The Savage Professor

by Robert Roper

  “Wait right there. I’ll call back in thirty seconds after I speak to someone about how we need to proceed.”

  Waited thirty seconds. Then five minutes more. Got in his car and started driving, slowly. It was that time of day when the streetlamps begin coming on, when the more cautious California drivers begin turning on their lights, although they aren’t needed yet—the time of day when all good men are thinking of turning homeward. Landau drove toward the bay, rather than toward the hills, conceiving as he did an idea that made this appear sensible, the need to buy some bottles of wine at an overpriced foodie boutique that he hadn’t patronized in a year, down around Fourth Street.

  What is that out there, in the cold, shadowy world? What calls to me? The world itself calls to me, he decided, because it has spawned a perplexing murder or two, this mundane geography has—off these familiar streets has come a maniac who likes to stage his killings at Anthony Landau’s house, of all places. And here came more of the fruitless mental labor of the last twenty-three days, poring over his life, fossicking among the personal and professional elements, in search of someone with an anti-Landau grudge, a grad student disrespected, a colleague seething for imponderable reasons, something left untended, some loose end.

  His phone rang. It was Raboy, the high counselor himself.

  “Be at my office at ten sharp. We’ll tell you what your options are at that point.”

  “Oh, okay. Wait, I’m pulling over now, Cleve. Don’t want a ticket for driving while talking. I’m in trouble enough, I think we can both agree.”

  A few seconds later he said, “There. Parked now. And how are you, Cleveland? Keeping well?”

  “Fuck you, Landau.”

  “Fuck me?”

  “Yes, fuck you. Be there. Ten o’clock.”

  He had pulled over in front of a church. Small wooden church with a short steeple, needed a paint job. Along one shrubby side he made out a straggle of men, Mexican-looking men—well, you saw them often in west Berkeley these days, waiting on corners for someone to give them a day’s work. Could be a soup kitchen, therefore, or a homeless shelter, the church. I wonder what’s on for tonight, macaroni and cheese? Brown rice casserole?

  For no particular reason he got out of his car. Joined the line. Mexican men have a stoic acceptingness, he had often thought—the way they ignore you is somehow philosophical, we’re-all-in-this-together-like. The men waiting near him had rounded shoulders; would look up at you, from under a pulled-down baseball cap, then look away. Several were wearing Red Wing brand work boots—perhaps there had been a sale on Red Wing locally, or maybe they meant something stylistic in Mexico.

  Landau caught a mood of mild despair. If this is a soup kitchen, these guys aren’t doing that well; if they had the scratch they’d be renting their own apartments, cooking beans in their own little kitchen, playing bachata music on the radio. The whole point of being in the bloody soulless U.S. is to make money, send some of it home, and if you’re not doing that, well, what’s the point? Does life have a point anymore?

  The line began to move. Landau found himself in a classic church basement, with smells of stewed chicken, an old upright piano against one wall, an underlying smell of Pine-Sol. The Mexican men sat at the various mismatched tables, waiting. Three women up front, busy young women writing on clipboards, smiling at this or that visitor—everyone seemed familiar with the drill, seemed to know what was going on. I’ve stumbled into a cohort study, Landau realized with a start—I recognize the mood, the clipboards, everything. A study on STDs, on prostitute visitation among undocumented workers, something like that. Good God, one of the young women up front was actually someone he knew: Dolores Huerta, cheerful, competent Dolores, one of his street-injector monitors from San Francisco. Hey, what’s going on here, Dolores? Are you moonlighting on me now? I thought we had you under contract, but no, you’re working for some competitor. Then he recalled that Dolores lived in the East Bay now, had a new wife and a house in Rockridge. I went to their housewarming party, and she works for Vladdy Slem now, good old prove-the-obvious Vladdy. Dolores Huerta—sort of a friend of mine.

  “Dolores, is that you?” he whispered as she walked by his table.

  The young woman pulled up short. Blinked.

  “Dolores, it’s me,” Landau went on whispering. “It’s Anthony, Anthony Landau. Hello there.”

  Sharp intake of breath. “Oh, my God! Oh gosh.”

  “Yes, I’ve gone undercover. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  Dolores was dressed in skinny black jeans, Converse All-Stars in sexpot red, hair cut à la Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday.

  “I—” Her face fell. She suddenly turned and hurried away.

  A few moments later she came back.

  “You’ll have to get out. Go on, or I’ll call the police.”

  “The police? What are you talking about?”

  “Yes, the police, get out. Go on, get out now.”

  She had paled, Dolores; her jaw was working, nostrils dilating.

  “Dolores, what is it? It’s me, don’t you understand? Hello there. You know me.”

  “I told you, get up. Get up and get out.”

  All right, Landau thought. He stood. No longer a hero to lesbian women, it appeared.

  Out in the mystic night again, the cool, shadow-spreading night. What was that that just happened? Good God, did I do something to her, too?

  At a loss, he phoned Georges.

  “Hello?”

  “Georges, is that you? Look, I’m on my way to Enoteca, you want anything? Some prosecco, maybe?”

  “Anthony? Jesus, where the hell have you been? Get your ass over here, right now.”

  “All right, all right. I’ll be there in a few.”

  chapter 9

  Georges had once been George—Landau had always admired the economy of the change, the single added “s” making him seem European, an old school flâneur, perhaps, not just some chiropractor from Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Georges was subtle in other ways, too—each year before your birthday you could count on a call from him, to talk about a swimming class you should take together, or a movie you should both see, never anything directly about birthdays or another year slipping past, no, that would be too crude. Georges had no brothers or sisters, Landau either. Both had learned how to make friends out in the world, and both were still learning. Deena said that they would end up in a rest home together, not in the same room probably but on the same floor. Playing inept chess. Helping each other count blood-pressure pills.

  Georges had a new girlfriend, whom Landau had not yet met. He sang her praises in an ironic way—she was called Heather Ming, and she was another lovely young Asian person, no doubt, drawn to Georges by a mysterious magnetism he had, which he professed not to understand.

  “Another waitress, Georges?”

  “No, she’s a geophysicist. She’s an expert on shale fracturing—fracking, whatever they call it—which I’m learning about.”

  “Oh, yes, that gas thing.”

  “Right. You can talk Mandarin with her. You’ll like her.”

  Georges said nothing about the bodies of dead women turning up at Landau’s house. But Landau was not about to let himself be patronized in this regard, and he brought up the subject himself, that and the recent run-off to Argentina. Georges said there had been a lot of TV talk the last couple of weeks. Heads were soon to roll in the county prosecutor’s office, it was said, because they should have brought Landau in on a forty-eight-hour hold, which was a provision that permitted the gathering of evidence from a crime scene, without the necessity of formally arresting a suspect. Several years ago there had been another eccentric white-collar criminal in Berkeley, who had slipped away because he’d been such a solid citizen that the police hadn’t thought he’d bolt. He’d gone to Brazil and was still there as far as anyone knew.

>   “Are you calling me an eccentric white-collar criminal, Georges?”

  “No, I’m not. I don’t know that.”

  “You think I might have murdered the maid, is that right?”

  “Well, it’s an interesting question, you have to admit. I don’t know you well enough to say for sure, one hundred percent for sure.”

  “What, you don’t know me?”

  “I know you. But no man knows another in his full roundabout. His full psychosexual roundabout.”

  “Oh, Jesus. What’s your best guess, given that no man knows another?”

  “That you wouldn’t have, because you wouldn’t leave her under your house. You’re too protective of your fancy pretty house. But sometimes things run away with a person—you might have lacked options. What do you know about cutting up a body? Putting caustic chemicals on flesh, making it disappear? It might be smarter to do something so wrong that it tends to exonerate you. Bury her under your deck—that’s clever, in a way.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “You must figure they have a GPS on you, that they’re following you, so how would you get her out on the bay, say, to drop her in deep water? You couldn’t.”

  Here we are, once more in the TV show. Following a script full of hoary conventions, a script written by others. I guess that’s what the Frenchman meant when he said, Il n’y a pas de hors-texte.

  “Georges, I never once thought of that. That they might be following me. It never once entered my mind.”

  “With two dead women, they have to have someone following, they have to have a whole detail. Yet you slipped away. Right out from under them.”

  “They still trusted me then, the fools. Hah. Hah.”

  The assumption seems to be, Landau reflected, that even if I am a murderer Georges will remain loyal. We are both men of the world, after all, and nobody’s perfect. Not in the full psychosexual roundabout he isn’t.

  “Just for the record, I didn’t kill anyone. I’m too finicky to kill. And why would I kill Samantha, after so many years? And the Mexican girl was a sweetheart, a sketch. You never met her, did you?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “You still have a key to my house, right?”

  “Probably. It’s here somewhere.”

  Heather Ming came over early. Landau knew it was early because Georges met her at the door saying, “Heather! You’re early! But come in! So good to see you!”

  Landau had conjured an image of a slinky, third-generation Asian femme fatale—Georges had consorted with people like that before. But here was a different modern stock figure, a severely uncosmeticized young woman with a strong, broad face, not very smartly dressed for a date, nervously handing over a bottle of cheap wine. A science nerd, that’s what she was. Here in Georges’ bachelor pad she was out of her depth, looked disoriented, a little frightened. The lights were low; there was DeBussy playing somewhere. He was a champion smoothie, old Georges, and maybe that was more than she’d bargained for.

  As soon as she began to speak, however, Landau stopped fearing for her. Dead-on California girl accent, seemed to regard Georges with amusement—he was this older guy, cute in a way, obviously with a bad case of yellow fever. It suited her purposes to be here, that was all. Maybe she’d had nothing better to do on a night a few days before Christmas.

  Landau made a quick exit, promising to call tomorrow. Christmas, Christmas, what’s on for Christmas? Nominal invite from son and daughter-in-law. Christmas Eve in the vast, clean modern house, with other successful young couples, all childless, of course. Oh, joy to the world. Landau had a self-pitying passage, during which he acknowledged his own loverless condition, the likelihood that he would remain so till the end of time, since women now considered him monstrous. Only bleakness before me, and only a couple months ago I was fairly okay, I did have friends, I was grumpily managing retirement, the phone rang now and again. Damn those two dead women, anyway. Screwing things up for me.

  Worse: the TV vans were at his house again, the ones with giant antennas on the roof. Now how does word get out, do the police tell the news outlets that the “suspect” is back in town? Landau motored past the turn onto Hopwood Lane, sinking low in his seat. No stomach for bravura turns in front of the cameras this evening—“Dr. Landau, welcome back, how are you? Kill any more women today, sir?” (“Hey, get your ass off my lawn, you press vulture. Or I think I might kill you.”)

  Rolled downhill, aimlessly down. Stopped at the Berkeley Rose Garden, no reason, there it was. Promontory amphitheatrical garden, tennis courts, view down the hill to the lights of the drowsing college town. He parked his car furtively, then hurried toward the rose-viewing area, scent as of dilute rosewater in the air, as if some elderly ladies were lying out, perfuming the night. Nature called, and he relieved himself in a mulched flowerbed, taking what seemed like fifteen minutes to empty, flick off, empty some more. Terrific shock when he turned around, and a woman was above him on the path, watching him. He made some expostulation, grmph, freckk, and she turned away, sorry about that, so sorry.

  “Can I help you madam!”

  “I’m sorry! Please excuse me!”

  Completely in shadow, she was. Slender young woman-shape, dressed in a pantsuit. Medium heels.

  She made a downward pushing gesture, as if to say, no harm intended, I mean you no harm, let’s forget about it.

  “I know you, don’t I?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Come on. Out with it.”

  “Okay. I’m Katherine Emerald. You called me Katherine of KRON.”

  “Oh, Jesus. You again.” It was the one who had betrayed him, filmed him over the back fence.

  “I saw your car, that’s all. I was driving home, so I pulled over.”

  “Aren’t you afraid, Katherine of KRON? I’m a slavering madman. You’re out here with me unprotected. I could kill you, eat your liver, and no one would ever know.”

  “Can I ask you one question, Professor? Why did you come back when you had already gotten away?”

  Landau moved past her up the path. Not talking to you, not anymore I’m not.

  “Professor? Do you have a theory about what happened to Elfridiana Mattos? The dead maid?”

  “Not ‘Elfridiana,’ please. Her name was Elfridia. Get that right at least.”

  “Okay, Elfridia, sorry. Because, they’re saying now she was tortured. Surgically altered before the animals got to her. Have you got a comment on that? On her extensive genital injuries?”

  Just keep on, he told himself. Keep on going.

  At the top of the path, he suddenly whirled. “Press harpy, I’m asking you to leave me alone. I don’t want to talk to you, now or ever.”

  “I know, but she was carved up, Professor. With scalpels, razors, something very sharp. Maybe a box cutter. Possibly she was the target after all. Her and not your former wife.”

  “Not my ‘former’ wife, not my any kind of wife.”

  “Okay, but what about it? Can you make any sense of that?”

  Cameras must be whirring somewhere. Landau could almost hear them, a whole host of them in the trees.

  “Who told you that, about sexual mutilation?”

  “I don’t know. It’s what they’re putting out now.”

  “Who, the medical examiners? That nice police officer, Detective Johnson?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  At least she protects her sources, he reflected. What passes for honor among these parasites.

  “Look here, Katherine of KRON. I don’t know anything about torture, God help us. What I do know is that you’ve been blogging—I’ve read you myself, in my weaker moments. You media scrummers, you put our heads out on pikes, arrange for the crows to pick our eyes, yet somehow you think we owe you something for it. I feel sorry for Brad Pitt now—my brother, Brad Pi
tt. Fellow celebrity sufferer.”

  “But what about it, Professor? Someone smart like you, with a deep understanding of abnormal psychology, you must have some insight. That whole classic cathexis, bondage, burial, savagery toward a woman’s genitals, that must ring a bell, no? It’s textbook. Completely textbook.”

  “Wait a minute—did I just hear you use the word ‘cathexis’? Oooh. Oooh.”

  Hurried to his car. The Beemer had parked itself drunkenly, one wheel on the curb, and fifty feet ahead of it was parked an exemplary young Prius, in a girly pastel, clearly the vehicle in which the young newswoman had arrived.

  “Professor, I can help you,” she was saying, panting uphill after him. “You’re being put out on a pike, but that’s just because you’re not shaping the story yourself. I can help you with that. I’m good at that. Let’s work together, you and me, to tell the truth. You and me together.”

  “Okay, I’ll think about it. I’ll get back to you.”

  * * *

  After a night in his car—sledgehammer sleep, hardly any dreams, despite the cramped position—he found himself in a café on University Avenue, ordering a bran muffin. The students all gone, it was the holidays, so Berkeley was a third less crowded. Kind of a rusty-dusty café, homeless guys at a few tables. Hey, I’m a homeless guy myself, Landau reflected. I smell ripe, haven’t shaved in three days, and I can’t go home, my home has been taken away from me. Boo-hoo.

  Maybe I’ll catch up on my presence in the yakosphere. But he had left his laptop behind, therefore he bought a copy of the Chronicle, the pathetically diminished local newssheet, with a six-page front section, lots of articles about cooking. Here he was on page four—he was old hat already, it appeared, sucked dry as a news topic. Accompanying photo showed him with the devilish beard, two years ago. Landau could remember that day it was taken: someone had written an article for the Scripps Wellness Letter, and he had been called to the UCSF press office to comment. He looked cold in the photo, disapproving. Was brooding over the cathexis even then.