Eureka Man: A Novel (21 page)

“This is just terrible,” June said. She
leaned forward and swung her foot.

“Not really, Momma,” Oliver said, trying to
reassure her. “It's not like I don't have a million things to do.
I've got a lot of responsibilities in this place. My boss, a bunch
of college professors and all kinds of students depend on me for
one reason or another.”

“Oh, we know. When your Dr. Dallet came to
dinner she couldn't stop talking about you. You're going to be a
college professor someday. We're so proud of you, Oliver. She asked
me a thousand questions about your childhood. Is she a
psychiatrist?”

“No, ma'am, but I hope you made a good
impression on her anyway.”

“Of course we did. I even invited her to come
back the next day. She couldn't though. She was giving some kind of
speech at the conference she was in town for. But she did call me
that next night and we talked for over an hour.” June widened her
eyes. “That woman thinks very highly of you, Oliver.”

“How's your girlfriend, Ollie? I got the
pictures you sent.”

“She's fine, I guess, Huck. She just moved to
California to attend graduate school.”

June held her forehead in the palm of her
hand, then looked up. “Does that mean you're all alone, son?”

“Not me, Momma. I have a new girlfriend.”

June smiled and smoothed Oliver's collar
down.

“Oliver, there's one other thing,” said Anna.
“That lawyer can't represent you without knowing why you did what
you did.”

Oliver looked perturbed. “He said that?”

“Yes. He said the pardons board is going to
want to know your side of the story.”

“All right, Anna. So what's your point?”

“Why don't you explain to us what happened?
We're your family, for God's sake. Don't you think you owe us an
explanation?”

“There's nothing to explain, Anna. My life
was threatened, and I had to put an end to the threat. I had to
defend myself. That's what happened. Now you tell that lawyer if he
wants more details than that, he can ask me himself.”

They didn't speak for a while but later, when
Oliver followed his brother to the candy machine, Huck said, “Anna
keeps telling everyone your temper got the best of you and that's
why you're here.”

Oliver said matter-of-factly, “She doesn't
know what she's talking about, kiddo.”

Huck gave Oliver a worried glance. Not
nervous, just worried. ”What's it like in here, Oliver? Momma said
it's like you're away at college.”

“She did?” Oliver asked, affectionately
patting his younger brother's shoulder. “Well, I think that's a
good way to look at it, Huck. One thing's for sure. I'm making the
best of it. You can count on that.”

When they returned to their seats, June and
Joe were having a friendly conversation and Oliver took note of how
happy his mother looked before her countenance turned serious again
when he sat down beside her. She smoothed out an imaginary wrinkle
on the front of her chartreuse chiffon blouse. “We'll have to be
leaving soon, Oliver. It's a long drive home. Do you need anything?
Clothes? A new radio? How's your television working?”

“Fine. I don't need anything.” Oliver smiled
confidently.

“Well, I'll leave you some money in case you
do. We'll be back to see you again real soon, son.”

Oliver shook Joe Michael's hand and thanked
him for visiting. He hugged his siblings and then held his mother
in his arms. When he let go, she held on tightly for a moment
longer before she released him and backed away, her eyes locked on
his. “I'm going to get you out of here, Oliver, if it's the last
thing I do,” she promised, before she turned away and walked
quickly toward the exit door.

EVEN IF HIS FUTURE was uncertain, the present was
where Oliver wanted to be anyway. At seven thirty that night, he
dismissed his high school math students and ten minutes later he
was in the arms of his superfine woman whose fifty-something face
looked two decades younger. In the privacy of his office he kissed
her and ran his hands up and down over her curves. She traced the
angles of his strong jaw, lingering on the corners of his mouth.
Then she ran her fingers through his long brown hair and kissed his
neck tenderly. She stood back to look at him and asked, “Can you
keep a secret?”

“Can I! Like nobody you ever knew,” he
said.

“Good. I've been craving for you since I left
here last Tuesday.” She loved to tease him.

“Well, you must have some appetite. Come
here.”

“Wait, there's something else. I made some
changes to my schedule. I can come in on Thursday nights, too, for
the rest of the summer.”

“That'll put me in heaven two nights a week
instead of one,” Oliver said. “I'm not going to know how to
act.”

“I brought you a gift,” she said. “It's in
the bottom of my tote bag.”

“Oh, yeah? Let me see the top of your thighs
first. Pull your skirt up real slow. Take your time. I like it
better when you go slow.”

“Like this?” Slowly she started raising her
skirt, carefully, as though to drive him wild.

“Higher,” he urged her. “Come on.”

Quickly then, she revealed the milky skin
above her thigh hose. “Look at that,” Oliver whispered. “Lemme
touch you.”

“Later. Let me show you what I brought you
first.”

She lowered her skirt and walked out of his
office and into the classroom. They sat down and as she fumbled
through her tote bag, Victor LeJeune walked into the room and sat
down at the table across from them.

“Excuse me, Doctor. There's something I need
to discuss with you and Mr. Priddy here,” Victor said. “Something
real urgent.”

“We're right in the middle of a lesson,” she
said. “Can you come back at eight thirty?”

Victor leaned forward, jowls, dewlaps, heavy
shoulders slumped. His bloodshot eyes were bulging, the bags under
them large enough to make a pair of leather pockets. His lips were
chapped, his breath sour. “No, I can't come back at eight thirty,
Doc, and here's why.” He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a
small cassette player. He plugged it in the wall socket behind him,
then leaned back in the chair.

Oliver bolted out of his seat. “What the hell
do you think you're doing, Victor? Get out of here, man!”

“Sit down, Priddy. This is business.”

Victor pressed the play button on the
cassette player, and turned up the volume.

“… take off your panties, B.J. …”

“… I'm not wearing any, Oliver, honey … See?
…”

“…What a pretty ass … Sit on the edge of the
table and lie back …”

“… Oh, Oliver …Oh my God! I want you!...I
want you now!”

Victor shut the machine off and snatched the
plug from the wall. “In case you want to know, the tape's fifteen
minutes and forty-two seconds long,” he announced casually.

Before Oliver or B.J. could compose
themselves enough to speak, Victor rose from his chair, removed the
tape from the machine and stashed it down the front of his pants,
then calmly walked out of the room.

Oliver kept his rage to himself. In that
moment he could have killed Victor LeJeune. What would she think of
him if he beat the man senseless? Did she even know what violence
was up close? No, she didn't. There was a better way to deal with
this, Oliver was certain of that. He looked down at the floor,
incredulous, shocked. The nerve of that motherfucker! He glimpsed a
shaft of light coming through the removable baseboard in the corner
of the room where they had made love, and he knew instantly how
Victor had done it. He had removed the baseboard in the adjacent
classroom and slid the tape recorder's microphone through the hole.
Now he looked at her and she was on the verge of tears.

“This is my worst nightmare,” B.J. said.
“What do we do now, Oliver?”

Oliver was about to tell her when Victor
walked back into the room and leaned against the wall. Oliver
glared at him. “Before this gets ugly, Victor, you'd better-”

“Shut up and listen, Priddy.” His stony black
eyes turned to B.J. Dallet. “If you want this tape, Dr. Dallet,
it's going to cost you a thousand dollars in cash and I want it by
next week. That's all there is to it. It's as simple as that.”
Victor's face was creased with a smirk as he walked back out of the
room.

Oliver moved quickly into his office. She
followed him, crying, terrified. A rash had broken out on her neck
and arms.

“B.J., you've got to get a grip! What if
George, the guard, walks in and sees you like this, baby?” Oliver
picked up the phone and dialed 3-6-2. “Moose? I need to talk to
Champ. Is he there?”

“Hold on. Who is this?”

“Priddy.” Oliver pulled her close to him and
held her until he heard Champ's voice.

“What's up?”

“Theodore, this is Oliver. I got a problem,
man. I need your help. Meet me outside the school in two minutes.”
Oliver hung up the phone and grabbed B.J.'s arms. “Listen, B.J.,
I'm going to let the guard know I'll be right back. Don't open the
door for anyone except the guard if he happens to come back.”

“There's not going to be any violence, is
there, Oliver? I cannot be a part of any violence.”

Oliver grimaced. “You once told me you
trusted me, didn't you? Well, now's the time to show it. You've got
to trust me.” He put his arms around her waist and held her and he
was almost unable to let go. She was perspiring profusely and he
was attracted to the scent of her sweat. “I'll be right back.”

The streetlights cast Champ's long shadow
across Turk's Street and Oliver moved quickly toward it.

What's going on, white boy?” Champ said,
shifting a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other.

“That no good cocksucker Victor LeJeune
recorded Dr. Dallet and me in a private moment. Now he's trying to
blackmail her. He just came in the room and played part of the tape
to us. Then he demanded a thousand dollars from her.”

“Oliver, how the fuck did you let him record
you two?”

“I'll tell you about that later. Right now I
need you to go up there and get that tape from him, man. He slid it
down the front of his pants before he left the room.”

“Where's he at now?”

“He was sitting in Rhoda Cherry's classroom
listening to music with one of his boys when I just walked by.”

“All right. Where you gonna be?”

“Back in my classroom waiting for you.”

Champ checked his watch and looked back up
the street. “I'll be behind you by a minute or two. Who's on the
door? George?”

Oliver nodded and looked up at the sky. It
was brilliant with stars that dwarfed the crescent moon, high over
Turk's Street. “I owe you, Champ,” Oliver said. “Thanks, man.”
Oliver took off in a trot.

B.J. Dallet was standing inside the door of
his classroom as Oliver hurried across the main corridor. She
unlocked the door for him and he took a seat at the table in the
front of the room. “You said you had a gift for me?” he asked,
perfectly serious.

“Oliver, this isn't the time,” she
admonished. “I've never been so afraid in my life. Tell me what's
going on, please.” She was about to cry again. “Maybe we should
just go to Mr. Sommers and tell him everything. We can trust him. I
know we can. We're very close. He thinks highly of you, Oliver.
He'll know what to do.”

Oliver saw Champ stalking across the
corridor. The collar on his black jacket was turned up and the
sleeves were pulled up over his forearms. His face was stoic. He
was now wearing his wrinkled brown prison cap, the beak positioned
slightly off-center the way the North Philly men wore them.

“Oliver, talk to me.”

“Listen, B.J. I respect Mr. Sommers a lot,
but he can't ever know one goddamn thing about this. It would mean
the end of everything. Nothing bad's going to happen. This is all
going to be taken care of. You have to trust me.”

They sat in silence for a long while. She
took out a pair of aviator-style sunglasses and put them on. He was
about to reassure her when Champ knocked on the door and walked in.
“How you doin', ma'am?” His smile was reassuring.

Her hello was a whisper. She looked at Oliver
when Champ turned to him.

“Here. Get rid of this thing.” Champ handed
Oliver the tape.

“Champ, this is Dr. Dallet, the lady who
spoke at your graduation.”

“I know that, dummy. Nice to see you again,
ma'am.” Champ smiled at her.

“Nice to see you too,” she said smiling back
meekly. She was starting to regain her composure now.

“I've got to go,” Champ said. “I'll holler at
you later, Priddy.”

When Champ left the room, Oliver walked back
into his office and inserted the tape in his own machine to make
sure Victor hadn't pulled a switch. When they had listened to it
long enough B.J. told him to turn it off. She felt deeply violated,
she said. And what if he had made a copy of the tape? What then? It
wasn't possible, he told her. There were no duplicating machines
around. What if he'd had it smuggled out of the prison to make a
copy? No way. He didn't have those kind of connections.

“Oliver, do you know what this means?” she
whispered, closing his office door.

“What?”

“It's over. I could never make love to you
again as long as he's around. I just couldn't.”

“Why? We got the tape back. There's no harm
done.”

“Are you serious, Oliver? Who's to say he
won't run his mouth to his friends? And now this Champ fellow knows
about us. How do you know he won't try something?”

Oliver walked to the window, his back to her.
His mind raced, tripped and raced again. “You don't trust me, do
you?”

“You think I would have given myself to you
the way I have if I didn't trust you? Yes, I trust you, but you
don't have control over what happens next, Oliver.”

“Well, I trust Champ with my life. He's a
thug but he's an honorable thug. He put the fear of God in Victor
LeJeune, I know he did. Victor isn't going to open his mouth to
anyone about this. I can promise you that.”