Flynn's World

by Gregory Mcdonald

  Two Harvard chairs were tipped over in the mess.

  “This,” Loveson said.

  “Who has a key to this office?” Flynn asked.

  “Flynn.” Grover was looking at Loveson.

  Still in the doorway, Loveson’s face had grayed. Sweat gleamed on his forehead. His right hand rubbed his chest.

  “This,” Loveson said, “will kill me.”

  Somehow getting his feet through the mess on the floor and despite his left wrist being in a cast, Grover caught Loveson as he collapsed. Turning him over, he eased him gently to the floor.

  “You work on him,” Flynn said. “I’ll find a working phone.”

  SIXTEEN

  “How do you feel now?” Flynn stood by Loveson’s bed at Mt. Auburn Hospital.

  The professor seemed held together by tubes. He was controlling his own oxygen mask.

  “Ah, Richard,” Loveson said. “You’re still here.”

  Grover stood behind Flynn.

  “Professor,” Flynn asked, “how can I get in touch with your daughter?”

  “I don’t have a daughter.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Flynn saw Grover take Loveson’s hand in his.

  “Sir,” Flynn said. “You once mentioned having a daughter to me. When I was saying something about my daughter, Jenny—”

  “I don’t have a daughter.”

  “All right.” Flynn took a step back. “I’ll look in on Mrs. Loveson for you.”

  “Before you go, Flynn . . .” Loveson spoke through a dry mouth. “Please turn off the television.”

  While Flynn fumbled around trying to find out how to turn off the television, Loveson continued: “My younger colleagues take nonlinear thought as an intellectual posture. What they don’t realize is that the biggest intellectual influence upon their lives has been the television, which is not capable of being linear for three minutes together. No wonder they eschew linear thought. They are incapable of it.”

  Flynn finally found the switch. The television screen went blank.

  Loveson said, “I’m afraid these generations will end up as crazy as Ezra Pound.”

  With a nod of his head, Flynn indicated Grover should follow him out of the room.

  In the corridor, Grover shook his head. “He keeps on saying what he wants to say, no matter what. Isn’t he wonderful?”

  “Extraordinary.”

  “Will it be all right with you if I stay with him for a while?”

  “All right,” Flynn said. “But as people arrive to see him, do not identify yourself as a police officer. Say you’re just a friend.”

  Grover said, “I am just a friend.”

  Grover’s eyes were wet.

  In the hospital lobby, Flynn met Dean Wincomb entering.

  “How is he?” the dean asked.

  “Stable. He’s had a heart attack.”

  “Inspector, I’ve had a phone call.”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t know how else to do this. Could you come to my office? Would two o’clock be convenient for you?”

  “Yes.”

  The dean said, “I think we’ll have something interesting to tell you.”

  Flynn let himself back into Professor Loveson’s office.

  After the paramedics lifted Loveson out of the office on a gurney, Flynn had found Loveson’s keys in the rubble on the floor. He had locked the door.

  Nothing appeared to have been disturbed in the trashed room.

  Flynn thought he had seen some papers of particular interest to him among the thousands of pieces of paper on the floor. They stood out because of the colors on them.

  As he picked out these pieces of paper on the floor, he noticed they were the only papers which had not been torn.

  UR GOING TO DIE

  Another: WHY DON’T YOU KILL YOURSELF?

  Another: JUST DIE

  DIE OR WE’LL KILL U

  U R A EVIL MAN

  There were dozens of such notes.

  The letters and some whole words had been cut out from magazines, and glued onto sheets of paper torn from cheap ruled ring notebooks.

  U R GOING TO DIE A HORRIBLE DEATH

  U DIE WITHIN MONTH

  U DIE IN TWO WEEKS

  U DIE IN ONE WEEK

  Flynn collected all such notes he could find. He tried to handle them by only their upper-left edges. He hoped forensics would be able to lift fingerprints from them.

  As he did so, he postulated that, seeing none of these pieces of papers was torn, whoever had trashed Professor Loveson’s office was probably the same person who had written them.

  “Ah, vanity, vanity,” Flynn said. “Isn’t it wonderful, what it will do to you?”

  “Come in, Inspector Flynn.” Dean Wincomb rose from behind his desk. “Please close the door.”

  Assistant Professor Don Carver did not rise from his chair in front of the desk. He twisted his neck to look at Flynn as if to read his face.

  “Ah, Carver!” Flynn looked down at him. “So you’re ready to confess.”

  “I suspect my young colleague is afraid of being charged with manslaughter,” Wincomb muttered. “Please sit down, Inspector.”

  “I’ll stand.” Flynn held the manila envelope he had bought at the Harvard Coop under his arm. In it were the threatening notes.

  Sitting behind his desk, Dean Wincomb sighed. “You called this meeting, Don. The floor is yours.”

  “Yes. Well.” Carver hitched himself higher in his chair. “I was in the building when they took old Loveson out this morning.”

  “You’re referring to Professor Louis Loveson?” Flynn asked.

  Carver amended himself. “Professor Loveson. He had a heart attack, did he?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will he be all right?”

  “Who knows?” said Wincomb.

  Flynn said, “His office has been trashed. His books, files, manuscripts. If he’s not dead, the center of his world is.”

  Carver studied his hands twisting in his lap. “I want you to know I didn’t do it.”

  “Do what?” asked Flynn.

  “I did not trash his office.”

  “Let’s start with what you did do,” said Flynn.

  “I did put that stuff on the Net about him, his work, earlier this week.”

  “‘Stuff’!” Flynn said. “What a literary term, Assistant Professor! Could you try for a more academic description of that manuscript?”

  Carver tilted his head to the side. “Stupid stuff. A critique. I was trying to expose—well, maybe—the singlemindedness of Loveson’s work.”

  “You did it anonymously,” Dean Wincomb said. “It was an anonymous, vicious attack.”

  “Well, yes. The Net provides one with that kind of freedom.”

  “With the possibility of complete irresponsibility,” Wincomb said.

  “‘The electronic toy.’” Flynn looked at the ceiling, which was not much above his head. “The great poison pen.”

  “It’s all right,” Carver insisted. “What is written on the Net is as true as anything else.”

  “Is it?” With both hands, Wincomb was fiddling with a pen on his desk. “I don’t wonder you may think all academic discipline has been abandoned.”

  “I have my First Amendment rights!”

  “You have abrogated academic responsibilities,” said Wincomb. “Let alone human decency.”

  “You have the right,” Flynn said, “to stand on a lemon crate on the commons and say anything you wish. And those who disagree with you have the right to boo you. You have the right to publish your thoughts—signed. You do not have the right to assault people anonymously.”

  “I did not trash his office.”

  Flynn asked, “Have you been making anonymous, threatening phone calls to Professor Loveson?”

  There was a slight smile from Carver. “I’m not the only one. A group of us . . . We’d get conversing on the Net regarding the works of Louie Loveson . . . making fun of them. Of him.
Like, you know, his spending his life running around in only the center of the maze. We’d think of some funny way of insulting his work, him.” He looked up at Flynn. “‘Threatening’? No. We never actually threatened him. Not with bodily harm. Nothing like that.”

  “Please do not touch these.” Flynn permitted gravity to slide the threatening notes onto Wincomb’s desk. “If your fingerprints are already on them, we’ll find out soon enough.”

  The men on both sides of the desk leaned forward to look at the notes.

  Wincomb shook his head. “Disgusting.”

  “Did you or your group of colleagues send these missives to Professor Louis Loveson?”

  Carver looked frankly at Flynn. “No. Absolutely not. These aren’t funny.”

  “No,” Flynn said. “They’re not.”

  Carver said, “Of course, I can’t swear to what other people do, have done. I can’t believe anyone I know would do a stupid thing like that. They’re childish!”

  By tapping the edges of the papers, Flynn slid them back into the envelope. “You and I may have different ideas as to what is childish,” Flynn said. “I’ve visited your home.”

  Wincomb sat up. In a somber voice he advised Carver, “Your teaching contract will not be renewed.”

  Carver looked shocked.

  “I believe this is reason for immediate dismissal,” Flynn said.

  Carver looked more shocked at Flynn.

  “You’re on suspension as of now,” Wincomb said.

  Mouth open, Carver’s head swiveled back and forth between Wincomb and Flynn like a tennis ball being hit by both sides.

  “I believe he should be made an example of,” Flynn said.

  “We do not wish to make a public issue of this, Inspector Flynn.”

  Flynn remembered the President’s words: “I really don’t want a written record of this, if you understand me. Unless, of course, something happens and it is unavoidable.”

  Fists on his chair arms, eyes blazing, Carver said to Wincomb, “Well, maybe I’ll make an issue of this! I have my rights!”

  “Fine.” Wincomb smiled. “Develop that sort of a reputation for yourself. Maybe someday you’ll be able to get a job teaching in a boys’ reformatory.”

  “If you do make an issue of it, as you say,” Flynn said, “I’m afraid you’ll embarrass me. I’ll have to leave it up to the attorney general’s office whether criminal charges should be filed against you.”

  Taut with anger, Carver went to the door. He slammed it open.

  Heading down the corridor, he shouted, “I did not trash Loveson’s office!”

  Slouched behind his desk, Dean Wincomb asked Flynn, “Who did? Who wrote those notes?”

  Flynn said, “Damned if I know.”

  Even though he had the keys, Flynn rang the doorbell to the Lovesons’ apartment.

  He rang it again.

  And again.

  The door jerked open as much as its chain permitted.

  “Mrs. McElroy, is it? Inspector Flynn. Boston Police. We met the other day.”

  “What you want now?”

  “To come in, please.”

  She considered it.

  Finally she opened the door. “The professor no is here.”

  “I know that. I need your help on something. How is Mrs. Loveson today?”

  The woman shrugged fat shoulders. “Still crazy.”

  The woman wore necklaces from which hung silver ornaments. Some were of pyramids. Some of camels.

  A twisted silver ring on her finger was of a snake.

  “I see. That’s why I need your help. What’s your first name?”

  Warily, the woman answered, “Enid.”

  “Ah, yes.” They were still standing in the foyer. “May we sit down, Enid?”

  The powder and rouge on her face did not conceal to Flynn the heavy, lifetime exposure to the sun her skin had suffered.

  She shrugged, turned and led him into the living room.

  Enid wore a long, black dress over her big frame. On it, in red, were Aramaic letters. The letters were arranged meaninglessly.

  Callie Loveson’s eyes lit up when she saw Flynn. “Ah, we have a visitor! How nice!”

  Enid said, “She’s as well as can be expected.”

  “How do, Mrs. Loveson.” Flynn extended his hand to her. The seated obese woman took it gracefully. “My name is Flynn.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Mary, do get us a nice tea.”

  Enid sat in her recliner.

  Over heavy socks Enid wore very old sandals.

  Flynn sat on the divan. “How long have you been working for the Lovesons, Enid?”

  “Tree monts.”

  “I see. It must be tiresome. This small apartment. No television.”

  “It all right. Not much to do.”

  Smiling in a friendly manner, Flynn asked Callie Loveson, “What did you two have for lunch today?”

  Callie frowned in thought. Then beamed. “We had a game hen! And wild rice. It was excellent, wasn’t it, E — nid. The waiter was so kind!”

  “I brought a can of chicken soup,” Enid said. “She don’t know no diff’runce.”

  “Enid—” Flynn looked at her heavily made-up face for as long as he could bear. “We need to be in touch with the Loveson’s daughter.”

  “Daughter? What daughter?”

  “Does she live locally?”

  “No daughter.” Her hands grabbed up the sides of her skirt and put them in her lap. “No daughter.”

  “But there is a daughter. Professor Loveson mentioned her to me once . . .”

  “No daughter!” Enid sat forward in her recliner.

  Flynn looked toward the kitchen counter. “Do the Lovesons have some sort of a telephone-address book? They must have.”

  “No. Calls coming in only. Professor he never use telephone.”

  “Instrument of the devil, is it?” Flynn went to the kitchen area. Indeed there was a green address book near the phone.

  There was no listing under Loveson.

  How could he ever identify a daughter if he did not know her married name?

  The book was very old. Flicking through it he saw nothing that looked like a recent entry. Recent in years.

  “Do you happen to know her first name, Enid? Ever hear them mention their daughter by name?”

  The woman was sitting sideways on the edge of her recliner.

  Looking at Enid from the kitchen area, Flynn asked, “When was the last time you were in Egypt?”

  “Egypt.” She rose quickly. “Never been in Egypt. I go now.” She took her coat from a hall closet. “Professor Loveson be here soon. You stay.”

  “But, Enid— It’s just after four o’clock.”

  She struggled into her coat. It was more of a useless vest. It was nothing anyone would wear in the New England climate for warmth.

  “You can’t go,” Flynn said. “I must tell you—make arrangements—”

  Enid McElroy was out the door.

  Instantly, Flynn heard the elevator door close.

  “Um,” he said.

  Flynn went to the living-room window at the front of the apartment. He wanted to see if he had much hope of catching up with Mrs. Enid McElroy.

  Variously parked in the street were three small blue cars.

  Enid McElroy was already getting into one.

  Her huge eyes on Flynn when he turned, Callie Loveson said, “It’s very difficult to get good servants these days, isn’t it?”

  SEVENTEEN

  “Are you the new doctor?” Callie Loveson asked Flynn.

  He sat on the edge of the recliner abandoned by Enid McElroy.

  “Do you wish to think so?” Flynn asked, appropriately enough.

  “Oh, yes. You’re very nice.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I think it very odd, don’t you? That ever since Louie had his head broken all you doctors have been concerned about is what’s going on in my head.”

  “Louie had his he
ad broken?”

  “I don’t mind. Am I going back to the hospital now? I haven’t been feeling too well lately. Who was that woman who just left? Rather a pig, isn’t she. Traditionally, religions have thought ill of the pig, until Christianity came to the South.” She rolled her tongue around her lips. “Barbecue.”

  “Are you nervous with me?” Flynn asked.

  “Something’s happened to Louie.”

  “What?”

  “He’s in the hospital, isn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “He got his head broken. They pushed him down. Stamped his head into the road. They broke his head and they’ve been treating me for a broken head ever since. Tell me the sense of that!”

  “When was that? When was Louie’s head broken?”

  Callie Loveson looked alarmed. “This morning? You said he’s in the hospital now.”

  “Yes.”

  “Will he be all right? I doubt it. Of course I’m nervous. What do you think?”

  “Where did this happen? Where did Louie get his head broken?”

  “Big city. By the sea. New York? No. I remember now. Alexandria, Virginia. That’s a nice place.”

  “Who stamped on Louie’s head? Who broke his head?”

  “Well, you know the answer to that! You were probably there! You seem to know a lot! The men who took the girl from Louie. At least, that’s what the man from the embassy said. I really don’t like him much. Will you please ask him to stop coming to see me?”

  “He won’t come see you anymore.”

  “That’s nice. You’re very kind.”

  “What girl?”

  “She’s the secretary for the man from the embassy. I don’t like her, either. She keeps looking at me as if I’m crazy, or something. I keep testing her out, you see. I say things like, ‘The river is full of chocolate pudding,’ and she says, ‘Yes, all right.’ Crazy! She’s the crazy one. I don’t need to see her anymore, either.”

  “All right. You won’t. Was she with Louie when his head was broken?”

  “They pushed him right down. Against the wall. Well, you told me that. Then they stamped on his head.”

  “What happened to the girl?”