“Have I heard from Jim?”
She nodded. “He was supposed to go to the memorial yesterday, though I don’t know if he actually did. And in any event, he didn’t come home last night. I’ve been worried sick about him.”
28
Al Carter was reluctant to make too many changes in his habits lest he call undue attention to himself. So on Thursday morning he presented himself at the Ortega campus at eight-twenty, which was the new time he’d been coming in since Dominic Como had originally gone missing. Of course, there was still no limo, but he had to believe that things someday would return to normal; and when they did, he didn’t want to have lost his place in the pecking order.
The day seemed to be getting off to a slow start again this morning following the closure of the admin offices until midafternoon of the day before for Como’s memorial. Al had dropped by here after his meeting with his brother and sister-in-law at the Mudhouse yesterday. He stayed just long enough to let his presence register and to pick up a stack of a hundred or so pledge cards-newly printed with a recent photo of a smiling and vibrant Dominic Como. All the Sunset people had been urged to hand these out to acquaintances, friends, and businesses, so it was good form to grab a bunch and disappear with them, although in Carter’s case, he simply tossed them into his garbage when he finally got home.
Now he closed his umbrella and walked through the empty, echoing lobby. The teachers’ lounge, back behind the wide-open general offices area, seemed to have attracted everyone who’d so far come in to work today and it fairly hummed with low-key activity. Making his way through the desks and cubbies outside, when he got to the lounge door, he put on a confident and sober face, and waded into the crowd.
Younger Battalion members mingled here democratically with both the clerical and executive staff. Someone had brought in doughnuts, and of course there was regular and decaf coffee and hot water for those who wanted tea or hot cider. But in spite of the sweets and drinks, between Como’s and Neshek’s deaths, yesterday’s CityTalk column, and the miserable weather, the mood in the room was decidedly somber.
Al slapped some backs and made small talk as he negotiated his way through to the refreshment table. Not for nothing had he worked all those years with the consummate politician that was Dominic Como. He finally found himself holding a jelly doughnut and a cup of coffee, on the periphery of a small group of women that included his nominal new boss, Lorraine Hess.
In a quick appraisal, Carter saw that the events of the past two weeks had played havoc with Hess’s looks. When Al had first come on at Sunset, she’d been in her mid- to upper thirties and quite attractive, vivacious and upbeat, with a body that was a little short of spectacular. Over the years, she’d softened her image, and her body tone, considerably until she began to fit Al’s description of the poster child for the aging female bureaucrat-large and gray. But especially when she smiled, which had until recently been quite often, her face had always retained something of its youthful glow and even beauty.
But not today.
Today she wore fatigue like a shroud that enveloped all of her. Her eyes, rimmed with dark bags, had sunk in over her hollowed-out cheeks. Even through the thick padding of imperfectly applied makeup, blotches were apparent on her forehead, on the imprecise, jowl-lined thickness of her jaw.
The conversation she was engaged in with the other women around her concerned the AmeriCorps improprieties and what they would mean in terms of immediate funding, whether there would be layoffs, how it would affect Sunset’s ability to conduct business with the city. Hess, a master at these administrative and bureaucratic details, was holding her own against the onslaught, downplaying the threat, but Al could clearly see that on top of everything else she’d endured, these topics and her people were wearing her down.
He decided to rescue her. “Pardon me for butting in,” he said, “but Lorraine’s telling you the truth. It’s not going to change anything. Dominic knew all about this long ago too. He was trying to get it all straightened out behind the scenes before they went public with it, but… well, we know what happened before he could do that.
“But the plain fact is, and we’ve all heard him say it a hundred times, that with government funding, when you get a difference of opinion, one side is going to say that the other is guilty of sin. That’s discouraging, especially when we’re set on helping others. But the thing we have to do now, all of us, is just to forget about all this bad news and go back about our work and not concern ourselves with things over which we don’t have control. First of all, Len Turner and Dominic were already talking about appealing the suspension of funding, and next, when Lorraine takes over here full-time, she’ll convince these auditors that all of these are insignificant issues that have, for the most part, been resolved. Isn’t that right, Lorraine?”
She forced a weary smile. “Exactly. That’s what I’ve been trying to say. This isn’t the time to panic, but to buckle down and do our work. And, Al”-now the smile came to bloom-“for a minute there, you sounded like you were channeling Dominic.”
“I think after eight years he may have rubbed off some.”
“Well, keep him around if you can.”
Al showed some of his own teeth. “I intend to.”
The bell, indicating the first period of the school day, sounded, and Al more or less naturally fell into step beside Hess as she headed back toward her office. When they’d cleared the lounge, she took his arm and leaned in toward him. “Thank you for that in there.”
He shrugged. “They’re just worried. It’s a hard time.”
“Tell me about it. But I’m still very grateful for your help speaking up. It gets tiresome talking about it.”
And then she was opening her office door and they were inside. Hess went around her desk and, sighing, lowered herself into her chair.
“I wanted to ask you,” Al began, “any word on when we get the limo back?”
She shook her head. “Shouldn’t be too long. Why do you ask?”
“Well, nobody’s noticed too much yet, but I don’t seem to have a job. I’ve been filling the hours distributing pledge cards, but…” He trailed off with a hopeful smile.
“But that’s hardly the most productive use of your time.”
“Well, yes, that. But more, I was wondering about… later.”
“In what sense?”
“I mean, when you move up, the whole question of the limo. If you’d be doing the job the same way Dominic did. In that way.”
From her reaction, it might have been the first time she’d considered that question. She cocked her head to one side, let the beginning of a small thoughtful smile hover at her lips for a moment. “If you’re asking me will I be needing a driver,” she said, “I can’t imagine doing the job without one. And I also can’t imagine it being anyone but you, Al. Does that answer your question?”
He didn’t want to appear either too grateful or too needy, so he simply nodded. “Yes, ma’am, it does. Thank you.”
So great was Hunt’s fury that he didn’t trust himself to come out of his office and face Mickey again. After first verifying that Mickey had independent transportation around town-Tamara’s Volkswagen-he gave his orders to Tamara by intercom that Mickey was to get the identity of everybody who’d been at the Monday night Communities of Opportunity meeting at City Hall, and then get all of their alibis: what they’d done after they’d left the meeting. That ought to take Mickey the rest of the day and maybe then some, Hunt thought, and it might possibly, though not definitely, keep Hunt from killing or maiming his young, gullible, dumb-shit associate.