Peter staggering. The man standing next to him had fallen against him. Somebody was pushing roughly through the crowd. It was a short, rotund man, with a few wiry black hairs crossing his bare pate. He closed in on Don, shouting at him in English so strongly accented that Peter couldn’t get what he was saying. Don was backing off, raising his hands palms out. The man grabbed his collar with one hand and punched him with the other. The punch knocked off Don’s sunglasses but did no other damage.
Four Adams security men were on the assailant now. They forced him to the ground, cuffed him, and dragged him away. Hanging his head, he went quietly. Don was denying to the reporters that he knew what that was about or who the man was. Peter followed the security men, hoping for a word with the assailant.
He assumed they were going to escort him out of the party and release him, but instead they turned him over to some St. Louis cops, who put him in the back of a patrol car. Joel Rubinstein sidled up, hands in pockets. He spoke quietly to one of the cops, who shook his head and got behind the wheel. The patrol car drove away.
Joel watched it go, frowning. He was dressed up for the occasion. His jeans were clean, his T-shirt had no holes in it, and his ponytail was bound in a ribbon rather than a rubber band.
“You know that guy?”
“Oh … hi, Peter. Yes. His name’s Mohammed Qasedi. He’s one of those landlords I was telling you about, who rent to Section 8 tenants.”
“A slumlord.”
“More of a slum peasant. He was an optician in Cairo. Came over here when the troubles began a few years ago. His credentials were worthless here, so he took out a loan and bought a building. He didn’t know what he was doing, and he wouldn’t listen to us or didn’t understand us—his English isn’t too good. He ended up with tenants who trashed his building even faster than usual. It was uninhabitable. He sold it to Don for twenty thousand dollars. Don just sold it to Adams for three or four times that.”
“Oh. Of course, there’s nothing illegal in that.”
“No.” Joel gave Peter a keen look. “You know, you never did report back to me about who Don’s backer is.”
“I never did find out. I know only that he’ll go to any lengths to keep his name a secret.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore. To me, anyway. My worries about Parkdale are over. And I’m rich.”
Peter nodded. “I’m benefiting from a bit of Adams U largesse myself. Thanks for recommending me to Vice-chancellor Merck.”
“I just said you were poking around the neighborhood, and he decided to bring you onto the reservation.”
“How long have you known Adams was going to buy up Parkdale?”
“Only since yesterday. Of course I’ve been trying to talk Adams into buying some buildings from me for years. Telling them Parkdale had potential. They would listen, but it always turned out they had other priorities.”
“Why move now? And buy up the whole neighborhood?”
“You know what they say about gift horses. All I know is I’m rich.”
“You don’t sound happy.”
“Well, I’m not as rich, or as happy, as Don Radleigh. And whoever he’s working for. Such lucky guys.”
Raising his eyebrows, Joel turned away. Peter realized that he had failed to get a quote from him, one he could use in a press release. Time to get to work. Looking around, he spotted a good prospect for a quote: a tall black man, with a chest so broad he couldn’t button his suit coat. Revealed in all its glory was a “power tie” in glowing yellow.
“Frank Muldaur,” Peter said, approaching. “Still a haberdasher’s nightmare, I see.”
Muldaur looked down on him with hooded eyes. “Do we know each other well enough for you to insult my taste?”
“Come on, Muldaur, you know me. Peter Lombardo of the Springfield Journal-Register. Whenever I wanted an interview with the Mayor of St. Louis, I knew I could count on you not to help.”
“It’s the Chief of Staff’s job to see his boss doesn’t waste his time on small-town Illinois papers. Journal-Register went bust, didn’t it? What you doing now?”
“At the moment, I’m working for Adams U.”
“PR? Guy who enjoys being obnoxious as much as you?”
Peter poised his pen over h
is notebook. “What do you think of the Adams purchase of Parkdale, Mr. Muldaur?”
“The City of St. Louis has long regarded Adams as a partner in urban progress. The Medical Center is the top employer in the city, and this property acquisition is a good thing all around.”
“Very nice,” said Peter, scrawling. “What about the tax angle?”
“I don’t know what you’re referring to.”
“Sure you do. Adams is a non-profit. Doesn’t pay taxes. That means a lot of buildings would drop off the city’s tax rolls. You can’t be happy about that.”
“There you go being obnoxious again. I gave you your quote. So long.”
“Come on. You must have a real answer.”
“I’ll save it for the real reporters.” Muldaur moved off with this stately walk, his arms swinging at some distance from his broad torso.
Peter moved on. He saw Don, who had recovered from his encounter with the slum peasant and was now sipping lemonade and chatting with Roger and a couple of other vice-chancellors. He considered joining them, just to see how Don would react. But his attention was drawn to a woman sitting in the otherwise empty rows of chairs facing the podium.
It was the woman Don had met for a drink in the Central West End. She was not looking at him, or at anyone, just smoking a cigarette with an unalloyed enjoyment one rarely saw these days. Peter glanced around. Hannah was about twenty paces away, studying one of the posters for the proposed park.
He approached the woman, smiling. “Evening.”
She did not smile back. She gave him that special look—a combination of raised eyebrows and lowered lids—that beautiful women mastered to discourage troublesome males.
He resorted to his job to avoid a brush-off. “I’m from med school PR. Mind if I talk to you for a moment?”
She held out her cigarette menacingly, as if it were garlic and Peter a vampire. “What’s your problem? This is usually enough to guarantee me some privacy at an Adams event.”
“I’m hoping for a quote.”
Seen close up, she looked a little older, with a few more lines around her eyes and mouth, but the heart-shaped face framed by the bell of dark hair was just as beautiful. Her legs, in dark-toned hose, were elegantly crossed. Her perfume blended agreeably with the smell of smoke.
“Oh, you don’t want a quote from me. I work for a part of the university that the chancellor, and therefore your department, has little interest in.”
“And that would be?”
“The College of Arts and Sciences.”
“The chancellor isn’t interested in arts and sciences?”
“He prefers engineering and business. Disciplines that quickly convert students to generous alumni donors.”
“Before we go any further, may I have your name and title?”
“I’ve already gone too far to give them to you. Are you trying to get me in trouble?” She gave him a direct look and a smile, a charmingly lopsided one that brought out a long dimple in her right cheek. He didn’t think she was much worried about getting in trouble.
“Off the record, then. What’s your response to the Parkdale acquisition?”
“Complete surprise. I’d heard nothing about it.”
“And now that you’ve had time to think it over …?”
“Complete bafflement. The chancellor has never shown much interest in St. Louis. I don’t know why he’d want to rescue a neighborhood.”
“Well, maybe he’s thinking of the students. He wants them to be well-housed.”
“He’s never shown much interest in our students, either. He thinks they’re a bunch of pampered degenerates who ought to be in boot camp.”
Peter sat down beside her. “You know, you really make it worthwhile going off the record. What is Reeve interested in, in your opinion?”
She flicked away her cigarette with red-nailed fingers. “He makes no secret about it. At a faculty meeting once, one of my colleagues said he was afraid that Reeve wanted to change Adams too much. Reeve replied, ‘I’m not interested in changing the university. I want to change the world.’ ”
“The ‘global networked university,’ ” Peter said. “The ‘university to the world.’ ”
“So you do know his buzz words. He doesn’t like our campus, with its musty buildings and students reading old books, sitting around talking about them, trying to figure out what’s important in life … I mean, where does that get you? His vision is a brand-new campus, in a desert, with clean, disciplined students learning to be docile technocrats, and not daring to have a thought of their own, lest they lose their scholarships or get thrown in jail.”
“You’re talking about the Mideast campus.”
“Yes. We have a delegation from the Sultan of Kutar arriving later this week. I’m surprised the chancellor can spare a thought for anything else.”
“Would you say there are a lot of people on the main campus who share your views?”
“I’m not alone.”
“Any chance you’ll be going on the record soon?”
“Perhaps.” She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward, letting him know his time was about up.
Time for the key question, then. “Do you know Don Radleigh?”
“I know who he is, but we’ve never met.”
This was untrue. He gave her a doubting look, but she’d already turned away. She sauntered off, slender hips switching under her short black skirt.
He stood and looked around. Chancellor Reeve had left, and so had Don. In fact, the party was visibly winding down. He had better wrap up his PR duties. He distributed press releases to reporters, took down quotes from a couple of vice-chancellors, consulted with the staff photographer about identifying subjects and cut-lines.
Feeling he had earned his barbecue, he headed for the stand, where Herb had taken off his pig head. His sweat-soaked moustache drooped as he filled plates. Peter got in line. Ahead of him was a man with dreadlocks reaching to his shoulder blades and an expensive tweed sports jacket. The combination was incongruous but familiar.
“Imani?”
The man turned. His broad-browed, handsome face was the color of sourwood honey. He smiled and offered his hand. “Hello, Peter. How are you?”
When Peter had been a full-time PR man, he’d written a piece for the alumni magazine, singing the praises of the med school’s new minority scholarship program. Associate Professor Imani Baraku of the School of Public Health had responded with a letter to the editor, demolishing Peter’s article, point by point. Roger skillfully made the incident go away, leaving Peter still feeling angry and embarrassed. It surprised him that when they met, Imani Baraku was perfectly affable, and that for the rest of Peter’s stay in PR, he went out of his way to be helpful and pleasant.
“You here for the ribs?” the professor asked.
“No, I’m working.”
“Oh, you’re back with PR again? Glad to hear it.”
“Only temporarily. I’m the public info officer for the Parkdale buy.”
Imani’s eyebrows rose, clearing the top of his horn-rimmed glasses. “Really? What can you tell me about it?”
Peter pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. “It’s all in my press release.”
“Thank you, but I’ve already read it. Didn’t notice your byline. Forgive me. Now what’s not in there?”
Peter smiled and looked down.
“Come on, you can tell me. You’re only a temporary Adams slave.”
It always disconcerted a white person when a black person used that word, and Imani knew it. He was expert at throwing you off balance and making you blurt things out.
“Nice try, Imani. But in this case, I really don’t know much that’s not in the release.”
“But you have a personal connection to this Radleigh guy, right? His sister, to be exact.”
“And you have a long memory. Uh … Imani? The line’s moved.”
The professor looked around and saw that a gap had opened in front of him. He
closed it, then turned back to Peter. He wasn’t done probing. Peter decided to speak first. “What’s your interest in Parkdale?”
Imani swept a hand across the scene. “You notice who’s not here?”
“Who?”
He raised his chin. Peter looked up.
People were leaning out and looking down from the windows of the buildings around the vacant lot. They were almost all black.
“Everybody’s having a good time and saying how great this is for the neighborhood, except the neighbors,” Imani said. “Didn’t notice, did you?”
Well, he hadn’t. Stung, he said, “There’s nothing to prevent them coming down and joining in.”
“They’re too busy wondering how long till they’re evicted and where they’re going. You got to love that Adams U style. Settle their fate without consulting them. Then they’re welcome to some ribs. This is just urban removal all over again.”
“You’ll recall that in my release, I mentioned that the university is going to offer some apartments to non-students at subsidized rents.”
“That paragraph was a bit short of detail. Like how many apartments, how much rent, and where the people are to live while the buildings are being renovated. A careful writer like yourself would have included those details, if they’d been available to him.”
Peter’s cheeks felt hot. It was so irritating, having to argue with people when you suspected they were right and you were wrong. Now he remembered why he had gone freelance. “All of that will be announced.”
“I can’t wait.”
“Imani, are you going to criticize this deal? Publicly?”
Chuckling, Imani put his hands in the pockets of his tweed jacket. “I’m planning to do more than criticize it. I hope I can undo it.”