He leaned the canvases back against the desk and went noiselessly to the bathroom door. He heard a soft, derisive whistling. He shrugged and surveyed the walls again. Two enormous blowups had obviously not been snapped by young Mr. Sullivan: one of Humphrey Bogart, the other of W. C. Fields. Fields was in his Micawber costume, Bogart in his Harry Morgan character from To Have and Have Not.
Dennis Sullivan stepped back into the room fully dressed. He had put on a black shirt and a fawn-colored vest; the shirt was buttoned at the neck, but he was tieless. Instead, a large round silver medallion on a leather thong hung to his chest.
“I couldn’t get to first base with her,” Sullivan said.
“With Laura?”
“Who else, man? She was uptight. At least as far as I was concerned.” He fingered his medallion. There was something smoothly nervous about him, like a lid over a can of eels. McCall stared at his gold earring. It was for real; the lobe had been pierced.
“You don’t seem much broken up about what happened to her.”
“Should I be? I’m sorry somebody beat her up, of course, but teasers lead a dangerous life.”
“She’s a teaser?”
“Opinions differ. Anyway, what happened to Dean Gunther grabs me more than Laura’s beating. His death affects the situation here at school, and that’s something that concerns everybody. Conditions are rotten bad, Mr. McCall.”
“Let’s stick to Laura. How well do you know her?”
Even standing still there was a swagger to Sullivan; he had a certain flair. “Biblically I struck out. Socially, it’s relative, like everything else.”
“Answering nothing.”
“I mean she’s a good enough chick, but we don’t really get on. She likes me, all right, but that’s as far as it goes. What I’m concerned about is the way ’Squanto is run. The students are the majority, shouldn’t they have a voice in what goes on? I think so. But they say the system offers you a route and you’ve got to take it or bug out. Take pot, for instance. Why shouldn’t we be able to smoke pot if we like? Why in hell can’t it be legalized? Or LSD? Or speed? Whose rights am I trampling on when I take a trip?”
“That has nothing to do with ’Squanto,” McCall said. “That’s a matter of law.”
“But it’s an example.”
“The trouble with you campus radicals, Sullivan, is that you don’t focus. You’re like the general who got on his horse and rode off in all directions.”
“Focus? I reserve all my focusing for my photo lenses.”
“Yes, I see you’re interested in photography.”
“I’m studying photographic journalism. But like I say, you focus your attention on something instead of your camera’s, you’re blind to everything else that needs changing. A camera records what’s happening; a man has to keep on the watch for what’s coming. I’m involved with the changing world, man, dig? Take complacency. Everybody’s complacent today. Well, you’ve got to be jarred loose! We want to make new rules — turn ’Squanto into a meaningful experience.”
“I don’t have the time to listen to your philosophy just now, Sullivan,” McCall said. “Meanwhile, you may have been the last one to see Laura Thornton before she was attacked. You were seen with her Friday noon.”
“Oh, that,” Sullivan said. “Laura was walking over to the liberal arts building and I gave her a lift.”
“You didn’t see her after you dropped her off?”
“No.”
“Why was she going there, do you know?”
“Well, they have a department that operates like a library, loaning out paintings like books. Students borrow them. Laura was returning a painting.” He seemed to consider something, hesitated, then said, “That’s all I know. I dropped her off there, and that’s it. We hardly talked on the way.”
“Oh?” McCall said. “Did you have a spat?”
“It had nothing to do with me. I remember thinking she must be off her feed or something, because usually she’s talkative. When I let her out with the painting she took off fast, and I went about my business. You know, it gives you an eerie feeling at that, realizing you may have been the last to see her.”
“You’re talking as if she’s dead, Sullivan.” McCall was watching him closely.
“Oh, I didn’t mean it that way! I meant...” Whatever it was he meant, he did not explain. “I wonder why she was clobbered like that.”
“Whoever did it must have had a powerful reason, wouldn’t you say?”
“But to be so brutal,” Sullivan muttered. “And now the dean. Stabbed to death. Almost like the two things are tied in somehow. And then there’s that blackmail — those notes.”
It struck McCall like a blow. “How do you know about that, Sullivan?”
“Didn’t you read the morning papers? All about those letters. They say you found them.”
McCall hid his anger. It had never occurred to him that the police would publicize the letters while their discovery was still steaming. What could Chief Pearson be thinking of? Unless it hadn’t been Pearson but Lieutenant Long. Either way, it was not going to help the situation on campus. To the stew of campus unrest was now added the spice of a dean who was accused of having played around with coeds — a dean, moreover, who had got himself murdered as a result of it.
“Groovy, man,” Sullivan said with a grin. “Old Gunther making like Humbert Humbert. Wait till I get Pat’s reaction! She’ll love it.”
“Humbert Humbert?” McCall said.
The student stared. “The guy in Lolita.” Then he shrugged. “I’ve learned one thing in my young life — I don’t think anything would surprise me any more.”
“Lolita was hardly the college-student age,” McCall said shortly. “Who’s Pat?”
“Well, you could call her my steady. Patricia Reed.”
“I thought you were hot after Laura Thornton.”
“That was for kicks,” Sullivan explained patiently. “Pat and me, we’ve got a thing going. And speaking of going, that’s just what I’ve got to do. You through with me, Mr. McCall?”
“For now.”
“I’d like to talk to you in depth when we’ve got more time. You know, like about drugs, sex, Vietnam, the whole bag. You being the gov’s man Friday and all, you could maybe give his excellency the inside on what’s really cooking at ’Squanto, and why.”
“Yes, we’ll have to do that. Can I drop you somewhere?”
Sullivan politely declined the offer, and they parted on the walk before his rooming house. Sullivan had a Bolex slung over his shoulder.
McCall drove slowly back to the administration building, thinking young Sullivan over. He was another opaque one. No matter what came out of their mouths, when you analyzed it it amounted to nothing. Was it part of the scene, or were these deliberate opacities, for personal reasons? McCall shook his head. He had never felt so alienated in his life. It was like dealing with extraterrestrial beings.
Something was brewing on campus again. It was overrun with students. Placards waved wildly. There was a great deal of shouting, and little scuffling eddies where disagreements broke out into violence. Before one building McCall saw something that made him think he was back in the colleges he had known — a snake dance. But it was only in mockery; the students were actually on a picket line. They danced to the accompaniment of a derisive chant. The only word in the chant McCall could make out clearly was “pig.” Scanning the faces of the campus police, McCall had no doubt whom the students meant.