Beneath the Ivory Tower, page 1
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Beneath the Ivory Tower
by Warren Adler
(Originally published as The Womanizer - Copyright © 2010 by Warren Adler)
Copyright © 2023 by Adler Entertainment Trust LLC
ISBN (EPUB edition): 978-1-953959-11-9
ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-953959-12-6
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any form without permission. This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination based on historical events or are used fictitiously.
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CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Also by Warren Adler
About the Author
More from Warren Adler
CHAPTER
ONE
The rain came down in slanting torrents adding vastly to the sense of impending doom Allen Harris felt for the task that lay just ahead. Heading his car slowly through the tree-lined, sloping driveway that led up the hill to the Georgian-style house that stood as an imposing landmark above the university, he felt like someone about to announce an accidental death of a loved child to an unsuspecting parent.
The mansion had been built thirty years before to house the university president. Gordon Sandborn was its second occupant, a figure as imposing as the house itself. With his well-coifed silver mane, piercing Wedgwood-blue eyes, which stared out over high cheekbones, and a smile that revealed spangling-white capped teeth, he was the living embodiment of commanding dignity and charisma. When he spoke, he intoned, his voice deep and sonorous, his words authoritative and articulate, suggesting that they originated from some mysterious heavenly source.
Harris had represented the university as legal counsel for the ten-year tenure of Francis Gordon Sandborn and had attended most of the board of trustees’ meetings during those years. They offered a ringside seat to Sandborn’s mesmerizing qualities, as he held the board in thrall during these sessions. Even the crusty septuagenarian chairman of the board, Charles Evans Blassingame—no slouch himself in the spellbinding oratorical department—was no match for Sandborn.
Founded by a Methodist preacher, Charles Canfield, in the 1920s, Canfield University had fought gallantly to retain its academic credentials over the years and had grown from a single building to an imposing campus complex with staff and students now numbering more than twenty thousand souls and offering degrees in a number of disciplines.
Some considered a Canfield education a prestigious alternative to Ivy League schools. Midwestern, founded on more rigid values, although it tolerated polite and orderly dissent, Canfield provided a middle-of-the-road approach that attracted parents who believed in the old verities and hoped their progeny would follow suit. It was not an easy road for the university to pursue, and Sandborn had steered the university caravan through the minefields of a frenetic and disorderly modern-day America with great skill.
It was, of course, a challenge, but both staff and students had learned to respect the boundaries and, with some exceptions, were well aware of the reputation of their university as an ethical and traditional bastion of academia. Others outside this orbit tended to characterize Canfield as a relic of the fifties, when accommodation and acceptance of the status quo was the order of the day. To keep this middle-of-the-road posture, Sandborn was able to mitigate the tensions that existed between the board of trustees dominated by rock-ribbed conservatives like Blassingame and the staff of professors and students who were open to the seductions of a more liberal bias under the rubric of academic freedom.
The university’s success in many areas, its enormously prosperous alumni, its sports teams, its cutting-edge research and scientific achievements, and high academic standards, its well-paid staff of professors, its long reach in the geography of academia, made Canfield a name to be reckoned with. Francis Gordon Sandborn had been, up to now, its unassailable icon.
Sandborn was a well-respected national figure as well, a celebrity and frequent guest on talk shows, and an eagerly pursued speaker at numerous academic conventions. He was sought out for counsel by many of the country’s most prominent citizens and was a frequent White House guest. His memoirs had become best sellers. Although his natural bent and perceived reputation was as an enlightened conservative, he was able to walk a safe path through both ends of the political spectrum.
His presence, his charisma, his debating skills, his charm and good looks, and especially his persuasiveness brought national attention to the university and assured its continuing prestige. Like most everyone associated with the university, Allen Harris was in awe of him. Indeed, it was more emulation than awe. Harris had observed Sandborn as a role model and had assumed a guise that often imitated his idol’s speech patterns and movements, perhaps in a subconscious effort to enter Sandborn’s skin. At times, Harris had even sensed, especially when he made a presentation to the board, that he had developed a shadow version of Sandborn’s charisma.
To make his present task even more daunting, Harris and Sandborn had developed a friendship beyond their business relationship. Their families exchanged visits, and Harris and Sandborn often lunched together in the faculty dining room of Canfield. Although their wives had never bonded to that extent, Mrs. Sandborn being too busy with the numerous tasks of the wife of a university president, she and Alice did enjoy an occasional game of tennis together at the country club and were often in attendance together at various luncheons and women’s group meetings.
The members of the board had been stunned by the accusation against Sandborn. Actually, it was more than simply an accusation: it was a mortal stab into the heart and soul, not only to Sandborn but also to the reputation and aura of the university. Jason Beckwith, the lawyer for the accuser, a hard-nosed merciless legal bulldozer, had, in an act, which he cannily deemed sympathetic to the reputation of the university, offered to appear before the board with his evidence before commencing any legal proceedings through the courts. The board had accepted.
“In deference to the broad respect in which this university is held in this state and the country,” he told them solemnly, adding his own pandering aside, “and my personal regard for the convictions of the board,…” Harris could see the man’s transparent strategy, the dagger hidden in the velvet glove. In his cups at the country club, Beckwith had often derided the rigid conservatives on the board of trustees. Many dismissed his often-angry criticism, owing its origins to his having never made it to that prestigious and lofty university board.
“I thought it incumbent on me to bring the matter before the board with the utmost discretion and delicacy,” he purred, obviously enjoying his role. “In today’s world, what is called sexual harassment carries criminal penalties, not to mention the publicity possibilities inherent in a salacious frenetic media. I’m sure I don’t have to apprise you of the public outcry it will create in your constituency. We are dealing here with a beloved and respected public figure.”
Beckwith’s saccharine presentation was galling to Harris who had locked horns with the man on many a legal occasion. The board listened to him with rapt attention and shocked horror.
Beckwith laid out the evidence, sparing no details. Harris had watched the faces of the board of twelve men and four women, two blacks, one Hispanic, all true believers in their role as overseers, all proud of the university they were shepherding, all deeply respectful of their handpicked president and his vast talents and abilities. It was Sandborn who, through his charm and inspirational salesmanship, had raised vast sums for the university and had put Canfield on the
Harris had found it chilling to listen to the allegations that Beckwith offered, made even more so by the man’s appearance, the bald pate, the lumpy nose set in a face that looked like a Jell-O pudding, with thick lips that opened and closed like some big, squishy fish extracting oxygen from the sea. His whole aspect had always struck Harris as evolution in reverse. Such observations aside, Harris also knew that, under the absurd attempt at polite courtliness, the man was lethal. His client had made exactly the right choice.
The accusing female student was a sophomore. The affair with Sandborn had lasted four months, and the sexual acts were carried out in numerous places in and out of town. Venues included Sandborn’s office, his home, his car, wooded areas, certain hotels in other cities Sandborn had visited, and motels more than fifty miles from the university. Using clever euphemisms and slyly inserting an occasional graphic detail, Beckwith revealed the nature of the acts themselves—oral, anal, and vaginal—and made broad hints that there might have been others involved of both sexes, suggesting orgies and twisting the knife of accusation.
“Preposterous!” one board member cried out in the midst of Beckwith’s presentation. Most of the board members were too dumbstruck to comment. The member offering the loudest dissent was Todd Farmington, a multimillionaire stockbroker with a flamboyant bent who mixed salesmanship with religious fervor. He was the one who invariably led the prayer at the beginning of each board meeting.
Beckwith looked at the man over his half-glasses, waiting eagerly for further comment.
“It’s obvious that the lady has another motive,” Farmington said angrily. “She’s probably a plant wanting to discredit us. Sandborn is a man of sterling character. Everyone in this room can attest to that. This accusation is beyond belief, it’s blatant extortion.”
“No one could possibly believe her,” one of the women, Dorothy Fischer, a former lieutenant governor huffed.
“I agree,” another board member, Martin Fox, a high-tech entrepreneur opined. “Let her sue.”
“Have her confront Sandborn directly,” retired three-star Marine General Martin Remington, an African-American, opined. A mutter of agreement passed through the room.
“Let’s not rush to judgment,” Judge Evelyn Freeberg injected in her best judicial tone.
Blassingame nodded after each comment, glancing from the speaker back to Beckwith with ping-pong-like regularity.
Harris watched these reactions with a sinking heart. They were comments of desperation. Like the others, he was appalled. Every barbed detail was an affront. Was it possible? Beckwith, although often blunt and obnoxious, was too cautious a man to chance blackening his reputation with a meritless lawsuit. Harris, however, was convinced, despite the doubts being expressed. Beckwith had the goods to crucify his idol.
Nevertheless, all his legal training cried out for Sandborn to be defended. He could sense, despite the outbursts of denial, that the board had no stomach for a public defense. The humiliation, Harris knew, would be too much for them to bear. Worse, it would be a destructive blow to their beloved institution.
While a public vetting might not be fatal, it would certainly tarnish the university’s carefully wrought reputation. Sandborn was the living embodiment of Canfield. The two were interchangeable. Harris, beyond his hero worship, was a realist and knew that Sandborn was now in the crosshairs of a public assassination, doomed to disgrace and dislodgement.
While sexual freedom was an acknowledged fact of life in modern-day America, especially on campuses and the Internet, those present knew that the boundaries of sexual harassment and intimidation had been fashioned by legal opinions. People in power positions were legally prohibited from using this power to extract sexual favors from those in their employ. The legal precedents were now unassailable. There were, of course, blurred boundaries. People did fall in love. The libido was often in conflict with what passed as propriety. Sexual favors were a fact of life. Power was, indeed, an aphrodisiac. Unfortunately, in this case, all these clichés and rationalizations were meaningless. What it came down to was a man using his cock as a buzz saw to cut down the mighty oak of his reputation. To Harris it was a chilling image that rattled his bones.
The echoes of national trauma resonated unmistakably throughout the room: the long nightmare of the Clinton impeachment, the still lingering sexual scandals of the Catholic Church, the libidinous stupidity of the governor of New York. Zero tolerance of sexual exploitation was the order of the day. The accusations against Sandborn, however mighty his reputation and his achievements, could not be ignored. The golden patina of reputation and prestige was no match for such a blatant accusation. Sandborn, Harris knew, was toast.
These were among the considerations that ran through Harris’s mind as he mulled the dangers that Beckwith’s words implied. There were others as well, more personal matters, but these he had deliberately repressed as being irrelevant to the matter at hand. Besides, he had schooled himself well in compartmentalizing all aspects of his life. A troubling biblical analogy passed through his thoughts: Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.
Aside from the university being merely one of the clients of McNaughton, Harris and Gibbs, Harris’s representation was more a labor of love than a business enterprise. While, at the insistence of the chairman, he did not represent them pro bono, he believed in the goals of the university with all his heart and often lectured at the law school. At this stage in his life, on the cusp of the fifty-year mark, he was seriously considering a career change, with academia one of his options. He was also toying with the possibility of running for office. Actually, he was considering many options. He dared not even contemplate what he longed for most in his soul: the very job his idol currently occupied. A stab of guilt cut through his gut.
Lately, he had come to consider these errant yearnings and fantasies as a typical midlife crisis, and he feared surrendering to the idea. At first, he had been only vaguely dissatisfied, despite the measure of success he had achieved as a lawyer. He was the envy of many. He had helped create a great practice. He was widely respected, his advice sought. He was considered a wonderful, wise, perceptive, and analytical lawyer. Yet inside himself, something nagged, something nameless and intangible. He wanted more, more, that nameless wave of inchoate lusting for something bigger, gargantuan.
Others had told him that he possessed his own brand of charisma and could move people by his oratorical and persuasive gifts. Some said he had that rare quality to fill a room with his presence. He was, of course, flattered by the praise. Yet, despite the evidence of these talents and its effect on others, his sense of himself fell far short of such esteem. Yet he managed, like a good actor, to keep up appearances, hoping he showed no clues, no chinks in the armor of his disciplined façade. He was certain that no one suspected. Meanwhile, he continued to observe and imitate Sandborn, often asking himself: What is his secret?
He had no money problems, a loyal and loving wife. His children were typically strong-minded, but then he had encouraged dissent in their upbringing and, while often infuriating him, he understood the generational dynamics. But when he looked ahead to his future, he saw only a straight, relentless, and repetitive road to oblivion. More and more, he felt that he was playing a lead role in a boring play with no dramatic denouement.
At first he had self-diagnosed his condition as depression and briefly entertained visiting a therapist, an idea he resisted. He feared being prescribed antidepressant drugs, hating the prospect of pharmacological dependency. Worse, he feared confessing, revealing his secret life. Lately, he had awakened in cold sweats, the victim of barely remembered dreams of guilt, some possibly earned, some featuring real and imaginary transgressions.
