Page 49 of The Aries Alliance
The president laughed diabolically. I knew his biases well. When he made up his mind about who was right and who was wrong, there was no changing his mind. More often than not,he always sided with white people and labeled their off-putting behavior as having a bad day, while he called people of color attitudinal, insubordinate, and angry.
“Of course not. It’s just that we do things a certain way here. We can’t have folks spreading false information and planting negative seeds in the minds of those wholoveEmber Falls University.”
He gave me the fakest of smiles.
“Women should, what is it, Elbert?” Skip snapped and pointed at me. “Stay in their place.”
Elbert shook his head violently.
“No, no, no, sir, you can’t say that out loud.”
President Fields covered his mouth with his hands like a little schoolgirl saying a curse word.
“Oopsy. Warrick knows what I mean. You’ll clean it up for me, won’t you?”
I expected the old coot to call me boy any second.
“Yes, I’ll look into it.”
“No, Mr. Redmond. Do more than look into it. Do something about it. We can’t have wayward behavior at EFU, can we?” Skip pressed and tapped his index finger onto his paper like he was putting out a cigarette.
I didn’t answer that question but wanted to learn more about what he wanted from me.
“What exactly do you expect to happen?”
Skip waved his hands in the air like he was flustered.
“I don’t know. That’s what we pay you for.”
Scarlett really was scaring folks, down to the president of the university. Did she know how powerful she was?
“For any action to be taken against someone like Dr. Kane, we need evidence to build a case. HR is about patterns of behavior, so I need a list of people who have repeatedlywitnessed Dr. Kane’s problematic behaviors. Could you give me that?”
“We have people on the inside monitoring her. We’ll have records and emails, even recorded conversations.” Skip answered with a smug look on his round face.
These snakes weren’t playing.They would do anything to push back against our company’s rules of civility.
“Who’s recording her?” I asked the question before I could think.
“Don’t worry about that. But our source is reliable. Soon enough, that pest will be out of our hair.”
Every word against Scarlett punched me in the gut. Her blows had become my blows. I gathered myself as best I could and spoke rapidly.
“Dr. Kane has tenure, so it won’t be easy to push her aside.”
“That’s not a problem. My friends at the State House are working on ways to get rid of tenured professors anyway. We just have to be strategic. If that doesn’t work, we’ll make it so uncomfortable that she quits. It’s a military tactic I’m surprised higher ed hasn’t used before.”
“You’re talking about creating a hostile work environment? That’s illegal.”
“Is it though?”
Both men laughed as if what they said was actually funny. Because they were so corrupt, I concluded that nothing I said about ethics would be received well.
Stay cool.
“Okay. Give me what you have, and I’ll start building a case.”
“I knew you were one of the good ones, Enforcer.” Skip grinned at me like I laid a golden egg.
