One Fell Swoop

by David Linzee

  After the interview, a short, slick video produced by Peter’s department, showed a stretch of desert on which patches of green grass, gardens, and lines of date-palm trees miraculously appeared, followed by low buildings of steel and smoked glass, and then by computer-generated students hurrying to and fro: the soon-to-be built campus of Adams-Kutar.

  Renata emerged with steaming plates and they sat down. They were halfway through their ratatouille and polenta when Peter’s cellphone rang. Renata jumped. He glanced at the screen and assured her, “It’s not Muldaur.”

  “Who then?”

  “Unknown number.” He pressed the button and said hello.

  “Peter Lombardo?”

  There was a lot of background noise, but he could not mistake the smoky voice. “Dean Carmichael.”

  “I’m at the Ritz-Carlton. I think you want to come over here.”

  “Why?”

  “I just saw Don Radleigh.”

  Peter jumped to his feet. He said to Renata, “Don’s resurfaced. Do I call the cops?”

  She was on her feet too. “No! We go and see him.”

  “On our way,” Peter said into the phone, and put it away. He patted his pockets for his keys. Only then did he remember. “Oh, shit. I returned the car.”

  “Bus?”

  “Bike’ll be quicker. But we only have one.”

  “I’ll go.”

  “You don’t know the way.”

  He was already hefting the bike on his shoulder. Renata didn’t argue, just held the door open.

  The Ritz-Carlton was in the posh suburb of Clayton, only two and a half miles away. It was fully dark by now and the rain was tapering off. Streetlights made long streaks down the wet pavement. He pedaled hard, the bike swaying under him, and made the most of his gears on hills. He was puffing hard by the time the lights in the Clayton skyscrapers came into view. The nearest, he knew, was the Ritz-Carlton.

  Hunching over the handlebars as he did the home stretch along the Ritz’s long driveway, he could see a lot of activity in the hotel’s forecourt. Between a floodlit fountain and the porte-cochère was a small crowd of people, police cars, and TV news vans. Peter hopped off his bike and leaned it against the wall of the hotel, hoping it would still be there when he returned. He waded into the crowd. They were a calm, well-heeled group of protesters: Adams U faculty and students, he guessed. Many were raising signs decrying the Kutar Campus. The sheikh must be staying here. After a delay that had his heart pounding extra hard from frustration on top of exertion, he found Dean Carmichael leaning against a pillar, talking to a small knot of people. He burst into the group.

  Recognizing him, she said, “I saw him go in the hotel—only for an instant, but I’m sure it was Don.”

  “When?”

  “Right before I called.”

  Less than twenty minutes had passed, then. He was probably still inside. “What was he wearing?”

  “A long, light-colored raincoat. And carrying an umbrella.”

  “Thanks.”

  Peter trotted under the porte-cochère toward the line of doors to the lobby. They were blocked by Clayton cops standing shoulder to shoulder. They weren’t wearing riot gear, just no-nonsense expressions. One of them told Peter that if he couldn’t show a card key, he couldn’t go in. He tried to persuade the man he was arriving to check in. But panting in his damp clothes, he didn’t look like a Ritz guest. The cop waved him away.

  He could think of nothing to do but watch the doors and hope to spot Don as he came out. Through narrow windows inset in the doors he could glimpse the chandelier-lit lobby. A few guests were peering out at the goings-on. A few yards away, Dean Carmichael was being helped up onto the bed of a pickup truck, which was serving as a podium. Even without a cigarette, she looked poised and nonchalant. Television lights brought out the luster in her dark hair. She raised a bullhorn to her lips. The husky, sardonic quality of her voice was enhanced by the amplification.

  “We are here to draw a line in the sand.”

  There was laughter and applause from the crowd. The rain had kept the numbers down, but the demonstration was getting plenty of media attention. Camcorders were set up on tripods, and he recognized a few acquaintances from the print media. The timing was just right to make the ten o’clock news.

  “Chancellor Reeve is telling everyone what a great deal he’s making. And it is … for Kutar,” the dean continued. “They get the rich resources of one of America’s greatest universities delivered to their doorstep, like a pizza. But it’s not great for Adams. The chancellor brags of how he’s quote elevating our brand internationally unquote. Really, he’s cheapening our brand. The Kutar Campus will be the Rolex you buy in Hong Kong that stops ticking before you get home. You cannot drop a ready-made university into an uncivilized country.”

  The faces of the protestors no longer looked calm. The dean was winding them up. “Our colleagues who accept the chancellor’s blandishments to go to Kutar will face profound ethical dilemmas, trying to teach in a small, backward despotism that has no traditions of academic freedom, democracy, free speech, or women’s rights. If we can’t stop Reeve from finalizing the deal this week, construction of the campus will go forward. The work will be done by underpaid, maltreated foreign workers. If the usual Kutar safety standards are followed, about thirty of them will die in accidents. When the school opens, it will welcome students from many nations, as the chancellor says. As he doesn’t say, none of them will be gay, and none of them will be Jews.”

  There was a bellow of rage that Peter could hardly believe came from the throats of professors. All his instincts told him this was a big story that was going to get bigger. He wished that Don Radleigh had never been born and the Springfield Journal-Register had never died, so he could whip out his notebook and start interviewing people.

  He forced himself to snap out of it. Time was passing, and Don had not come out of the lobby doors. Suddenly Peter realized he was being stupid. By now Don knew that the police were looking for him. He wouldn’t want to pass through a line of Clayton cops again if he could help it. He would try another exit.

  Peter skirted the crowd. He debated for too long—infuriating, the temptation to dither when you had no time for it—whether to run or fetch his bike. Deciding on the bike, he mounted it and rode around the back of the hotel. A light was shining above a door, and a man in a white chef’s smock was leaning against the wall next to it, taking a cigarette break.

  “Hi,” Peter said, “have you seen a man go by? Man in a light raincoat?”

  “Sorry, pal. We’re not supposed to talk to the media.”

  “I’m not the media. You think the media rides a bike?”

  The cook laughed. “Haven’t seen your guy.”

  Peter rode on, past loading docks with closed doors, bulky central air conditioning units, and giant Dumpsters. He came to a high concrete wall and circled back. A figure was flickering through the light at the kitchen door. Peter saw the tan trench coat and rolled umbrella: Don.

  The jocund cook was grinding out his cigarette. He grinned as Peter passed and shouted, “Go get ’im, bike-man!” Don heard. He looked over his shoulder and started running. If he turned right toward the front of the hotel and ran into the crowd, Peter would have to dismount. He’d be sure to lose him. Instead Don ran straight on, along the highway behind the hotel. Mistake, Peter thought excitedly. There was nowhere to go.

  Don disappeared in the darkness. Peter rode on and came to a walkway that led to a pedestrian bridge over the highway. He hadn’t noticed it before. It was new and ADA compliant: no steps, just a smooth concrete ramp lined with chain link fences, zigzagging steeply up to the bridge. Don was halfway up it already. Peter blessed the decision to bring his bike. Don was trapped between fences; there was nowhere to go but up, and he couldn’t go as fast as Peter.

  The bike was in high gear but Peter didn’t take time to downshift. Pumping hard on the pedals, he started up the ramp. Don was two switchbacks abo
ve, running in his direction.

  “Don, Wait!” Peter shouted. “Your sister—”

  “You’ve set the cops on me,” Don yelled back. “Fuck her and fuck you too!”

  So there was no choice but to ride him down, leap on his back, and wrestle him to the ground. Peter’s blood was up and he was looking forward to it. He stood on his pedals and bent over the handlebars, giving it all he had. He swerved around a turn, having to put his inside foot down to save himself from falling, got up on the pedals again and pumped. Ahead of him, only one loop above, Don hadn’t moved. He was down on his knees. Peter thought he had fallen.

  Too late he saw what Don was doing: pushing his umbrella through the chain link into Peter’s path. Peter started to swerve, too late. The ferrule slid between the spokes and the front wheel stopped turning. The bike upended. Peter went flying. He made a somersault and came down hard on his right foot. Fierce pain shot from his ankle to the top of his skull. He lurched into the fence and collapsed in a heap.

  The world was blurry. He got to his knees and patted the ground for his glasses. He put them on just in time to see Don disappear from view, coattails flying, onto the bridge. Peter clawed his way up the fence until he was standing. He tried to take a step with his right foot and nearly fainted from the pain.

  Nothing to do but hold on to the fence and hop on his left foot. He made his way to the top of the ramp, then over the rushing river of traffic, red lights on one side, white on the other. He could not see Don.

  On the other side was a street of tall trees and small houses, quiet and dark. A car engine fired up. Peter saw its taillights but was too far away to read the license plate before it disappeared. He couldn’t be sure it was Don anyway. He sat down on the curb and gasped for breath. Now that he had time to attend to it, the pain from his ankle grew more intense. His cellphone rang.

  “Peter, I’m in a taxi,” Renata said. “Almost at the Ritz-Carlton.”

  “Good. You can take me to the hospital.”

  Two hours later they were sitting in the back of another taxi, on the way home from St. Mary’s. Peter’s new aluminum cane rested beside him, and his sprained ankle was professionally braced and bound. Holding his hand, Renata asked, “How are you feeling?”

  “Terrific. They gave me some great painkillers. Even the humiliation is fading.”

  “Peter, I’m sorry.”

  “It was not you with the goddamn umbrella.”

  “If only I could have gone instead of you.”

  “You think you could have made him stop to listen to you? No way. He blames us both for the police being after him. Which raises the question. Do I report tonight’s doings to Muldaur?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Well, it would give him a good laugh.”

  “Peter, I just don’t know. I’m afraid we’re driving Don deeper into desperation. Making him do even stupider things. I guess I don’t want to go to the police again.”

  “Why do you think he resurfaced? What was he up to at the Ritz?”

  “He went to see the sheikh.”

  “That could be jumping to conclusions. There are hundreds of people in that hotel.”

  “My feeling is, it was the sheikh.”

  “I have the same feeling. There’s some connection between the Kutar Campus and Parkdale. But I have no idea what it could be. Those people who picked you up in London—the billionaire’s gofers. You’re sure they weren’t Arabs?”

  “Kutarians, you mean? No, they were Indian. Or I should say South Asian. They could have been Pakistanis or Bangladeshis. But definitely not Arabs.”

  “What about the billionaire himself?”

  “Indian.”

  “You’re sure? You said you didn’t see his face.”

  “I heard him speak. I’m quite sensitive to anything to do with voices. I don’t think I’m mistaken.”

  Peter yawned. “Please don’t think I fail to appreciate the seriousness of the situation. But those painkillers are really kicking in.”

  “Go to sleep, my love.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Next morning Peter was sitting up in bed waiting for Renata to bring him a cup of tea when his phone rang. He didn’t much like tea, but she said it was just the thing for an invalid. He read the screen and said, “Hello, Roger.”

  “Pete, better get down here right away.”

  The associate deputy vice-chancellor’s tone didn’t leave room for an explanation of Peter’s condition. “What’s going on?”

  “Big demonstration at the medical center.”

  “About the Kutar Campus?”

  “What? No, about Parkdale.”

  Professor Imani Baraku was leading a protest march of tenants, Roger explained. They had already left Parkdale, bound for the plaza of the medical center. Baraku had not notified the administration. He had notified the media, though, and they were already on hand. Peter said that he was on his way.

  With Renata’s help, he managed to pull his pants on. She said he was in no shape to cover a demonstration, and he agreed. But he was too curious to stay home.

  A block from the med school plaza, he paid off his taxi. It was a brisk, sunny day—good demonstrating weather. Leaning on his cane, he limped toward the plaza. He passed a parked school bus. Looking through the windows, he could see rows of black helmets. The St. Louis Police had been criticized for using military-style vehicles against demonstrators, so they were trying a Trojan horse ploy, putting cops in flak vests and helmets on a cheery yellow bus. It crossed his mind that last night the Clayton police hadn’t felt the need to don riot gear to face the mostly white professors and students at the Ritz. But that was the kind of snarky thought that wasn’t allowed him, now that he was a PR man again.

  He hoped there wasn’t going to be a riot. He was in no shape to run. And he knew from experience that tear gas didn’t just cause tears, it caused rivers of snot to flow from the nostrils. It was hard to take notes with a sodden handkerchief pressed to your face.

  The plaza was the nearest thing the fragmented medical campus had to a center. It was a street converted to a pedestrian mall, with planters full of zinnias and a large fountain. On either side rose the walls of hospitals and classroom buildings. Peter limped to a traffic bollard that would give him a good view and sat down.

  The news vans from local TV stations were already here. He watched the technicians setting up cameras and raising the stout aerials on the back of the vans. Adams security men were deploying to guard the entrances to the buildings. Passersby, some in white coats or scrubs, others in ordinary clothes, were pausing to watch the developments. Looking up, he could see hospital administrators leaning out of their office windows in the surrounding buildings. He remembered the worried tenants looking out their apartment windows at the Adams party three nights ago. The role reversal would gratify Baraku.

  A murmur of voices gradually detached itself from the rumble of traffic. The faraway chanting grew louder as the marchers neared. They swung around the corner into view, filling the street from side to side, and just kept coming. Baraku seemed to have mobilized the entire population of Parkdale as well as sympathetic students and faculty. Photographers scurried around in front of them. Now Peter could make out the chant: “SAVE OUR HOMES!” They were carrying signs, too, and he noticed their slogans addressed and decried Reeve, not the university.

  Once the marchers were in the plaza, taking up a respectable portion of the large space, it became clear that this was not going to be merely a mill-around-and-shout demonstration. Nobody was going to throw rocks at windows or challenge the guards at the building entrances. Imani Baraku had something more purposeful in mind, and he was a past master of organizing demonstrations. Marshals with armbands and bullhorns were moving among the crowd, getting them to settle down. They were followed by assistants passing out bottles of water. Crews wheeling dollies appeared. One was a platform, intended as Baraku’s dais, and the TV people were all over it, placing thei
r microphones. The other object was more puzzling, a large rectangle with a nacreous surface. After a moment, Peter recognized it as a video screen for showing movies outdoors.

  Baraku walked to the podium. His dreadlocks seemed more luxuriant today, spreading over the back of his corduroy sports jacket from one shoulder blade to the other. The crowd cheered, then fell into expectant silence.

  “I need not speak for long,” he began, his voice echoing from the surrounding buildings. “The people of Parkdale have already delivered one of our main messages, by showing you that they exist. Something Chancellor Philip G. Reeve would prefer for you to forget.”

  People roared and waved their signs or their fists.

  “My other point is that Chancellor Reeve’s real plan for Parkdale is not the one he has announced.”

  Peter sat bolt upright.

  “The university has spoken vaguely about rehousing some residents in rehabbed, rent-controlled buildings. That statement is no longer operative. None of the former residents will be living in Parkdale. In fact, no one will be living there. Chancellor Reeve does not intend to restore Parkdale. He plans to destroy it.”

  Baraku nodded to the crew at the projector and stepped down. Peter got up and shuffled over to a spot that gave him a better view of the screen.

  The shield of Adams University Medical Center appeared on the screen and sprightly string music began to play. A narrator, whose voice Peter recognized from the local PBS station, sang the praises of the med center, in phrases Peter could have recited in his sleep. Adams had more Nobel prize winners on its faculty than any other medical school. Granger Hospital was consistently rated among the top five in the country.

  In the next shot, a drone camera flew over the Central West End and the traffic-clogged streets around the hospital. The narrator’s voice turned grave. The med center’s future was clouded, perhaps its very existence threatened, by its outmoded physical plant. The labs, clinics, and offices were housed in more than twenty-five different buildings, some old and antiquated, scattered among apartment houses and office buildings over several square miles. Staff wasted their valuable time on shuttle buses. Patients searching for care wandered the center in bafflement. And there was never enough parking. Adams was losing out in the competition for the health insurance dollar to suburban hospitals that provided inferior care, simply because they were more convenient.