She’d wanted to rush right out of the room without paying attention to any of it, but she knew what the result of that would be.
Men were always trying to undercut women in positions of power and responsibility, and that was especially true of the men in the IT department.
2
Petrak Maldovanian had known, from the moment he first saw Martha Handling lying there dead, that he was going to have to find a way to talk to Stefan alone. Talking to him was not so difficult as Petrak had expected it to be when Stefan was first taken into custody. Since no “disposition” had been made in Stefan’s case, there were generous visiting hours available at the Juvenile Detention Facility, and the lawyers could come and go almost as they wanted.
At least, the hours were generous from Petrak’s point of view. Back in Armenia, if they locked you up, they locked you up. If you happened to be of the wrong race or religion, they locked you up for a good long time before they got around to doing anything about you. When the old Soviet union fell—Petrak didn’t know this from experience, he wasn’t born yet, but he’d heard all about it often enough so that he felt as if he’d been there—
When the old Soviet union fell, everybody thought the disappearances and show trials would be over, but it hadn’t turned out like that. In some ways, thing were better. In some ways, they were actually worse.
Things were certainly better in America. Petrak could testify to that, because in just ten minutes, he would be allowed to talk to Stefan in a secure little room at the back of the building. He had rushed down here as soon as his College Algebra class was over. He had been almost rude to Professor Loftus when he passed her in a corridor. She looked all worked up and flustered, which was not usual for her, but he did not stop and ask her why.
The real issue here, Petrak knew, was not getting in to see Stefan, but getting to talk to him alone. Aunt Sophie was very conscientious. She went to see Stefan at every opportunity. She even used her lunch hour to do it. Her lunch hour, though, was more restrictive than the visiting hours. That meant that Petrak had a chance. If he got to the JDF early enough, he would have some time alone with Stefan before Aunt Sophie came along and insisted that everybody start speaking English.
Petrak knew that everything was better in America, but he was not naïve. They said that the visiting rooms were secure and that nobody listened in on private conversations, but he didn’t believe it.
Most of the people who worked at the JDF were women. The woman on the intake desk when he arrived was very small and frail.
Petrak tried to look humble. It was very important to look humble in front of Authority.
“Please to ask,” he said, thickening up his accent and trying to be as awkward as possible. “My brother, he is doing well?”
“He isn’t giving me any trouble,” the little woman said. Then she spoke into her phone, waited for a reply, and hung up. “They’re bringing him over. You can follow me. Where’s your mother this morning?”
Petrak was momentarily stumped. His mother had been dead for seven years.
“Ah,” he said finally. “This is my aunt, the woman I usually come with.”
“I’m sorry,” the little woman said. “It’s mothers we get, usually. Fathers, not so much. Grandmothers, a lot of the time. You know the drill, right? You have to let the guard check you over.”
Petrak knew the drill. He waited at the cage gate while the guard patted him down and then went up one side of his body and down the other with a wand. This guard was male, and looked menacing.
The little room for visiting was all the way at the back and did not have the bulletproof glass partitions that Petrak had seen on television shows set in adult prisons. Stefan was already waiting for him, sitting on a bench on one side of a wooden table. He was wearing the bright orange sweat clothes that were the juvenile system’s answer to the bright orange jumpsuits for adults.
“Barev dzez,” Petrak said, sitting down across from him.
“Barev dzez,” Stefan answered, looking surprised. But he did what Petrak wanted him to do. He went on in Armenian. “Why are we being so formal?”
Petrak went on in Armenian, too. “I wanted you to speak in Armenian, this is all. For once I would like to have a private conversation.”
“Where is Aunt Sophie?” Stefan said. “Aren’t you early?”
“I came before Aunt Sophie could be away from work,” Petrak said. “Like I said. I wanted us to have a private conversation.”
“Can we have a private conversation here? Maybe it’s like in that movie. Maybe the walls have ears.”