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“Hi, Dean.” He likes being called by his title. He pretends he doesn’t, but he does.
I’m also aware that his daddy has given more than five million dollars to the school over the last decade, which just happened to coincide with when his son started working here.
Plenty of associate professors have been denied a full professorship. We don’t tell people it’s their turn. Not unless their father is a walking ATM.
I leave the office so he can pick up the phone and call Reid’s dad and tell him that he had the talk with me, and things are going swimmingly.
And thus I go, a dressed-down associate professor off to have the old Russian guy named Ygor (seriously) cut my hair, lest the faculty at my law school think I’m less than tenure quality because my hair is too long. Not that it matters—apparently, I’m withdrawing my application.
You’re carrying two shopping bags. You have money. That’s no surprise. You have a big rock on your finger. That’s no surprise, either. You never had trouble drawing the attention of wealthy men.
Some of the pearl-clutching neighbors on Lathrow Avenue tend to call the police whenever they see someone who is “not from the neighborhood.” Usually that code stands for something very different than me, a middle-aged white guy in a respectable-looking SUV, but still . . . If I idle here for too long, I’m bound to draw someone’s attention, followed not long thereafter by a police cruiser swinging by for a quick inquiry. How’s your day going, sir? Can I ask what you’re doing? See some ID?
I’m from Grace Park, mostly middle-class and proudly progressive—just ask us. But when Mortimer Grace founded the Park in the 1800s, he broke off a three-square-mile chunk and incorporated it separately as Grace Village. Mortimer’s views on class and race and religion would not be considered enlightened by today’s standards. He wanted the Village to be a gated community of wealthy, white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants like him.
The gates are gone, and the charter was amended to remove insensitive comments back in the 1940s, but some would argue that the Village hasn’t really changed all that much. More than anything, the wealth. Most of the kids don’t attend Grace Consolidated High School like I did; they go to private prep schools. And when they grow up, most return to the Village to raise families of their own. There are sixth-generation Villagers there.
I have my earbuds tucked into my ears, so I start talking, as if in a phone conversation, which for some reason makes me seem less weird sitting in a parked car.
She can’t go back there. She can’t go back tonight. She can’t go back ever. But almost all of them do. He’ll apologize. He’ll shower her with affection. He’ll make her laugh and feel loved. She’ll blame herself. And she’ll consider her lack of other options. Rinse and repeat.
We can do so much for them if they let us. They can stay with us for up to two weeks. We can get them counseling. We can find them a pro bono lawyer to get restraining orders and file divorce papers. We can find them alternative housing. But they have to say yes. They have to learn to fight for themselves.
Telling someone, Sure, let’s meet for coffee, is easy enough to do and then cancel later. Promise to follow up, sure, but then it doesn’t happen, or you don’t return a text. And it’s too amorphous to know whether it was an intentional blow-off or just one of those many things in life that ends up not happening, nobody’s fault, “no worries,” etc.
Rambo himself was the one who said it to me—back in the day when he was a cop hearing bullshit from suspects, sorting out the truth from the crap—the best lies are the ones closest to the truth.
Vicky, bless her heart, fights for me. She doesn’t like the idea of Dean Comstock forcing me out of consideration for the full professor slot. She can get pretty worked up when people disrespect me.
“It doesn’t . . . work that way.” “Why doesn’t it work that way?” She falls back against the booth cushion. “Sure it works that way. You said this guy’s more a politician than anything else. So make a deal with him. You’ll walk away this time if he promises to support you next time.” I swipe up my menu, not because there’s any mystery about what I order but because she’s right, I should do something, but I probably won’t, and I don’t want to look her in the eye.
Jane’s phone buzzes in her AirPods.
The Village does a mean Halloween business, a mecca for kids from the west side of Chicago, from the other side of the Des Plaines River, even from Grace Park. Sometimes they take buses over here to the mansions, with the huge candy bars and elaborate decorations. The older teenagers come at the end of the four-hour window for trick-or-treating, hoping to clean up the remaining candy in the bowls, usually prompting calls from one of the more uptight residents.
Per tradition, the residents of Grace Village turn off their lights at seven o’clock, to tell everyone that trick-or-treating is over. At seven bells sharp, all the parents shout, “Happy Halloween!”—probably mumbling under their breath, Now get out of my neighborhood—then kill their outside lights.
Once seven o’clock hits, it’s the darkest night of the year in the Village.
Running through this neighborhood reminds me that some people have bigger things to worry about than whether they get promoted to a stupid full professorship at their school.
Simon is organized enough to keep a backup list of all his important passwords but is far too paranoid to put them on a computer or phone. Electronic surveillance is the bread-and-butter of Simon’s scholarship; he is convinced the government looks at a lot more of our information than it lets on, and the Fourth Amendment is being shredded in the process.
And he sprinkled on some pumpkin spice before he brewed it. It’s not quite September, but it reminds me of autumn, my favorite season, which I’m sure is why he did it.
Still rough-shaven, just like his beauty pics on the website, which is interesting because it means he takes the time to shave it just so, not too hairy, but sexy stubble. Still that sweep of the hair made to look messy. This one goes to a lot of trouble to look like he didn’t go to a lot of trouble. His office doesn’t present like the other sedate ones I saw. He has a leather couch on one side with some fancy lamp hanging over it. A bar with premium liquor. An ego wall, framed articles written about him, some photographs of him with famous people. Three flat-screen TVs on another wall—CNBC,
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Definitely a more aggressive approach. Those other men, with their smooth small talk, their bullshit about forging relationships and getting to know the individual needs and wants of each investor, risk-mitigation, and asset-preservation strategies. Trying to make me feel secure and safe. This one, he’s saying, buckle up and prepare for blastoff.
I asked that question three times previously today and got the same answer each time. First, they’d have to see the language of the trust. Second, generally, if someone is listed on an account, they can spend that money without the approval of the other account holder. But third, it’s probably best to include the other account holder in the conversation to avoid disputes on the back end, including potential litigation—litigation that could include the investment adviser.
He’s thinking about what kind of person I am to be asking that question. And he doesn’t seem particularly bothered.
I look around the office, the rolling indices from the various stock exchanges, the diplomas from Harvard, the certifications from the state agencies. All these guys are alike in so many ways. But not in every way.
Even a pristine crime scene, her mother always explained, never tells the story precisely how it happened.
Simon has often joked that he has Irish Alzheimer’s—he only remembers the slights, the grudges.
You could sit on it, invest in low-risk bond funds and some index funds, live mostly off the interest, and cut into the principal slowly. You can be comfortable. Your whole life, you’ll be very, very comfortable.
I took it to my room and placed it inside my closet. I didn’t want to forget. I wanted to look at it every day to remind myself what and who my father was.
What he didn’t understand was that Mom didn’t care about that. She didn’t measure people that way. But Dad did. Probably a male thing.
I thought that would validate him, make him feel like he was in the big leagues now, the equal or roughly the equal to Mom. But apparently, he needed more.
Funny how people care so much what you think of them, even if you’ve never met before and probably won’t ever cross paths again.
My bio suggests that I’ve made hundreds of millions of dollars in my bold investments, so this condo might not seem nice enough. My go-to line is that I tie up most of my money in my investments, so I’m putting my money where my mouth is, I’m in the same investments that I’m putting you in, which is a pretty nice sell job in itself.
It’s a balance. Wealth is attractive to women. Uber-wealth, in my experience, can be intimidating. So I try to straddle the line, show her an occasional glimpse of my obnoxious wealth—see the titanium toothbrush—but otherwise try to keep a humble, low profile that downplays materialism.
There’s no way in hell I’m looking up that article. Not on any phone or computer that can be connected to me.
You could at least show some semblance of grace, but you can’t help yourself, you have to take me down a peg anyway?
I’d imagine the dean didn’t spell out every detail for you, but I have no doubt that he let you, and your big-bucks daddy, know that he was responsible for “talking some sense” into me or “helping” me “understand” the situation. He “took care of it,” I’m sure he told you, in his faux-diplomatic way.
You don’t mind that the hierarchical levers were pulled on your behalf. Hell, you’re proud of it, and you’re happy to let me know it.
Especially because now the dean will go with the nuclear option and destroy me and my future with the law school, if not with academia writ large. Or maybe he won’t.
The more time I spend with Vicky, the more I see that she’s a loner, a fighter. Most of the women I target—all six of the previous targets, in fact—had pretty normal, privileged lives.
Vicky seems like the type who doesn’t let go of a grudge. But as I keep telling myself, I don’t really know her. No, she’ll come after me. That’s what I’d do. And she’s like me.
“Don’t speak unless you have something to say,” she used to say to me during our talks when she tucked me in. “But when you do choose to speak, say what you mean, mean what you say, and be ready to support your points. If you can’t support your point of view, then it wasn’t much of a point of view to begin with.”
So I go for a long walk, come home, shower, post an essay on my blog, Simon Says, about a new case from the Wisconsin Supreme Court on the good-faith exception to the warrant requirement, and make it into my office at eight. My mother would have loved having a blog that allowed her to sound off on all matters legal for anyone interested. She had her specialties in the law like any professor, but she would read decisions on any subject matter.
He seems like a boss, a leader, issuing authoritative statements without the need to explain. She’s reasonably sure she would not enjoy working for him.
She questions herself, whether she phrased that question properly, as if she needs permission. She’s a cop investigating a murder. She’s entitled to that answer, however personal it may be. She makes a mental note.
Jane stays silent and stares at him. It’s worth a shot. The old adage is that if you sit silently, the nervous witness will keep talking to fill in the space. She doubts that will work with Conrad Betancourt. It doesn’t. Finally, he looks at her and repeats his answer. “Next question.”
She wants to push but not too hard. Because the witness has an Ace card that, frankly, she’s surprised he hasn’t played yet—he can refuse to answer and demand an attorney.
