Cort looked up at me for a long silent moment. Morton turned from the window frowning. I bore it stoutly.
"I'd like a full report, please," Cort said. He had on a double breasted gray pinstripe suit and a large silk foulard tie.
"I haven't found out anything," I said.
"That's your idea of a full report?"
"Often," I said, "I'm referred to as the great compressionist."
Haller recrossed his legs on the coffee table. "You've practically pillaged our student personnel records. You badgered a large number of faculty members, Dwayne Woodcock is now on the bench, Taft is likely to lose the NCAA championship tournament. Neither Dwayne nor Coach Dunham will comment on this. The national press is in full cry." Cort's voice was a masterful example of emotion under firm control.
"Aw, hell," I said, "it wasn't much."
"You have charged that Dwayne cannot read," Cort said.
I didn't say anything.
Morton had his arms folded across his chest. He had on a dark blue pinstriped double breasted suit with a large maroon silk tie.
"And you have nothing to report?" he said.
"Hard to believe, isn't it," I said.
"Mr. Spenser," Cort said, "we have been paying you to find out things that we want found out, not to disrupt this campus and annoy our faculty."
"No extra charge for that," I said. "It's a professional courtesy."
"There's nothing funny about this, Spenser," Morton said. "We want an accounting."
"Don't blame you," I said, "but I'm not going to give you one."
Morton looked at Haller. Cort looked at Haller.
Cort said, "Vince, do we not have a viable legal position here?"
Haller smiled. "Sure you do, Adrian. Everybody has a viable legal position everywhere in this great land, whatever that means. But in fact what you can do is fire him or accept his report. All other courses are, ah, counterproductive."
"Counterproductive," I said. "Vince, you been taking night courses?"
"Flippancy is no substitute for competence, Mr. Spenser," Cort said.
"That's too bad," I said. "I was hoping to get by on it."
Cort looked at Morton. Morton looked at Haller. Haller shrugged.
"You leave us no choice," Cort said. "I'm afraid we're going to have to terminate our arrangement as of now. We will honor your expenses through this afternoon until five."
"Call it even," I said.
I turned and started for the door.
Haller said, "Wait a minute, Spenser." He turned to Cort and Morton. "You think firing him will get him out of your hair. It won't. He's got hold of something's tail, I know him. He's not going to let go until he pulls it out of its hole and sees what it is."
"He will no longer be welcome on this campus," Cort said.
Haller laughed. "You think he cares? He isn't welcome most places. He doesn't give a shit, Adrian, whether he's welcome or he isn't." Haller turned toward me. "Do you," he said.
I smiled enigmatically.
"What have you got, Spenser?"
I shook my head. "I don't quite know, Vince. No, that's not it. I do know. What I don't know is what the hell to do with it."
"And you won't talk about it," Haller said.
"No."
Haller shrugged. "He won't let go," he said to Cort and Morton.
"We hired him on your recommendation, Vince."
"And you didn't listen to the warnings that went with it," Haller said. "He's good. There isn't anyone as good, let alone better. But he does what the hell he is going to do and if you don't like it he doesn't care. I told you that. You hire Spenser and sometimes you get more than you hoped for and sometimes you don't like it. You remember those words?"
Cort was angry. "Enough," he said. "If there was a mistake made, now is the time to rectify it. You're fired, Mr. Spenser, and you are to be removed from campus by the university police if you are in any way an impediment to the business of this campus."
"I love it when you're angry," I said. "Your whole face lights up."
27
WHEN Hawk and I got back to my office there was a message on my machine. "This is Maguire in New York. Nothing in the computer or anywhere else on Madelaine Roth. But Deegan has a girlfriend in the Boston area. Slips out on the old lady every other week or so and goes up there. You get anything, let me know."
Hawk and I looked at each other.
"Okay," I said. "That's more coincidence than I'm ready to buy."
"Be odd," Hawk said, "if it ain't Madelaine."
"So she knows Broz from Georgetown, she knows Deegan from Queens College. When Deegan is looking for someone to scrag me, she puts him in touch with Broz."
"Education a wonderful thing," Hawk said.
"She's got to be in on the fix with Dwayne," I said.
Hawk was quiet.
"So if I follow her around, after a while she'll lead me to Deegan."
"What you going to do when you find him?" Hawk said.
"Don't screw this up," I said. "It's almost a plan."
Hawk nodded.
"Okay," I said, "you stick with Dwayne during the day. I'll try to get the campus police to cover him at night."
"Thought they didn't like you over there."
"Why should they be different," I said. "I'll call Haller, and have him talk to the college."
"Be a good idea if you did that with everybody."
"Let Haller speak for me?" I said.
"In every instance," Hawk said.
I called Haller.
"Vince," I said, "there's some chance, I don't know how great, that someone might try to kill Dwayne."
"He is caught up in something, isn't he?" Haller said.
"Hawk will cover him during the day, but he can't do it twenty-four hours. Can you get the campus cops to cover Dwayne when he's home?"
"Yes."
"Are they any good?" I said. "Like they have guns and stuff, don't they?"
"They're all right," Haller said. "It's a professional force."
"Get them to cover his house," I said, "from six at night to seven. . ." Hawk frowned at me, ". . . ah, make it eight, in the morning. Hawk will take him the rest of the time."
We hung up.
"Seven A.M.?" Hawk said. "Surely you jest."
"Hell, I was worried you'd be insulted when I said you couldn't do twenty-four hours."
"Can," Hawk said, "is different than want to."
"Sure," I said. "See if you can keep him alive till the campus cops get there."
When Hawk was gone I called Frank Belson. "I need the make and plate number of a car registered to Madelaine Roth," I said.
"And you think I'm a registry inspector," Belson said.
"I figure you wanted to be, but flunked the test," I said.
"Only way to flunk that one is to die near the beginning of it," Belson said. "How do you spell Madelaine?"
I told him.
"Call you back," he said, "unless there's a crime or something, and I get distracted."
He hung up. I sat and waited. In fifteen minutes Belson called back.
"1988 Saab 900, silver gray, Mass. vanity plate says MAD," Belson said.
"Anything else I can do for you before I go back to crime busting?"
"No," I said, "that's fine. I'll remember you at Christmas."
Belson hung up. I went down to get my car and drive to Taft.
28
I got back to Taft around three in the afternoon and began cruising the faculty and staff parking lot near the administration building. It didn't take long. I found the silver Saab with the MAD license plate in the second row three cars in, right behind the administrative building. There was a green triangular parking sticker on the right window near the door edge. I parked my car in sight of the parking area in an area marked Visitors and waited. It was not a complicated intellectual process and I was able to handle it. The campus police did not open fire on me. A cruiser moved by me once and the cop looked at me with neither interest nor recognition. At 4:37 Madelaine came out of the administrative building wearing a full pleated skirt in sort of a pale violet plaid, high lavender boots, and a gray trench coat with the collar up and the belt knotted rather than buckled. She carried a big straw bag and a smaller purse of gray leather and she walked very briskly.