“Well, it’s at 2.6, sir,” Prosser rambled on, hurriedly. “The grades in my other courses will keep me right around the C+-area and even a D-grade in your course might squeeze me into State.”
Professor Bannen sighed as his mind’s eye ran down the standings of his 26 students in Moral Philosophy 206. “But you’re not even doing D-work, Prosser. How can I falsify your achievements? I’d be undermining my own moral values at the same time.”
“Your — own moral values, sir?” Bannen didn’t like the insinuation in Prosser’s tone. “Aren’t those a... a little tarnished these days, sir?”
So that was it, finally. Bannen was revulsed to clenching his fists. There were strong penalties for hitting a student, Bannen warned himself with difficulty.
“If you’ve got something on your mind, Prosser, spit it out.”
“Don’t jump to any conclusions, sir. I personally don’t believe there’s a word of truth to the rumors going around about you.”
“So you don’t believe in gossip. What else?”
“Just this, sir. I like you, as a good instructor and as a pretty straight head. I’d like to help you out.”
“How can you do that, Prosser?”
“Well, I think I just might know the girl who’s making all this trouble for you. She’s a notorious liar and, well, a little unbalanced. If it’s the one I think it is.”
“And what makes you so sure you know who the girl is?”
“Talk gets around, sir. Somebody hears something and tells it to a friend and pretty soon, half the Western world is in on it. And I got a kid sister and she hears a lot of stuff, too.”
Krieg Bannen looked at Mark Prosser with a steady gaze.
“Why don’t you just tell me the girl’s name?” he said evenly. “I’ll take it from there.”
“No deal, Professor. I mean, you’d probably tell the police and there’d be a big stink about it. A better way would be for her to just go down to the police herself and tell them she was exaggerating a little. She’d tell them she didn’t want to get you into any trouble and to just drop the whole thing.”
“I don’t see where that would do much good,” Bannen told Prosser. “Most of the damage is already done.”
“That’s just it, sir. We’ll undo it. I mean, when people find out she was just doing it to get attention, they’ll forget all about the incident ever happening.”
Carefully, Bannen said, “And I imagine that since you’re doing this favor for me, you’ll want one done for you in return.”
Suddenly, even before Prosser could speak his terms, the dawn was beginning to come up to Bannen. Like thunder. “Like see my way clear to give you a passing grade in my course. A nice, fat C, for instance.”
“Now you’re getting the picture, Professor. Actually, even a D-grade would be all right, because I could still pull down my 2.5. g.p.a.”
Bannen’s stomach tumbled with nausea. Mark Prosser, despicable and dense as he was, had Bannen over a barrel with his backside showing. It was plain and simple blackmail. Somehow he had managed to crack through to the core of this whole grisly episode and now had no qualms about using the knowledge to his own advantage. He might not be directly involved, but he was playing it like a ruthless pro.
“I’ll give it some thought, Prosser.”
“You do that, sir. Remember, I’m in a position to get you out of a real bind here. But I wouldn’t think on it too long. These scandals have a way of becoming fact if they aren’t undone right away. Be seeing you, Professor.”
In his cramped office, Bannen went through the motions of preparing for his forced sabbatical. He laid out a spare key and syllabus copies for Jeff Hodson, one of the department’s associate professors. But his thoughts were on Mark Prosser and the more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that Prosser was behind the entire nightmare. It was specifically designed to gain him a passing grade in Bannen’s course and get him into a chair at State University, squeezing out a more promising, better qualified student.
That still left Banned to wrestle with the identity of the girl who had turned his life into a pile of rubble. But there were two girls Bannen recalled now. The calls to his home and to Horace Whittly at the university had been from a “girl friend” of the young girl who had been ficticiously confronted that morning in Price Avenue. Who were they?
Obviously, they were girls acquainted with Mark Prosser. And then he remembered Prosser mentioning that he had a younger sister. And it seemed to him that Prosser also had a steady girl friend, one Bannen had seen in Prosser’s company on many occasions. Randomly gathering books and papers to take with him to Coeur D’Alene, he tried desperately to afix a name to the almond-shaped face with wild blonde hair.
It was just a face, one which might take him weeks to run into on a campus the sprawling size of Shoreline C.C. Just a face without a name. If the face was a sophomore, as Mark Prosser was, then he had a copy of it in a drawer in his desk! In last year’s yearbook!
Humorists had a theory about the futility of looking for things you need. What was it? They never turned up until you didn’t need them? Fruitlessly he emptied the three drawers in his desk and then started in on the bookcase when Jeff Hodson interrupted his frantic search, regarding him seriously, the way a psychiatrist might regard a patient going berserk.
“Listen, if you’re planning to set the torch to these ancient facilities, I can come back later with the firemen and throw on some gasoline.”
“I’m looking for a book,” Bannen said not looking back.
“Lot of them on the floor there.”
“Copy of last year’s annual. You seen it?” Hodson often used the office to grade themes and finals.
“Next shelf down. Ten books in from the left. You got a crush on a frosh, or something?”
“Looking for a face,” Bannen explained as he found where Hodson was pointing and began tearing through the pages. “A girl.”
“I understand what Spring does to a man, Krieg. Your secret’s safe with old Hodson.”
If Hodson knew of his current difficulty, which was very likely, he was trying his best not to let it show. Bannen was grateful for it.
“Here it is,” he said aloud. “Carmine Baggroli. Now, to find out where she is on campus!”
“I have to hand it to you, Krieg. When Spring comes, you don’t waste any valuable time.”
Ignoring Hodson’s barbs, Bannen quickly dialed the registrar’s office, mindful that all nine o’clock classes would be breaking in ten minutes.
“Yes, this is Professor Bannen of the Philosophy Department,” he said when a voice came on the line. “I’d like the Monday morning classes of Carmine Baggroli, sophomore pre-major. Yes, I’ll wait.”
“I know you didn’t do it, Krieg,” Hodson said suddenly. “Excuse me, but it’s all over the campus like ivy. You didn’t, did you?”
“No.”
“Knew it all along. Oderint dum metuant, eh?”
“The only Latin I know is Cesar Romero,” Bannen said, who in fact had a better command of it than Hodson, but didn’t have the time to wrestle with the translation.
“ ‘Let them hate so long as they fear,’ ” Hodson said. “You got some hatred on your hands, Krieg?”
“No, I think it’s just a simple matter of blackmail,” Bannen said as he quickly took down the data now being spoken to him over the phone.
“Something to do with this business with the girl?”
“No time to explain now, Hodson. I’ve got to get over to Rammaford Hall. Key and your syllabus copies are on the desk someplace. And straighten this room up, will you? It’s a mess.”
Rammaford Hall, by footpath, was a five-minute run, but Krieg Bannen, by taking some shortcuts over hills and behind campus buildings, cut his traveling time to two minutes.