Instead of saying any of that, I searched for a way to politely ask him if he was confused. He did work hard, lots of long hours, so it was possible he had me mixed up with someone else, though honestly, I had no idea who that could be at the moment.
“Kohn?”
Because I clearly had no concern for my well-being, I pushed back. “Sir, do you mean to be speaking to someone in”—I searched my brain for something—“planning?”
Now I was getting the are-you-stupid-or-are-you-new look I’d gotten endlessly during the first year I worked for him.
“Planning?” Kage repeated. Never good when he repeated things. “Is it possible that big, flashy thousand-dollar-a-ticket events planned by the mayor’s wife in partnership with the Chicago Ballet Company do, in fact, fall under the purview of public affairs?” he asked pointedly. “Public affairs that you, Kohn, are in charge of?”
After he murdered me, there would be nothing left to find. And yes, technically, I was being dramatic. He wouldn’t actually kill me, but he could transfer me someplace horrible and so out of my wheelhouse I would wash out as a deputy US marshal. He could put me on any fugitive task force to spend hours, days, months watching different locales on the off chance someone would show up. Stakeouts were the worst. I couldn’t think of anything worse. “Sure,” I agreed. “But doesn’t any and all protection fall to Judicial Support?”
“Not on the one night a year where this office handles security for whatever ridiculousness the mayor comes up with.”
It was a good reminder. Like a wedding that one had been roped into attending, this was only a once-a-year occurrence. Even if it was horrible, which a fundraiser would no doubt be, we could all stand on our heads if needed for one night.
“It’s a singular evening, Kohn, and the mayor gets all of us,” Kage reminded me. “Certainly you can handle that.”
I was getting a look now that bordered on me being pathetic. I didn’t want that. “Of course, sir.” And he would have to be there as well and was ultimately responsible if anything went south. Not that I would allow that. My boss was insane; that was the only explanation there could be for him letting us be roped into something so horrible, but I would take a real bullet for the man, so humiliation and embarrassment were well on the list of acceptable consequences.
The thing was, goodwill between our office and the mayor’s was paramount. There was only one way to be successful in any city in which the USMS resided, and that was to have a good working relationship with all elected officials, the police department, and whatever other law enforcement shared the same zip code. Due to the fact that Kage himself had come out of the CPD, we were normally good there. Our office used to be a bit combative with the DEA, but Ian had built that bridge in the last few years, so we could check off all the boxes in that category. Where we’d had some bumpy spots was with the mayor’s office, as any misstep on our part tended to rate a news conference to point that out to the media. Not that there were many—Kage was our boss, after all—but there’d been an issue with Custodial WITSEC before Miro took it over, and then on top of that, the relationship between the dead serial killer Craig Hartley and our office. The problems that did come up tended to be big.
“Did I lose you, Kohn?”
“No, sir,” I said quickly.
“So you’ll have no trouble coordinating our effort with the mayor.”
“I’m sure I can navigate…what did you call it again?”
“A night of dance,” Kage muttered.
“I’m just wondering if I might hire someone as a contractor, to assist me,” I suggested, checking to see what would and wouldn’t be allowed. “As you know, I don’t have experience coordinating events like this.”
“I know that,” Kage replied, his voice strained. “But as you well know, all the law enforcement agencies in our great city take turns providing security for these events in collaboration with the police department. It’s ours now, and the mayor’s wife taps the person in public affairs or relations from each branch. As I understand it, she brings the support staff, and you back up her efforts.”
“So it’s her show.”
“That’s correct.”
The sun was suddenly shining down on me. I’d been worried for nothing. I was just along for the ride.
“My understanding is that someone at the Chicago Ballet Company is coordinating the dances and the dancers, so all you have to do is be in attendance in the planning stage with the mayor’s wife.”
“Sure, but this goes back to my contractor question. Shouldn’t I be handing this off to someone who can handle all this and I just show up to the event itself like all the rest of you?”
“No.”
I waited.
His stare had gone from not great to bad, darkening by the second. I blamed this all on my parents. As an only child, I had been indulged and always allowed to question things. They had set a poor precedent.
“Kohn?”
“I’m sorry, sir. I was expecting more than a no.”
“Well, there isn’t anything more. The mayor wants you coordinating with his wife, so that means not handing anything off and you, yourself, being the one representing us.”
This was insane. My brain kept coming back to the same irrefutable fact: the marshals service wasnotan event-planning company. We were also not talent bookers, and we didn’t coordinateanythingwhere anyone would be wearinganythingbut Kevlar. Did we need to show up to provide security to keep things civil with the mayor? Absolutely. But we should not have any say in any other aspect of the evening.