The Court (20 page)

“What do you mean?”

“I've been doing this job for thirty years and I've found most crap can be prevented if you get to it quickly. So you have to keep your eyes and ears open and keep a good line of communication going with a lot of people.”

“You mean like a detective with informers?”

Whittle shrugged. “Yes, in a way. I'll give you an example. Let's say some menopausal woman professor starts giving head to our young leaders of the future, you know, she starts making a spectacle of herself. Now if I can find out about it in time, then I can usually do something before the shit hits the fan. I use her clergyman, family, medical people, whatever it takes. Usually I can put out the fire.

“Same thing with drunks. If we start picking up beefs from the students that some young assistant professor is missing his classes, we check with his pals, or even his enemies in the department. If it turns out that he's hitting the sauce, I go to see him. Most of them bitch like hell, but I usually have enough on them to force them into a drunk hospital for the cure, if they're really bad. It depends.”

“And if they don't do what you ask, what then?”

Whittle gulped down a mouthful of food and patted his lips with his bib. “Like I said, I usually have quite a bit on them to begin with. But if that doesn't work, then I try a little peer pressure. I have their pals reason with 'em. And, finally, if that doesn't work then I usually frame their ass and force 'em to resign.”

“Pardon me?”

“Does that shock you? Look, take the example of the old lady who is going down on half the campus. I use the clergy, family, whatever. It's done to help her at that point. But if she doesn't have the brains to jump at the chance I give her, then I have to protect the school. I set it up with the campus cops. They catch her on her knees. The students gets the shit scared out of him, and the woman, caught in the act, quietly resigns. I don't deal in abstracts, Green, I deal in results.” He jammed some more food in his mouth. “And I deal in facts. Hell, I know more about the private lives of the people on this campus than the recording angel. And that knowledge is both my armor and my weapon.”

“Armor?”

“You bet your ass. I don't have any tenure here, my job isn't protected. I can be fired anytime. And in a job like this you make enemies, believe me.” He laughed. “Every new guy who comes in here as university president does the same thing. As soon as he finds out about me, he makes me number one on his ‘to be removed' list. But within a couple of months he knows he can't do his job without my help. He needs me, or someone like me. Besides, by that time I usually know a few things about him that he would prefer to keep quiet. It's a rough world, Green.”

“What do you know about Dean Pentecost?” Green asked.

Whittle wiped his mouth with the tip of his napkin and leaned back in his chair. His small, deeply set eyes seemed to glitter with something akin to malevolence. “You understand that I wouldn't be talking to you at all except that I have been commanded to do so by our president. He's new.”

“And you don't have anything on him as yet.”

Whittle laughed heartily, the loud rasping sound caused other diners to look around to find the source of the disturbance. “Blunt, but correct. You see, I use my inside information only for the benefit of the university. The new man should know that, but he doesn't. Not yet. But he will soon. So be it. Because of this accident of timing I am forced to let you see under the rock, as it were. Usually I'm the only one who looks.”

The waitress brought Green's food. He waited until she had served the hot covered dishes and departed before he spoke. “Fortune smiles on me then. What do you know about Dean Roy Pentecost?”

Whittle had finished his meal. His bib bore a number of stains to attest to his poor marksmanship. He pulled out a long thin cigar from inside his coat and struck a wooden match. “I presume you people have had him investigated by the FBI, right? Security clearances, that sort of thing?”

“That's correct.”

The billowing cigar smoke formed a cloud about the top of Whittle's head. “Then you know his basic background. He is forty-six years old. He is a graduate of Harvard and Harvard's law school. He served as a clerk to a Supreme Court justice after graduation. After that, as you know, he went into the teaching business. He's a miracle worker when it comes to law schools. He did a hell of a good job at two of them before he came here. He took our second-tier law school and made it first-rate. But that took money. There was a big political fight. When the legislature finally approved the funds, by one vote, some folks wanted to see the school fail.”

Whittle sipped some tea. “I have to admire Pentecost's guts, he beat the critics and the odds. I know I don't have to go over the details, you must know them already. But he won. And now we have one of the most prestigious law schools in the nation. We have a lineup of genius types trying to break their ass to get admitted here. The dean has written some legal crap, and like most legal crap nobody reads it but everybody says it's wonderful.”

“As you said, I know about that part of his life.”

“So now you want to know about the dirt?”

Although Whittle's endorsement was correct and the food was delicious, Green was too intent to eat. He merely toyed with his food as he spoke. “If there is any dirt, we would want to know it. A very crucial decision has to be made by the White House.”

“Yeah, it wouldn't look good if a Supreme Court justice went around buggering goats.”

Green raised his eyebrows.

“For Christ sake, I'm only kidding! You have my word of honor that Pentecost has never had sex with an animal, at least not to my knowledge.” Whittle grinned. “Although we did have one guy in the journalism school who used to slip down to the barns and … but you're interested in Pentecost, not some old stories.”

“That's right.”

“Okay, I'll give it to you straight. He's a goddamned workaholic, if that's a vice. He spends every hour of his life concentrating on that law school. He's well organized and has a gift for wrangling large donations from rich folks and large companies. Everything he does is calculated. He really works at it. He uses computers and everything else that modern technology can offer. And he still manages the usual things a dean does; he welcomes the students at the beginning of the semester, holds bullshit meetings when they think they've been screwed, and generally takes care of the school's day-to-day administration.”

Whittle slurped in some more tea, then continued. “He kisses the ass of those wise old men he lured away from the Ivy League joints. They're the magnet for the money and for the students, and he knows it. Whatever those old boys want, they get.”

“Sounds reasonable.”

“I agree. But on the other side of the coin, he treats the younger faculty members like galley slaves. He seems to go out of his way to make their lives miserable. We have quite a turnover of the younger law teachers. With the exception of one, and I'll come to that.”

Whittle shrugged. “On the other hand, around the students he's like a politician, always shaking hands, smiling, that kind of crap. You'd think the job was elective. And if a student gets out of hand, Pentecost will bend over backwards before taking any disciplinary action. Actually, he has quite a bunch of solid competent instructors. The students are kept too busy to get into any serious trouble, so he can afford to be lenient.”

Green accepted a fortune cookie from the waitress. He broke it open as she left. It predicted he would soon come into money.

“Pentecost doesn't smoke,” Whittle continued. “And if he takes a drink he'll nurse the thing all night, so there's no problem there. I doubt very much if he has even smoked a bit of weed, let alone snorted coke. Not the type. He has no vices, as far as I know. He hasn't even made any passes at the secretaries. And I would know if he had. In other words, the son-of-a-bitch is a paragon of virtue.”

“You make that sound distasteful.”

“Sometimes it can be,” Whittle snorted. “And there is another side to the coin. Pentecost is an overly ambitious bastard who wouldn't hesitate to cut your throat if it meant even the slightest advantage to him. He knows no loyalty except to himself. I get the impression he's the type that kisses the bathroom mirror every morning. The man really likes himself.”

“What do you mean, no loyalty?”

“My opinion, nothing more. I just know the type, that's all. He has all the compassion of a computer chip. If something will benefit him, then he's for it. And if not, he's opposed. It's a simple world for people like Pentecost. He will be your friend just so long as you are in a position to do something for him.”

Green waved away some of Whittle's cigar smoke. “Aren't we all guilty of that, at least to some degree?”

Whittle's eyes narrowed. “Your old man wasn't. I knew him. For that matter, I knew you too. Does that surprise you?”

“Yes.”

“I was new on the job in those days. Your old man had something you don't see much anymore—integrity. You know, integrity's like good art, it's hard to describe, but you know it when you see it.”

“And me?”

Whittle laughed. “Hey, if you were a bad kid I didn't know about it. I did know about your brother though.”

“Hank?”

“You got any other brothers?”

“No.”

Whittle snapped a match and touched the flame to the now-dead cigar. The resulting smoke was almost poisonous. “Your brother was one of the world's greatest studs. When he went to school here I thought he was going to corner the market on causing pregnancy. I often thought the local abortionists should have erected a statue to him. Jesus, he'd just walk by those young coeds and they seemed to get pregnant.”

“And you got him out of trouble?”

Whittle nodded. “A half dozen times at least. I never told your old man about it. Your father knew one or two things about honor. It would have really hurt him. I kept it to myself. What the hell, everything turned out all right. Your brother settled down, more or less. Nowadays he's a model husband and father, and that's something I never thought I'd live to see. He's drinking too much, but I suppose that's just middle age crisis catching up.”

“I'm surprised about the drinking.”

“It happens. So far it's no big deal. He gets plastered quietly at home. I'm keeping my eye out, just in case.”

“For his sake, or for the university's?”

Whittle's eyes narrowed. “For the university. As I say, that is my job. I see the dark side of people. And there is a dark side to most. But not with your father. He was a hell of a guy. I hope some of that rubbed off on you. It did on your brother. That's what saved him from being a bum.”

Green nodded. “As fascinating as my family might be, I'm here to find out about Dean Pentecost. So far, you haven't exactly opened up the secrets of the universe as far as he's concerned.”

Whittle signaled for a fresh pot of tea. “Funny, you can never make tea like this at home, no matter what kind you use.” He studied his little porcelain cup before continuing. “There is a problem with Pentecost's old lady.”

“His wife?”

Whittle's fleshy face revealed his disgust. “Yes, his wife. She's a perfect ice queen, just the right type for display at faculty teas. She looks like a New York model; nice-looking if you don't like blood and are fond of bones. She is a chilly, indifferent woman. Oh, she does volunteer work and all of the other usual stuff expected of a dean's wife. I told you Pentecost has a high turnover of young teachers at the law school, except for one, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that guy ain't ever going to leave. Because every time the dean goes out of town on a trip—and he makes a lot of trips to drum up contributions and promote himself—this young stud comes over and gives the ice queen a jump.”

“How do you know this?”

“Well, as you can imagine, she doesn't advertise it. And lover boy never comes to the house after the dean is gone. They meet at a Jackson motel, twenty miles south of here.”

“I asked how you know?”

Whittle helped himself to some fresh tea that had been brought by Ah Sue. Green declined as Whittle offered to refresh his cup.

He continued in a low voice. “They had a young guy on the faculty in the English Department. He was an instructor working toward his doctorate. But he wasn't good enough to cut it. They told him he should forget it. He went down to that Jackson motel, got drunk, and damned near killed some bimbo he had picked up.”

Malcolm Whittle again slurped in the hot tea. “Like I said, I know all the cops, and the Jackson boys called me as soon as they identified our little hero as belonging to us. He was screaming about how unfair the old university had been to him. I handled it. I took care of the bimbo's hospital costs, plus giving her a little something for her trouble. The kid resigned without a whimper. It was that or go to jail. Anyway, it was then when I found out about the lovely Mrs. Pentecost.”

“How?”

“While I was at the motel, the cops were interviewing other guests, getting statements about the screams and so forth. And who do they flush? Why none other than the icy Mrs. Pentecost and her young assistant professor of law. I saw them, but they didn't see me. They gave the cops false names.”

“Maybe it was just a one-time thing.”

Whittle shook his head. “No. I checked. Everytime the dean leaves town she motors on down to that same motel. Not smart, but then we are all creatures of habit, aren't we? I've been keeping an eye on it because that kind of thing can cause trouble. But they are discreet and they keep their noses clean. And I don't anticipate the dean coming in one night and blowing them away.”