Irish Gilt (8 page)

Suddenly, in a flurry, she pushed back her chair. “What time is it?”

Boris told her.

She gave a little squeaking cry and scrambled to her feet. “Henry,” she explained. She stood for a moment, unsuccessfully seeking the right words, and then, with a little bow at each of them, turned and headed for the door. A man was waiting for her. Dear God, it was her husband.

“It seems she had a double date,” Boris said.

Silhouetted in the doorway, one hand gripping Bernice's arm, Ricardo peered into the ill-lit bar. Eggs actually shrank in his chair. Then they were gone.

“So you're here doing research?” Boris said with a chuckle.

“She's a waitress in the restaurant in Grace.”

“Now, don't apologize.”

Eggs ordered a Manhattan, pushing away his undrunk beer. He felt the need for strong drink. Boris continued to tease him for a time and then lost interest.

“Do you know why I'm here?” Boris asked.

“Tell me.”

“Not to jolly waitresses.” He grew serious. “I am here to persuade the university to open a John Zahm Center.”

After Boris rapidly outlined his plan, Eggs had to admit it was a great idea. “And you're going to finance it?”

Boris sat back, seemed about to say something, then hesitated. Then, “Not entirely.”

“Just donating the travel diary would amount to so much. Your tax man would be delighted.”

“Of course, the diary belongs at Notre Dame.”

“Greg Walsh got the idea you intended to sell it to the university.”

“Strange fellow. Now, what's this about you being a writer?”

“Do you believe everything a waitress tells you?”

“Eggs, the girl is nuts about you.”

“Then why was she fawning over you?”

“To make you jealous. What's this about her husband?”

“What she said. He threatened me.”

“What a romantic figure you've become.”

“When are you going to let me see Zahm's travel diary?”

“I'm afraid you might organize an expedition and go in search of El Dorado.”

“What's that got to do with the diary?”

“Guess.”

“Where are you staying?”

“Right here.”

“Well, I'm in the Jamison Inn. I'd better get going.”

“Not interested in dinner?”

“Not tonight.”

They rose and shook hands, and as Eggs left the bar Boris called after him. “Watch out for husbands.”

16

Late that afternoon, Boris Henry stepped out of the workroom at the archives and beckoned Greg Walsh to come in. When the archivist entered, Boris shut the door and went to the table, where he pushed a box toward Greg. “Tell me what you make of that.”

“The letters of Father Zahm?”

“Take a good look.”

Greg sat and began to leaf through the identifying tabs in the box while Boris stood in an expectant attitude. Greg looked up. “What am I looking for?”

“Let me put it this way. If you were looking for letters from 1914 and 1915, you wouldn't find them.”

Greg again went through the contents of the box, more carefully now. When he was finished, he turned to a computer and brought up the archives Web site. Boris could see that he was checking the contents of the box as recorded there. After several minutes, he turned and once more went through the actual box. Then he sat back.

“They're not here.”

“So I found. And Kittock was the last one to deal with the contents of that box, right?”

“You think he took them?”

“Well, they're not there. Of course, there may be an innocent explanation.”

It was clear that Greg Walsh could not think of one. There was now a deep frown on the archivist's face. The materials in the archives represented a sacred trust, and he was unlikely to regard missing materials as a routine matter.

“Could he have walked away with them?” Boris asked.

Greg was checking the drawers of the worktable. When they yielded nothing, he made a careful search of the workroom. Finally, he slumped once more in a chair and put his face in his hands and groaned. “Why would he take them?”

Boris was about to say that Kittock was intent on sabotaging his own effort, but he had not told Walsh, as he had Roger Knight, of his wild hunch. However wild, it had come to seem almost established fact. “I have a suggestion,” he said instead.

“What?”

“Let's tell Roger Knight about this.”

Walsh was immediately on his feet, nodding. “Good idea.”

Walsh called the Knight apartment before they left the archives. Listening, Boris was surprised at the fluency with which Walsh told Roger that he had to see him immediately. Something very odd had happened.

“Boris Henry will be coming with me,” Walsh said before hanging up.

Walsh locked the door of the archives and then glanced at Boris. Such precautions seemed a little late.

“Does Kittock have a key to that door?” Boris asked.

“Of course not.”

No one could use materials from the archives unless Greg or one of the other archivists was on the premises. It wasn't stated that this amounted to keeping an eye on anyone working with archival materials, but that, of course, is what the reason for the rule must originally have been.

At the Knight apartment, they were greeted by Roger. The expression on Greg Walsh's face was soon matched by concern on the massive countenance of the Huneker Professor of Catholic Studies.

“Some Zahm letters are missing from the archives,” Walsh announced.

“The very ones I came here to see,” Boris added.

“Well, well. Do you have a suspect?”

Boris let Greg make the accusation. “I told you about Kittock,” he said. “But you hadn't met him.”

“No, I hadn't.” Roger paused. “I'll put on coffee.”

He made a production of it, and until he was done and the coffee ready the conversation was suspended. Boris had the idea that Roger Knight had wanted this time to ponder what he had been told. When they all had their coffee, they sat in Roger's study. The professor took the specially built swivel chair in which he could move easily from computer to desk to bookshelves.

“From the beginning,” he suggested.

The beginning Greg Walsh chose was two weeks before when X. Kittock had first shown up at the archives. As an alumnus, he was, of course, welcome, and there was no need for formal permission to use the archives. Ever since, for half of each day, he had made use of the workroom, from time to time asking for new materials and surrendering those he had already examined.

“He always asked for Zahm materials?”

Greg thought. “Not always. Sometimes he wanted back issues of the
Scholastic.
” He made an impatient gesture. “I suppose those contained Zahm materials. Reports of a talk he had given on campus, perhaps the transcript of a lecture. I'll check.”

“You keep a record of what materials anyone asks for?”

“Of course.”

Roger hummed for a moment, then began to speak as if to himself. It was not impossible, he said, that Kittock did not understand the rules governing use of archival material. Greg might be shocked at the thought, but it could well be that Kittock just took a folder of letters in order to peruse them overnight. “In that case, they will be right back where they belong tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow is Sunday.”

“Well, Monday, then. Of course, if you can't bear to wait you could talk to Kittock.”

“
Moi?
” Greg laid a hand on his chest. He seemed relieved to be able to appeal to his speech impediment.

“Do you know where he's staying?” Boris asked.

Greg didn't know. Since he hadn't asked Eggs to register, there would be nothing in the archives to tell them where he was staying. Boris said nothing. The upshot of the meeting was that they would wait out the weekend and see if the letters were back in the appropriate box on Monday morning.

Boris had hoped for more than this. In the Morris Inn he called the Jamison Inn and asked for Mr. Kittock.

“One moment, sir.”

He listened to the phone ring, wanting to hear Eggs answer so he could hang up on him, but the phone was not answered. He put his briefcase on the desk and opened it. Inside was a folder from the archives. All he had to do now was plant it in Eggs's room and the campus would be too hot for him. Then Boris could proceed with his great plan to realize enough from the sale of Zahm items to get his own finances in order. The diary alone would command a pretty sum.

He opened the desk drawer and put his hand inside, groping about, wanting the reassuring feel of the package that spelled his return to financial health. But nothing met his questing hand. He pulled the drawer entirely free and looked at its rectangular emptiness. The plastic bag and the diary that it had contained were gone.

The mirror above the desk reflected his dumbfounded expression. Then he grabbed the phone and asked the operator to connect him with Professor Knight's apartment. The Morris Inn was part of the university telephone system. After a pause, a ringing began. Phil Knight answered, thank God.

“You're a private investigator.”

“Who is this?”

“I'm sorry. Boris Henry. I want to hire you. I've been robbed.”

17

“Have him charged with stalking,” Marjorie advised. “If you're sure, that is.”

“Of course I'm sure,” Bernice said. “Every time I turn around, there he is.”

“It must be love,” Marjorie said, and sighed. “If a husband can be in love.” She was getting a little tired of Bernice going on about the men in her life. A few days ago it had been the fascinating man she had run into, a writer, doing work somewhere in the library.

“We talked and talked.” Bernice's eyes lifted and seemed to lose their focus.

“About what?”

“We found we had a lot in common.”

“You say he's middle-aged?”

“Middle-aged! I never said that. He's older than we are, sure. But still youthful.”

That had been bad enough to, listen to, but now Bernice claimed that her former husband, the immigrant, was following her around.

“I suppose he's seen you with your middle-aged lover.”

Bernice was too absorbed to be annoyed by this. “He confronted him!” She leaned toward Marjorie, eyes wide. “On a campus sidewalk, people all around. And that's not all.”

“Tell me,” Marjorie said without enthusiasm.

“He followed me to the Morris Inn, where Eggs and I and a friend of his were having a drink—”

“Eggs?”

“For X. Well, anyway…”

Marjorie wore a fixed smile through the narrative. Why were all these interesting things happening to a skinny little thing like Bernice?

“Maybe you could talk your Mr. Eggs into having Ricardo's green card revoked.”

“Oh, Marjorie.” But Bernice seemed to like it now when Marjorie knocked Ricardo.

“Maybe get him deported as an undesirable alien.”

“He's as much of an American as I am.”

“Where did you emigrate from?”

“So how are things with you?”

Meaning, how was her love life. The problem was, there wasn't much to tell, unless she stretched a point here and there, as she did when she whispered about the pawing professor at IUSB. It became so vivid as she talked that Marjorie herself almost believed that the harmless old codger who taught real estate law—she was back to her original ambition—had fondled her, cooing in her ear as he patted her bottom.

“Where did this happen?”

“He got me into the phone booth with the excuse that he couldn't read the directory.”

“You were in a phone booth with him?”

Marjorie began to think that she should take up writing fiction. It seemed a way of making her life at least a little bit interesting.

Afterward, she thought of telephoning Ricardo, but she was afraid he would hang up on her when she told him who it was. So she parked across from where he was living late Saturday afternoon. She hadn't been there fifteen minutes when his pickup pulled in to the curb. He hopped out and ran up the steps to the front door. Marjorie's heart was in her mouth. Good Lord, he was handsome. For an immigrant.

She guessed he wasn't going to sit around his rented room on a Saturday night, and she was right. He had changed when he came out, nothing dressy, and lit a cigarette when he settled behind the wheel of the pickup. Then he started the engine. Marjorie had the sudden fear that he had a date with someone, but he drove to a sports bar. Marjorie knew that because she followed in her car.

*   *   *

There was an opening at the bar, but Marjorie didn't want to squeeze into it and call attention to the fact that she was alone. All around the place television screens brought in athletic contests, but most were captioned; the noise was in the bar itself, talk, talk, laughter, thank-God-it's-Friday laughter.

Marjorie hoisted herself onto a stool at a high table. There were two women already at the table, but they ignored her. The waitress didn't. She ordered a Bloody Mary.

“Do you want a menu?”

“Not yet.”

She could see where Ricardo had settled at the end of the bar. She felt a bit like a stalker herself, keeping an eye on him. He was alone and seemed intent on staying that way. Marjorie let ten minutes go by and then, with her drink in hand, walked along the bar, prepared to be surprised when she ran into him.

“Well, hi,” she said.

He sat sidesaddle on the bar stool, and his expression was not encouraging.

“Marjorie,” she reminded him.

“I know who you are.”

“Are you and Bernice back together again?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I couldn't believe it when you two broke up. You were my model of what a marriage ought to be.”