Without Prejudice Read online

  There was a centre for that? It seemed injustice was big business these days, Robert thought, then felt he was being churlish. He had always admired people like Anna who spent their time helping people who’d been chewed up by a legal system that made its own victims.

  Anna said, ‘She’s happy to meet with Duval, and I think she’ll try and overturn the conviction. I’m glad, because there’s not much more I can do.’ She almost hummed with the patness of this, but he simply didn’t believe she intended to walk away from Duval’s case.

  ‘Any more pasta?’ she asked.

  He wanted to say no, since he figured if she could lie to him, he could lie to her. Maybe he was growing up at last, for he forced a smile and said, ‘Lots.’

  7

  The acquisitions meeting was held on Wednesday morning. Robert had chaired it since he’d arrived, taking over from Dorothy who had run it in the hiatus between Robert’s arrival and his predecessor’s departure. She had been loath to let go, but he had insisted, since he was determined from the start not to isolate himself from the small staff – there were fewer than twenty-five employees, and he let almost all of them attend.

  This morning when he came in there was no sign of Dorothy and no one seemed to know where she was. He sensed a slight tension in the room; people weren’t joking as they usually did.

  It was an even smaller agenda than usual – a couple of history monographs, a coffee-table history of Evanston that was being subsidised by the local historical society. Yes to one of the monographs. Maybe to another (sales wanted to check with a library or two), and a nod-through to the subsidised text.

  ‘Vacation beckons,’ he said cheerfully, before turning to progress. ‘How many of you are away for part of August?’ Half of them raised their hands, but there was something sullen in the way they responded. He resisted the temptation to try and lighten the mood. ‘Anything else?’ he said, gathering his papers.

  Burdick, the production controller, who had been an ally from the start (probably because he clashed continually with Dorothy), raised a hand. ‘Someone said there’s a problem with the Carlson autobiography. Is that true?’

  He turned half-instinctively to Dorothy’s usual seat, but of course she wasn’t there. Robert realised all eyes were on him, watching intently.

  ‘Hard to say. I’m seeing him soon. We’ll know better then.’

  He let the meeting end on this inconclusive note, sensing an undercurrent of resentment that he didn’t understand. When he got back to his office he looked more carefully at the progress notes for the meeting, and discovered to his surprise that Carlson’s book had moved initials.

  ‘Vicky.’

  There must have been something steely in his voice, since she was through his door right away. He pointed to the papers on his desk. ‘Why did you move the Carlson book to me on the minutes?’

  ‘Dorothy asked me to.’ She wouldn’t look him in the eye.

  ‘I didn’t tell her to do that.’

  She shrugged. ‘She said it should have happened ages ago.’

  ‘I see,’ he said, puzzled. Ages ago? He’d only said last week that he would talk with Carlson, and even then he hadn’t said he’d take the book over – if it could be saved, which he doubted. What was going on? Everybody knew she’d signed up the book; everyone knew that she would fight ferociously to keep it under her control.

  Then he understood. Dorothy was trying, shamelessly, to shift the blame for losing the book onto him. Not to make him look bad, but to cover her ass – Dorothy was scared of getting fired. What an idiot, he thought. He would never fire someone for losing an author – how could you, in a business where ego, uncontrollable greed, and sheer caprice could overcome in one fell swoop anything more considered? It happened all the time, especially when a bigger cheque book was in sight. What Dorothy didn’t seem to realise is that she would get fired by playing games. Robert was as disappointed by her cack-handed manoeuvres as he was angry.

  Vicky reappeared in the doorway. ‘Your wife is on the line,’ she said. ‘Oh, and Coach Carlson’s secretary called to ask if you could see him this evening instead of tomorrow. Same time and place.’ Then she disappeared again.

  He picked up the phone hesitantly, wondering why Anna was calling.

  She said at once, ‘I’ve just had a call from Tim Poindexter.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said without enthusiasm, since it was probably an invitation. Tim was a lithe, confident lawyer, who practised at one of Chicago’s oldest firms on LaSalle Street. He and his wife Tina were benevolent landlords at the dunes – almost too much so, for they seemed determined to sweep Anna and Robert under their social wing, and hardly a weekend went by without an invitation to their big house up the drive. A mixture of noblesse oblige and Anglophilic fascination seemed to be motivating them, which Robert could do without. The whole point of renting the coach house was to get away, not explore an alternative social order.

  ‘He said there were vandals at the dunes last week. They wrecked the hut in their garden and burned down an old boathouse on the beach.’

  It must be the same boathouse where Sophie had pretended to disappear. ‘That’s too bad,’ he said insincerely.

  ‘That’s not all. They also broke a couple of windows in our garage.’

  ‘Christ. Did they get in the house?’

  ‘No. I don’t think they even tried. Tim thought it was probably teenagers from the town.’

  ‘Will he sort it out?’ he asked hopefully.

  ‘I don’t think so. He didn’t actually refer to the lease, but I got the impression he thinks it’s up to us to make things right.’

  ‘I bet.’ He’d probably argue it was an act of God – some force majeure provision. ‘Shit. I’m not sure what to do. Tim must have a handyman.’ When they’d taken the house, Poindexter had briefed Robert in numbing detail about the water, electricity and oil supply for the coach house. Everything had worked immaculately since then, so this was an inaugural difficulty.

  Anna said, ‘I didn’t ask. I guess I could phone him back.’

  He was about to say she should when he had a sudden inspiration, a solution that would solve two problems at once. ‘No, that’s too complicated. It’s better to do it ourselves. I’ll go out there Saturday and fix the windows. I’ll be back in time for the Crullowitches.’

  She said nothing for a moment, then asked, ‘What about Duval?’

  ‘That’s simple. I’ll take him with me. He’s always saying he’s good with his hands.’

  It wasn’t that simple at all. He was puzzled when he called Duval with the change of plan to find his old friend reluctant. ‘I’ll come pick you up,’ Robert said. ‘Just give me Jermaine’s address.’

  ‘It’s not that.’ He paused, and even over the phone Robert sensed embarrassment. ‘I need permission.’

  ‘Whose permission?’

  ‘My officer. I can’t leave the city without it. They’d put me right back in Stateville if I got caught.’

  ‘How do you get it?’

  ‘I’d need an invitation from you, Bobby. In writing. Even then they might say no.’

  ‘Fine. I’ll write a letter. Get me the number of this guy, and I’ll call and find out what I have to do.’

  It took him most of the afternoon. He never spoke to the ‘officer’ himself, just a succession of bored unhelpful people who sometimes answered the phone if he let it ring long enough. Eventually, he secured a fax number, then wrote a formal account of his invitation and printed it out on the press letterhead – he sensed the more official it looked, the better the chances of receiving approval.

  At the end of the day, Vicky came into his office, holding a sheet of paper. ‘I think this must be for you,’ she said, sounding disconcerted. She handed him the paper. It was a faxed copy of his own letter, with a scrawled message and an official stamp. Authorised/ R B it read, and he remembered Duval had said the officer’s name was Bockbauer. The stamp read Permission granted from 7/13 8 a.m. until 7
/14 6 p.m. How perverse: he hadn’t asked them to let Duval stay overnight, but they’d given him an extra day.

  8

  Coach Carlson’s house was a classic mock-Tudor North Shore pile, nestled in a couple of acres behind a high stone wall. It had been painted recently – against its white stucco the faux timbers glistened with a fresh coat of black enamel.

  Robert parked in a gravel turnaround, and walked up to a front porch which had roses growing along trelliswork on either side. The door opened before he could ring the bell.

  ‘Mrs Carlson?’ he said. She was tall, a handsome woman with a face that didn’t smile when he explained who he was.

  ‘Do come in,’ she said, but her voice was formal rather than friendly. He followed her into a tiled two-storey hall, and down a corridor towards the back of the house. Paintings lined the wall, and he glanced at a large portrait of a young woman, then realised it was Mrs Carlson twenty years before. She had been strikingly beautiful.

  He wished she’d walk by his side so he could break the ice, but she didn’t wait for him. He felt half-minded to ask her what he’d done wrong. She was dressed smartly, in a pink skirt, matching cotton jacket, and vanilla heels, and he wondered if she was about to go out – a cocktail party with the neighbours, something like that. Perhaps that was the problem – Robert was delaying her by meeting with her husband.

  They passed a dining room and a pantry adjoining a large kitchen, then she stopped and pointed down a short corridor to a closed door. ‘You’ll find the Great Man in there,’ she announced, then turned on her heel and walked away. She’s not mad at me, Robert realised; she’s mad at the coach.

  Carlson seemed about as pleased as his wife to see him. The gangly affable figure Robert remembered from the president’s house had been transformed: the coach sat, wearing Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt with the university crest, in a Naugahyde recliner, watching a baseball game on the box, a remote control in his hand. Behind him on the wall were framed photographs of his teams, with the year and their win-and-loss record lettered in at the bottom. Predictable perhaps, though looking at the other walls Robert was surprised to see an array of African art. One painting in particular stood out, of a Nubian woman, a nude, reclining against a background of savannah.

  ‘Have a seat,’ Carlson said without looking at Robert.

  He sat down on an uncomfortable kitchen chair that had a poor angular view of the TV screen. ‘Thanks for seeing me,’ Robert said.

  Carlson nodded vaguely, then seemed to come to, and with a casual flick of the remote turned off the TV. He sat up in his chair, and Robert realised what a big man he was: 6 foot 2 or 3, maybe 230 pounds – linebacker size. He exuded an authority that women would probably find attractive, men daunting. Robert found himself wishing he had played football at school.

  ‘I told David Balthazar I couldn’t really say no,’ said Carlson. ‘Even if it is a waste of your time.’

  Robert had planned a conventional pitch: extolling the advantages of having a local publisher, appealing to Carlson’s institutional loyalty. But from his reception he sensed this wouldn’t cut any ice, and he decided to forget the usual spiel, reckoning he didn’t have anything to lose that Dorothy hadn’t managed to lose already.

  He took a deep breath and plunged in: ‘Coach, I don’t know your business very well. I’m just your average amateur fan. But if I understand correctly, to do well in your sport you have to have a strong sense of worth – and in your job, you have to inculcate that confidence in your players. Am I right?’

  ‘Of course,’ said the coach, sounding bored.

  ‘But that kind of self-esteem isn’t enough – otherwise any puffed-up blowhard could succeed. You’ve got to be realistic enough to recognise your opponent’s strengths, even those areas where he’s stronger than you.’

  The coach didn’t even bother to nod at this. He probably didn’t like to be on the receiving end of other people’s homilies; Robert most coaches didn’t like to be taught themselves. So he got up and handed Carlson one of the catalogues from a major New York publishing house.

  ‘Have a look at that,’ he said, sitting down again. ‘Those are the titles of one of the houses who want to sign you up. The early pages are their big books for this fall. That’s when you sell most books – because of Christmas.’ The coach was turning the pages. ‘There are some big titles there. A Life of Sinatra by Stanley Cullum – Cullum himself is famous, so that will get a lot of publicity. TV talk shows, radio. Then there’s My Time with Lady Di by one of her ex-boyfriends. And the first stab at fiction by an ex-President, as well as Kiss and Tell: My Rock ’n’ Roll Hell by a famous groupie.’

  The coach laughed. ‘Not much like the books you publish, I guess.’

  ‘I’ll say. We’re fronting with Trees of Southern Wisconsin.’ When the coach laughed again, Robert pointed at the catalogue. ‘The problem you’ve got with a publishing house like that is that there’s competition before the game has even begun. In your own locker room, in fact. I don’t care how big the publisher is, there are only so many books they can really promote. Even some big titles are going to be losers.’

  ‘And you’re different?’ The coach said this challengingly, but he looked unsettled. At least he’s listening, thought Robert.

  ‘Of course we are. For two reasons. One, you’ll be our biggest title by far. For the autumn, for the year – hell, for the decade. You don’t have to worry about competition from Trees of Southern Wisconsin, now do you?’

  ‘What’s the second reason?’

  ‘The Candy Williams factor.’

  ‘Who is Candy Williams?’

  ‘One of the most successful publicists ever seen in New York publishing. She helped create author tours back when no one had heard of them. She publicised everybody from Toni Morrison to Jimmy Carter.’

  ‘You’d hire her freelance?’

  ‘No,’ he said emphatically, thinking a little passion seemed appropriate. ‘She works for the press.’ As a doubtful look spread across the coach’s face, Robert rapidly continued. ‘I know what you’re thinking: If she’s so hot what is she doing working for us? A university press – good reputation, but modest, far from the mainstream. I understand. And the answer is a completely personal one. Love.’

  ‘For the press?’ He looked bemused.

  ‘Of course not, Coach. For a man, who happened to live in Chicago. So she moved here. Had some kids, did the housework, all that stuff – then she wanted to go to work again. The city’s not exactly full of publishers, we were delighted to have someone of her standing, so presto, there she is. And just chafing at the bit to work on your book. You’ll get all her attention – and she’ll get you national television, all the big papers, radio if you’re willing, and she’s up to speed with online too. She’s a legend in the business. The point is this: we’re not going to make you a star, Coach; you already are a star. But you’ll be the only one in our galaxy. That means you get to shine without worrying about anybody else’s light.’

  Carlson laughed out loud. ‘Buddy, I like that. And I like you – you sure aren’t what Balthazar told me to expect.’ He looked at his watch, a big diver’s job that looked capable of doing everything except make time stand still. ‘But my wife won’t like you at all if I let you go on. The Goldfarbs up the road give one hell of a party, and my ass is grass if we’re late.’

  He started to get up and Robert stood up too, staring at the painting of the Nubian maid. ‘Isn’t she lovely?’ said Carlson, noticing his gaze. Lovely. Not a word Robert had been expecting from an American football coach.

  Carlson extended a hand that Robert shook tentatively, half-expecting to get crunched. ‘You scoot now and I’ll do some thinking. I’ll be in touch.’

  He made his own way out without seeing Mrs Carlson again. Outside, he exhaled loudly, disturbing a marmalade cat that was perched under his car. He felt he’d done what he could, though he was embarrassed by the corny pitch he’d contrived on the spur of the mo
ment.

  He hoped the coach wouldn’t examine his claims too closely. Candy Williams was a demure woman in her mid-fifties who ran the publicity department of the press with a singular lack of flair. At their one lunch together, shortly after Robert had taken over the press, she had been emboldened by a large glass of Sauvignon to boast that thirty years before she had worked for five months in the publicity department of Farrar, Straus & Giroux. What she would make of his description of her as a ‘legend’ in the business, Robert could only shudder to think.

  9

  He left Evanston at eight thirty in the morning and half an hour later found himself on the edges of South Shore, just off Jackson Park, the creation of the World’s Fair of 1893 which held the Museum of Science and Industry on its northern border. In his childhood, South Shore had been a middle-class Jewish neighbourhood, already turning black. A trickle became a flood within ten years. For a while the transition had been uncertain: several of the condominium towers that faced the lake had become infested with drug dealers and hookers one step up from the street. But gradually, the neighbourhood had regained its solid middle-class self, and as Robert drove past its well-tended lawns and solid brick houses, he realised that all that had been swapped was black burghers for Jewish ones.

  He found the number on South Cornell halfway down the block. This was the western and less prosperous edge of the district, streets of small, tidy bungalows, most with awnings over their front living rooms. The owners of these houses were working people, rather than managers, but the ethos seemed equally aspirant, only on a more modest scale.

  Duval must have been looking out for him: he came out of the house at once. Behind him another much younger man emerged from the front door but stayed standing on the front steps, staring at Robert’s car. Duval gave a faint wave but the man didn’t wave back.

  Sensing something had changed, Robert glanced at Duval as he turned onto Stony Island, heading for the Skyway. ‘You shaved off your beard,’ he exclaimed.

  Duval stroked his bare chin, looking simultaneously pleased and embarrassed, like a teenager praised by a parent. ‘I thought the ladies might like it.’