Playmates

by Robert B. Parker

“I don’t give exams, and I don’t take attendance. I give them two papers a semester, and I work on grading them. But I don’t like blue-book knowledge and I don’t like teaching kids who are there only because they’re compelled.”

  “So someone wrote Dwayne’s papers for him,” Susan said.

  “Sure,” Mary Ann said. “I don’t remember him now, but I probably suspected it when they came in sounding like an Oxford honors thesis, but frankly I figure you get more teaching done by keeping them in school than by flunking them out. Besides, the truth, charging him with plagiarism and flunking him is a pain in the ass. It’s easier to let it go.”

  “Why is it a pain in the ass?” Susan said.

  “They come in and whine to you and swear they did it, but their roommate helped them, and …” Mary Ann made a push-it-all-away gesture with both hands. “I’m doing a book on Ellen Glasgow, and I like to work on it when I’m not teaching.”

  “No pressure not to catch him plagiarizing?” I said.

  “None,” she said. “That’s the truth. What are you going to do about this?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Will you tell people?” Mary Ann said.

  “It’s what Dwayne wanted to know,” I said.

  “We’re all ashamed of this,” Mary Ann said.

  “That’s the easy part,” I said.

  Now and then I’d see Hawk, drifting across the street behind me. Parking at the other end of the block when I got out of my car. Motionless and barely real at the far end of a corridor as I stepped into someone’s office. He was there, for a moment, with the morning light behind him when I went to see Harold Wagner.

  Wagner taught Black History and had given Dwayne a D in the fall semester.

  “He didn’t do much,” Wagner said. “And he didn’t seem very interested.”

  “Do you know that he can’t read?” I said.

  “I don’t know it,” Wagner said. “But I suspected it. He missed the midterm, and prevailed upon me to let him do a paper instead. He got an A on the paper. He said he was going to have to miss the final because of basketball. I said he’d have to make it up. I was skeptical about the paper. He missed two scheduled make-ups. He said an incomplete would make him ineligible to play. That Coach Dunham was a martinet, not his phrase, about such things. I knew what was riding on his having a good senior year. I said he could take a D for the course. His grades in his other courses were such that a D wouldn’t make him ineligible.”

  “And that was it?” I said.

  “No. I spoke to Dr. Roth, the academic coordinator for basketball. I said Dwayne was academically troubled. That I questioned his basic skills and that I thought perhaps he should be tested to see if we could help him.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said she thought I was unduly worried. That Dwayne had been doing well in other classes, but that she’d talk with him.”

  “She didn’t press you to alter his grades?” I said.

  Wagner shook his head. I thought about it for a minute.

  “I didn’t want to take away his chance,” Wagner said. “There’s not that many of us get a chance like Dwayne.”

  “I know,” I said. “I got the same problem … among others.”

  “It is Dwayne’s fault too,” Wagner said.

  “Yes. He knows he can’t read. He hasn’t done anything about it.”

  Wagner looked down at his hands for a moment. “Our fault too,” he said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “It is.”

  25

  SO far as I could tell no one had conspired to keep Dwayne in school, although Dr. Roth kept bothering me. If Wagner had told her, and he didn’t seem to be lying, she had not only her own knowledge, but the testimony of a professor. Why would she run the risk of covering it up at that stage? For herself, the help-out-the-poor-little-darkie attitude might explain it. But once someone else knew, would she jeopardize herself? Not the Madelaine that I knew.

  I swiveled my office chair around and pulled my phone closer and dialed information in Washington, D.C. In maybe two minutes I had tracked down the registrar’s office at Georgetown University. They had no Madelaine Roth. I called the alumni office. They had a Madelaine Reilly who had married Simon Roth in 1984. She was a member of the class of ’82. They did not know the status of the marriage; but Simon Roth lived currently in Fullerton, California; and Mrs. Roth lived in Newton, Massachusetts. I hung up and went to my file cabinet in the corner so when the door opened it was concealed. Susan said it was the single ugliest piece of furniture she had ever personally seen, though a friend of hers who worked for Bedford Travel claimed to have seen an uglier piece in Paraguay in 1981. I got out my file on Meade Alexander and thumbed through it. Ah ha! Gerry Broz graduated from Georgetown in 1983. So they could easily have been acquainted. Pays to do business with a professional detective.

  While I was on a hot streak I called a New York City cop I’d met a couple of years ago when I had worked for Patricia Utley. He wasn’t in. He’d call me back.

  The office felt stuffy. I opened the window a crack and then went and opened my office door to get some cross ventilation. Hawk was leaning on the door jamb across the hall talking with the paralegal. I left the door open and went back and sat at my desk and thought about what I was doing. After about fifteen minutes of running it back and forth it was clear that I didn’t know what I was doing. What I had accomplished so far was to make people want to kill me. I’d gotten Dwayne in trouble with his coach. I had already found out what I’d been hired to find out, and I wasn’t telling the people who’d hired me. I knew Dwayne was shaving points. I knew Deegan and others had put him up to it. I knew Deegan was connected to Gerry Broz, and I knew that Dwayne’s academic adviser could be connected to Gerry Broz. And I could find that out in time, if she was, or if she wasn’t. And I knew that the faculty at Taft, by and large, didn’t much care if Dwayne could read. What I didn’t know was what good any of this did me, and how to get Dwayne out of the mess he was in without destroying his life.

  I looked across the hall. Hawk had moved into the office and taken a seat next to the paralegal’s desk. Easy for him. All he had to do was follow me around and keep people from shooting me in the back. I heard the paralegal laugh. What’s so goddamned funny? Probably be moving in with her Monday. She laughed again, and the liquid hint of a giggle lurked in the laugh. Probably wants me to be best man.

  The phone rang. I answered. A voice said, “This is Corsetti.”

  I said, “Remember me? The killing on Seventy-Seventh Street, guy named Rambeau?”

  “Body’d been there about a week,” Corsetti said.

  “Yeah, that’s it.”

  “What do you need,” Corsetti said.

  “I need to know about a guy named Bobby Deegan,” I said. “Probably from Brooklyn.”

  “Why?”

  I told him without naming any names but Deegan’s.

  “I don’t know him,” Corsetti said. “I’ll check with Brooklyn and get back to you.”

  Across the hall Hawk’s success continued.

  In about forty-five minutes the phone rang. I answered.

  “This is Detective Kevin Maguire,” a voice said. “Detective Corsetti from Manhattan says you’re looking for information on Bobby Deegan.”

  “I am.”

  “Okay. Deegan’s been in twice. Once for grand theft auto when he was about nineteen. Once for hijacking a cigarette truck ten years later. He hasn’t worked a day in his life. Been hustling since he got out of Queens College.”

  “Queens College?” I said.

  “Yeah. Educated. Did a year of grad work there, too. Don’t make no difference. He’s a wiseguy. Grew up on the fringes of the Brooklyn mob. We can’t prove it, but we’re pretty sure he’s one of the guys hit Joey Gallo.”

  “He married?”

  “Yeah, lives in Far Rockaway, got a couple kids. But he fucks around. We’re looking to get him for a cash room stickup at an OT
B parlor in Manhattan.”

  “Who’s he run with?” I said.

  “Got a pencil?” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay,” he said, “known associates,” and read a list of maybe a dozen names. None of them meant anything to me.

  “You know any connections he has in Boston?” I said.

  “No.”

  “What else you got to say about him?” I said.

  “Bad news,” Maguire said. “Got sort of college manners, you know, a breezy yuppie. Guy’s crazy. Keep talking to you nice and shoot you in midsentence. You’d never know he didn’t like you.”

  “He does his own work?”

  “Sometimes. Sometimes contracts out. Doesn’t mind doing it himself. Mostly it’s what’s convenient.”

  “Tell me about the betting parlor,” I said.

  “Last December. Four guys, went in with a key after closing. Tied up a couple cashiers, got seven hundred thousand or so in cash, small bills, no serials. Everybody in Brooklyn knows it was Deegan and his outfit, but nobody can tie it to him.”

  “Had somebody inside,” I said.

  “Everybody figures that, but we don’t have anyone for that either. We talked to both cashiers until they turned gray, they don’t have nothing to say. Two dozen people could have got a key legitimately, two thousand could have scooped it and made a dupe. Things ain’t buttoned up really tight over there.”

  “Nobody’s flashing money,” I said.

  “Deegan’s been flashing money all his life. Story is he’s made some heavy scores betting sports.”

  “That’s the connection up here,” I said. “He’s rigging basketball games.”

  “Point shaving?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you get him on it?” Maguire said.

  “Well, yes and no.”

  “What the hell’s that mean?”

  “Means I probably can take him down on the point shaving deal, but not without taking down some people I don’t want to take down.”

  “They’re involved with Deegan,” Maguire said, “they deserve to go down too.”

  “All you need out of this is Deegan,” I said.

  “Any way we can,” Maguire said. “Any other name, too, on that list I gave you.”

  “Name Madelaine Roth or Madelaine Reilly mean anything to you?” I said.

  “Not right off,” Maguire said. “She got something to do with Deegan?”

  “I don’t know. She was at Queens College, too, in grad school.”

  “Hey, there’s a hot lead,” Maguire said.

  “She went to Georgetown same time as a local hood that Deegan’s connected with.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Maguire said. “You a campus cop?”

  “She works at the school where the points are getting shaved.”

  Maguire was silent for a moment at the other end.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll see if anybody knows her. Maybe she’ll turn up on the computer. Goddamn thing must be good for something.”

  “Find something, let me know,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Maguire said. “You too.”

  We hung up.

  I observed Hawk’s technique for a few moments, then I got out the phone book and looked up the paralegal’s number and dialed. In a moment I heard the phone ring across the hall. She answered.

  I said, “This is Spenser across the hall. There’s an escaped sex fiend loose in the building. He’s masquerading as a big good-looking black guy and I wondered if you’d seen him.”

  There was a pause.

  “He’s drawn obsessively to paralegals,” I said.

  “Does he rip off their clothes and do unspeakably kinky stuff?” she said.

  “Often,” I said.

  “My God, he’s here,” she said.

  “Want me to come over?”

  “Hell no,” she said. “Leave us alone.”

  She giggled again, blatantly now, into the phone.

  “Oh hell,” I said, “let me speak to him.”

  In a moment Hawk said, “Hello.”

  “I’m going down to Henry’s and set new records on the Nautilus,” I said. “If you’re not at the moment of climax perhaps you’d care to stroll along and learn something.”

  I heard Hawk speak off the phone. “He worried,” Hawk said, “that we at the moment of climax.”

  I hung up and headed out to the gym. The sex fiend joined me in the hall. “Jealousy an ugly thing,” he said.

  26

  WITHOUT Dwayne, Taft won the Big East with an overtime at the buzzer victory over Syracuse and headed into the NCAA Tournament. Dwayne dressed for every game and sat on the end of the bench farthest from Dixie. The question was on the cover of Sports Illustrated, and the talk shows rang with it. Why isn’t Dwayne Woodcock playing? Dwayne wasn’t saying and neither was Dixie Dunham. The pro teams, Dixie said, were on his case worse than the press. Was there a reason that Dwayne shouldn’t be drafted? Did he have a drug problem? Was there an injury? Taft’s chances of getting to the final four without Dwayne were worse than my chances had been that day I fought Walcott.

  Every day Dwayne showed up for practice. Every day he worked as hard as he always did. Nights he stayed in his condo with Chantel. Hawk and I had taken to trailing along behind him.

  “Figure now that he ain’t playing and can’t help them,” Hawk said, “might occur to them that he can hurt them.”

  “So we watch his back to protect him from people that you’re watching my back to protect me from,” I said.

  “You get into weird shit,” Hawk said.

  We followed Dwayne around for most of that week when I saw Dixie after practice.

  “Cort wants to see you,” Dixie said. “Says if I see you to tell you to get on up to his office now.”

  “Gulp,” I said.

  Dixie kept on walking toward the locker room. Dwayne passed me without looking at me and went into the locker room behind Dixie. I left Hawk watching Dwayne and walked up across campus toward the President’s office. I was aware that Hawk wasn’t behind me and I could feel the muscles bunch in my shoulders as I walked across the unsheltered quadrangle.

  In the outer office of President Cort, June Merriman looked pleased when I came in.

  “Well, where have you been? President Cort has been trying to reach you for two days.”

  “Mostly I was home,” I said, “playing with my knuckle knife collection.”

  “I’ll tell the President you’re here,” she said. “Mr. Morton is with him! And Mr. Haller!”

  “Wait, let me catch my breath,” I said.

  June pressed the intercom like someone lining up three cherries on a slot machine.

  “Mr. Spenser has arrived,” she said.

  I couldn’t hear the response, but she could and she said, “They’ll see you right now,” and stood and walked to the door to Cort’s office and ushered me in, gladly.

  Cort was at his desk looking serious. Morton was standing at the window gazing down at the campus. Haller was sitting on a couch against the wall with his feet on the coffee table. He looked amused.

  Cort looked up at me for a long silent moment. Morton turned from the window frowning. I bore it stoutly.

  “I’d like a full report, please,” Cort said. He had on a double breasted gray pinstripe suit and a large silk foulard tie.

  “I haven’t found out anything,” I said.

  “That’s your idea of a full report?”

  “Often,” I said, “I’m referred to as the great compressionist.”

  Haller recrossed his legs on the coffee table.

  “You’ve practically pillaged our student personnel records. You badgered a large number of faculty members, Dwayne Woodcock is now on the bench, Taft is likely to lose the NCAA championship tournament. Neither Dwayne nor Coach Dunham will comment on this. The national press is in full cry.” Cort’s voice was a masterful example of emotion under firm control.

  “Aw, hell,” I said,
“it wasn’t much.”

  “You have charged that Dwayne cannot read,” Cort said.

  I didn’t say anything.

  Morton had his arms folded across his chest. He had on a dark blue pinstriped double breasted suit with a large maroon silk tie.

  “And you have nothing to report?” he said.

  “Hard to believe, isn’t it,” I said.

  “Mr. Spenser,” Cort said, “we have been paying you to find out things that we want found out, not to disrupt this campus and annoy our faculty.”

  “No extra charge for that,” I said. “It’s a professional courtesy.”

  “There’s nothing funny about this, Spenser,” Morton said. “We want an accounting.”

  “Don’t blame you,” I said, “but I’m not going to give you one.”

  Morton looked at Haller. Cort looked at Haller.

  Cort said, “Vince, do we not have a viable legal position here?”

  Haller smiled. “Sure you do, Adrian. Everybody has a viable legal position everywhere in this great land, whatever that means. But in fact what you can do is fire him or accept his report. All other courses are, ah, counterproductive.”

  “Counterproductive,” I said. “Vince, you been taking night courses?”

  “Flippancy is no substitute for competence, Mr. Spenser,” Cort said.

  “That’s too bad,” I said. “I was hoping to get by on it.”

  Cort looked at Morton. Morton looked at Haller. Haller shrugged.

  “You leave us no choice,” Cort said. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to terminate our arrangement as of now. We will honor your expenses through this afternoon until five.”

  “Call it even,” I said.

  I turned and started for the door.

  Haller said, “Wait a minute, Spenser.” He turned to Cort and Morton. “You think firing him will get him out of your hair. It won’t. He’s got hold of something’s tail, I know him. He’s not going to let go until he pulls it out of its hole and sees what it is.”

  “He will no longer be welcome on this campus,” Cort said.

  Haller laughed. “You think he cares? He isn’t welcome most places. He doesn’t give a shit, Adrian, whether he’s welcome or he isn’t.” Haller turned toward me. “Do you,” he said.