“What does he mean, George?” Louise said.
George hadn’t heard her. He was watching Cornell.
“What’s known for certain is that the chancellor gave this party for the board of trustees. What’s known for certain is the guest list. The trustees of course, the higher-ups in the administration — the provost and deans, a handful of chairmen from the important departments. All the wives and husbands. One or two coaches, even some students — the editor of the campus newspaper, the president of the student council, kids like that.”
“Harry Claunch Sr.,” George Mills said.
“You heard this story, George?” Messenger said.
“Go on,” Mills said, not just interested now but, as Messenger had said, with an interest.
“What’s known for certain is the menu.”
“The menu?”
“Melon and prosciutto,” Messenger said. “Salmon mousse. Sorbet. Provimi veal with artichoke sauce. Fiddlehead fern as a veggie and cold fresh lingonberry soup for dessert. Piesporter Gold Tropchen was the white wine, a ’7 °Cheval Blanc was the red. They didn’t sit down to dinner, you understand. This was buffet the servants brought round.”
“How do you know all this?” George Mills asked.
“The editor of the student paper ran an editorial. He won’t be asked back but what the hell, he’s graduating.”
“We used to serve fiddlehead,” Louise said. “We used to do salmon mousse.”
“In the school cafeteria?” Cornell said.
“Sure,” Louise said, “at the end of the month. We did all sorts of gourmet meals. It’s how we saved money. The dietician would spend thirty or forty dollars on this fancy food. She knew darn well the kids wouldn’t touch it.”
Messenger shook his head. “That’s truly astonishing, Lulu.”
“It was a trick of the trade,” Louise said modestly.
“What happened? What’s known for certain?” Mills asked impatiently.
“I’ve got George’s attention,” Messenger said.
“You’ve got my attention too, Cornell,” Louise said.
“I hope so, Lulu,” Messenger said. “All right,” he said. He turned to George Mills. “Nothing’s known for certain. I already told you.”
“The car is gone. Where’s it parked now?”
Messenger shrugged.
“Did you think to call the paper boy?”
“Hey,” Messenger said, “that’s an idea. No,” he said, “he delivers to a license plate. We’d never be able to track them down.”
“What’s all this about?” Louise asked.
“Sam Glazer’s been fired,” George Mills said. “He’s lost his job.”
“Offered to resign,” Messenger said.
“Asked to resign,” Mills said.
“You could be right. His friends say offered.”
Because they were bargaining now, haggling. Negotiating over fact like a rug in the bazaar.
“None of this came from that other paper boy,” Mills said, “the one that edits the student paper?”
“He published the guest list, he published the menu.”
“The kid sounds like a go-getter. Why do you suppose he’d stop there?”
“Shit, I don’t know, George. That’s not even important. They can come down pretty hard on these kids if they have to. What you have to understand is power, campus politics. Take my word for it, George. I’m the professor here.”
“I’m the butler,” Mills said. “No,” he said, “all you have to understand is that guest list. He wasn’t there.”
“Who?”
“The paper boy.”
“Of course he was there.”
“For the meat and the fish. For the soup for dessert. He wasn’t there then.”
“When?”
“When he was asked to resign. When he did whatever it was Claunch said he did and then nailed him for. Practically nobody was.”
“Some butler,” Messenger said. “No one may leave before the king. A lot you know.”
“The king gave the party. It was the king’s own house.”
“Yes?” Messenger said.
“Because it works in reverse. Because that’s protocol too. Ask, what’shisname, Grant.”
“So the students would have left first? Is that what you’re saying?”
“That’s right,” Mills said.
“Then the chairmen and coaches?”
“That’s right.”
“Then the lesser deans. The dean of the night school, the dean of the—”
“That’s right.”
“No,” Messenger said. “The provost outranks him. According to your own protocols he’d have been on his way out before the provost, before the trustees and all those wives.”
“That’s right,” George Mills said. And felt as Wickland must have felt when he’d shown him his sister in the square in Cassadaga during their seance forty years earlier. As he’d felt himself when he’d shown Wickland Jack Sunshine’s father and the fourteen-year-old girl with the withered body of an old woman who’d given Jack Sunshine his height.
“But if he’d already gone home …”
“I didn’t say that,” George Mills said.
Messenger looked at him. “Been on his way out?”
“That’s right,” Mills said.
“All right,” Messenger said impatiently, “been on his way out. What difference does …” He stared at Mills.
“That’s right,” George said.
“You know you’ve got a nasty mind?” his friend said. “You know you’re one heavy-duty son of a bitch?”
“What?” Louise asked. “What? Are you following any of this, George?”
“Following? Shit, Lulu honey, he’s leading the goddamn band.” He put his arm around her shoulder. “Nothing like this is in the black buzz,” Messenger said. “I mean this isn’t the way they’re talking on the Rialto. What they’re saying up there is much milder. ‘Offered to resign’ is the worst of it.”
“What are they saying?”
“Well, it’s a joke really. It started when it got out that Max and Ruth had taken their car away from the front of his house.”
“Yes,” Mills said.
“Max and Ruth? You’re crazy. You actually think they were invited?”
“No,” George Mills said.
“They’d have been thrown out. They’d have called the cops on them if they dared crash that dinner party. And don’t tell me they helped serve. They don’t have uniforms. Even if they did, do you think the chancellor would let them? Run a downer on his guest by having those two characters get close enough to pass out actual food? People who live in a fucking jalopy, a beat-up, stale-aired old clunker that probably looked used when it came off the goddamn assembly line? Who take baths in the rest room sinks of gas stations? Moochers with freeload cookie crumbs in their scalp and bits of old poetry-reading cheese stuck to the creases of their clothing? With Gallo like mouthwash on their breath? Jesus, George, they’d be lucky if they got as far as the back door for a handout.”
“That’s right,” George said.
Messenger was stunned. “Is that what you think? Jesus, is that what you think?”
“Is what what he thinks?” Louise said.
“Your husband just said they were in the kitchen eating above-their-station leftovers when it happened. He says the chancellor’s residence is so huge that they had to have been shouting loud enough for Max and Ruth to hear every word all the way in the back of the house. He says that whatever it was they heard must have been so damning it scared even them off, that they just climbed into their house and drove it away and never returned.”
“He said that?”
“That’s right,” Mills said. “Yes,” he said, and turned back to George, “but how would they even know about that dinner party?”