Skorpio (4 page)

CHAPTER SIX

"Close Call"

Beadles sat Whitfield down on the shaded stoop and used his cell phone to call campus police. It was against policy to admit anyone to the collection not personally approved by the department head but that never occurred to him. Within five minutes a new Chevy Impala with Creighton University Police on the door pulled up on the sidewalk in front of the hall. The officer got out and walked around the car. He was an older man with a belly and a walrus mustache wearing the beige university police uniform and a ball cap.

"What's the problem, Professor?" he said looking at the seated Whitfield.

"Hello, Phil. We've got to get Rob to the ER. He was just bitten by a scorpion."

The cop's bushy eyebrows hunched. "A scorpion?"

"Long story. It came in a pot."

Together they eased Rob into the backseat. He seemed dazed and his arm had begun to swell. The cop switched on the lights and took the shortest route back to Storrow Drive which wound through the campus. Once on the road he hit the siren. University Hospital was seven minutes away. They pulled up in front of the ER behind an ambulance. An orderly in a green smock saw them helping Rob from the back seat and wheeled a chair toward them through the automatic doors.

"Scorpion sting," Beadles explained as they wheeled him inside. The orderly motioned for a lady doctor to come over. She wore a white lab jacket and catseye glasses, her blond hair pulled back in a severe bun.

"He was bitten by a scorpion that crawled out of a pot," Beadles said.

"Oh my," the nurse said. "Let's get him back there and see what we can do. Sir, are you a relative?"

"I'm his professor," Beadles said. "His name is Rob Whitfield. I think he's from Paducah."

"You'll have to stay here," the doctor said. Her label said Musgrove. "Would you notify his next-of-kin if you think it's appropriate?"

"He's not going to die, is he?"

The nurse checked Whitfield's pulse. The patient's eyes followed her fearfully.

"I doubt it but the quicker we act the better chance he'll have."

Beadles watched them wheel Whitfield through the automatic doors into the interior. What did he do now? He had work to do but it didn't seem appropriate to simply abandon Whitfield while he went about his business. He checked his Razr. Betty had called. He called her back.

"Vaughan, what are we going to do about a baby-sitter? Cathy can't make it and the Burkes are out of town."

The department party was the following night and their son Lars was two years old.

"Relax. There's a pool of students registered at the union looking for baby-sitter work. I'll find one of my students."

"Please let me know as soon as possible."

"Don't worry about it Betty baby. My students love me. I have a couple in mind."

"When will you be home? I'm making lasagna."

Beadles debated whether to tell her about Whitfield. Better not. Betty was a worrier, an obsessive/compulsive perfectionist. It had made her a star at the mortgage title company where she worked but she could be difficult when fixated. Like a terrier with a bone.

"I'll be home by five, snookums."

"Love you."

"Love you."

Beadles checked his stock portfolio and his Facebook page. He had twenty-two comments, mostly on scholarly matters. He sat in a plastic chair and made notes on a lecture he planned to give on the Azuma. A young Hispanic mother dozed fretfully in another chair while her five-year-old played with plastic toys from a box.

Forty minutes later Musgrove came out the sliding doors. "He's sitting up. He's asking for you."

Beadles stood. "How's he doing?"

"Fine. We got some anti-venom serum into him, basically the same stuff we use for allergic reactions and he seems to be responding. His pulse is back to normal and so is his body temperature."

"Thank God," Beadles said with such conviction the doctor glanced. He followed her back through the medicinal-smelling halls to a room. Inside Whitfield was sitting up in bed watching Judge Judy.

"Professor! Man, I'm sorry about this mess."

"Rob, don't be silly. I'm just glad you're okay. You want to notify anyone? Your parents?"

"God no. They said if I'm still stable in an hour they're going to release me. You don't have to hang around."

Beadles looked at the arm. The sting was covered with a white bandage and the swelling had gone down. He felt massive relief. That will teach him to violate the rules.

Yeah right
, he thought.
As if I ever learned to tow the line
.

"Give me a call in a few days. We'll go riding."

"You bet, Professor. And thanks again for letting me see the exhibit and getting me in here so fast."

Beadles waved. "All in a day's work."

He took the bus back to campus, walked up the hill and unlocked his Trek 10-speed which was chained to a rack outside the Emory Building. Riding through the shaded streets Beadles reflected on how lucky he'd been. He'd always had good luck.

Plus he made his own luck, often recklessly. He'd first spotted Betty in a supermarket aisle. He'd followed her through the parking lot with a grocery cart which he "accidentally" let slide into her car.

That was six years ago in Elgin. They dated. They clicked. She was the most exciting thing in his life. Beadles had never had trouble attracting women. It was getting rid of them that was the hard part. He didn't see himself getting married before age forty, but after a year of dating Betty said, "Either we get married or I'm out of here."

Beadles did that quick calculation so many make. Can I do better? Like staring at a Ferrari with the keys in your hand. Yeah it goes like hot stink and it's beautiful, but think of the upkeep! Mechanics alone are 250 an hour. Premium gas. Thousand dollar tires. Limited utility.

He was an up and coming academic star with pop success. She was an ambitious, gorgeous, intelligent and charming loan officer with a future. What could go wrong? It wasn't until a week later he realized she smoked.

She'd tried to keep it hidden. For awhile. He could taste it on her lips but never said a word. God knew he had his own vices.

Their anniversary was coming up. They planned to drop Lars with Betty's parents in Rockford and spend a week at Sandal's in Jamaica.

Six years on and he still couldn't get enough of Betty's world-class body and bedroom flair. It blinded him to a certain selfishness. He pulled into the driveway of the Craftsman-style bungalow he'd purchased three years ago when he'd joined the faculty and there she was, hoisting Lars from his car seat in her Ford Edge, tailgate open revealing two sacks of groceries.

He swung his right leg over while still in motion, came to a halt next to Betty and kissed her while she held the babe. He tasted cigarettes. She'd velcroed an ashtray to the console in the Edge.

"Guess what?" Betty said. "Got a baby sitter. I went to that university site listing undergrads and found someone who was your student last year."

"Great? Who is it?"

"Stephanie Byrd."

Beadles shook his head. "Doesn't ring a bell."

"She has excellent credentials. Liggett endorsed her."

"Oh well if the great Liggett himself endorsed her…"

"Grab the groceries, wouldya?"

***

CHAPTER SEVEN

"Souvenir"

Betty baked lasagna, Lars went down for the count. They watched
Ghost
on cable with Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore, and made passionate love on the king-sized bed in the master bedroom. Betty went out on the porch and smoked a cigarette. Lars slept in a crib in the dressing room which dog-legged off the bedroom. Betty returned and crawled into bed.

She slept.

She ground her teeth. A low wave irritation accompanied by atonal humming. It did no good to wake her. Beadles had begged her to visit a dentist, a psychiatrist, someone to stop the grinding. Betty flew into a fury the second time he did this. It was better to just keep his mouth shut and put up with it even if it did cause him many a sleepless night. A big part of marriage was overlooking your spouse's irritating habits.

Lars woke around one a.m. and squawked. Betty heaved herself out of bed and pulled on a flannel robe. "Your turn next time, buster."

Beadles got out of bed too. "I'm going to do a perimeter check."

"That's good. There might be Injuns."

Beadles slipped into his sheepskin moccasins, went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. He removed an open carton of orange juice, drank directly from the spout and put it back. He opened the basement door, turned on the lights and went downstairs where he had a makeshift office: a desk, computer, and table covered with books, papers and artifacts. He sat at the desk and opened the center drawer, reaching far back behind the pens, paper clips, flash drives and post-it notes to a small cloth bag in the rear. He pulled it out, opened it, and shook a quarter-sized gold object into his hand.

He held the softly gleaming gold medallion between thumb and forefinger. Squiggly lines radiated from a turquoise center. He had discovered the medallion the first day the Azuma Collection had arrived, before anyone else had seen it. Before Liggett and his apes raced over, even before Anatole had unlocked the door.

Uncatalogued. It had fallen out of a pot filled with beads and shards. One tiny little item. He deserved it for his devotion to his students and the prestige he brought the University. It was otherwise destined to be catalogued and shut away--or perhaps put on display in the university museum--forever to gather dust. No one would miss this one little item out of so vast a collection.

Don't kid yourself. It's stealing
.

He planned to mount it on a gold chain and give it to Betty on their anniversary. Betty loved her bling. She had twenty grand in jewelry stashed in an ivory-inlaid dowry box. He tossed the medallion up and down in the palm of his hand, feeling its weight. Now that he'd had an opportunity to open up the whole collection he'd found there wasn't much gold. The Azuma were not big on ornamental jewelry.

It was the squirrely fluting on the arrowheads that convinced him the Azuma were a heretofore undiscovered tribe. He saw the pattern repeated on some of the pottery and woven baskets. No other tribe to his knowledge had ever used it. A squiggly line embossed in gold and worked into stone. How had they done it?

He turned the disc over. The back was flat and rough. He planned to epoxy a small gold loop on the back through which to run the chain.

The old floor creaked as Betty comforting Lars came to the head of the stairs.

"What are you doing?"

"Just checking on a few things. Go back to bed. I'll be right up."

She padded away. Beadles slipped the gtold bead back into its pouch and replaced it in the back of his drawer.

Tomorrow was the department party and he had to get some rest.

***

CHAPTER EIGHT

"Babysitter"

Beadles rose at six and did three miles on the green streets of Creighton. At thirty-eight, he was determined not to slide into middle-aged professorship like the well-fed burghers who surrounded him. He entered through the kitchen door puffing.

Betty was giving Lars his breakfast. "My turn. Can you watch Lars while I go to the gym?"

"Sure. Just let me take a quick shower."

Beadles showered and dressed in slacks, sandals, and a guayabera he'd purchased in Guatemala. It was a typical early May morning, temperatures in the sixties and expected to hit the mid-seventies. When he returned Lars was strolling the living room hanging onto the furniture and gurgling.

Beadles retrieved his backpack from the entryway, sat on the sofa and removed a stack of term-end papers. Minutes later Betty breezed through in a Bruce Lee jumpsuit and blew him a kiss.

"Back by noon. You want anything from the deli?"

"Bring me a club sandwich."

"Love you."

"Love you," Beadles said. He placed the stack of papers on the coffee table while Lars amused himself with a primary-color Lightning McQueen that burped aphorisms. "Life is like a highway. You've got to stay on the road."

Lars gurgled in delight.

"Lars, you are one swell kid," Beadles said.

He picked up the first paper, "Did Mongolians Discover America?," and started to read. Every year at least five papers about Asians crossing over into the Americas via the Alaskan land bridge, each student reinventing the wheel. Not that this was a knock--it was becoming increasingly difficult for students to come up with fresh antrhropological angles. Beadles didn't know whether it was the times or the students. There would be at least a dozen papers every year on the Vikings discovering America. Several maintained ancient aliens sowed the seeds of civilization. Erik Von Daniken was very popular. Invariably Beadles gave these papers low grades. He had little patience for ancient aliens.

One student had turned in a paper claiming 7th century Druids had not only discovered America, they had deposited a despised wizard as far inland as Wisconsin. The student had spent his summer searching for the grave. Beadles suggested he switch his major to creative writing.

Beadles got through six papers before Lars confronted him and said with the utmost seriousness, "Daddy I have to go poop now."

Beadles set the papers aside and scooped Lars up. "All right little man. Let's get 'er done."

They spent a little time in the back yard and when they came in Lars was down for a nap. Beadles returned to the living room and phoned Rob Whitfield. It rang five times before he got the recording.

"Rob, it's Vaughan Beadles. Give me a call when you get this."

He phoned the hospital. Whitfield had been discharged last evening shortly after Beadles had left. He would not shed a tiny spasm of anxiety until he heard from Whitfield himself.

Beadles went back to grading papers. Betty returned at three, fresh-faced, pumped, and toting a big paper bag from Norm's Deli. "Ran into Liz Maroukis at the gym. She wants me to try out for
Taming of the Shrew
."

Both Betty and Liz were members of the Hometown Players' Theater Guild. Betty had played a small part in last year's production of
The Crucible
, and had been active in high school and college drama.

"Do you have time to do that?" Beadles said from the couch.

"I don't know."

"Do you want to do that?"

Betty gave him a wide-eyed look and a Bronx cheer. "Do I want to do it? Of course I want to do it! Shakespeare! The big time! But I don't have time. I barely have time to do my job and take care of you two. Where's little man?"

"Down for the count."

"Mommie!" squealed in. Betty dropped the paper bag on the table and went down the hall. Beadles took his lunch out on the front porch and ate it there, sitting in an Adirondack chair he'd purchased from Lowes. School had just let out. Beadles watched the kids heading home on foot, skateboard and bicycle, some chauffeured from Montossori school in their parents' SUVs. The air was sweet with honeysuckle

Yet that one nagging little doubt kept Beadles from fully savoring the afternoon.

His phone chimed "Baba O'Riley." He scooped it up and looked at the panel.

Thank God.

"Professor, it's Rob. What's up?"

"How are you feeling, Rob?"

"A little sluggish but I think that's the anti-inflammatory they gave me. Otherwise I feel fine. The swelling's virtually disappeared and now it just itches like hell."

"That's great, Rob. That's great. Listen. If you haven't already told anyone about this…"

"No problem, Professor. It was wrong of me to wheedle my way in there."

"Bike ride next week?"

"You bet. I'll call you."

Beadles hung up with a vast sense of relief like a long-dried lake bed suddenly filling with rain. That left Anatole, the campus cop, the orderly, Dr. Musgrove, and whoever else had treated Rob at the hospital. They would be unaware of the protocol.

Hopefully that was the end of it.

"Professor Beadles?"

A young woman stood on the sidewalk wearing a backpack, shapeless in an oversized Banshees T-shirt and baggy slacks with a round head, a Beatles cut, and round sunglasses. She looked vaguely familiar. She held the handlebars of a mountain bike with a dished frame and knobby tires.

"I'm Stephanie Byrd. I took your course 'Populating the Americas' last year."

"Of course." He was surprised he remembered her at all. She hadn't asked a single question all semester and he could barely remember their two personal consultations, which he held with every student.

"I spoke to your wife earlier. I'm your baby-sitter."

"Of course! Come in. Come in."

Beadles stood and glanced at his watch. It was almost five. They were due at the University Club at six. It was a good thing the girl had come by. He led her into the house. Stehanie hoisted the bike effortlessly to her shoulder and carried it up the steps.

"May I leave this here?"

"Of course. Betty! The baby-sitter's here!"

"Just a minute!" came back from the hall.

Beadles gestured to the living room. "Make yourself at home. There's the TV. Help yourself to whatever you fancy in the fridge. Would you like something to drink?"

Byrd set her backpack on the coffee table with a thump. It was designed to look like an Ewok with furry head, ears and little limbs clutching forward. Something a 7th grader might cherish.

"May I use the bathroom?"

"Down the hall, first door on the right."

While Beadles was in the bedroom changing his clothes he heard Betty sorting things away.

"Now you have both our cell phone numbers. Don't hesitate to call if anything happens."

"Nothing's going to happen, Betty. I've been baby-sitting half my life."

Beadles emerged waring a crisp white short-sleeved sport shirt with arrow collars and creased cream-colored Calvin Klein trousers. Betty was a knockout in a little black cocktail dress that stopped at mid-thigh, her long auburn hair done up in a wave, simple gray pearl earrings. With her high cheekbones, turned-up nose, and wide, generous mouth she was cover girl worthy, every man's dream of a sexy tomboy.

Byrd talked nonsense to Lars on the sofa. Lars laughed, giggle and squealed.

As they pulled out in the Ford Beadles said, "Who are the Banshees?"

"Oh some awful heavy metal band. At least it's not rap."

Betty rolled down her window and lit a cigarette, blowing the smoke out.

***