Honor Among Thieves

Had he consulted one of the senior psychiatrists at the university, the psychiatrist would have explained that many of the anxieties he’d kept suppressed over a long period of time had, in his new circumstances, been forced to the surface.

The fact that he adored his only child, Sally, was clear for all to see. So was the fact that for many years he had become bored with, almost completely uninterested in, his wife, Joni. But the discovery that he was not good under pressure once he was outside the operating room—his own little empire—was something he could never have accepted.

T. Hamilt

on McKenzie became at first irritated, then exasperated and finally downright angry when his daughter failed to return home that Tuesday evening. Sally was never late, or at least not for him. The journey by car from Columbus should have taken no more than thirty minutes, even in the rush-hour traffic. Joni would have picked Sally up if she hadn’t scheduled her hair appointment so late. “It’s the only time Julian could fit me in,” she explained. She always left everything to the last minute. At 4:50 T. Hamilton McKenzie phoned Columbus School for Girls to check that there had been no late change of plan.

Columbus doesn’t change its plans, the director would have liked to tell the Nobel Laureate, but satisfied herself with the fact that Sally had left school at four o’clock, and that the car service had phoned an hour before to confirm that they would be waiting for her at the end of the drive by the main school gates.

Joni kept repeating in that Southern accent he had once found so attractive, “She’ll be here at any minute, jus’ you wait. You can always rely on our Sally.”

Another man, who was sitting in a hotel room on the other side of town and listening to every word they exchanged, poured himself a beer.

By five o’clock T. Hamilton McKenzie had taken to looking out of the bedroom window every few moments, but the path to their front door lay obstinately unbeaten.

He had hoped to leave at 5:20, allowing himself enough time to arrive at the school with ten or fifteen minutes to spare. If his daughter did not appear soon, he would have to go without her. He warned his wife that nothing would stop him leaving at 5:20.

At 5:20 T. Hamilton McKenzie placed the notes for his speech on the hall table and began pacing up and down the front path as he waited for his wife and daughter to come from opposite directions. By 5:25 neither of them was at his side and his famous “cool” was beginning to show distinct signs of steaming.

Joni had taken considerable time to select an appropriate outfit for the occasion, and was disappointed that her husband didn’t even seem to notice.

“We’ll have to go without her,” was all he said. “If Sally hopes to be a doctor one day she’ll have to learn that people have a tendency to die when you keep them waiting.”

“Shouldn’t we give her just a li’l longer, honey?” asked Joni.

“No,” he barked, and without even looking back set off for the garage. Joni spotted her husband’s notes on the hall table and stuffed them into her handbag before she pulled the front door closed and double-locked it. By the time she reached the road, her husband was already waiting behind the wheel of his car, drumming his fingers on the gear shift.

They drove in silence towards Columbus School for Girls. T. Hamilton McKenzie checked every car heading towards Upper Arlington to see if his daughter was in the back seat.

A small reception party, led by the director, was waiting for them at the foot of the stone steps at the school’s main entrance. The director walked forward to shake hands with the distinguished surgeon as he stepped out of the car, followed by Joni McKenzie. Her eyes searched beyond them for Sally. She raised an eyebrow.

“Sally never came home,” Dr. McKenzie explained.

“She’ll probably join us in a few minutes, if she’s not already here,” suggested his wife. The director knew Sally was not on the school grounds, but did not consider it courteous to correct the guest of honor’s wife, especially as she’d just received a call from the car service that required an explanation.

At fourteen minutes to six they walked into the director’s study, where a young lady of Sally’s age offered the guests a choice of dry sherry or orange juice. McKenzie suddenly remembered that in the anxiety of waiting for his daughter he had left his notes on the hall table. He checked his watch and realized that there wasn’t enough time to send his wife back for them. In any case, he was unwilling to admit such an oversight in front of this particular gathering. Damn it, he thought. Teenagers are never an easy audience, and girls are always the worst. He tried to marshal his thoughts into some sort of order.

At three minutes to six, despite there still being no sign of Sally, the director suggested they should all make their way to the Great Hall.

“Can’t keep the girls waiting,” she explained. “It would set a bad example.”

Just as they were leaving the room, Joni took her husband’s notes out of her handbag and passed them over to him. He looked relieved for the first time since 4:50.

At one minute to six, the director led the guest of honor onto the stage. He watched the four hundred girls rise and applaud him in what the director would have described as a “ladylike” manner.

When the applause had faded away, the director raised and lowered her hands to indicate that the girls should be seated again, which they did with the minimum of noise. She then walked over to the lectern and gave an unscripted eulogy on T. Hamilton McKenzie that would have surely impressed the Nobel Committee. She talked of Edward Zeir, the founder of modern plastic surgery, of J. R. Wolte and Wilhelm Krause, and reminded her pupils that T. Hamilton McKenzie had followed in their great tradition by advancing the still-burgeoning science. She said nothing about Sally and her many achievements while at the school, although it had been in her original script. It was still possible to be punished for breaking school rules even if you had just won an endowed national scholarship.

When the director returned to her place in the center of the stage, T. Hamilton McKenzie made his way to the lectern. He looked down at his notes, coughed and then began his dissertation.

“Most of you in the audience, I imagine, think plastic surgery is about straightening noses, removing double chins and getting rid of bags from under your eyes. That, I can assure you, is not plastic but cosmetic surgery. Plastic surgery,” he continued—to the disappointment, his wife suspected, of most of those seated in front of him—“is something else.” He then lectured for forty minutes on z-plasty, homografting, congenital malformation and third-degree burns without once raising his head.

When he finally sat down, the applause was not quite as loud as it had been when he’d entered the room. T. Hamilton McKenzie assumed that was because showing their true feelings would have been considered “unladylike.”

On returning to the director’s study, Joni asked the secretary if there had been any news of Sally.

“Not that I’m aware of,” replied the secretary, “but she might have been seated in the hall.”

During the lecture, versions of which Joni had heard a hundred times before, she’d scanned every face in the room, and knew that her daughter was not among them.