Chapter 42
Santopietro rarely used the full version of his first name, Dante.
To his friends, who were few, he was Dan.
His first—and, so far, only wife—used to call him Santi, but she was dead and the diminutive had passed away with her.
To the locals in The Plains, The Forks, and farther south in Bingham and Madison, as well as to the staff and students at Spero, he was Mr S—unless they were in trouble, when he was very much Mr Santopietro, or simply, sir.
Santopietro was currently in his office, and intended to spend the rest of the day there, just as he would also spend much of Sunday morning in it.
Spero required his daily attention. It might have been a fraction the size of a regular school, but its students required more attention than the norm.
Santopietro had learned a lot from his time as a pupil at élan, including the inadvisability of condoning sadism.
True, some Spero parents wouldn’t have objected to their sons being beaten regularly with briars and left to hang overnight on a cross so long as they weren’t causing an uproar at home, especially if the punishments resulted in permanent modification to the boys’ behavior.
One or two of the parents wouldn’t even have given two shits on a nickel if their sons died suddenly in their sleep.
But then, nobody sent a child to Spero out of love, tough or otherwise.
At best, they exiled them there because they couldn’t cope, and at worst, because they didn’t care.
Santopietro might not have liked all of his charges either, but he found it depressing to think that he had more regard for them than some of their own mothers and fathers.
He tried his best to ensure that the staff didn’t compound the problem.
Even if he didn’t pay them enough to care a lot, he paid sufficient for them to care some.
Speaking of which, earlier that morning Patrick Elgot had reported to Santopietro that Anthony Marshall slept through the night and appeared to be recovering well after the trauma of the ablution block, physically at least, though he remained more subdued than before.
Elgot was about to go off duty for a couple of days to attend the Head of the Charles Regatta down in Boston, where his girlfriend was operating a food stall at the Riverbender.
His absence required a certain reorganization of the schedule, but Santopietro didn’t make a fuss because Elgot was obliging, kind to the kids, and had given plenty of notice, even if he did have a big sharp stick up his ass.
Also, it suited Santopietro to have Elgot far from the school.
Before he left for Boston, Elgot again raised the subject of Leonard Levesque, and whether Santopietro had spoken to him about Marshall.
It didn’t do any good for Santopietro to point out, not for the first time, that Marshall hadn’t named Levesque as the culprit.
“It was Levesque,” Elgot said. “No one else here would do that to another boy.”
“Regardless,” said Santopietro.
“Regardless what?”
Santopietro didn’t like Elgot’s tone, but resisted the urge to tear him a new asshole, if only because Elgot might try to insert another stick up it.
“Regardless, we can’t go making accusations without evidence.
” Santopietro really wanted Elgot gone, off to serve tofu, wheatgrass, or whatever else his girlfriend was shilling to the yacht crowd down in Boston.
“But I’ll speak with Leonard privately and advise him of the necessity of behaving respectfully toward the staff and students of this institution.
To cover myself, I’ll have to give a more general warning to the rest of them, but I promise you, Leonard Levesque will get the message. ”
Mercifully, Elgot had left it at that and they parted on good terms. Once Elgot was gone from the campus, Santopietro called Renders.
“Give me an hour or so to finish up what I’m doing,” he said, “then get that bastard in here.”