Flynn's World (6 page)

He went into a room off the foyer from which uttered low murmurs.

“They’re saying their prayers in there, from the sounds of it,” Flynn said to himself. “Hope they’re facing east.”

Grover had driven Flynn to Cambridge in stony silence.

While they were going across Massachusetts Bridge, Cocky had called.

“Jackpot, Flynn.”

“What is?”

“You’ve hit the jackpot. You may have found the perfect family, at least as far as crime is concerned.”

“And what family is so perfectly criminal?”

“Perfectly non-criminal. The Caprianos.”

“Is that so?”

“The original Capriano, Anthony, came here from Italy in 1908. He worked in a butcher shop in Boston five years before starting his own butcher shop in Winthrop, which the family has run ever since. Present owners are Anthony the Third and William. There is a third brother, Francis, who left home at age eighteen and never returned. He is believed to be living in Texas.”

“If the third brother is a butcher as well, we can say they’re all cutups.”

“According to our records, no Capriano has ever been arrested for anything, ever.”

“Is that so unusual?”

“Not even for speeding. Not even for illegal parking.”

“Maybe they haven’t cars.”

“They have cars. Children. Dogs. Property.”

“Do you know anything else about them?”

“Therefore, not much. They are all members of the local Roman Catholic church, St. Jude’s. The brothers work six full days a week in their store. Together they own a summer house on a lake in Maine, which one brother’s family uses in July, the other in August. No complaints against them in the State of Maine, either. Ever.”

“Saintly people, it appears. Thank you, Lieutenant.”

Trailed by the houseman, Judge Goldston entered the foyer of Harvard’s presidential mansion.

“Flynn?”

“Judge Goldston.”

“You went to Harvard?”

“Just to the libraries.”

“I’m surprised to see you here. A little off your beat, aren’t you?”

“The President asked to see me.”

“I see. Gerald, I think you should take Inspector Flynn up to the President’s private study right away. I’ll tell him you’re here, Frank.”

“Thank you.”

Flynn followed the houseman up two flights of stairs to a small room at the back of the house. Leaving, the houseman did not close the door.

The room overlooked parts of Harvard Yard, Lamont Library, Houghton Library. The room was book-lined. There was a faded crimson rug on the floor. There were a few photographs on the handsome wooden desk facing a window.

Closing the door behind him, the President said, “Thank you for coming, Mr. Flynn.” They shook hands.

“A comfortable room,” Flynn said.

“This is where I choose to be, when I have a choice. I seldom bring anyone else here. Would you like a drink?”

“I had a drink, once. I didn’t much like it.”

“I see. Have you a room like this, somewhere?”

“I have a nice office. Quiet.”

“I would like to visit you in your private office, someday.”

“You’d be most welcome. Do you play chess?”

“I play no games.”

“I think I understand that.”

“I understand you’re musical.” The President indicated a small stereo in a bookcase within reach of his desk chair. “Are you able to have a stereo of some sort in your office?”

“I listen to recorded music as seldom as possible.”

“Why is that?”

“Today’s recordings are too good. Too enhanced? I believe they spoil the ears for live music.”

“Yes. Interesting.” He pointed out a photograph on his desk. “Do you know who that is?”

“Professor Louis Loveson.”

“Yes. Ever read him?”

“His volume
The Ontologic,
yes. Also his
Usable Past.
Some time ago.”

“It’s about him I wish to speak. Do sit down. I’ve been unsure as to what to do, how to do it. Finally I brought the matter up to John Roy Priddy.”

“I thought I’d hear his name this afternoon.”

“No Name has been very good to Harvard, especially to the Kennedy Government Center. We’ve had much advice from John Roy regarding matters ‘between the borders.’ You spoke at the Kennedy Center a few years ago yourself. ‘An Understanding of Islamic Fundamentalism.’”

“Were you there?”

“I heard people talking about it. So I read the transcript.”

“There was a transcript?”

“Harvard has heavy archival responsibilities, Mr. Flynn. By the way, I thought you were dead.”

“I try to be.”

“Not dead, just sleeping, is that it?”

“Trying not to be the object of the attention of K. and other such people. Even if they do know me to be alive, they believe me less of a threat to them these days.”

“N. N. 13. You must have been very successful to attain such high rank.”

“What about Professor Loveson?”

“He’s not only a great teacher—he was my beloved teacher when I was here as a student—but he is my great friend.”

“You’re lucky.”

“Yes. But something is wrong. In recent years he’s gone from one of our most beloved teachers to one of our most reviled. He is held in contempt, initially by most of his colleagues, now by an ever-increasing percentage of the student body. Ten years ago, it was difficult for students to get into any of his two courses. Now he has only one course, with only seven people in it.”

“Why?”

“I don’t think it’s caused by anything he’s done or said. Is that what I mean? I mean, I don’t believe he’s changed. I don’t know why.”

“He must be rather along in years.”

“Seventy-six. By understandings, of course, he should have retired. When he found himself increasingly reviled, he stated his desire to continue teaching, until there was some satisfactory conclusion.”

“What is it people are saying about him?”

“That he’s dishonest? Can you believe that?”

“I’m not sure what they mean.”

“Neither am I.”

“I don’t see how I can help.”

“A woman who was his teaching assistant about seven years ago has come to me . . . She says she thinks Louie is being assaulted.”

“Assaulted? Who would assault a seventy-six-year-old professor?”

“Threatened. She believes he’s been receiving phone calls, notes. She said she saw such a note on his desk at the library. He snapped it away from her immediately.”

“Physically threatening him? With bodily harm?”

“I believe so. I’ve asked him about it. He denies it.”

“Some person or persons are threatening to kill him?”

“I don’t know. He needs a friend, Flynn. Someone to stand with him, find out all about this, someone who will know what to do if push comes to shove, if you know what I mean. I’m President of this university. Obviously I can’t do, well, more than I’ve tried.”

“If you’re asking about police protection . . .”

“No. He utterly rejected the thought of that. He wants his privacy. His wife isn’t well. If it’s any help to your matters of protocol, his apartment is in Boston. Isn’t that within your jurisdiction?”

“If he won’t talk . . .”

“You know, I rather think in some odd way he’s rather ashamed of this situation. At least, in front of his colleagues. In front of me. You’re not a member of the university, or the teaching profession. You’re a policeman. Yet you aren’t. If you’re willing to be helpful here, I will try to explain you to him, best I can. It will help that you actually read his books.”

“I’m not sure how helpful I can be.”

“Are you willing to try?”

“Well, yes. But the actual time I can spend with him will be necessarily limited. I have other duties, court appearances . . .”

“I understand. It’s more a matter of your getting to the bottom of whatever is going on, and making it stop, if possible. If my perception that he is ashamed of this situation is correct . . . I’ll assure him you will not be reporting to me, or to the police commissioner, or to anyone. Will that be all right? Are you allowed to spend time on something of this sort without having to file reports?”

“Oh, yes.”

The President took papers out of a drawer of the table beside him. “Here is a copy of his biography from
Who’s
Who in America.
This other paper just has his address, phone number, where his office is, where and when he teaches his little class—that sort of thing.”

“Thank you.”

“I suppose it would be correct for Harvard to offer to pay your expenses . . .”

“No. Professor Loveson is a citizen, a taxpayer. He deserves our protection, to whatever extent—”

“That’s good. I really don’t want a written record of this, if you understand me. Unless, of course, something happens and it is unavoidable.”

“Let’s hope nothing happens.”

“Exactly.”

“Do you know where the Professor is now?”

“He’s in his office. But at six o’clock he’s due at a departmental cocktail party at his dean’s house. The address is on that paper. I’ve urged him not to attend such functions, but he insists. He now attends more such things than he ever has in his life. He’s a stubborn old man, Mr. Flynn.”

“Good for him.”

“Good as long as he’s safe,” the President said. “I, personally, don’t want an incident. Obviously, the university does not want an incident. I would like Professor Loveson to have the peace and respect he deserves in his later years. Don’t you agree?”

“Whatever that means. In this case.”

SIX

Inside the front door of Dean Wincomb’s small Victorian home on a Cambridge side street was a stuffed umbrella stand. Bicycles were on each side of the hall.

After puzzling the dean’s wife by introducing himself, explaining his presence only by saying he was there to meet Professor Louis Loveson, Flynn stepped into the living room. He stood to one side.

And was ignored.

Again he had left the silently obedient Grover in the car.

Flynn considered the subtle changes in the academics in the room from those he had known of a previous generation. For the most part, they were physically more trim. A few looked as if they spent more time jogging and lifting weights than in the library stacks.

There were more women, of course.

The room also seemed curiously partitioned. In the center of the room, five women talked together. A group of four comprised only Asians. Three blacks, two men and a woman, stood separately. One man and the woman affected something resembling African garb. Groups of white males were segregated by age, from roughly twentyfive to forty and from forty to sixty-five.

And these groups seemed to be ignoring each other.

Even the dean did not appear to be circulating among his guests.

Were the eyes of all these people more intense because their ideas were more intense, or because they spent so much time concentrating on computer screens?

Did they all speak more loudly because of their strong convictions, or because their hearing had been impaired by years of overamplified music as students?

Or did they speak more loudly competitively?

The few who looked his way did not seem to see him, really. If they were seeing him, they were dismissing him not as an unknown but as an irrelevancy.

Flynn was entertaining himself with these observations when Professor Louis Loveson entered the room. Flynn remained standing aside, watching silently.

The professor was a great deal thinner than the photo of him Flynn had just seen on the President’s desk. The joyful twinkle of wisdom in the professor’s eyes had been replaced by sadness.

The sound level lowered when the professor entered the room. People only glanced at him. They did not smile. No one greeted him.

It seemed to Flynn as if no one in the room wanted to be overheard by Professor Loveson.

As the professor moved slowly to the bar table and made himself a whiskey and ginger ale, people, even with their backs to him, moved just a step or two away from him.

The professor then moved away from the bar table. He turned his face toward the room. Clearly he was willing to be engaged in conversation.

Still no one approached him.

Flynn watched only a moment longer.

“Professor Loveson . . .”

“I was told someone would speak to me this evening, by the name of Flynn.” The professor sipped his drink. “Are you that Flynn?”

“I am.”

“You are here to befriend me.”

“Something of the sort.”

Loveson appeared to be measuring the relative smallness of Flynn’s head versus the hugeness of his shoulders and chest. “Stand with me, as it were, against the vestiges of what appears to be my fate?”