Echoes in the Darkness (1987)

by Wambaugh, Joseph

  The seminar was cost-free and could be accomplished with library books. Bill Bradfield devised a similar program for the advanced students at Upper Merion, and other teachers quickly became sold on it when they saw the kids discussing Rousseau, Kant, Aristotle.

  "Whatever else he was," Sue Myers said, "Bill Bradfield was an inspiring teacher."

  He allowed certain faculty members to become a part of the Great Books inner circle that administered the seminar for the advanced students. But there were some, outside of the circle, who tried to denigrate their accomplishments. One teacher claimed that an advanced student of Greek tutored by Bill Bradfield, and given straight As, was later discovered to know about as much Greek as the delivery boy at Spiro's Deli in Philadelphia.

  Susan Reinert wanted to belong to the Great Books inner circle. Sue Myers wanted to strangle her with her own pantyhose. Sue found herself peering through campus windows, glaring at Susan Reinert with her quick hummingbird eyes.

  One of Bill Bradfields lifelong idiosyncrasies was the need to save things. He'd rathole memos, notes, letters, bills, receipts, many of which Sue Myers would eventually locate and use against him. She sometimes thought that the goofy complexity of his methods and his pack rat collections were designed so that she would catch him. She thought it enhanced the risk and made his conquests sweeter. She wondered if he was building a Bill Bradfield Memorial Library.

  One afternoon she crept by his empty classroom and saw the corner of a letter protruding from the pages of a book. Sue peeked around the corridor, and seeing that all was quiet, sneaked in and read the letter-and found herself gasping. She later described the note as "obscene" and said she'd never heard a woman describe portions of her body in such a way. She reeled back to her homeroom.

  A letter by Susan Reinert would later surface that was either the one Sue read or a version of same:

  Its eight o'clock. I'd like to go to bed so I could turn off my head and body. I am miserable. I didn't hear from you for so long I actually lost most of my physical desire for you for the only time I can remember. But your visit with certain promises rekindles it, damn it. All day today I kept hearing you say that it's not as bad for you. That you can go for days putting me out of your mind! That you have no chance to call me! Knowing that you don't suffer like this is maddening. By now I'm very short tempered. I yell at Karen and Michael and I hurt like hell.

  This morning I awoke with aching pubic area and erect nipples as usual. My breasts yearned to brush up against your chest. My legs wanted to curve over yours. My arms wanted to be around you with my hand rubbing you, tracing your face, touching your hair. My wetness desires to cover your penis, and rub up and down against you, to pulsate with delight as we move together. Enough writing. Writing it down isn't working. I want you more not less, and I'm more upset at that.

  Sue Myers staked out Susan Reinert's homeroom. When Susan arrived, Sue Myers took her aside and whispered through clenched little teeth, "You bitch! You whore! You leave Bill Bradfield alone or I'll ... Ill make public the contents of your filthy note!"

  Now one might think that a grownup schoolteacher wouldn't get in a tizzy if Upper Merion discovered that she woke up with hard nipples and a yen for a Renaissance man. But Susan Reinert had a terrible fear that her former husband would seize any pretext to take her children away from her. The fear was unreasonable. Their relationship was affable. Ken had remarried and had never offered such a suggestion, but still it was preying on Susan's mind. Perhaps someone had planted the obsessive idea. Someone she trusted.

  At about the same time that Susan Reinert was writing to Bill Bradfield, the prince of darkness was composing a love letter of his own. And Stephanie Smith, the wife of Dr. Jay, was almost as snoopy as Sue Myers. One evening when Jay Smith was not at home Stephanie managed to break into the locked basement apartment again and this time found a swingers' magazine with a certain page clipped. The swinging couple on that page were offering to share themselves with any other congenial couple who might write to their post office box. The man in the picture was wearing briefs and had his back to the camera. When Stephanie saw it, she was convinced the swinger in the picture was her husband.

  She also found a letter and showed it to her best pal at the dry cleaners.

  The friend nodded and clucked sympathetically when Stephanie said, "I work my buns off so he can get a doctorate degree! Where's he wanna work? Sodom and Gomorrah?"

  Love wo man,

  We've been working, loving, fucking, and smoking for over a year now and I thought on your graduation a status report is in order. As we agreed, our relationship is sexual. I love your blowjobs and get red hot seeing my cock in your mouth and my cum-you call it lovejuiceseeping from your lips and you licking up each drop.

  Your lovecock, forever

  P. S. Got some special cocoa butter cream for your asshole so it won't be sore.

  Jay Smith just loved to talk dirty. In another letter he wrote:

  No matter what we've done, I still love your blowjobs the best, and get red hot looking in the mirror watching my cock go in and out of your precious lips. When my juice drips down your chin and you lick it up and in that sweet Southern accent say, "Good to the last drop," I throb about ten extra times.

  Even though I got your ass virginity and we'll do some fistfiicking this summer (Where did you get the idea of fistfucking?) I prefer your mouth to your cunt or your asshole.

  We share sex only with ourselves. No two-timing. I don't count our spouses, but nobody else. I'm not like your husband so if you fuck around on me I'll beat your ass instead of fucking it. Really!

  Now to some areas we disagree on. Marriage. I still don't want to marry you even tho I love you more than any woman (my love for my wife is special so it doesn't count). I like being with you even when its not fuck-suck.

  But you still tend to fib a little and like to practice deception.

  I'll raise this issue again: your husband. We should level with him. Even if you say he's a momma's boy, he should accept the situation. You told him about you and your brother and he still married you. Incidentally, if you go down South, don't go out alone with your brother. Your lust for him is not healthy. Tongue kissing sneaked into open bussing is okay, but if you dress up to cock-tease him you're going to get him hard again and have to suck it off again or at least jerk it off. Don't do it even if it gets you off big.

  Your husband forgave you once. I won't. No brother sex. Period. Your husband accepts your stupid flirtations. The past indicates he could accept our fuck-suck. He might even join us in our work. Think it over again. I want to meet him. I don't mind sharing your pussynality with him so why can't we be open? My wife will accept it if it's open. From the way you describe his fucking we could help him. Don't spread your legs so wide and keep them high. It makes your cunt tighter, also . . . Shit, that's his problem for now. But we should include him in. Soon. Don't needle him. Love him good. Keep his balls empty. Well, that's a long report, but I thought I'd review some highlights. Lets take vacation days next week or so.

  I love you. Always will.

  Your lovecock, forever

  Stephanie Smith jumped right out of her disco boots and dressed like an aggrieved wife and ran to a divorce lawyer. She was really steamed because "lovewoman" was the wife of a college professor and had always been described by Jay as a perfect lady.

  Stephanie wasn't the only storm on Jay Smith's horizon. It seemed that he had a few compulsive habits. The local township police had been called on more than one occasion when a merchant spotted Dr. Jay shoplifting merchandise. Because he was a prominent educator, the shopkeepers on each occasion had decided not to prosecute, and the police had kept it quiet.

  There's some evidence that the U.S. Army Reserve Command got the reports because Colonel Jay Smith took an early retirement before he could fulfill his life's ambition of becoming a general.

  When Stephanie Smith started making those visits to the divorce lawyer, she had lots to say ab
out her husband, and she didn't restrict her tales to her attorney. She told her friend down at the dry cleaner's that Jay Smith owned a devil costume and some weird dildos.

  When that information became public, Jay Smith claimed the costume was a Chinese waiter's getup, but Stephanie knew they don't wear horns and a tail when they stir-fry your wontons.

  So pretty soon, a lot of folks were hearing rumors that the old prince of darkness must be some special kind of party animal! As it turns out, they didn't know the half of it.

  Chapter 4

  The Courier

  The Sears, Roebuck store in St. Davids is situated in a nice part of The Main Line. St. Davids' residents have a train station and live close to good schools. It's not far from the village shopping of Wayne, and Wayne looks like an American town from the Frank Capra movies of the 1940s.

  Villanova University is close by St. Davids and a Villanova sophomore happened to be working as a part-time cashier in the Sears store on Saturday, August 27, 1977. She was at the Ticketron counter, selling tickets and money orders. When she returned from lunch at 1:50 P.M. she found a line of waiting customers, as well as a tall middle-aged armed courier who was standing one counter down. He wore what looked to her like the uniform of the Brinks security company.

  "Just a minute," the student-clerk said to the courier, and hurried to the back to fetch the days receipts.

  There was a deposit slip for a large amount in checks and there was another for $34,073 in cash. The young woman brought the bags as well as the Brinks logbook for the courier to sign. The courier signed the name "Carl S. Williams" and received the bag of checks and money.

  Five minutes later, the young woman was interrupted by yet another Brinks courier who insisted that he had come for the day's deposits.

  "But you were already here," the confused cashier informed him.

  It was Vincent Valaitis who had hung the prince-of-darkness jacket on Dr. Jay. Vince believed in The Demon in a very real, Roman Catholic sense. And though he didn't truly think that Jay Smith was of The Legion, he realized that none of the teachers in the Catholic schools he'd attended all his life had prepared him for a principal like this one.

  Vince was a tall lad with a firm jaw and wide shoulders. He looked like an athlete without being one. He wore eyeglasses and was called "Clark Kent" by the Upper Merion students because he bore a resemblance to the television superhero.

  At twenty-four Vince Valaitis looked seventeen, and most of the teachers thought he was a new student. He was an avid trekkie, and besides Star Trek, he adored any TV show, film or book about fantasy, horror or science fiction. When he attained enough seniority he hoped to teach a course in film literature. Vince had a collection of old movies and encouraged the students to read Tolkien. He was crazy about Gothic movies like the silent classic Nosferatu.

  Bill Bradfield was charmed by Vince Valaitis. He said that Vince reminded him of himself at that age, so enthusiastic and bubbling^with ideas and energy. Bill Bradfield did not add "naivetl," because it is doubtful that even as a child Bill Bradfield was ever as naive as Vince Valaitis.

  For Vince, it was a great honor to be admitted into Bill Bradfield's inner circle so readily, and to become a friend of the unquestioned leader of the English department.

  "I learned right away to give him latitude," Vince Valaitis said. "I didn't press him with questions. He was incredibly fascinating and different. There were so many secrets about him. Like where he lived. A simple enough question for anyone else."

  One day at school, Bill Bradfield placed his hand on Vince's shoulder and in his own conspiratorial style said, "Vince, there are certain things about me that I don't reveal, but though we've only known each other a short time, I count you as one of my true friends."

  And so one afternoon over lunch Bill Bradfield revealed an episode in his past. It seemed that during the revolution he'd gone to Cuba on a mission for the government. He met some Castro guerrillas who took him to the harbor in Havana to show him yanqui ships loaded with munitions. All at once somebody started shooting at suspected saboteurs. Everyone dashed for cover.

  "I'll never forget the moment because I was wearing expensive alligator shoes." Bill Bradfield chuckled, while the astonished Vince Valaitis tried to keep his chin off his plate.

  "There were always those touches," Vince said later. "You could never doubt any part of his stories because of the little touches that were so convincing, like the alligator shoes."

  Bill Bradfield came up choking on seawater, he said, and found that he was inside a military compound. He had to get away pronto, and though he had never committed an act of violence in his life, he had no choice but to garrote a Cuban guard and make his escape. Before returning to America he helped the Castroites blow up that ship in the harbor. But that was another story to be told later.

  Vince was asked not to talk freely about this part of Bill Bradfield's past because there were still dangerous people who might resent his having been a young revolutionary. And while Vince was crossing his heart and hoping to die or something, Bill Bradfield revealed yet another secret that would require even more discretion. He cautioned that it should never be revealed to a living soul, particularly not another soul at Upper Merion.

  Bill Bradfield said, "I want you to come to our place for dinner tonight. Mine and Sues. I live with Sue Myers, and no one can know. We'd be fired if the district found out."

  Vince had only a few seconds to chew on that one when Bill Bradfield said, "I want to assure you that my relationship with Sue is not and never has been sexual. By the way, how do you feel about chastity?"

  And Vince, who'd had about as much sexual experience as his Star Trek hero, Dr. Spock, started wondering where this conversation was going.

  Bill Bradfield said, "I respect so much about you. Your mind is incredibly receptive, and I admire that you're a devout Catholic. I've spent a great many years in contemplation of the teachings of Thomas Aquinas. I respect chastity most of all. I think the Church is correct in urging young men to remain absolutely chaste until marriage. I hope you agree."

  "Of course," Vince reassured him. "Of course I do. In fact, I almost entered the seminary. I thought very seriously about becoming a priest."

  "Well, well," Bill Bradfield said. "That's admirable. I want you to know that the relationship between Sue and me is one of friendship. We have a lot in common and I care for her deeply, but only in a platonic sense."

  It's not certain if at this time Bill Bradfield had learned a few things about Vince Valaitis. For one, Vince still wore a scapular around his neck, a practice that most Catholics had abandoned a generation earlier. Moreover, he carried at all times a set of rosary beads. Most Catholics who still did that lived in convents.

  A dinner invitation to the apartment occupied by Sue Myers and Bill Bradfield represented the best thing that happened to Vince at Upper Merion.

  "I felt tremendously flattered," he admitted much later. "I was honored."

  Bill Bradfield had painted three Chinese characters on the white interior wall next to needlepoint hangings that Sue had done. He explained to Vince that the writing was from the Ezra Pound translation of Confucius.

  It said, "Day by day, make things new," and pertained to Pound's advice that all translators should try to tum a translation into a poem in the new language. Bill Bradfield was trying to turn his life into a new kind of poetry.

  Privately, Bill Bradfield revealed a little more about his Cuban adventure. He had been forced to spend a short time hiding out in a bordello. The prostitutes made passes at him, but he resisted. His traveling companion was a friend named Tom. The prostitutes left Tom alone after they were told he was homosexual.

  Vince managed to amuse Sue and Bill Bradfield when the talk turned to their principal, Dr. Jay Smith. Vince told them the prince of darkness story and they laughed. He didn't tell them that he had an overpowering urge to draw his rosary and point that crucifix like a six-gun every time the principal passed his
way.

  Pretty soon Vince was relaxed and enjoying himself immensely. He flashed his trekkie's bunny tooth grin after Bill Bradfield made a startling suggestion.

  "I was simply bowled over," Vince Valaitis remembered. "Bill Bradfield asked me if I'd like to live in their building. There was a vacancy coming up and he thought I'd make a fine neighbor."

  He didn't need coaxing. Soon Vince was moving in downstairs, getting all settled with a videocassette recorder, his collection of fantasy films and his brand-new tombstone that had been chiseled out of granite for someone named Mary Hume.

  When he'd had a chance to buy that tombstone, he couldn't resist. After all, this was his first real home away from home other than an apartment he'd shared with a roommate, and anybody who adored Dracula movies should have a tombstone in his living room. Vince Valaitis was exceptionally happy.

  Before long, Vince was aware of Bill Bradfield's scheme to sail to Barcelona on an oceangoing sailboat. He got to see all the specifications that Bill Bradfield had obtained by mail, and it was even hinted that Vince might be considered as a shipmate on that dream voyage. Nobody commented when Sue Myers said he could take her place because she'd rather be a cabin girl on the poop deck of the Andrea Doria.

  The fantasy trip to Barcelona was nothing compared to the most ambitious scheme to date: the Terra Art store. This one scared the hell out of Sue Myers but it was mostly her idea.

  Bill Bradfield had decided that there was money waiting to be made in a retail store in the Montgomery Mall. What the mall needed, Sue decided, was a store offering arts and crafts, the things she enjoyed. Bill Bradfield wasn't frightened by the huge money investment. It seemed like a sure thing because it was a franchise operation and had an established factor of name recognition.

  He'd never seemed to care much about the world of commerce, but this was a way to achieve his plan of someday having the economic security to cruise the Mediterranean on the trail of Odysseus. That would require a whole lot of money for a gaggle of schoolteachers.