Ultimate Thriller Box Set (48 page)

“May I help you?” she asked. I sat down in the chair before her desk. The constant pecking of fingers on keyboards would’ve driven me insane.

“I need a campus map, a class directory for this semester, and a campus phone book.”

She opened a filing cabinet and withdrew a booklet and a blue pamphlet.

“Here’s a map and here’s the phone book,” she said, setting the items on her tidy desk. “I’ll have to get a class directory from the closet.” She walked across the room, mumbling something to another secretary as she passed. I opened the phone book. It was only fifty pages thick, with the faculty listings in the first ten pages and those of the two thousand students in the remaining forty. I thumbed through it to the P’s.

I skipped over the entries for Page and Paine, then spotted “Parker, David L.” The information given beneath the name was sparse — only an office number — Gerard 209 — and a corresponding phone number.

The woman returned and handed me a directory of classes. “Here you are, sir.”

“Thanks. Are the students in class today?” I asked, rising.

She shook her head doubtfully. “They’re supposed to be,” she said, “but this is the first cold snap of the season, so a fair number probably played hooky to go skiing.”

I thanked her again, then walked out of the office and into the foyer, where I passed three college girls standing in a circle beside the statue, whispering to each other. Exiting the building, I walked through snow flurries to the gazebo and sat down on the bench that circumnavigated the interior of the structure. First, I unfolded the map and located Gerard Hall. I could see it from where I sat, a two-story building that displayed the same charmingly decrepit brick as the others.

With hot breath, I warmed my hands, then opened the directory of classes, a thick booklet, its first ten pages crammed with mountains of information regarding registering for classes and buying books. I found an alphabetical listing of the classes and their schedules, and flipping through anthropology, biology, communications, English, and French, stopped finally at the roster of history classes for fall ’96. There was a full page of history courses, and I skimmed down the list until I saw his name:

Hist 089 History of Rome   LEC   3.0   35

26229   001   TR   11:00AM-12:15PM   HD 107   Parker, D.L.

It appeared to be the only course he taught, and, glancing at my watch, I realized that it was currently in session.

According to the building abbreviation key, HD stood for Howard Hall. I found it on the blue map. Just twenty yards away, it was one of the closest buildings to the gazebo. An apprehensive knocking started in my chest as I looked down the walkway leading to its entrance.

Before I could dissuade myself, I was walking down the steps, away from the gazebo, heading toward Howard Hall. To the left of the registrar’s building, it made up the eastern wall of the quasi courtyard surrounding the gazebo. Two students smoked on the steps, and I passed them and touched the door, thinking, What if this isn’t him? Then I’ll go to prison, and Walter and his family will die.

As the door closed behind me, I heard his voice. It haunted the first floor of Howard Hall, its soft-spoken intensity reeling me back to the Wyoming desert. I walked slowly on, leaving the foyer, where political notices, ads for roommates, and a host of other flyers papered the walls. In the darker hall, light spilled from one door. I heard a collection of voices, then an outburst of laughter. Orson’s voice rose above the rumblings of his students, and I turned right and walked down the hallway, taking care my steps didn’t echo off the floor.

His voice grew louder, and I could soon understand every word. Stopping several feet from the doorway, I leaned against the wall. From the volume of laughter, I approximated the class size at thirty or forty students. Orson spoke again, his voice directly across from me on the other side of the wall. Though I wanted to run, to hide in a closet or a bathroom stall far from that voice, I remained to listen, trusting he’d have no reason to step into the hall.

“I want you to put your pens and pencils down,” he said, and the sound of writing implements falling onto wood engulfed the room. “To understand history, you have to see it. It’s more than words on a page. It happened. You can’t ever forget that. Put your head on your desk,” he said. “Everybody. Go on. Now close your eyes.” His footsteps approached the door. He flipped a switch, the room went black, and the footsteps trailed away.

“Megalomania,” he said. “Somebody tell me what it means.”

A male voice sounded in the dark. “Delusions of omnipotence.”

“Good,” Orson said. “It’s a mental disorder, so keep that in mind, too.”

The professor kept silent for half a minute, and the room was still. When he spoke again, his voice had a controlled, musical resonance.

“The year is A.D. thirty-nine,” he began. “You’re a Roman senator, and you and your wife have been invited to watch the gladiatorial games with the young emperor, Gaius Caligula.

“During the lunch interlude, as humiliores are executed ad bestias before a rejoicing crowd, Caligula stands up, takes your wife by the hand, and leaves with her, escorted by his guards.

“You know exactly what’s happening, and it’s apparent to the other senators, because the same thing has happened to their wives. But you do nothing. You just sit on the stone steps, under the blue, spring sky, watching the lions chase their prey.

“An hour later, Gaius returns with your wife. When she sits down beside you, you notice a purple bruise on her face. She’s rattled, her clothes are torn, and she refuses to look at you. There are six other senators who’ve been invited along with you, and suddenly you hear Caligula speak to them.

“ ‘Her breasts are quite small,’ he says, loudly enough for everyone around to hear. ‘She’s a sexual bore. I’d rather watch the lions feed than fuck her…again.’

“He laughs and pats you on the back, and everyone laughs with him. No one contradicts Gaius. No one challenges the emperor. It’s pure sycophancy, and you sit there, boiling, wishing you’d never come. But to speak one word against Caligula would be your family’s certain death. It’s best just to keep silent and pray you never receive another invitation.”

Orson’s footsteps approached the doorway. I stepped back, but he’d only come for the lights. The room filled with the sound of students shifting in their seats and reopening notebooks.

“Next Tuesday,” he said, “we’ll talk about Caligula. I notice some of your classmates aren’t with us today, and that may or may not have something to do with the snowstorm in the mountains last night.” The class laughed. It was obvious by now that his students adored him.

“There will be a quiz on Caligula next Tuesday. Know the basics. When was he born? When did he become emperor? When and how did he die? Read chapter twenty-one in your text, and you shouldn’t have a problem. I think you’ll find him to be one of the most complex, intriguing, yet misunderstood rulers in Roman history.” He paused. “Have a nice weekend.”

I heard notebooks closing and backpacks zipping. Then the class seemed to rise all at once and dash for the door. Orson would be coming, too.

Across the hall, a door was ajar. I pushed my way through the students and slipped unseen into a dark, empty classroom. Then, peering through the cracked door, I waited for him to emerge.

22

ORSON descended the steps and started down the walkway. I waited inside the foyer of Howard Hall, watching him through the window beside the door. Dressed in a beige wool suit, a red bow tie, and green suspenders, he carried a tan briefcase and wore gold wire-framed glasses. When he was beyond the gazebo, I opened the door and followed him as he strode quickly across campus and disappeared into Gerard Hall.

As I approached his building, the light snow continued. The temperature had dropped as the day progressed, and the sky, only partly overcast this morning, was now completely masked by low gray clouds, which grazed the mountain peaks.

Gerard Hall was one of the smaller buildings on campus — two stories and narrow. Its name was incised into the stone pediment above the door. I felt exposed standing out in front of Orson’s building in the cold. His office was on the second floor, but he could be anywhere inside, and while from a distance I felt safe, I knew that in proximity, my brother would instantly know my eyes.

I sat on the steps for five minutes, until I’d worked up the nerve to go inside. But as I stood to reach for the door handle footsteps pounded on a hardwood floor, and looking through the window, I saw a figure appear from the hallway. I turned away and leaned against the black railing just as the door opened.

I smelled her perfume before I saw her. An older woman, still beautiful, cascaded down the steps in high heels and a black overcoat. Her blond hair, streaked with silver, jounced as she walked away on a path leading to the town. I peeked again through the tall, slim window by the door, then, seeing only the empty foyer, pulled the handle and stepped inside.

Without voices, or fingers on keyboards, the fluorescent lights hummed deafeningly overhead as they shone hard light upon the dusty floor. According to a glass-encased magnetic message board, this was the office building of the history department, and the last names of professors and their respective office numbers were displayed in white lettering behind the glass. Looking down the hallway, I saw there were stairwells at both ends. Arbitrarily, I turned left and started walking to the stairs, passing four unmarked doors and a janitor’s closet.

Jazz music poured softly from the second floor. I stopped at the top of the stairwell and looked into the hallway. All the fluorescent lights were out save one, which flickered sporadically at the other end. The only constant light emanated from two open and opposing doorways, where voices rose in conversation above a moaning trumpet.

In the shadows, I walked toward the first office along the corridor. It was closed, and a brass nameplate affixed to the door read STCHYKENSKI 206. Across the hall, someone typed inside of 207, where light and classical music escaped in slivers beneath the door.

On the right side, fifteen feet down the hall, Orson’s door stood wide open, the wonder of Miles Davis’s “Blue in Green” lingering in the doorway. I inched forward until I could see into Orson’s empty office, and hear the conversation in the room across from his.

“I’m not sure yet,” Orson was saying.

“David, there’s no rush. We just need to make the decision before Christmas. I think the deadline’s the twenty-first of December.”

“That’s plenty of time,” Orson said. “I just want to finish a thorough reading of his publications. I like what I’ve seen so far, but I want to be sure, Jack.”

“We all do,” Jack said, “and right now what I’m hearing from the others is that Dr. Harris would fit in nicely. Those of us who’ve read his work think he’s more than qualified.”

Footsteps reverberated in the opposite stairwell, and I backed away.

“Damn,” Orson said. “I’ve got to meet with a student. How about lunch tomorrow?”

“Splendid.”

A chair squeaked, and I ran down the hall. There was a men’s bathroom on my right that I’d unwittingly passed before, and I slipped inside as Orson stepped from Jack’s office into the hall. In the dark bathroom, a faucet dripped into the sink. Cracking the door, I glanced back into the hallway. Orson now stood in the threshold of his office, leaning against the door frame and speaking to a pudgy girl with walnut hair and a pale white face. She wore a backpack on the outside of her yellow rain jacket, and she smiled as Orson invited her into his office and shut the door.

I let the bathroom door close, immersing myself in darkness. Closing my eyes, I took steady breaths until the banging in my chest subsided.

Suddenly, I remembered — walking up the steps, I’d seen a red box with the word Fire on it.

I opened the door. Orson’s was still closed, so I ran from the hallway into the stairwell. The fire alarm was mounted on the wall, and I stopped and looked back down the hallway. Now the only light came from Jack’s office.

I pulled the white handle and the alarm screamed.

Back inside the bathroom, the darkness now riddled with blinking lights, I found my way into a stall and sat down on the toilet. The door opened, someone shouted, and then it closed again, the darkness assuring whoever had entered that the men’s room was vacant. After thirty seconds, I walked to the door.

The floor vacated, most of the doors were open now, brightening the hallway considerably. I ran toward 209 as the alarm rang. Empty. Rushing inside, I shut the door behind me and moved to the window. Outside, a crowd was gathering at the building’s entrance, people staring up in wonder, looking for the smoke. It was snowing hard now, sticking to the grass, melting on the brick. I wondered how long it’d take the fire department to arrive.

There were no filing cabinets. I opened the bottom right-hand drawer of the desk and found it stuffed with graded papers and tests. The drawer above it overflowed with supplies — pens, pencils, several legal pads. Two roll books and two packs of note cards filled the drawer in the center, and the left-hand drawers were both empty. No trophies. No photographs. But this did not surprise me. He was too careful to keep them here. I’d known it, but I had to check.

A monitor, processor, and keyboard stood separately on the floor — an old Tandy 1000 with the letters and numbers worn completely off the keys. There was a bookshelf on either side of the window. I glanced at the titles but found nothing peculiar. They were history texts, most on ancient Rome and Greece. A poster of Athens and a framed photograph of Orson standing in the Coliseum hung on the wall in front of his desk.

A stack of unopened envelopes lay on top of his desk, and I picked them up. Of the four, three had been addressed to his school office, the other to 617 Jennings Road, Woodside, Vermont. Yes. Grabbing a pen and a sheet of paper from the supply drawer, I copied down the address. Then I looked through the drawers once more to make sure I hadn’t disturbed anything. Orson would know.