"Yes, Walter?"
"You're excused."
"But – "
"Please."
Weymond looked from him to me just once. Standing again, her panty hose rustled. She left the room without another word, probably trying to play back and file away what I'd already said. When the door closed behind her, Strock said, "How dare you! I can have your license – "
"Strock, I can have yours too."
He shuddered once, and suddenly the acerbic academic devolved into someone a lot older and grayer. "What do you mean?"
"I know all about you and the student that called the cops. Now, you're going to answer every question I ask, and politely. Otherwise, the student newspaper gets to play Washington Post to your Dick Nixon. We understand each other?"
His lids lowered halfway. "Yes."
"How did you find out that I wasn't straight with you on Monday'?"
"The girl that I didn't pick as my research assistant."
"Nina Russo?"
"Yes."
I started to get up. "Sorry. Strock."
"No! Wait, it's true. She was pissed off royally that I picked Kimberly over her. The stupid cu – Russo should have been amazed that she was even in the running, with her looks. She – Russo – was in a bar near here, complaining about me. When Russo said you talked to her about it, one of the male students overheard and later told Kimberly."
That seemed reasonable. It didn't take much to picture male students trying to play up to Kimberly.
"How did you know about Maisy Andrus being away?"
"The dean."
"Fill in the blanks, Strock."
A deep breath. "Maisy told him about some threats or whatever she'd been getting. Said she needed some time off. He told her he understood, even told her she could cancel her special session course. Then he became concerned as he always does about how that might play with the rest of the faculty. So he came to me for counsel." Strock mustered a wan smile. "He may be weak, but he is politic."
"When did he come to you?"
"When? Yesterday sometime. Yes, yesterday evening, just before my seven o'clock. I prefer my classes start on time, you see, and I recall being a bit testy that he was staying so long."
"What do you know about the threats?"
"Only what he told me."
"Which was'?"
"Just that Maisy had received them. For God's sake, man, the positions and people she associates herself with, I'm not surprised."
I got all the way up this time. "All right, Strock. Let's leave things at that for now. But keep it zipped, okay."
"You have no right – "
"I meant your mouth."
20
I HADN'T MUCH ENJOYED THE SESSION WITH WALTER STROCK. I figured to enjoy the next one even less.
Most of Dorchester has never been upscale. The streets have terrific names; just the A's include Armandine, Aspinwall, and Athewold. The structures, however, reflect the culture a little more exactly. Peeling three-deckers with decayed porches, burned-out storefronts boarded over with warping plywood, vacant lots full of rubble but free of hope. Working class launching welfare class, generations of experience greasing the skids.
The clubhouse for the American Trust was just off Gallivan Boulevard. From the outside it looked like it might once have been a laundry. Now there were reinforced metal shutters instead of plate glass and professional signs. The two hand-lettered messages on the shutters read: ATTACK DOGS ON PREMMISES and DONT FUCK WITH US.
I got out of the Prelude and locked it. Approaching the door, I could hear the rumble of a loud stereo. I knocked politely twice. Then I banged on the door until I heard the music stop.
A "Joe-sent-me" slot opened on the other side of the door and one of the kids from the library looked out. "Yeah?"
His eyes were bleary from being high, and he didn't place me.
"I'd like to talk to Gunther Yary."
"Ain't here." The slot closed with authority.
I started banging again. The music came back on. I kept hammering away until it stopped.
The slot reopened. The same kid said, "Get the fuck out of my face, awright?"
"I want to talk with somebody about Yary."
"I said he ain't here. You deaf or what?"
"You can let me in, or I can camp out here and talk to the first one of you leaves or comes. Your choice."
"Aw, fuck. Just a second."
The slot closed again. I waited. The music didn't come back on. Then the sounds of bolts and maybe a crossbar from the other side of the door before it swung open. A bit too inviting to be credible. The kid I'd been talking with was smiling. "Come on in, man."
I took a step with my right foot, then drove off it to the left, barging my left shoulder as hard as I could into the door. The metal hit something that gave, then crunched a little as the door wouldn't go any farther.
I jumped to the right as my greeter came at me. I grabbed him by the left arm and spun him around and over my outstretched left leg.
Something sagged behind the door. Something else heavy and metallic clattered to the floor as the door itself swung back. I drew the Chief's Special from the holster over my right hip.
Rick, the guy who'd been feeding Yary set-up lines at the library, slumped forward, scrabbling for the Colt.45 Automatic that was between his legs. Blood was flowing pretty freely from his nose and maybe a lip too. There was enough blood that it was tough to tell.
"Don't," I said.
Rick didn't look up at me. He moved his hand toward where he thought the gun would be.
I cocked mine. At the sound, the guy stopped, weighing things. He wasn't deciding for peace yet.
I said, "This thing makes only one more noise."
Convinced, Rick sat back.
I moved toward him and edged the automatic away. My greeter was just about to his elbows on the floor. I slid the Colt into the pocket of my raincoat. Then I went back to the door, slamming it shut, but using only one dead bolt to secure it.
Rick was gingerly touching his nose and cringing. My greeter was up to his knees, but wobbly.
I took in the room. Hung ceiling with some panels missing, the rest stained. Posters on the walls of scabrous guys with long hair or no hair, done up in leather and gripping heavy-metal guitars like tommy guns. Two flags, a small Confederate war banner, and an even smaller Nazi swastika. The stereo system on sturdy plastic milk crates, incongruously scrubbed-looking in red, white, and blue. A blue crate held stacks of audiocassette tapes. The ones with printed labels were mostly Def Leppard, Motley Crue, and Aerosmith. The knockoffs were Skrewdriver, No Remorse, and Immoral Discipline. The floor, once nicely carpeted, was now burned and torn, smelling like stale beer. There were enough cans of Coors around the base of the walls to build an Airstream trailer. Two sets of bunk beds met head to toe at one corner, a cluttered desk to one side. I said, "The photo team from Better Homes and Gardens been here yet?"
"Fuck you," said Rick, burbling a little through the blood.
I moved to the desk and started rooting around.
"Hey," said my greeter, "you can't do that."
"Constitution's suspended for a while, boys."
Most of the paperwork was in the form of leaflets, newsletters, and requests for contributions. White Aryan Resistance and some kind of affiliated group called the Aryan Youth Movement, both from Southern California; The American Front from Northern California; White Heritage from the Midwest. Some newspaper and magazine clippings, but of whole articles. About white supremacy groups like the Klan, the Order, and the Posse Comitatus. One long story from the Boston Globe on skinheads in New England. A poor Xerox copy of a report from the Antidefamation League of the B'nai B'rith, defaced with predictable remarks. Even an ad from a British magazine for steel-toed Dr Martens workboots, which seemed to match what the skinheads were wearing.
No mutilated headlines, though.
I walked over to my greeter. "Let me explain the drill."
He looked at me sideways, the way you might watch a kid who steals ice cream from your cafeteria tray.