“Like ticks on a bird dog,” Dixie said.
22
WE were at my place. Susan was taking a bath and I was in bed reading Roger Angell’s new book. It was ten o’clock on a Friday night. The door was locked, my gun was on the bed table, the television was playing with the sound off. All was peaceful. Susan came from the bathroom wearing a large blue towel and drying herself with it as she walked.
“Is there a wonderful movie we can watch on cable?” she said.
“No,” I said. “I think we’ll have to make love.”
“And have a late supper after?”
“We had supper,” I said.
“No, we had dinner,” Susan said.
“Of course,” I said.
“Well, if ’tis to be done,” Susan said, “better it be done quickly.”
She dropped her towel and dove onto the bed. I dog-eared the page and put the book on the bed table beside the gun.
Susan made her bubbly little laugh, which, in a less stately woman, might have been construed as a giggle. She pulled the covers part way back and wiggled in under them.
“Oh good,” she said. “The sheets are clean.”
She pressed against me.
“And,” she said with her near-giggle lurking under the words, “I think you’re glad to see me.”
“You shrinks,” I said, “you don’t miss a thing.”
“Some things are easier to miss than others,” she said.
“I beg your pardon,” I said, and she inched her body up a bit against mine and pressed her open mouth against mine.
All smiles ceased.
Susan’s energy was limitless. She worked out every day, often twice a day. Her body was strong and very flexible. I was in pretty good shape myself.
When it was over we lay pressed together, our bodies wet with perspiration, our breaths coming in big heaves, our lips still touching. Susan’s eyes were closed.
“I never remember how strong you are,” Susan said with her lips touching mine as she spoke, and her eyes still closed.
“It’s because my heart is pure,” I said.
“Bullshit,” she said.
“Good point,” I said.
We lay like that for a bit, quietly. Then Susan rolled away from me and sat up without using her hands and got out of bed and walked across to the bedroom closet, where she kept a robe.
Eat your heart out, Paralegal
She put on her robe of many colors and got one out for me. It was black, with a hood. I looked like Darth Vader in it. But Susan liked it. She draped it over the foot of the bed.
“What’s for supper?” she said.
I put on my Darth Vader robe and went to the kitchen.
When Susan came out of the bathroom I was peeling an avocado.
“That looks encouraging,” she said. She came and sat at the counter on a high stool with a fluted back. I put a glass before her and poured in some Cristal Champagne. She smiled.
“To us,” she said. We both drank some.
“You have always had wonderful taste in champagne and women,” she said.
“The taste in women is instinctual,” I said. “I learned the champagne from Hawk.”
I finished the avocado and sliced it over endive leaves. I added some mango slices and put over it a dressing of first-press olive oil and lemon juice and honey. I put one plate in front of Susan and the other at my place and came around the counter.
Susan poured herself half a glass more of champagne and took a small bite of the avocado.
“Yum, yum,” she said.
“It’s only the beginning,” I said.
“How is it going with Dwayne what’s-his-name?” Susan said.
“Woodcock,” I said. “It’s going very badly.”
Susan took a crescent of mango on her fork and dabbed it in the dressing and ate it in two small bites. Slowly.
“Tell me about it,” she said when she was through chewing.
I did.
By the time I was through I had sliced some cob smoked turkey onto a plate with some tomato chutney. I checked the whole wheat biscuits in the oven.
“There needs to be a reason,” Susan said. “Everything he cares about is pressing on him to act differently and yet he won’t.”
“I’m wondering, the kind of kid he is, is there some kind of jock ethic here?”
Susan clicked the rim of her champagne glass against her bottom teeth gently. I checked the biscuits again. They were golden. I took them out and put them on the counter to cool.
“Are you suggesting that he sees this gang of gamblers as his new team?” Susan said.
I shrugged. “Chantel says he thinks very highly of them. She says he needs white approval though he won’t admit it, even to himself.”
“Maybe why he’s such a good player,” Susan said. “Lot of white approval there.”
“It helps that he’s six feet nine and quicker than I.”
“That quick …” Susan said. “Of course it helps. But there must be other people that tall and that quick who are not as good as Dwayne.”
“I imagine.”
“If so,” Susan said, “won’t Coach Dunham benching him change that?”
“Because Bobby Deegan and his outfit won’t be so nice to Dwayne when he’s riding the pines and can’t help them shave points?” I said.
“Yes,” Susan said.
I put the biscuits into a basket and put the platter of turkey and chutney on the counter. I got out some cranberry conserve that we had put up together last fall and set that next to the biscuits.
“I’m hoping for that,” I said.
“But even if Dwayne turns against them finally,” Susan said, “and tells you enough to put them out of business, how can you do it without exposing Dwayne?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I was hoping if I drank enough champagne with you, I’d think of something.”
“What you normally think of when you get drunk,” Susan said, “will not do Dwayne any good at all.”
“At least I’ll be consistent,” I said.
23
SUSAN went with me the next morning to Taft. It was a day when she didn’t see patients, and she cancelled the class she taught at Tufts to join me.
“What is it exactly we’re up to?” she said.
“We’re going to look into the matter of Dwayne being a senior and unable to read,” I said.
“And why are we doing that?”
“Because I don’t know what else to do,” I said. “Dwayne can’t read and he’s tied up in some kind of gambling scam. They’re probably not connected, but since I don’t know what to do about the gambling thing, I may as well look into the other thing.”
Susan nodded.
“Better than doing nothing,” I said.
Susan nodded again. “And where is Hawk?” she said.
“Around,” I said.
“So how come I don’t see him?”
“I don’t know how he does that,” I said. “But he can disappear if he needs to.”
“But you know he’s there,” Susan said.
We were walking along a wide, hot, top path that curved up to the administration building.
“Yes.”
“Because he said so?”
“Yes.”
“And if those people try to kill you again and he’s not there you’re very likely dead.”
“He’s there,” I said.
“Yes,” Susan said.
We went up the wide granite steps and in through the Georgian entry of the administration building. There was a reception desk in the rotunda area and a long corridor that went straight through the building. We went past the desk and went halfway down the corridor and took some stairs to the left up to the second floor. Toward the back of the building on the second floor was Madelaine Roth’s office.
Her door was open. She was at her desk talking on the phone. When she saw me she waved us in and gestured at the chairs in front of her desk.
<
br /> “All right, Judy,” she said. “Seven o’clock. Yes. Bye-bye.”
She hung up and leaned forward over her desk and smiled at us.
“Dr. Roth,” I said. “This is my, ah, associate, Dr. Silverman.”
Madelaine stood and leaned across the desk and put her hand out. Susan half rose to take it. They shook hands and both sat down. Professional courtesy.
Madelaine sat back in her chair and put her palms together, making a steeple out of her fingers, and touched her lips with her fingertips. She said, “What is it today, Mr. Spenser.”
“I’m still looking into the matter of Dwayne’s illiteracy,” I said.
She nodded, patiently, this is my job, I have to put up with exasperating people.
“How’d he get this far?” I said.
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you,” Madelaine said. “I am his academic adviser, but he has never been a student in a class with me. What strategies he employed to conceal the truth from us …” She turned her palms up and shrugged.
“What were his SATs like?”
“I don’t really recall,” Madelaine said. “It is, of course, confidential information.”
I looked at Susan. “Confidential,” I said.
“Isn’t it always?”
I looked at the three degrees on the wall. B.A., Georgetown. M.A., Ph.D., Queens College, New York.
“Do you have Dwayne’s class schedule for this year, and previous ones?” I said.
“Of course,” Madelaine said.
“May I see the schedules?”
“What on earth for?”
“I am still looking for an answer. I am not getting anywhere with you. I thought I’d talk with his teachers.”
“With his teachers?”
“Yeah.”
“You can’t do that,” Madelaine said.
“Confidential?” Susan said.
“No, but, I mean you can’t just walk around the University asking all Dwayne’s teachers about why he can’t read.”
“Why not?” I said.
“Well, I mean, you’d have to make appointments, and, well, they wouldn’t … many of them wouldn’t like it.”
“Would they not wish to reach an understanding,” Susan said, “as to how a young man who can neither read nor write could get a passing grade in their courses?”
“Do you teach, Dr. Silverman?”
“I give a course at Tufts. Primarily I am in private practice as a psychotherapist.”
“Well, with a Ph.D. you’ve certainly been in an academic setting long enough to know, with your teaching experience at Tufts also, how prickly the academic world can be about any threat, real or imagined, to academic freedom,” Madelaine said.
Susan smiled. “What greater threat is there to academic freedom than illiteracy? To any kind of freedom?”
“You will offend a great many people,” Madelaine said.
Susan smiled more widely. “My colleague will weather that, I think.”
We all sat for a few moments.
Finally I said, “Do we get the schedules?”
Madelaine shook her head. “I’m sorry, I’m just not comfortable giving them to you.”
“Well,” I said, “at least you have a good reason.”
I stood. Dr. Silverman stood. Dr. Roth did not.
“Wasn’t it Dr. Johnson,” I said, “who called academic freedom the last refuge of scoundrels?”
Dr. Roth said nothing. Dr. Silverman and I left.
We walked down the corridor and back down the stairs.
“Dr. Johnson said ‘patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,’” Susan said.
“I know, but does Dr. Roth know?” I said.
“Unlikely,” Susan said.
President Cort’s office was in the other wing of the administration building.
“I warn you,” I said to Susan, “this woman is infatuated with me. So be prepared to smother your jealousy.”
Susan yawned. “I’ll do what I can,” she said. We went into the President’s office and June Merriman at her desk looked at me passionately.
“Oh, God,” she said.
“This will be hard,” Dr. Silverman murmured.
“June,” I said. “This is my friend Susan Silverman.”
Ms. Merriman smiled with her lips only and made a small nod of her head.
“We’ll need a list of Dwayne Woodcock’s teachers, June.”
“May I ask why?” June said.
“June,” I said. “I know you want to string this out so you may spend more precious minutes with me. But Dr. Silverman here is my honeybunch and she’s alert to even the most subtle of love ploys.”
“Please do not be offensive,” she said.
“Oh, June,” I said. “How transparent.”
“You won’t leave without the list, will you,” she said.
“No,” I said.
“I can call the registrar and have Dwayne’s schedule over the past four years Xeroxed. You’ll have to make the list yourself.”
She then made her phone call, prefacing the request with the phrase, “President Cort wonders if you would …”
In an hour we were having a spot of lunch at the Lancaster Tap. In a manila envelope on the table beside my water glass were copies of Dwayne’s classes over the past four years.
“And what are you going to do with all those class schedules?” Susan said.
“I’m going to talk to all his teachers.”
Susan shook her head. “You are a piece of work,” she said.
“Says so,” I said, “on ladies’ room walls all over the country.”
“No,” Susan said. “It doesn’t.”
24
FOR the next week I interviewed professors. Susan came with me when she could on the assumption that she was more academic than I was and could add some insight. George Lyman Kittredge couldn’t have added enough insight.
I was alone when I talked with J. Taylor Hack, Francis Calvert Dolbear Professor of American Civilization. Hack was tall and portly and well tailored except that his shoes weren’t shined.
“Woodcock,” he said. “No, I’m afraid I can’t remember the boy.”
“Took your course in The Frontier Hypothesis, last spring,” I said.
Hack smiled graciously. “It’s quite a popular course,” he said. He dipped his head modestly. “I’m just not able to recall all of my students.”
“Gee,” I said. “That’s too bad. I thought maybe because Dwayne is six feet nine inches tall and the best college basketball player in the world, you might have noticed him more than others.”
“The best, really, how interesting. I don’t pay much attention to basketball, I fear.”
I was looking at my notes. “Dwayne got a B– in your course.”
“Well, he did very well. It’s rather a demanding course and for a, ah, basketball player to do that well, Dwayne must be an unusual young man.”
“He can’t read,” I said.
“I beg your pardon.”
“He can’t read.”
Hack was absolutely silent.
“Probably gotten an A,” I said, “if he could read.”
“It’s not possible. Someone must have taken the exams for him,” Hack said finally.
“Probably,” I said. “And probably wrote his papers for him. You wouldn’t have known if someone sat in for him during class?”
Hack paused a long time before he answered. Finally he said, “No, I wouldn’t … there are forty or fifty people in this class, I give it every semester. I have two other classes each year. There’re papers, and my own research.”
“Anyone ever ask you to give his grades any special attention?” I said.
“No. Good God, no. No one would intrude on the grading process like that.”
“Of course not,” I said. “And you never heard of Dwayne Woodcock?”
“No.”
“Amazing,” I said.
“I do not,” Hack said, “spend my
time poring over the sports pages.”
“I know who Frederick Jackson Turner is,” I said.
“I don’t see the relevance.”
“There’s a surprise,” I said.
Susan was with me when we talked to a young assistant professor named Mary Ann Hedrick. She had an office about the size of a confessional, in the humanities building.
“Sure, I remember Dwayne,” she said. “I had him in the American lit survey, two years ago. Who could forget him?”
“He’s easy to notice,” I said.
Mary Ann winked at Susan. “I’ll say,” she said.
“Was he in regular attendance?” I said.
“In class? Hell no. He showed up once in a while and he’d come to conference in my office when it was scheduled. But he had practice, and then he had games, and it’s hard for a kid. The course is required, and I’m sure was about things that he had no interest in. Imagine him reading Emily Dickinson?”
“He couldn’t read,” I said.
“Excuse me.”
“He couldn’t read Emily Dickinson. He can’t read.”
“What do you mean he can’t read?” Mary Ann said.
“He’s illiterate,” Susan said.
“God, aren’t they all,” Mary Ann said. “But you mean really, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus Christ,” she said. “What is he now? A senior?”
“Yes.”
“And he can’t read,” she shook her head. “Don’t we look like a collection of prime jerks,” she said.
“Yes,” I said. “You do.”
“We’re interested in how that happened,” Susan said.
“It happens because nobody gives a goddamn. Me included. The students are the necessary evil in the teaching profession. Otherwise it’s a pretty good deal. You don’t work hard, you have a lot of time off. The pay’s not much, but nobody hassles you. You can read and write and publish, pretty well unimpeded except for the students. Most of us don’t like them much.”
“Anybody ever pressure you to give Dwayne a better grade or whatever?” I said.
“No,” she said. “What did I give him?”
I consulted my list. “C+,” I said.
“And he can’t read,” she said. “Boy, is this embarrassing or what?”
“Dwayne’s embarrassed too,” Susan said.
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