Good Lord, Deliver Us (2 page)

"So, I told him you were a good man.
Had done work for me. And were experienced in the ghost
business."

"Didn't find a ghost. Just a light," Z
said, feeling the honest thing to do was call that to
mind.

"Right! And that's just
the point. The vice chancellor doesn't
want
to find a ghost on the property
under discussion. Quite the opposite. He wants someone to assure
whoever asks that there
isn't
a ghost there. The thing is, the vice chancellor
wants to damp down
any
interest in the property from whatever quarter. The way I
read him is that he lives in fear a reporter will get it into his
head to feature the house in a story on Kansas City ghosts. And,
God forbid that the T.V. people show up out there with lights and
cameras! He wants to quiet everything down so he can sneak a
bulldozer in there and knock down the house without anyone raising
a stink."

"Sounds reasonable."

"So, are you interested in looking the
house over and then turning in a report saying this ghost business
is nonsense?"

An odd sort of case to be hired for, Z
was thinking. In spite of his previous involvement with the "ghost
light," the supernatural was outside a P.I.'s normal line of work.
Contrary to what you always read in detective fiction, the P.I.
business was ... boring, consisting mostly of shadowing someone --
camera at the ready -- to confirm or deny a spouse's suspicions of
marital infidelity. Or digging up dirt on a business associate
suspected of: 1. stealing money from the firm; 2. selling firm
secrets to a rival.

In addition to tailing people, Z was
sometimes hired to run off undesirables. (If Z's bulk and the sound
of his strangled voice didn't spook the bad guys, his
ghoulish-looking, mucus-colored eyes would.)

"You still with me, Z?" Again, Z had
been thinking instead of talking.

"Yes."

Z now woke up to the fact that Susan
had stopped "pestering" him, Z looking over to see her near the
door.

"You want the work?"

Back to the phone -- a P.I.'s job not
much fun and not paying that well, either.

"I don't know how much money there is
in it," Calder continued, "but something."

"Yes."

"That means you'll do it?"

"Yeah."

"Great!" Calder could show
interest for just about anything, Calder an intriguing man. "Here's
what you do. Call the school. If you're free, make an appointment
with the vice chancellor for this very afternoon. He's eager to get
this settled, so the sooner the better. By the way, the dean's name
is Ashlock. Dr. Cecil Ashlock. His office is in the Administration
building." Again a pause. This time,
Calder
thinking. "I guess the only
thing I really know about him is that he's new. A man in a hurry is
his reputation." Another meditative silence. "You may have to sell
yourself a little. He didn't enthuse when I mentioned your name.
But he didn't say no, either."

"OK."

Across the room, Susan was waving.
Blowing a kiss. ... Like a vision fading into memory, she was about
to leave!

Stretching out, Z tried to catch her
arm ... but found the phone cord too short for him to reach
her.

"And Z. When you're on the campus, why
don't you drop in to see me? It'd be fun to talk about old
times."

"OK."

"Great talking to you again,
Z!"

"Yeah."

Click. And click.

Followed by another, completely
disgusting sound --- the snap of the door lock, delicious Susan ...
gone.

Leaving Z to swear quietly to
himself.

Susan couldn't stay. Z
understood. It wouldn't have been like "work-ethic" Susan to be
late returning to her insurance job after her lunch hour. Z
knew
that ... but didn't
have to like it!

Damn insurance companies!

Damn Calder!

Damn this dean, whoever he
was!

Continuing to damn this and that for
some time, Z finally calmed himself by reflecting that Susan's
showing up in person with the bad news of their non-date meant she
still loved him.

Feeling better at last -- about
feeling bad -- it was time for Z to reflect on what Calder said
about this new case.

For one thing, that Z should get right
on it. For another, something about "ghost" lights and soccer and
that the main man's name was Dr. Cecil Ashlock, Vice Chancellor of
Incremental Augmentation Services.

Too early to infer, from the man's
inflated title, that he was a pompous ass.

Plenty of time to confirm the man's
"assness" when meeting him this afternoon.

* * * * *

Driving through the Kansas City
satellite town of Liberty, past Courthouse Square, continuing to
the far edge of town, Z had parked in the lower lot below Bateman
College, after that, had dragged himself up the steeply slanted,
concrete steps that led to the top of Bateman hill.

Now at the knee-wrenching summit,
wearing a brown-striped shirt -- should he have worn a tie? -- and
an almost-presentable, vanilla-colored suit coat, Z could only hope
his sweat-activated deodorant didn't fail him.

Struggling through wind gusts that
eternally crested the Bateman knoll, Z emerged at the front of the
campus.

There, he turned left to limp along
the broad front walk that led past the boomerang-shaped row of
classroom buildings: Social Science ... Humanities ... Continuing
Education ......

At least it was cooler on the hill,
wind puffs ruffling the short nap of Z's gray hair, the breeze even
drying Z's armpits through his poplin jacket.

The ground fell off sharply to his
right, cement stairways climbing both ends of the campus hill.
Summer school, book-carrying students were mounting the steps to
join Z on the hill's front walk.

Trees clumped the hillside; skeletons
in winter; now, leafy explosions. Oaks. Elms. Hickories.

Below, and rising to either side of
the long front stairs, were thick, waist-high, dark green hedges
(placed along the walkways to keep students from being blown off
the stairs??) Iron pipe railings also "climbed" the cracked
concrete steps.

The town of Liberty lay stretched out
below the Bateman mound, the old city thick with tree-lined streets
and stately homes.

To Z's left, the college's
long, brick, single-story classroom buildings were hunkered down in
a mosaic of grassy spots and plantings, the air laden with the
sweet scent of .... mixed flowers.
Wet
flowers. Wet, because of
whirling, sun-glazed sprinklers. (The grass had largely fled from
Z's apartment house, the building's owner, Peg-Leg Mary, too feeble
to do yard work anymore. Too poverty-stricken to hire it
done.)

Continuing along the walk with the
summer-clad students, Z kept on past Bateman Hall -- the queer old
building named for the college's founder, P.T. Bateman.

And there it was, the low metal sign
in the lawn out front of the next brick "long house" proclaiming
the structure to be: Administration.

Z was honest enough to admit that he
was nervous about confronting campus royalty. Was also aware of the
quizzical looks of students passing by, boys in uniform shirts and
shorts, young women in brightly colored silk blouses and expensive,
lightweight skirts, Z's "look" as out of place in this high-toned
society as a fur-dressed chimp at an English tea.)

Forcing himself, Z turned from the
broad front walk to stumble down the narrower pathway to the
administration building's door, the mix of flowering plants more
lush here than those fronting the other buildings, the vegetation
featuring oblong beds of red and white petunias, here and there, a
circle of purple pansies.

Recalling this building from last
winter, Z opened the front door to find himself in the entrance
"airlock," another closed door directly before him. Pushing through
the second door, Z was again in the main corridor of the building
proper.

The same, light cream walls. The same
framed portraits "decorating" both sides of the hall: paintings and
photo-blowups of antique men with pinched-nose, granny glasses, all
of them in ill-fitting, old-fashioned three-piece suits; no doubt,
the school's former administrators at the turn of the
century.

The hall itself was as he remembered
it, the corridor welcoming visitors with its soft, pale blue carpet
flanked with delft borders. Occasional tables along the walls held
unlit lamps and neatly stacked, colorful brochures. Pots of
greenery and flowers provided decoration -- the plants probably
fake because they looked so good.

The smell ....... was also the same.
Of paint applied within the year.

In addition, Z could detect the
formaldehyde tang of recently installed carpet. Also pick up the
lemony odor of furniture polish. (Ever since that brief period when
Z had lost his sense of smell, he'd made it a point to enjoy odors:
smell, the most underrated of the senses.)

And something more. Something ....
different. .....

Air conditioning!

As he'd been grateful for the
building's warmth last winter, he was glad for its summer
coolness.

Hot and cold. Two sides of the
human-comfort coin.

Back to the hall -- no people to be
seen.

Just the way it was the last time he
was in this building; not that the lack of students was that
surprising, this, the administration building. Students would be
sitting in classrooms in other buildings; spending
between-class-time grouped about coke and candy machines in
recreation areas.

Administration was the place where
bigwigs guarded their offices with imposing secretaries, while "the
girls" cowered behind partitions in the large area ahead of him,
the large room's "animal life" caged behind clear-glass, double
swinging doors.

In spite of no one being about, Z
tried not to limp as he set off down the silent, carpeted hall. He
was, after all, in the administration building.

Crossing the bisecting passageway at
the end of the corridor, Z approached the thick glass door. Like
the last time, read the black, painted-on lettering.

College
President

Dean of Continuing
Education

Dean of the School of
Business

Dean of Arts and
Sciences

Academic Dean

And a title at the bottom
that was
not
there before:

Vice Chancellor of
Incremental Augmentation Services

In spite of Z's six-foot plus and over
two hundred pounds of bulk, this list of intellectuals shrank Z to
the size of the mental pygmy that he was, Z wanting nothing so much
as to slip back down the hall. (He'd been reluctant to enter this
building last winter, when all he'd been doing was calling on a
secretary.)

On the other hand, there was no
denying that Z needed this job. Any job.

Bracing himself on his good leg,
summoning the necessary combination of courage and leverage, Z
pushed through the heavy door, the thick glass swishing shut behind
him with the finality of a honed blade whispering down a
guillotine.

As before, he found himself in the
room of secretaries, each V-shaped, head-high, nubby cloth divider
encompassing one or two "girls" plus their equipment: desks,
chairs, file cabinets, and typewriters, the pitter-patter of
keystrokes tapping his brain like Chinese water torture.

"May I help you, Sir?" asked a stylish
older lady, looking up from a small reception desk to the right of
the glass door.

"Dr. Ashlock," Z croaked, his voice
even less reliable when he felt tense. "Appointment."

"Through there, sir," she
said, pointing down the narrow space between secretarial stations,
the woman managing to contain
most
of her surprise that a man like Z would be in a
place like this.

Nothing for it now but to go on, Z
walking between rows of six-foot-high, semi-private partitions,
women behind them performing the mysterious process called "office
work."

As Z passed his former -- murdered --
client's workspace in the middle of the secretarial line, he
increased his painful pace.

Guilt.

Unreasonable -- but
unavoidable.

Working his way through secretaries'
row at last, Z came to the administration offices on the far side
of a wide hall.

Arriving, looking both ways, Z noticed
that each of the executive chambers (their solid, light-oak doors
uniformly shut) had its corresponding secretarial station opposite
it, even the clerical compartments somewhat larger than those of
the "girls in the pool."