“And African American.”
“That is yet to be determined.”
“Yet?”
“We have a forensic anthropologist from Clemson University working on the site right now. He has assured me he will prepare a full report on what he finds.”
Greer shifts in his chair to look at the other men. “On the site now, you say? I wonder why the basement is so quiet. We checked the cellar door. It’s locked.”
Jacob only shrugs. “I don’t keep his schedule for him.”
Greer pulls a handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabs at his forehead with it. “And you-all will be content with this report? When it is published, will that conclude the matter for you?”
“I can’t give you a definite answer on that right now. This is a highly unusual situation. At this point, the school is measuring its options as carefully as possible before we proceed. We want to be sure to take the appropriate course of action.”
The reverend replaces his handkerchief carefully before he looks up at Jacob. “I think your preferred course of action is inaction, Mister Thacker, just as it has always been. Or should I say, inaction where the citizens of Rosedale are concerned. Just this week I have had my secretary calling the dean’s office since Monday afternoon, when Brother Shanks came to talk with me. Not a single call has been returned.”
“I was not aware of that. Had I known of it, I would have contacted you myself.”
Greer arches an eyebrow. “Is that a fact?”
“It’s my job.”
Jacob begins to say more, but Greer cuts him off with a wave of his hand. “I know the party line. I know you could go on all morning about the old Negro hospital, the Charity Hospital, the free clinics. But all of that is just covering, just a salve on the wounds of racial injustice that are as much a part of your school’s history as the buildings themselves. A salve over an old wound—a wound that your basement tells me has been festering for a hundred years.”
One of the men by the bookcases makes a noise of agreement. Things are getting out of hand. Jacob reaches for his portfolio on top of the desk gratefully and takes out the envelope from the archives. He opens it and passes the photocopy of Nemo Johnston’s picture across the desktop.
“Take a look at this, if you will, reverend, and tell me what you see.”
Greer takes the paper and glances down at it for a moment. “I see a brother from another time, an ancestor, a grandfather. A man with dignity in spite of the trials and tribulations that show on his face.”
“I agree with you. But what you also see there is the man we think is responsible for every bone in that basement. Nemo Johnston was his name. He was the school’s resurrectionist, a body snatcher. What they used to call the men who procured the specimens for gross anatomy. So this matter isn’t as simply black-and-white as you seem to think it is.”
The reverend’s face darkens a hue. He hands back the photocopy as if it has contaminated his hand.
“He stayed on with the school after the war, after emancipation,” Jacob says, letting the silence in the room gather weight. He looks down again at the photocopied image of Nemo Johnston before he puts it back in the envelope with the others, carefully, willing his hand to stop trembling.
The reverend is speaking with an effort at composure. “I am not here today to debate what a brother may have done, or been forced to do,” he says. “I am here today to demand a hearing—a public hearing—about the remains of our brethren downstairs. Since your dean has been so reticent in meeting with me, he will meet with the public.” Greer shoots his cuffs and places his hands on his knees, leaning forward in his chair.
“Saturday morning my congregation will assemble at Ebenezer at dawn. We will march down Gervais, past the statehouse, to the very door of this building. Our banners will proclaim the event as a reparations march. I will tell the press that since dialogue has failed us, we have no recourse but to pursue civil litigation. I believe the news coverage will be extensive.”
Jacob can feel the sweat, which had begun under his arms the minute he entered the office, begin flowing in earnest.
“If you think coming in here and hot-boxing me with these guys is going to change how the school conducts its business, you’re mistaken. Your march won’t do much better.”
Greer leans back in his chair and smiles. “And there we have it. Your business. Your business has been conducted on the backs of my people for generations. But the times have changed, Mister Thacker. Your business is now our business.”
“Doctor,” Jacob says, hating himself for it but unable to keep his tongue. “It’s Doctor Thacker.”
“Doubtless it is. But from where I stand, a white coat and a white hood don’t look all that different.” The men—all but Lorenzo—chuckle as Greer rises from his seat.
“I implore you to talk with your dean about this. If we can get no justice from official channels, we must agitate in the streets. Thirty-six hours from now, we will march. And the march will have a historic impact. Your school will feel it for years.”
He turns on his heel and steps to the door, already being opened by one of his men. They follow him in silence, single file. Lorenzo is the last out the door, lingering on the threshold.
“Didn’t know you were a religious man, Lorenzo,” Jacob says.
“I meant to come by yesterday,” he says, almost apologetically. “But Bowman’s got us working over on the East Campus.”
“You do what you have to, I guess,” Jacob says, trying to smile. “I’ve seen you down at the gym. Hell, I’d want you in my corner too.”
“Brother Shanks!” the reverend calls from the hallway. With one last glance at Jacob, Lorenzo is gone.
THE BMW CLINGS to the curving driveway of the Dean’s Mansion like a lover, its humming engine echoing off the low stone walls that border the neatly sealed blacktop beneath a canopy of dogwoods and magnolias. Except for its narrowness, this route could be confused with a road, stretching as it does over a winding quarter mile from the estate’s iron gates on Beltline Avenue to the circular turnaround in front of the antebellum manse, where the asphalt gives way to pea gravel that is neatly raked each morning by the grounds crew. As often as he has been out to the mansion, Jacob can still hardly believe the grandeur of the place.
Yet this evening, with the day ebbing into plum-colored twilight, he has anything but beauty on his mind. All afternoon he tried to reach the dean, who has steadfastly refused to carry a cell phone or beeper since the day he left private practice. On his way home from the office, Jacob tried the mansion once more from his own cell phone, breathing an audible sigh of relief when the familiar voice of Bitsy McMichaels answered and told him that Jim was just back from the golf course and would see him if the matter was urgent. He assured her that it was.
He pulls into the turnaround a little too fast, pea gravel clattering in the convertible’s wheel wells. Hurrying up the steps, he has a hand out to ring the bell when the great door swings open from the inside to reveal Bitsy standing in the great foyer. She is, as ever, immaculate, a former debutante who has never quite lost the easy grace of her youth, though her sandy blond hair is now streaked with gray and her suntanned face is beginning to show wrinkles at the corners of her mouth. When she smiles, the wrinkles first deepen, then disappear.
“Jacob, please come in,” she says, extending a hand. “I have to say, you’ve got me worried, though. I’m afraid something terrible has happened.”
“No, no, nothing terrible,” he says, straining to smile. “You know how the first week of school goes. Lots of little fires to be put out.”
She leads him through the ballroom, where the catering services staff is setting up tables and chairs for tomorrow night’s year-opening banquet. Their voices reverberate off the high ceilings of the room.
“Jim is in his study, having a drink,” she says, and gestures toward a high oak door that has been closed against the noise of the caterers. “Go on in, and I’ll bring you boy
s something to eat in a minute.”
He begins to tell her not to bother, but she cuts him off and places a hand on his arm, light as a bird. “You know it’s no trouble, sugar. Make yourself at home.”
Jacob finds Jim in the study, which is paneled in oak from floor to ceiling, with built-in bookshelves of the same wood flanking a brick fireplace. The dean is hunched in an old leather armchair that looks like it has been sandblasted, pulled up close to a small television set on one of the bookshelves. On the screen David Hasselhoff is being held at gunpoint in a locker room. Hasselhoff wears his trademark red swimming trunks and nothing else; his hair looks like a living thing.
“Jake, have a seat,” Jim says, eyes never leaving the screen. “Mitch is in trouble.”
“Baywatch? You should be grateful I’m not a donor. Not the kind of fare one expects from the dean.”
Jim leans over and cuts the television’s volume. “I don’t watch it for Mitch,” he says. And as though to corroborate his claim, within seconds the screen fills up with the mutely bouncing curves of Mitch’s colleagues, jogging to his rescue.
Jim is looking at Jacob and grinning. “Guess you noticed the improvements in our basement today.”
“It’s quiet. And padlocked.”
Jim leans back in his chair and stretches out his legs, clad in Scottish plaid golfing pants, before him. “Quiet, and it’ll stay quiet. I had to call in a whopper of a favor, but by God, our property’s going to stay ours.”
“Sanburn’s gone?”
“For good. We ran his ass back to Clemson this morning. I’m sorry you missed it. You know Buddy Armistead?”
Jacob smiles. “I’ve never met him. But I know who the lieutenant governor is.”
“Right. Well, Buddy and I go back many years, all the way to Charleston Academy. He was good enough to walk over from the statehouse and have a sit-down with this Doctor Sanburn. Seems Clemson’s Anthropology Department is looking at some potentially serious budget cuts next year. Buddy volunteered to intercede on its behalf.”
“Jesus,” Jacob says.
“Yep,” McMichaels says. “He’s on our side, son.” He rattles the ice in his glass and looks out the window. The television flickers, and Jacob realizes it is the only light on in the room.
McMichaels rises and steps to a wet bar set into the bookcase next to the television. “Get you anything?”
“Sure. Whatever you’re having.”
McMichaels speaks over his shoulder while he pours two glasses of scotch. “So that’s today’s good news. I have a feeling you’re here to tell me about another kind of news. These things come in threes, don’t they?”
“I guess they do. A black preacher came in today. Name’s Marcus Greer.”
McMichaels shakes his head as he hands Jacob his drink. “Never met him.”
“He’s the pastor at Ebenezer M.B.E., over on Pulaski Street. Somebody told him about the basement and he’s all over it. Says he’s got a march set up for Saturday morning.”
“A march, for Christ’s sake?”
“He called it a reparations march, from the Ebenezer church to the front door of Johnston Hall.”
“The fuck he will.”
“We can’t keep him off the campus if he gets a permit.”
“And how in hell is he going to get a permit by tomorrow?”
“I guess he’s connected. Maybe he goes way back with someone at city hall.”
McMichaels shoots him a look, then walks over to one of the tall windows that overlook the back gardens. He stares out on the palmettos and azaleas as though looking for a solution outside, in the gathering dusk.
“I know,” Jacob says. “Bad for the school.”
“Very bad,” McMichaels repeats, shaking his head. “What kind of man was this Greer?”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean, how was he dressed? How did he act?”
“He’s a dandy. Double-breasted suit. French cuffs. Lots of rings.”
Jim almost smiles. “Just how Elizabeth described him. He’s the one. We had some trouble with him back in the eighties. Some kind of dustup over the physical plant laborers.” McMichaels nods slowly at the window.
“I thought you’d never met him.”
“I haven’t. But it’s my business to know a little about everybody. I had Austin Malloy pull together a file on this Greer today.”
Jacob takes a deep breath and makes an effort at speaking calmly. “That raises some significant confidentiality issues.”
But the dean seems unconcerned. “We’re well past confidentiality now. Besides, I want you to know what kind of man you’re dealing with.” With the dean facing out the window, Jacob can see only half his face. It is expressionless.
“John Beauregard handled the physical plant thing, if I’m remembering it right,” McMichaels says.
“That was before my time.”
“Yes it was. Beauregard was an asset to the school.”
Jacob shifts in his chair, remembering Beauregard’s retirement party, when Jacob had been officially introduced as the old man’s replacement. He’d felt like a usurper all evening among the old guard gathered over cocktails to wish Beauregard a fond farewell. Six months later Beauregard was dead of an embolism that laid him out on the ninth fairway of Augusta National, midway through another sub-par round.
McMichaels steps back to his leather chair and bends behind it. When he rises, Jacob sees with a sinking sensation that he holds a plain manila folder. “And he didn’t have this.” He drops the folder in Jacob’s lap, where it rests with a leaden weight. “Use it only if you have to. Otherwise, we’re going strictly by the book on this.”
McMichaels crosses the room to his mahogany desk and opens a drawer. He takes something out of it and pulls the chain on his desk lamp. Under the green light of the banker’s shade, Jacob sees that it is a checkbook.
“Reparation march, my ass,” he says. “Don’t fall for the man-of-God routine, Jake. This Greer is a petty hustler, a shakedown artist. Lucky for you, Beauregard got his number ten years ago.” He begins to scribble on the checkbook as though writing out a prescription. “I’m writing you a check from the dean’s discretionary fund. I want you to go see this reverend, get this taken care of.”
Jacob looks down at the folder in his lap, and at the glass in his hand, realizing he had forgotten it. He takes a long drink from it before he speaks.
“I don’t think I can do that, sir.”
McMichaels waves a hand in the air as he might swat at a mosquito. “Nonsense. It must be done.” He looks over the green lampshade at Jacob intently. “It’s a tax-deductible donation. If I can’t rely on you, Jake, who have I got?”
“You’re talking about a bribe, sir.”
McMichaels’s eyes flash as he comes around the desk. He jabs a finger at Jacob, the check held loosely in his hand as he points toward Jacob’s chest. “You never use that word around me, son. Never. Spend a few more years in this business and you’ll see there’s no such thing. Do you think a school gets built—clinics, hospitals set up—without quid pro quo? This is the rule, Jake, not the exception.”
“I still think we should take this head-on. I’ve been finding things in the archives, Jim, about this slave named Nemo Johnston. Amazing stuff. He was likely the first black anatomy professor in the South. Or hell, the country. If we’ve got this money, we can afford a symposium on this Nemo Johnston, maybe even a center. You know Sanburn would eat it up. We’d be beating Greer at his own game.”
“Nemo Johnston?” McMichaels said, shaking his head. “No, no. Sanburn is gone now. And so is the past. Stand up, son. I want to show you something.”
McMichaels has moved to the window again, and he motions Jacob over to him. “Let me tell you what I’ve learned in my time, Jake. It’s all about end results, long-range thinking. That’s how you build a legacy. And I’ll be absolutely goddamned if my part of that legacy should end up in a scandal. I’ll retire in two or three years, J
ake. I will not be remembered by what’s in that basement.”
McMichaels gestures toward the window, the flush on his face beginning to fade. “Take a look out there. Just take a look at this place.”
Jacob looks out over the rear grounds in the twilight. The exterior lights have been turned on, all of them, from the ground lamps along the brick pathways to accent lighting under the crape myrtles, spotlights in the live oaks. It looks like a vision of the Old South set up by a Hollywood scene artist.
“All of this was started with slave labor, then carried on through Reconstruction and into this century by workers paid damn near slave wages. No point in dredging all that up again. But just look at it now. Now it’s maintained by tax dollars, for the greater good. Today, anybody in South Carolina who can make the academic grade is welcomed to this medical school. Black or white, rich or poor, it belongs to them. Hell, even foreign students. And that overrides whatever concessions were made to get us here.”
McMichaels reaches out an arm and hooks it around Jacob’s shoulder. “You’re one of those people, Jake. Do you think I don’t remember you from years ago? I do. I remember Jacob Thacker, up from West Columbia to make something better for himself. I remember reading through your admissions file and saying to myself, Sweet Jesus, we’ve got somebody here who’ll crawl through broken glass to be a doctor, somebody with real guts.” He hands Jacob the check. “You still want to be a doctor, don’t you, Jake? Do what you need to do.”
Jacob looks down at the check, all the zeros in its sum, the dean’s scrawled signature. McMichaels has written “501 (c) (3)” in the memo line. “You didn’t make it out to Greer. That line is blank.”
“Talk to the man. See if he wants it made out to the church, to a scholarship fund, whatever. I’ll leave that part of it to your discretion.”
Jacob is about to speak when he hears a soft knock at the door. Bitsy enters with a tray of cheese and crackers and smiles as she sets it on the coffee table. McMichaels moves to help her. His face seems to light up in her presence.
“What a woman, huh, Jake? Still as beautiful as the day I met her on the beach at Edisto,” McMichaels says, stuffing a cracker in his mouth and putting an arm around his wife.
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