He looked up, his eyes widening, and Michael nodded.
“Collins. He was my father. He’s dead. Ten years ago.”
“I’m sorry… Well, then, let me see, there was Doctor Wilkes…”
Not a single one of Randolph ’s former professors was still in residence. Michael finally escaped with a very short list. Four of the men were still living, two in Europe and one at Harvard, plus the unfortunate exile in the Midwest. Michael went home and wrote letters. He couldn’t go traipsing off to Munich to interview a man who had taught Randolph algebra twenty years ago. The man at Harvard was on sabbatical leave.
He had begun his investigations with the academic world not only because it was more in line with his own interests but because he believed in the importance of that period in character formation. Sooner or later, he would have to interview Randolph ’s business associates. Talk about a subject being outside your field; he wasn’t even sure what Randolph ’s business was. One of those massive conglomerates that included manufacturing, investments, oil wells, and God knows what else. But there were offices someplace in the city; if there wasn’t a Randolph Building, it was presumably only because Randolph hadn’t got around to constructing one. Yes, eventually he’d have to talk to the inhabitants of the business world, but he had no illusions about that; no one who worked for Randolph was going to tell him anything interesting.
So the next step was the college where Randolph had taught. It was in Pennsylvania; not a long drive, but he decided to plan to stay overnight, since that particular episode was fairly recent, and there ought to be a number of witnesses still available-possibly even a few students working for advanced degrees.
A sullen sun sulked above the skyscrapers when he left the city, but it wasn’t until he had bypassed Philadelphia that he felt any awareness of spring. The Main Line suburbs reminded him of the countryside around Randolph ’s home-manicured lawns and smug, neat houses, flowers and kids playing in the front yard. Things were blooming.
This time he had taken the precaution of setting up an interview in advance, by phone, and he saw, not a Vice-President, but the Vice-Chancellor. Michael had read too much history to have much faith in revolution as a means of social progress; but every time he met a college administrator, he was aware of a sneaking sympathy for the militant students. The Vice-Chancellor might have been a brother of the Vice-President-the same graying hair and discreet tie, the same canny brown eyes. Michael sniffed. Yes; they even used the same scent. Christ, he thought; and placed a look of intelligent interest on his face as the Vice-Chancellor lectured.
“I was a mere Assistant Professor at the time,” he explained with a deprecating smile. “Nor was Gordon in my department. Economics is my field.”
“Then you didn’t know him well?”
“We had several interesting chats at the Faculty Club.”
In a pig’s eyes, Michael thought crudely.
“What did you talk about? Economics?”
“Among other things. He was very well informed for a layman, very much so. A brilliant mind, of course. And capable in a wide range of subjects. That is of course the outstanding factor in his personality. And that’s what you’re interested in, isn’t it, my dear fellow? His personality. I’m sure everyone who knew Gordon was struck by that-the breadth of his interests.”
It went on in this vein for some time. Michael had suspected from the first that this pompous ass could not have won Gordon’s friendship, and after half an hour of name dropping and burbling generalities, he was sure of it. It took him another half hour to extract the information he wanted. When he left, the Vice-Chancellor sent his regards to dear old Gordon.
On the steps of the Administration Building, Michael saw a bearded youth attired in a red plaid poncho selling copies of the school paper. He bought a copy. The picture on the front was a scurrilous caricature, badly drawn but recognizable, of the Vice-Chancellor. Michael turned back.
“Contribution to the cause,” he said, and went on his way leaving the hairy young man looking in bewilderment at the five-dollar bill in his hand.
It took Michael the rest of the day to find one of the teachers who had been Randolph ’s colleagues. Though they all had offices and office hours, nobody seemed to be in his office at the specified time-or, if he was, he refused to answer the door. (Michael could have sworn he heard harried breathing inside one locked and unresponsive room.) What were they afraid of? he wondered. Students? Which wasn’t so funny, nowadays…He finally caught one man as he was making a surreptitious exit, and when Martin Buchsbaum found he was not a student, he invited him in.
Buchsbaum was a youngish man, chubby and pink, with a nose that looked as if it had once been broken, and a cherubic smile.
“ Randolph? Sure, I met him. But I never knew the guy, not to talk to. I had just made my Assistant Professorship, didn’t even have tenure. He was one of the sheep, and I was the lowest of the goats. You know, the sheep and the-”
“I know. My father was a teacher.”
“Then you do know. The gulf between the tenured and the non-tenured is wider than the one between the Elect and the Damned. I’m sorry, friend, but I can’t tell you anything about the Great Man. He was lionized, idolized-”
“Even canonized?”
“Man can’t even plagiarize a quotation these days,” said Buchsbaum amiably. “What did your old man teach, English Lit?”
“Right.”
“It doesn’t follow, though. I threw a chunk of Andrew Marvell at a cop once. He not only capped the quote, he went ahead and gave me a ticket.”
“Amere traffic ticket? Weren’t you out there hurling obscenities and bricks at the police last fall?”
“I was.” Buchsbaum’s face was glum. “I slipped and fell and sprained my sacroiliac while I was running away. Cost me seventy-eight bucks for doctor bills. After that I decided I was too old and too underpaid to be a liberal.”
Michael laughed. He got up to go a little reluctantly; Buchsbaum was a pleasant change from the Vice-Chancellor.
“Stick around,” Buchsbaum suggested. “A man who knows his Fry is a man worth knowing. Or, better still, come home, meet the wife, have a beer. I’ll try you on the more obscure metaphysical poets.”
“If I didn’t have eight more people to track down today, I’d accept with pleasure. I used to enjoy this sort of thing, in my younger days. You ivory-tower boys have a nice life.”
“You are viewing it with the rosy glow of old age remembering lost youth. Don’t kid yourself. Why do you think I skulk around the halls with my collar turned up like James Bond? Students, committees, secretaries wanting lists of things, parents, students…”
“Without the students you wouldn’t have a job.”
“Don’t give me that; I’ve quit being a liberal.” Buchsbaum put his feet up on the desk and adjusted them so that he could look between them at Michael. “We all hate students. Most of my peers aren’t that blunt about it; they blather on about the book they haven’t been able to finish and the vital research they can’t carry out because of their onerous teaching load. The majority of them couldn’t write a book if you dictated it to them. What they mean is, they hate students. Like me.”
“What about Linda Randolph? Did you know her?”
Later, Michael was to wonder what made him ask the question. He had meant to throw out some feelers about Linda; this was where Randolph had met her. But she was not his main interest.
“I knew her,” Buchsbaum said.
“That romance must have caused a lot of comment.”
“You could say that.”
“I’ve met her. She’s charming, isn’t she?”
“Is she?” The feet were still on the desk, the stout body as relaxed; but the pink face wasn’t friendly any longer. Feeling idiotically rebuffed, Michael turned toward the door. Buchsbaum said suddenly,