His hands fell away from his private parts. His breathing eased. He got up and into a sitting position. “You sure move fast for an old guy.”
“A compliment and insult in one sentence. I’m sure you fit right in at the Philosophy department.”
He ran a hand across the bald part of his head. “Yeah, but there’s no future there. No future in anything in higher education that doesn’t produce good little worker bees and consumer bees. Plus I’m an instructor, which means no tenure, lots of hours, and minimal pay. And the tenured ones, no matter which department they belong to, they live in that special ivory tower where they’ve managed to quickly pull the ladder up after them.”
“We’ve all got problems, don’t we. Look, I’m looking for some information about the anti-nuclear demonstrations. I get that and I leave.”
“Maybe I’ll call the Lee cops, have you arrested for assault.”
“Maybe you will, and I’ll say it’s all a misunderstanding, with no witnesses. To be terribly self-promoting, I’ll drop a name or two in law enforcement that will cast suspicions on you and make me look like the citizen of the year.”
He rubbed at his head again, moved his legs around. “So what are you looking for, what information about the demonstrations?”
“I take it you were involved with them?”
“Damn right I was. We’ve got to stop the madness of—”
I held up my hand. “Please. I was there for a number of days. I know all the talking points. You were with the Nuclear Freedom Front, right?”
“Sort of. Knew some people there, worked with them.”
“Good. Because I’m looking for Curt Chesak.”
“Why do you want to know where he is?”
“Let’s just say I’m from the Publishers Clearing House prize patrol and leave it at that.”
“No,” Ken quickly said.
“No, what? No, I don’t know where Curt Chesak is living, or no, I’m not going to tell you?”
His expression hardened. “Just no. Take it any way you like.”
I made a point of sighing. “Fair enough. No hard feelings, eh?”
I stood up and extended my hand, and he took my hand and I helped him up, and then I kept on helping him up as I pulled him, tripped him, and then pushed him to the ground. I got on his back and deftly undid my leather belt, and in a few seconds I had him secured by the wrists. A lot more cursing ensued — again, nothing particularly original; I guess a mind is a terrible thing to waste — and near the doghouses, I found some lengths of rope. In a few minutes, I had my belt back, and I had a very unhappy college instructor under my control.
“Wasn’t it Plato who said philosophy is the highest form of music?” I asked. “Not sure if I have the ear for music or philosophy, but let’s see what I can do.”
CHAPTER NINE
I moved around his cluttered yard, discovered a lawn chair, which I brought back. Late-fall insects were battering themselves around the spotlight, and the dogs, having eaten their fill, were lying down, watching me and their supposed master.
Lawn chair before him, I sat down and said, “What’s with the dogs?”
“What about them?”
“Why do you keep them outdoors like this, all chained up? Very medieval, don’t you think?”
“I hate the damn things. Why should I have them in my house?”
“Then why do you have them?”
He spat at me, missed. “I don’t have them. They belong to my damn ex-wife Melissa, and every week she promises me she’ll come here and pick them up. Damn bitch is in California now… how in hell is that supposed to take place?”
“You’re a college instructor, Ken, I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” I crossed my hands in my lap. “Here’s the situation. I want to know where Curt Chesak is. From your replies, I have a pretty good idea you know where he is.”
He said I should perform an impossible sexual act upon myself. I said, “I’ve heard worse. So here we go. I want that information, and I’m prepared to wait a very long time for you to give it to me.”
Ken said something rude again about my parentage. I said, “Words, professor. Just words. Haven’t you taught your students about the origin of the phrase ‘sticks and stones’?”
His breathing quickened. “What are you going to do, torture me?”
“Nope. Learned a long, long time ago that torture results in poor intelligence results. People will say or do anything to escape torture. I’m not going to touch you at all, Ken. Not one bit.”
I crossed my legs and looked at him. He looked at his house, his ex-wife’s dogs, and then to me. “So what the hell is going on here?”
I held my hands out. “So we wait. I’ll wait here, and you’ll wait there on the ground. It’s going to get colder. Your circulation will start to fail. You’ll get thirsty, hungry, and any bathroom needs you have will need to be taken care of where you lie. I might get up, stretch my legs, wander into your open home to see what I might scrounge for food and drink, and maybe come back out here and keep on sitting with some blankets to keep me warm. I might turn off the floodlight so I can get some star-gazing in. So that’s what’s going on, Ken.”
Another explosion of words sent my way, involving my parentage, my sexual habits, and certain barnyard animals.
I said, “Again, I’ve heard worse.”
He gave up about three hours later. “Please,” he whispered. “Please.”
“You know the deal.”
“Curt… a real fucking mystery man… came in and, depending on who you talked to, either was from Boston or L.A. or New York… smart, wicked smart… but after he joined the NFF, went from being a grunt to the guy running the joint… ”
“Why is that?”
“Who the fuck knows… he just had this… knack… of running things… and money, he had lots of money… always in cash… we need camping gear, no prob… cell phones… no prob… ”
“Where did the money come from?”
“Nobody knew that either.”
“What about Professor Heywood Knowlton? From BU?”
“Gave him chops… introduced him around… vouched for him… I got the feeling he brought Curt to other professors in other colleges… ”
One of the dogs got up, walked in a circle, urinated, and sat back down. “You said he was a mystery man. What sort of clues did you figure out?”
“I’m so damn cold… ”
“I need to know more.”
He coughed. “Don’t know if this means anything… couple of my girl students… they were in love with him… him being a bad boy and all… they cooked for him, cleaned, probably boffed him… ”
“Very sweet. Go on.”
“… one night, one of the girls came to me… she was doing his washing… found some papers stuck in his pocket… ”
“What were they?”
“Didn’t make sense… ”
“Doesn’t have to make sense. What were they?”
“One was a boarding pass… from Boston to Dulles… the other was a scrap of paper, a phone number or something… written on hotel stationery, located in Crystal something or another.”
“Crystal City? In Virginia?”
“Yeah… ”
“So what was the phone number for?”
“Huh?”
“Come on, Ken, you’re a smart fellow. You tell me you weren’t curious, you didn’t give that number a quick dial?”
He coughed again, kept quiet. By then I was sitting with two wool blankets over my legs and torso. I held up one of the blankets. “So close, Ken, so very close.”
“… a bunch of lawyers. A law firm. On K Street in D.C… you know who lives there… ”