Levy, a holder of two doctorates- in physics and engineering- had become involved because of personal history. His father, Oscar Levy, a prominent German-born physicist, had left the Fatherland in 1937, when anti-Semitism at his university department led him to seek, and receive, a teaching post at Oxford. The following year, Levy, his mother, and two sisters were spirited to England and avoided the deportations that resulted in the deaths of their entire extended family. The family home in Berlin and its contents were confiscated by the Nazis. Gone were generations of personal effects as well as a collection of Egon Schieles, Gustav Klimts, and other expressionist masterpieces.
Those paintings, now valued in the tens of millions, had never been recovered, most probably hoarded by some private collector. Norbert Levy had chosen to address the symposium about morality.
The old professor hadn’t been victimized by any single homicide. His focus was on the worst of crimes.
Jeremy found no full-text account of the remarks, but after considerable web-surfing, he managed to find a summary in a site called JewishWorldnet.com.
Noted Scientist Says Intelligence Has
Nothing to Do with Morality
Renowned physicist Professor Norbert Levy delivered an address to the members of the Committee on Plundered Art (COPA) in which he criticized the continuing inertia of European governments and museums in owning up to complicity with Nazi war crimes. Despite continued evidence that a substantial number of current European art holdings consist of treasures confiscated by Hitler’s SS, very little has been done to locate stolen art or to compensate the original owners.
Levy’s speech drew from a wide range of sources as he illustrated how some of the brightest minds of the most civilized nations in the world had stooped to barbarity with relative ease. The award-winning scientist, in the past mentioned as a potential Nobel nominee, quoted the psychiatrist/novelist Walker Percy to that effect: “You can get straight A’s but still flunk life.”
“Intelligence is like fire,” Levy went on to say. “You can burn down the house, learn to cook, or forge beautiful works of art in a kiln. It comes down to personal morality, and that quality is sorely lacking in a good deal of what passes for intelligent society. The key to personal and national growth is combining moral training with intellectual rigor. The thirst for justice trumps everything else.”
Though emphasizing that he was not a religious man, Levy stressed the influence Jewish humanistic values had played in his upbringing and he drew upon scriptural texts, citing calls for justice in the Bible and in the Talmudic tract, Ethics of the Fathers.
Jeremy searched for more on Levy’s extracurricular activities but found nothing.
He plugged in “Edgar Marquis” minus the “homicide” limitation, and came up empty, again. Against all hope, he tried “Harrison Maynard.” The writer had hidden behind a pen name, no reason to assume he’d go public about anything.
But Maynard’s name appeared on the tribute committee of an East Coast dinner honoring the memory of Martin Luther King. Just a list with no links, one of those isolated cyberscraps floating around the cosmos, bereft of context.
“Martin Luther King memorial dinner” produced a single reference, a recent affair in California, and Maynard’s name was nowhere to be found. Jeremy broadened the search to “Martin Luther King memorial” and came up with nearly three thousand hits. He downloaded for nearly two hours before finding what he was looking for.
Pages from a banquet journal. Photos of celebrated guests and benefactors. And there was Harrison Maynard, a trifle thinner, his hair and mustache a bit less gray, but otherwise the same man Jeremy had supped with.
Smiling and well fed and natty in a tuxedo. Next to him stood Norbert Levy, also in formal wear. The white-bearded physicist remained unidentified in the caption. Maynard was described as a former associate of Dr. King, among the first to rush to the slain civil rights leader’s side as he lay dying in a motel parking lot. Harrison Maynard was now “a major benefactor of humanitarian causes.” No mention was made of how he’d made his money.
From the civil rights struggle to bodice rippers. Maynard’s philanthropy said he’d maintained a focus on morality, just like Norbert Levy.
Now Jeremy believed he was beginning to understand the old eccentrics.
Maynard had fought for equality and watched his idol die violently. Levy’s extended family had been exterminated, and his inheritance plundered. Tina Balleron had lost her husband to violent crime.
Victims, all. What about Arthur? And Edgar Marquis? The ancient diplomat had alluded to witnessing too much duplicity in the foreign service- his reason for ending a career rise by requesting transfer to obscure posts in Micronesia and Indonesia.
Places he could do some good.
Idealists, all of them.
Good food and wine notwithstanding, they were all about justice- their vision of justice.
And now he was being courted.
Because of Jocelyn.
He wanted to think it out more, but evening had fallen, and he was due to meet Angela for a quick bite in the dining room in ten minutes.
Before he left, he looked up Theodore Dirgrove’s office in the Attending Staff roster.
The penthouse floor of the Medical Office Building. The space occupied by Psychiatry until the cutters had deemed it theirs.
When Psychiatry had occupied the premises it was just an upper floor, dingily walled and floored. Now, the carpeting was fresh and clean, the walls, wainscoted. Polished mahogany doors replaced white slabs.
Dirgrove’s door was closed. The surgeon’s name was mounted in confident gold letters.
Jeremy stood in the hallway for several moments, finally approached, and knocked.
No answer.
He left to meet Angela and encountered Dirgrove as he got off the elevator.
Dirgrove wore a well-cut black suit over a black turtleneck. His nails were impeccable. His lips compressed when he saw Jeremy.
The two of them locked eyes. Dirgrove smiled but kept his distance. Jeremy smiled back and took a step forward. Putting so much intensity into the smile that his eyes burned.
Dirgrove held his ground, then he shrugged and laughed, as if to say, “This is trivial.”
Jeremy said, “Lose any other patients, recently, Ted?”
Dirgrove’s lips dropped suddenly, as if yanked down by fishhooks. His long, pale face turned deathly white. As he walked away, Jeremy stayed and watched. Dirgrove’s hands kept clenching and unclenching, spidery fingers fluttering wildly, as if sparked by random synapses.
Jumpy. Not good for a surgeon.