Students were staring at the design on the wall. Others were wiping their clothes with paper napkins. Nobody seemed surprised or offended. A sort of good humor settled over the cafeteria. At one table a student held up a placard on a long pole: BUG THE BOARD. A fat young man hurried over to the wall carrying a poster. He hung it beside the spaghetti stains: HEADS — STAY OUT OF SIGHT; grinning.
Abruptly at another table five students jumped up.
“Ready—” one shouted.
“Aim—” another shouted.
“FIRE!”
Five plates smashed against the wall decorated by the spaghetti. Cheers rose from other tables. The five sprinted for the door, sending chairs flying.
A student in a stained apron walked from behind the food counter carrying a mop and pail. He looked pale and tired. He began cleaning up the mess.
McCall finished his lunch, wiped his mouth, and headed for the door. He almost bowled over Kathryn Cohan.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi, yourself.” After the incident of the wall, she looked good enough to eat.
“I thought I’d find you here,” she said, “knowing men’s stomachs. I ducked just in time. How do you like the younger generation?”
“Have you had your lunch?”
“Ages ago. In the far corner, where it’s relatively safe. Any progress?”
They left the Student Union and headed for the administration building. There was no sign of any of the food-throwing students. Their hands brushed accidentally, and McCall looked down in surprise. She jerked her hand away as if she had felt something, too.
“You didn’t answer my question, Mr. McCall.”
“I’ve barely started to dig in. Is that scene in the cafeteria just now typical, Miss Cohan?”
“Listen,” she said with some heat. “Don’t get the idea that the student body as a whole goes in for stupid things like that. Even among the so-called agitators it’s frowned on as frivolous and childish, which it is. I don’t agree with most of the minorities on campus, but they’re sincere. It’s a fringe group that does things like this.”
“Is it just the fringe group that riots?” McCall asked dryly.
“No... but, well, they think they’re right. And they do have legitimate grievances. Not that I approve of rioting or any of these militant measures. But please don’t lump all the students with convictions as freaks and anarchists, the way some of the faculty and administration do.”
“Are you sure you’re not a spy for the other side?” McCall asked with a smile.
“It’s not funny, McCall!” Kathryn stamped her foot. “Most of the students aren’t here for trouble. But there’s trouble in the air. But that isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about. Something very odd’s happened to Dean Gunther.”
McCall stopped short. “Oh? I just saw him and he didn’t mention anything.”
“He didn’t know about it then. Mrs. Gunther phoned him, I guess after you left him. Somebody’s burgled their house.”
“What was taken?”
“That’s the odd part of it. A suit of clothes.”
“That’s all?”
“A shirt and a pair of shoes, too.”
McCall stared at her. “The Dean’s suit?”
“Yes. An expensive one, he says.”
“And the shirt and shoes?”
“His, too. Mrs. Gunther went to lay out his good suit for tonight. It seems a gentleman named McCall is invited to dinner.”
McCall was frowning. “And nothing else was taken?”
“Apparently not. Mrs. Gunther says drawers were yanked out of the dean’s bureau and shirts scattered all over the floor, but that seemed plain spitefulness, she says — several pairs of his shoes were tossed around their bedroom, too.”
“And she didn’t hear anything?”
“She was out shopping. Does it make any sense to you?”
“If I were Sherlock Holmes I could probably make some profound deduction but, frankly, I’m stuck. I can’t imagine who the devil would want to steal a man’s clothes and leave other things of more negotiable value untouched.”
“You’re some detective, you are.”
“I never claimed to be.”
“I expected a brilliant solution right away.”
“So you’re disappointed in me.”
“In one way.” Her remarkable eyes washed over him. “In another, I’m relieved.”
“Why?”
“You’re human.”
“Oh, yes,” McCall said.
For some reason both fell silent.
A bell had been pealing. It stopped now, the overtones lingering on the campus. McCall turned and saw a picturesque stone building much weathered and covered with old vines. Immense trees flanked the building. A round bell tower dominated the roof. A small old man dressed in gray came around the building with a broom and began sweeping the walk.
“What’s that?” McCall asked.
“The music building. It’s better known as the Bell Tower. That’s old Burell, the custodian. He’s a fixture around here.”
They walked on. At the administration building McCall said, “I wish the campus were larger.”
“So do I,” Kathryn said mendaciously. “I hate being cooped up in an office.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
She laughed. “I’m acting female, for God’s sake! Anyway, I thought you ought to know right away about Floyd’s clothes being stolen. It was probably some vagrant who took a chance, broke into the house looking for money, didn’t find any, and just grabbed something and ran.”
“Possible.”
“But you don’t agree.”
“Frankly, no. And what I don’t understand I don’t like. Thanks for taking the trouble to notify me.”
Those extraordinary violet eyes held him again. “Well, I’d better get in to work or Ina will chew my head off.”
“See you.”
She did not answer. Instead, she engulfed him with a tidal-wave smile and hurried into the administration building.
McCall walked over to where he had parked his rented car. He found his feet dragging.
He warned himself that he had better keep his mind on his work.
4
McCall headed across town toward the Greenview Motel. The book of matches was probably meaningless, but at this stage of what seemed an increasingly baffling game any lead was worth following up.
Driving through Tisquanto’s broad streets in the spring sunshine McCall found his thoughts, which should have been busy with Laura Thornton and student unrest, wandering to Katie Cohan. He reined them in sharply.
Self-discipline played a big part in Micah McCall’s makeup. He had developed it as a boy on his home turf, Chicago’s South Side, where survival was an art. Whether it had been keyed into his genetic code, or arose as a defense against his environment, McCall’s ability to resist temptation had been toughened rather than weakened by his early life. Self-defense, of course, became a matter of necessity; he learned how to take care of himself in street fights, and when he decided that his general size and build put him at a disadvantage with the big boys, he learned judo. “The bigger they are,” his teacher told him, “the harder they fall. Remember that.” He never forgot it. When he was older he graduated to karate. He had seen too many broken heads and slashed faces to enjoy violence; but if circumstances forced him to fight, he was not going to be the one to wind up on his back.
After the South Side and a rough-and-tumble high school, the Marine Corps seemed the logical next step. Four years later he was out and at Northwestern in Evanston, pursuing a sudden dream of power-through-knowledge. And then a law degree, and a decision against practicing; not enough action. He went to work for a national detective agency and did so well that three years later he opened his own agency. That was how he had met Sam Holland.