A guy that size, you'd expect him to sound like James Earl Jones. But Prescott's voice, as I knew from the phone, was closer to a tenor. I listened to it for the next forty-seven minutes.
I can't say that I paid real close attention to the lecture. The guy wasn't bad – at least he seemed to be talking to us, rather than just reading his damn paper. But I wasn't too interested in what witches and demons were doing back in the seventeenth century. The ones running around today give me enough problems.
After Prescott finished his presentation, he took questions from the audience for about twenty minutes. The ones coming from students were usually polite and to the point. But you could always tell when professors were called on: they usually preceded the question with a mini-lecture designed to show off how much they already knew about the subject. And their questions seemed designed to trip Prescott up, although they didn't succeed, far as I could tell.
I thought about sticking my hand up to ask something like "Professor, what's your opinion of the power of the spells contained in the Opus Mago?" But he'd probably just shut me down and move on to the next question. My cousin Tim used to be a stand-up comic. He once told me, "Never take on the guy who controls the microphone. You'll always lose."
Better I should talk to Prescott one-on-one, in a situation he couldn't control. I hoped the reception would give me the chance I wanted.
It did. Sort of.
• • • •
The post-lecture gathering was held in a big room with hardwood floors and lots of paintings on the walls depicting big deal Jesuits of the past. Karl and I stood in a corner at first, munching some pretty good hors d'ouevres while we watched people coming ell. o pay homage to the great man. Finally, the traffic in Prescott's direction slowed down.
"Come on," I said to Karl. "It's our turn to welcome our guest to the big city. Try not to look like a thug for the next five minutes."
"Five whole minutes? Gonna be hard."
We made our way over to Prescott, who was standing next to a table on which somebody had put a big bowl of iced shrimp. The professor was scarfing them down, one after another, as if seafood was going to be illegal tomorrow. I stopped in front of him, put a suck-up smile on my face, and stuck my hand out. "Professor, I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed your talk tonight." I was hoping he wouldn't recognize my voice from the phone.
Apparently, he didn't. Prescott squeezed my hand for about a second before dropping it. "Thank you," he said with a little smile. "I'm pleased you enjoyed it, Mr…"
I was tempted, for Karl's sake, to say "Bond – James Bond," but common sense prevailed.
"My colleague and I," I said, gesturing at Karl, "were so impressed by the depth of your knowledge that we wondered if you could give us your opinion on something we've been working on." Ned had helped me work out some stuff I could say to impersonate a guy with too much education.
Prescott's smile went out like a candle in a hurricane. "Well, I hardly think this is the appropriate place for me to read any-"
"Oh, this isn't a paper, or anything like that," I said. "Just a few images that we'd been puzzling over. Can't make head or tail of them, to tell you the truth, and we figured that if anyone could help us out, it was you."
The smile I had plastered on was starting to make my face hurt.
Prescott grabbed another shrimp out of the bowl. "Well, if we can do this quickly, I suppose it might be-"
"Hey, that's terrific," I said, and pulled from my pocket a sheet of paper where I had copied the three sets of symbols we'd found on the murder victims.
Prescott popped the shrimp into his mouth and took the paper from me. I signaled Karl with my eyes, and he took a slow step to the side, blocking Prescott from a quick exit in case he tried to walk away once he realized we'd conned him.
Prescott's eyes narrowed as he stared at the symbols on the paper. After a few seconds, I said quietly, "Those were found carved into the bodies of three recent murder victims. Rumor has it they were taken from a spell that's part of the Opus Mago. You remember the Opus Mago, don't you, Professor?"
His eyes wide open now, Prescott looked up from the paper and stared at me in shock and anger. He drew in breath to speak, but I'll never know what he intended to say.
• • • •
Prescott's mouth was open, but instead of angry words, what came out were a series of hoarse grunts. His fleshy face began to turn a deep shade of red.
"Christ, he's choking on the shrimp!" I said to Karl. "Your arms are longer – quick, Heimlich him!"
Karl immediately slipped behind Prescott and threw his arms around the big man's midsection, clasping his hands together in front. He gave the quick, hard squeeze that was supposed to constrict Prescott's diaphragm with enough pressure to send the shrimp back out of his windpipe.
Nothing happened. Other guests were starting to converge on us now, asking urgent questions that I paid no attention to. I whipped out my badge and held it up. "Police officer, get back!" I yelled. "Somebody call 911!"
Karl shifted his grip a couple of inches and tried again. Still nothing.
Karl moved his hands again, took a deep breath, and squeezed hard.
Nothing came out. Prescott's knees were starting to sag now. There was no way Karl could keep him on his feet and work the Heimlich maneuver at the same time, so I moved in, directly in front of Prescott, so close that our chests were touching. I grabbed a handful of his belt on each side and braced my elbows against my hips, trying to hold up what was quickly becoming four hundred-some pounds of dead weight.
"Go on!" I grunted. "Do it! Quick!"
Karl adjusted his grip once more and I heard him grunt as he gave another desperate squeeze.
And a piece of half-chewed shrimp popped out of Prescott's gaping mouth and hit me right in the face.
A moment later, it was followed by the remains of his dinner.
Must have been a hell of a big meal. Spicy, too.
Back at the squad, I took a long, hot shower, then put on the set of spare clothes I keep in my locker for times like this.
I figured that some of the smell of Prescott's vomit must be still clinging to me, the way Lieutenant McGuire's nose kept wrinkling while Karl and I told him about our little adventure in academia.
Or maybe he just thought it was our story that stank.
"So, I assume after the professor stopped choking to death, he was in no mood to answer any of your questions," McGuire said sourly.
"We never got the chance to find out," I told him. "He could breathe okay, but couldn't stand up or speak. Somebody called 911, and the EMTs showed up and took him to Mercy Hospital."
"But he turned out to be okay, right?" The way McGuire said it, there was only one correct answer to that question.
Too bad we couldn't give it to him.
"Actually, uh, no," Karl said. "The docs think maybe he had a stroke."
McGuire gave Karl a look that would've raised welts on some people. "A stroke."
"They're not sure if it was brought on by the choking, or if something else caused it," I said.
McGuire gave me some of the same look, and it's a wonder I didn't start bleeding right there.
"So, I assume Professor Prescott is planning to sue the city over what you two morons did?" he said, finally.
I took a deep breath and let it out. "We don't know," I said.
McGuire blinked. "What – they wouldn't let you in to see him?"
"No, we got into his room at the ICU for a couple of minutes," I said.
"So what's he got to say for himself?" McGuire asked.
"Not a lot," Karl said. "See, he's, uh, kind of in a, well-"
"A coma," I said. "Prescott's in a coma."
McGuire didn't say anything to that. He sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. Using the first two fingers of each hand, he began to rub his eyelids, very gently.