The Book of Kills (10 page)

“You mean money?”

“Of course I mean money. I am broke and without prospects. Do you realize that I have been kicked out of the university?”

“You have?” This was news indeed, but was it good or bad? “Tell me about it.”

Orion spoke with the familiar whine of the disappointed academic. He lacked even the elementary skill of avoiding mention of the rules that eminently justified his ejection from graduate school. But Leone considered that the timing of Orion’s separation from the university could not be better. Any fair-minded person, suitably tutored, would see that this was a transparent attempt to get rid of a whistle blower.

“Orion, you have ignited the student body. Copycat demonstrations will abound. Look at what happened at halftime.”

“But no settlement.”

Leone was disappointed. He had thought his own altruism would be contagious. He came down to Orion’s pragmatic level.

“I think we can be assured of being well compensated for our pains. I mean the pains we inflict on the university.”

Plant frowned at the universe.

“Are we agreed?”

A long, calculating moment passed. “I guess so.”

“Good.” Leone came around the desk and pumped his client’s hand. “Just leave everything to me.”

“No. I want to know everything you do before you do it.”

“Of course.”

As he led Orion to the door, Leone thought of ways he could disencumber himself of this disagreeable monitor. This campaign had already transcended the grudges of Orion Plant.

ANITA TRAFFICANT HAD
THE private secretary’s usual concealed contempt for her boss. Father Bloom was the only one in the Main Building who seemed unaware of the fact that his position as chancellor had been created to draw off criticism from the president and provost, who retained all real power. Her own title was administrative assistant, but this was a nominal inflation—a titular uplift, to use the expression Harold had devised; her salary rose a cubit, a biblical least amount, again according to Harold. It was Harold’s delight—to her guilty pleasure—to winkle out of her everything that should be kept confidential in her dealings with the chancellor. It was like being seduced and the longer the resistance the surer the capitulation. Harold was in computers.

“Not literally,” he added.

“Virtually?”

“Good, good.” He had first arrived in the chancellor’s sumptuous suite in answer to a plea for help with one of the computers.

“Where is the patient?”

She took him to it as if she were the receptionist not the senior girl; she was already fascinated by him. The tenor of the office was so dull that anything out of the way qualified as interesting. Harold had not yet taken a fully interested look at
her, and she was determined that this visit would rise above the impersonal. The impersonal could be had by phone, letting someone in the computer center talk you through the problem. Now that a flesh and blood human being had answered the appeal, Anita wanted a flesh and blood exchange.

Was Harold dressed casually or not? Perhaps it was the way he was so at ease that made his clothes look more comfortable than they might be. He wore real shoes, which in the age of gym shoes was a plus. His slacks were pleated and cuffed and cordovan red shoes showed beneath them. The sport jacket he wore was shapeless, black to his trousers’ light brown. His eyes when he finally looked directly at her were green.

“I’ll send you a replacement.” He had spent two minutes examining the defective computer.

“That bad?”

“They’re like Kleenex.”

“Oh, I think we got more than one use out of that.”

“Tissue,” he said, leaning toward her, and for a mad moment she thought he had said something else. “Undoubtedly one of the marvels of science, but quite up to the computer. We have some that last months.”

“Kleenex?”

He was kidding, of course, though his expression did not change. But the green eyes watched, perhaps to see if she were dumb and didn’t get it.

“A tanner will get you ten.”

His expression changed.

“Shakespeare,” she said.

“Of course.”

“You’re faking.”

The green eyes twinkled. “The graveyard scene, first or second digger.”

“You’re not faking.”

“I never do.”

Yes, he would like coffee, and yes, they wasted forty-five minutes performing those intricate steps in an unlearned rite that might lead on to more. There was no wedding ring on his finger. Early thirties, she guessed. Whatever he gave as his age she would give as hers. Such minor obstacles as a difference in age must not stand in the way. He said he had been with the university ten years.

“Me too.”

“You must have begun as a child.”

“Twenty-two.”

“Making you my age.”

“Thirty-two?”

“Just.”

“I don’t know how just it is. You’re a Libra, I suppose.”

“What’s that?”

She explained. He was. Their whatchamacallit was not in themselves, but in their stars. She didn’t test him with the correct lines.

“You better get back to the computing center.”

“I shall return.”

“But nothing else is broken.”

“To replace your ill machine.”

Halfway out, he turned and came back. “How did you get the top job so young?”

“Pull.”

He nodded, waved, and left.

Her father had been in accounting and Anita was never sure if his seniority, and the respect in which he was held, had smoothed the way for her. But she was good, very good, at what she did, she knew that, so pull or no pull she was on her own.

Kidding around with Harold, then going out with him, to games, to sports bars, to the opera when it arrived downtown, and to music in the Snite—Harold did not pall—compromised her unearned reputation as one of the campus feminists. This status had been conferred upon her by Professor Trepani, who simply assumed that any single woman was seething with resentment against the treatment she had received from males and burned with the desire to avenge her sex.

“I’m not sure I answer that description.”

“We all do.”

“If you say so.”

Perhaps Trepani—“Call me Trepani”—had picked up from men the knack of not listening to what others said. She was pretty good at it. That is how Anita became a certified feminist. There seemed no reason to tell Harold all that. Trepani was now aflame over the boy who had danced half naked around the field during halftime on Saturday.

“We all are.” Her eyes half closed and her teeth lifted from her lower lip. “What courage that took, to defy eighty thousand people and force them to see the truth.”

“The bare truth.”

“For a century and a half this university has been living a lie.”

“Slightly longer. 1842.”

They might have been in separate telephone booths talking to different people.

“How could the rest of us not have asked that question? All it needs is asking and the answer is there.”

“What’s the question?”

“He’s been arrested.” Trepani seemed to have become aware of her again.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“I thought you admired him.”

“Do you think he took that enormous risk only to be dismissed as a prankster?”

“I don’t know him.”

“Nor do I. The university must bring charges against him.”

“The faculty senate would go up in smoke.”

“I am here on behalf of the senate. We want that boy persecuted, martyred. It’s what he would want.”

“Because he insulted the university?”

“Ha!” She could have blown out a match on the other side of the room. “You understand what we expect of you?”

“Tell me.”

“You must ensure that the administration insists that this boy be prosecuted.”

“They always do what I tell them to.”

“We’re counting on that.”

Trepani thought she had been serious. For someone convinced of the downtrodden condition of woman, she attributed awesome power to Anita.

“What will happen to that boy who ran around the field at halftime?” Harold asked.

“He’s already been arrested.”

“Will they press it?”

“They better.”

This surprised Harold. In any case, it would make her seem invincible to Trepani and the rest of the sisters, as Trepani called them.

“I don’t think I have a vocation,” Anita had said.

Vocation, vocal, voiced—unheard.

Harold asked, “I suppose they think he’s tied up with the other things?”

“I suppose.” Anita hadn’t thought of that. Her mind was going. No wonder the chancellor was so uncharacteristically vehement. He was still brooding over his kidnapping, as who wouldn’t be.

“Maybe I should go out and run around on behalf of the white settlers.”

She dipped her head and looked at him through her lashes. “What would you wear?”

“My people go way back, you know. My great-great-greatgrandparents were killed by Indians.”

“Around here?”

“Oh no. That’s why my great-great-grandfather moved here. He hated Indians.”

“No wonder.”

“So do I. It runs in the family.” After a long pause, the corners of his mouth dimpled. “Cleveland Indians.”

She punched his arm.

“That’s where they came from, my ancestors.”

“Was Cleveland there then?”

“We were.”

ARTHUR BALLAST’S OFFICE
was posh. The surfaces of tables gleamed, the carpet was plush and seemed to absorb sound. Telephones rang almost mutely. Green leather chairs under the pale light of lamps. Ballast’s receptionist sat motionless at her desk, wearing a fixed smile, bored to death. Phil sank into a chair, crossed one long leg over the other, and rested his chin on the hand that angled toward it. Once he’d had offices in Manhattan, not as ostentatious as these, but meant to convey to potential clients that business is good but I may be able to fit you in. Roger knew that Phil did not regret putting all that behind. The move to Rye had been inspired. They also got lower insurance rates. But for all the people who telephoned from around the country knew, seeking the aid of Knight Brothers Investigations, it was to such an office as this they called. Such a call had come yesterday.

“You can’t go away during football season.”

Phil had laughed. “Or basketball or hockey, and the baseball team looks good this year. Anyway, this was a local inquiry.”

“Will you take it?”

“Let’s talk about it after we report to Ballast. That should fulfill our commitment to the university.”

Roger had told Phil what he had learned from talking with Orion Plant, and what he had inferred, and he was content to
let Phil pass it on to Ballast. The little lawyer did not quite smack his lips, but it was clear that he relished this information.

“This is more than enough.” He smiled eagerly at Phil first, then Roger. “The idea, you see, is to be able to tell him. ‘So’s your old man’ if his lawyer starts making threats against the university.”

“What kind of threats?”

“Well, they’re talking about injustice done Plant. He was thrown out of the history department, you know.”

“I heard.”

“Years overdue. There is no possible case.”

“So what then.”

“The land. Ownership. Indians. Were you at the game Saturday?”

Phil said that he had been.

“You have to see something like that to know what fanatics they are.”

“Do they have a case?”

Ballast smiled an evil smile. “I am making a novena that they think they have.”

Phil rose. “Do you want a written report, a record of expenses?”

Ballast’s mouth dropped open. “But you’re not done.”

“What else did you have in mind?”

“I want evidence that he was in on the kidnapping. The log chapel incident too, if you can manage it, but the kidnapping is the thing.”

Phil agreed, and Roger wished he hadn’t. Too much of the investigation would call him into play. On the other hand, he was glad to see Phil at work again. Sometimes he feared his older brother would atrophy in this undemanding existence.
Phil was increasingly reluctant to go to distant cities to investigate for a client. Better local work than none.

“I guess that settles what I will do about that telephone inquiry.”