Wendy Hornsby - The Hanging

“Enough. Enough. Enough.”

“That’s right. But the governor isn’t all that bright. You have to tell him in terms he can understand. You go tell him: Two, four, six, eight, hey Gov, let me graduate.”

The crowd began to chant, Two, four, six, eight…

“Now go get on those buses, and go tell them. And when you get downtown, what are you going to say?”

“Two, four, six, eight, hey Gov, let me graduate.”

Cheered on by Kate, the mob kept up the chant as they surged toward the parking lot behind the library where the buses waited, idling their engines.

Kate flipped off the bullhorn and handed it back to George.

“You math guys… Got it now? You know what to do when you get off the bus?”

“Got it.” His cheeks glowed pink and his eyes sparkled. “Thanks, Kate. You coming?”

“No.” She canted her head toward the administration building. “Need to go set the prez straight about something.”

He raised a fist. “May the Force be with you.”

“You math guys,” shaking her head. But smiling affectionately at her colleague, she gripped him by the shoulders and turned him toward the buses. “Go get ’em, George.”

As we watched him stride away, he flipped on the bullhorn and picked up the chant. Kate nudged me.

“There, now that makes me think of Sproul Plaza, roomie.”

Grinning, I said, “Hell no, we won’t go…” And started to laugh.

She nudged me again. “Hey, this is serious business.”

“You should be going with them.”

She shook her head, smiles gone. “What we have to do here is serious business, too. If Park Holloway gets away with this stunt, we might as well lock the doors and go home.”

As we started to walk on, she turned, and took a last look at the people moving toward the buses. They no longer milled about like a slowly undulating sea of orange T-shirts. Instead, waving their picket signs and chanting, they looked and sounded like a roiling, tempestuous storm.

“The thing is,” she said, turning her pale gray eyes on me, “Park Holloway should have been the one with the bullhorn giving his best stump speech, inspiring his people to go tackle the legislature.

“Jeez, Mags, he’s an old pol, served twenty years in Congress before he burrowed himself in here. He knows how to energize a crowd. Instead, he’s sequestered in his posh office.”

When I glanced up at the administration building where we were to meet Holloway, I saw someone duck away from a second-floor window. Was it Holloway, watching the demonstrators?

It was Friday. Very few classes were offered on Fridays, especially after noon, so it was rare to see so many students or faculty around. Most of the support staff of administrative assistants, clerks, janitors, and technicians had been cut to a four-day work week-Friday Furloughs. So once the demonstrators got on their buses and drove away, the campus would be the usual Friday ghost town. I thought that Park Holloway was probably rattling around all but alone inside his confection of an office building.

“Taj Ma’Holloway,” the students called the new administration building, and not without a tinge of bitterness. It was indeed an extravagant structure for a public college and made a dandy symbol for angry students and staff trying to gut their way through the strictures of a crappy economy. Tough to explain, when they faced ever-increasing fees, cancelled classes, wage cuts, lowered benefits and layoffs, that construction was funded out of one pocket-public bond money-and instruction out of another-the state’s general budget-and that money could not legally pass from one pocket to the other.

The campus response was a universal “That’s fucking stupid” when new building and earthquake retrofitting continued while education spending declined. And, increasingly, the college president, Park Holloway, was the target for their anger.

“Here we go again, inciting to riot!” My Uncle Max came out from under the pergola that fronted the administration building, arms held wide to us. I didn’t know how long he had been watching the activity on the quad, but from the big grin on his face it had been long enough to hear Kate.

“Jesus, does it never end?” he said as Kate walked into his embrace and kissed his smooth-shaven cheek. “How many times have I bailed out you two already?”

“Hey, Max.” Kate smiled up into his rosy face, gave him a last pat on the back and took a step back. “Thanks for coming.”

“As if I could stay away. Nice to see you, Professor.” As he talked with Kate, he reached one arm out to reel me in.

“How’s my girl?” he asked, planting a wet kiss on my forehead.

“Just peachy,” I said, stretching up on tiptoes to return the favor, catching him under the fleshy chin. “You know we’d never start trouble without calling you, Uncle Max. It just wouldn’t be right.”

“Hah!” he exclaimed with faux disdain. “I should be so lucky. Never a moment’s rest.”

My uncle was my dad’s baby-half brother, as dark and round as Dad had been fair, tall and lanky. He was only a few years older than my older brother and sister, so he was as much big brother to me as he was uncle, especially after my brother Marc died. A noodge , an infuriating tease, and my head cheerleader, always.

“Ready to beard the lion in his den?” Kate asked.

Max patted his breast pocket. “All set. If things go well, then we all go to lunch, no harm, no foul, right? If not, I have notice of intention to sue, and a signed temporary injunction against Mr. Holloway from either preventing the installation of Sly’s work or removing it after installation.”

“Temporary,” I said. “How long is temporary?”

“Until we haul Mr. Holloway into court.” He looked from me to Kate. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Kate caught my eye. “See why we bring him along?”

“I thought it was because he always picks up the lunch check.”

“That, too.”

When we went inside, I was surprised to see a woman behind the reception counter because on Fridays there was no receptionist anymore. But when she raised her head, I saw it was Joan Givens, director of the Foundation, the college’s fund-raising auxiliary.

“Ah, Mr. Duchamps,” she said, addressing Max as she rose. “You found them.”

Joan pressed a thick manila file folder tight against her small chest as she walked around the counter to join us. I thought that she might be disappointed that Kate and I had arrived. Couldn’t blame her. My uncle was charming and interesting and a great big flirt; Joan fairly glowed from the pleasure of his company. She was an attractive, intelligent woman, maybe edging past fifty, tall and slender and single. My uncle could do far worse.

“Shall we go up?” she asked.

As the others started up the stairs, I stepped into the enormous stairwell and pulled a video camera out of my bag. I turned it on, focused on the ceiling two floors above and shot some test footage.

“What’s up, camera girl?” Max asked, leaning over the banister halfway up the first flight to check on my progress.

“See that apparatus on the ceiling?”

He craned his neck, following the direction my camera was aiming. “I do.”

“It was installed last week to support Sly’s sculpture.”

Empty, the device looked like nothing more than a metal eyelet in the center of a decorative ceiling plate, waiting for a chandelier.

“What is that, twenty-five, thirty feet high? How are you going to get the sculpture up there?”

“That’s an electronically operated cable that drops down-the switch is in a panel behind this door.” I tapped the locked cupboard door low on the inner curve of the stairwell wall.