by Howard Engel
“Boolie, I’m trying to draw up a cast of characters surrounding Steve. Who were his friends and who were his enemies?”
“As far as I know, Mr. Cooperman—”
“Call me Benny, please.”
“As far as I know, he was being hounded by the police. They were breathing down Steve’s shirt collar.”
“How did they know what Steve was up to?”
Boolie shrugged.
I thought a moment: “Who else is after Steve?”
“There’s a man, part of a supervisory group that has been trying to create a uniformity in the teaching of science subjects. At first, it was to set high standards of professionalism, but it became more of a second set of campus police. He gave students from Southeast Asia a hard time, and set the RCMP on a grad student from Iraq. He hated the way Steve was friendly with his students, had coffee with them on campus, and went with them to a pub after classes. Steve was a popular teacher, and there were those who resented his easygoing manner with his students.”
“Who was this vigilante?”
“Yes, that is the right name for him and his like. They despise the very best that a teacher can give. If Dr. Samson wasn’t so well liked and well respected, they would have even tried to topple him. They distrust anybody who makes learning fun. They stopped one teacher from taking a class outside.”
“Who are these people?”
“The worst of the lot is Nesbitt. George W. Nesbitt. He singled out Steve and gave him a hard time, starting long before his decline.”
“Okay. Now, besides you, who are his allies and friends?”
“For the last few years at least, his mentor has been Parker Samson. He’s the head of the biochemistry department.”
“Steve’s wife mentioned him. I tried to get him, but he’s a busy man.”
“Parker’s a lot like Steve. They are older and younger versions of one another. Parker helped Steve get this appointment at the university. He was on the board that interviewed Steve and a few other candidates. Like Steve, he’s down-to-earth. Gets along with the undergrads.”
“Does he know Steve’s family?”
“I don’t think so. I never saw him at their house. And I used to be there quite a lot. I know he’s worried about Steve’s disappearance. He has talked to me about it.”
“Boolie, may I ask you something?”
“But of course!”
“Where did Simcoe College come from in the first place?”
“Simcoe College was founded by three prospectors who made their fortunes in the hard-rock mining country in northern Ontario. All of them came from towns and farms near Lake Simcoe, in what people tell me they call Cottage Country. One unique thing about Simcoe College is that it has no church affiliation. Some of the older colleges were set up by one church or another: St. Mike’s by the Catholics, Knox by the Presbyterians, and so on. Simcoe has as little to do with the overall university government as it can. And the university people enjoy this arm’s-length connection. You understand?”
We talked for another ten minutes or so. Then I remembered that coffee could be found around the corner behind the nursing station. I’d found it there on one of my exploratory rambles. Boolie followed me and made himself comfortable in a chair far too small to contain him. We drank two cups of coffee, sitting at the big table by the windows. I enjoyed his company until I was found by one of my nurses, who dragged me off for a urine sample.
TWENTY-ONE
My long talk with Boolie Moussuf had put the skin of reality over the people I had been talking to over the telephone. Steve Mapesbury was as elusive as ever, but at least now he had weight and dimensions. And that, as the old history books used to say, was a Good Thing.
The best place to begin the account of what happened next is probably with an early morning phone call I got from Professor Parker Samson. It came right after my rejection of hot cereal. The nurses tried to persuade me, but I stuck to my guns; I wasn’t going to throw away a lifetime’s worth of abhorrence just because I had lost my memory. Somehow, all my likes and dislikes—in people as well as in food—had escaped intact after my injury. I wasn’t even tempted.
“Mr. Cooperman? Glad I’ve finally got through to you there. How are you getting on?” Professor Parker Samson identified himself and told me that he had a few minutes before an appointment to help me in my inquiries. I thanked him and tried to remember the questions I’d been asking everybody.
“When did you see Dr. Mapesbury last?”
“Oh, that would have been several months ago. We grabbed a bite of lunch one day at the Faculty Club.”
“Was he worried about anything at that time?”
“The usual things with Steve: family, money, mortgage, that sort of thing, getting a front tooth fixed. He was worried about missing his classes. But I have some slack in my budget; I was able to patch his absence with a couple of clever Ph.D. candidates.”
“Was he at all worried about the police?”
“Oh, you know about that. Yes, he thought that the police were gunning for him.”
“And was he right? Drugs are serious. Wouldn’t you cut them some slack if they’re trying to run down drug pushers?”
“I don’t give a good goddamn whether a student smokes a joint now and again. It’s all part of growing up. Part of the university experience. I know I did it. I don’t care who knows it. I didn’t turn to a life of crime and I didn’t flunk my courses. If you ask me, and you are asking, I think that the experience made me a more rounded person in the end. You see what I mean? The people who are overzealous in cracking down on drugs this week will be asking for loyalty oaths next week. They’re the next thought police.”
“Are you suggesting that there’s something more sinister than drugs?”
“Damned right! There’s a dark force, especially around my college, that makes me think of Torquemada and Robespierre. Both the professionals and the amateurs are changing the very nature of academic freedom. They don’t give a damn about the spirit of inquiry. Sorry,” he said after a pause, “I didn’t mean to bend your ear with one of my sermons about academic freedom.”
“When you mention the unofficial campus police, who do you mean?”
“They must have been in their heyday during the McCarthy era. No, they aren’t old enough. They’re all for having all the students and professors sign loyalty oaths. Another leftover from the McCarthy era! Anybody objects, out he goes! Any little international scare brings them out of the woodwork. There are, as I said, a bunch of them. But the ringleader is George Nesbitt. Remember that name, Mr. Cooperman! He will put the kibosh on the spirit of toleration and generosity on this campus. His colleagues can’t understand who let him in. If anybody could ever induce me to stick pins in a voodoo doll, that man could. God save our civil liberties!”
“Amen, to that! Tell me, Professor Samson—”
“Call me Gauche. That’s what my friends call me.”
“Good, Gauche. And I’m Ben.”
“Sure, Ben.”
“What exactly has this fellow been up to with reference to your friend, Steve Mapesbury? Is he trying to get him disbarred, defrocked, or whatever the academic equivalent is?”
“He and his friends have filed a number of reports. I’ve seen them myself. That goes with my job, Ben. There aren’t many on the committee who’d give much time to this sort of back-stairs gossip, but Steve’s file is getting bulky. One day we are going to be asked to provide a sacrificial lamb to satisfy some need or other— budget cuts, overstaffing, tightening our belts—and it will be hard not to throw Steve’s name into the hat.”
“But he’s not a rabble-rouser. And since when is it a crime to be a popular teacher?”
“I hear you, Ben! But to be frank and crude at the same time, the boy hasn’t watched his back. He takes some classes outside. He skips meetings. He called Professor Nesbitt ‘an exhausted fascist relic’ at a staff meeting. He is death on people, like Nesbitt, who do no teaching, see no s
tudents. He hates so-called scholars who neither publish nor teach. In short, he’s not a team player. He was very nearly let go last year, but he’d published a paper in an important learned journal. He’s got all the good intentions in the world. Heart of gold. Wants to buy the moon for his little girl’s birthday. I’d trust that boy with my life, my bank account, and my wife.”
“What about his wife? Was he a family man by day and a Lothario by night? I’ve heard that a student was involved with him.”
“It still takes two to tango, Ben. Having young, attractive undergraduates lose their heads over one is one of the hazards of the profession. There may have been some of that in the young student who came to see me, but I think it was mostly concern for Steven’s recent attitude. It was getting so that nobody could talk to him. We all tried to bring him down to earth, tried to get him to save some of his energy and scorn for next year. She was worried about him, that’s all.”
“I see.” I was beginning to feel as though I was at a political rally. “You said you met the girl who was looking for Steve?”
“She came to my office. Sweet little thing. What business she had with Steve I don’t even want to imagine. Whatever it was, she had it bad. It was all I could do to get her out of my office. And she took a new linen handkerchief of mine with her!”
“Have you been talking to Steve’s family?”
“I give Laura a call once in a while. Not this week, I admit. But I will. Somebody’s got to look out for those girls.”
“Gauche, it has just struck me that talking to me must fill you with a feeling of, what is it called? Déjà vu? I mean, didn’t I ask you the same questions the first time we met?”
“Some of them, Ben. Some of them. But I don’t mind a little repetition in a good cause.”
“Thank you for calling me, Dr.—I mean, Gauche. You’ve been a big help.”
“Only too glad. And you! You take care of yourself. When are they going to let you return to Grantham?”
“That’s the question that I keep asking and they keep dodging.”
“Well, good luck! If I get around your way, I might drop in.”
“I can’t ever get enough visitors. Thanks. Fifth floor.”
“I’ll find you.”
The phone rang again as soon as I hung it up. Never had I been this popular. It was Anna.
“Well, you’re in demand all of a sudden!”
“Have you been trying long?”
“I did get the word on your George W. Nesbitt.”
“Should I leave town?”
“The people I’ve talked to say that he is—on certain subjects only—an embarrassment to the college. But he’s a donkey for work and he doesn’t seem to hear the sniggers around him or see the winks and grins. He’s the sort of person who does all of the work that nobody likes to do. He makes himself indispensable and has created a job for life. Nobody respects him or really likes him, but when they talk of getting rid of him, the people who would have to shoulder his workload begin to shuffle their papers and look straight down at the table. People give him slack because he’s had a rough go of it in his private life. He lost his wife to lung cancer, and his daughter’s been in and out of more schools than lined paper. She’s seen a lot of trouble.”
“I think I’ve met her in another life. What else did you get?”
“Wherever I went, I kept hearing about Professor Samson.”
“What about him?”
“He’s a good administrator, an inspiring teacher, and he has a way with the undergraduates. He talks their language.”
“I just got a sample. He phoned me.”
“He’s been a popular member of this university since his football days. Gauche Samson once scored the winning touchdown with three seconds left in the game. They carried him along Bloor Street all the way to the King Cole Room in the Park Plaza, where the celebration went on until closing time and after.”
“Sounds like a first-person account. Were you there?”
“A young woman, even one technically under age, finds that there are good reasons to take her studies of life out into the streets!”
“Across the nation!”
“Around the world!”
“You coming in to see me?”
“When I get back in town. I promise.”
TWENTY-TWO
Two interns came around to thump me after breakfast the next day. One was humorous and thorough, the other watchful and silent. Then their supervisor, a brisk woman, all starch, dropped in to see how they were doing.
“Mr. Cooperman and I are old friends, aren’t we, Mr. Cooperman?”
I didn’t doubt her word, but I didn’t recognize her. She took a look in my mouth using a tongue depressor. I felt six years old.
“Ah-hah! He is crowded back there. Bet he can’t brush his teeth without choking.” She gave them hell for not checking the back of my throat. They both took note of this before moving on to Jerry in the other bed. I wondered what a narrow throat had to do with my concussion.
One of our remaining gourmets had graduated. His absence was noted at lunch. I took a bit of unrecognizable meat and looked around the room. In another four weeks or so, these chairs will be filled by new bottoms, people who haven’t yet even contemplated a brain injury. The faces in the dining room had already changed to a degree; I could tell at a glance which people were here when I arrived and which had come since I got here. It was eerie thinking that the fifth floor had been waiting all those years. I guess everything can be seen in that light; everything from bread at the bakery to grave plots.
“Mr. Cooperman! Mr. Cooperman!” It was one of the nurses from behind the front desk. I parked my fork on a plate and walked across the corridor. “You have a call on this line.” She handed me a phone over the countertop.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Cooper?”
“Cooperman.”
“Whatever. Alecos Soveranides told me to call you. We work at Barberian’s Steak House. You know?”
“I’m with you. And your name is?”
“Spiros Skandalakos. I’m dishwasher at Barberian’s.”
“I know it well. What can you tell me about the people coming out of that battered Oldsmobile and into the restaurant? The day the cops are worried about.”
“I thought the police were going to call me.”
“They still might. What did you see?”
“A man and a girl. He was older, putting on the pounds, you know, going to fat like a boxer who don’t work out any more. He had a black moustache and was wearing sunglasses, so I didn’t get a good look at him. About six feet tall. Maybe six-one. The girl was sort of mousy. Little, with blond hair in fancy curls. Her hair was almost pink.”
“Anything else?” I consulted the scribbling in my Memory Book and stalled while trying to translate it.
“Let’s see. She had a lot of studs in her ears and one or two in her nose. You know, rhinestones or gold. Good-looking girl, though, in spite of that.”
I thought about that for a moment, made some notes I wouldn’t be able to read in ten minutes, and went on: “Anything else?”
He kept talking, while I squinted at my book for ideas, but most of what he said simply underlined what I already knew. I thanked Mr. Skandalakos and passed the phone back over the counter.
“In future, Mr. Cooperman, could you give your own number to your friends? This is a busy line. Okay?”
I promised. I didn’t know how he got that number; I’m sure I gave the staff at Barberian’s the number of my own phone. I’d been carrying it in my pocket for just such an opportunity.
When I got back to my room, I could see that Dagmar was packing Jerry’s clothes into a suitcase.
“We’ve built a new ramp at home from the drive to the side door. With help, Jerry should have no trouble. The boys saw the work through without a hitch. In two weeks, we’ll be back in Switzerland. It’s a villa we both know from last summer and the summer before. The mountain air will
do us both good.”
“A-a-and who will I play c-c-c-cards with?” Jerry said between his teeth.
“Jerry wants to know if your father is going to be travelling in Europe this year.”
“My father keeps surprising me. Make sure you leave me your address in Switzerland and I’ll pass it on to him.”
“Y-y-y-your father has a gift for c-c-c-cards,” Jerry said aloud. “He c-c-c-could have been a wealthy man, y-y-you know, Benny.”
“I think that there’s a family curse working against both of us: whatever we do, it never leads to money. But at least he has his health.”
“That’s right. You should not forget to say goodbye from us,” Dagmar added.
When the time came, I walked to the elevator with them. Jerry managed his wheelchair himself; his wife walked alongside. All of us shook hands awkwardly, then the elevator doors shut us off with the extremely unlikely possibility of our ever meeting again. I tried to imagine my father dealing out cards with Lake Geneva in the background. Something blue, white, and red. Very patriotic: Lake Geneva, Mont Blanc, and Manny Cooperman saying “Deal!”
I made a phone call to my friends in blue, hoping to find Sykes or Boyd holding down an office desk, but they were both away. The best I could do was to leave a message. A moment after I’d hung up, it began ringing again.
“Benny?” On the phone was the unmistakable voice of Stella Seco, the mother of Rose Moss. Our dealings a year ago on a case left me bruised enough for her voice to penetrate any loss of memory.
“Yes, Stella. What can I do for you?”
“Oh, Benny! I just heard where you are! The police told me. That’s terrible! My department is sending you some fruit and nuts. After the help you gave to this network last year, it’s only fair.”
“Very thoughtful. Thanks.”
“What are the police doing about that poor woman’s murder? They won’t tell me a thing. It happened right behind Rosie’s residence.”
“Did Rosie know the dead woman?”