Pool_2

message was quite different from the words Shannon heard and the content words disguised. What Macaluso's beast heard was, "Your husband, John, did me an unavoidable and modest nonessential favor related to a wedding reception which I, for color, allowed some ethnic riff-raff to attend. Although elevating John by allowing him to be the purveyor of that color, by arranging this meeting, any debt which you may mistakenly perceive to be mine, to you, is now repaid IN FULL. Don't expect anything more from me. As a very important and powerful man, small favors from me have much more intrinsic value than grand and painful efforts from you. I, by right, am owed consideration. You, in contrast, have to earn it." The man was a beacon of arrogance projecting obligation to no one, just entanglements. That's what the beast heard and concluded. Nevertheless, the beast held its tongue, Macaluso's. Shannon was upbeat. This was, to her, an embryonic first of many potentially escalating meetings which would first explore common ground, then grow in exploration toward solution. Eventually a process of implementation would emerge. To doctor Macaluso, this meeting must either explode with shared outrage over substance and with implementation derived from compatible skills of equally driven participants who in joining together create powerful mechanisms of remedy - or - it was over. Dead. Right now, odds strongly favored dead. Doomed or otherwise, Shannon would never forgive him if he began trashing things. So, he told himself, just shut up and smile amicably, contemplate the universe, and offer an occasional polite Hmmmm. Got a point, there. He could do that. Yeah. Just shut up and keep out it. Introductions were followed by brief autobiographical familiarizations of the participants. Dorothy Bela had extensive experience in advocacy for the poor and, in