Murdering Americans (12 page)

‘You’ve depressed me enough, Jack. I’m signing off now. Ellis has just come in. His tales of the criminal world will come as light relief.’

***

‘Just how I pictured a diner,’ said the baroness. ‘It’s encouraging that old traditions persist.’

‘It’s actually new,’ said Vera. ‘There weren’t any diners left anywhere within reach of New Paddington, but now retro’s fashionable, they’re recreating the 1950s.’

‘Good,’ said the baroness. ‘A much-maligned decade. Though not without its drawbacks, I have to admit. British restaurants were not good then.’

She looked around her benignly. ‘I like the booths. And even more, I like those attractive skating waitresses. I expect the food will be terrible, but I’m resigned.’

Within five minutes, the baroness had flirted with a giggly blonde who declared herself a novice skater and struggled gamely not to fall over, she had ordered steak and chips without fuss, and she was uncomplainingly sipping an indifferent California wine. ‘Now take it from the top, Mike.’

‘I’m not a guy that takes any crap, Jack.’

‘I can see that,’ she responded solemnly. She turned her head slightly towards Vera, winked out of Robinson’s line of sight, and received a conspiratorial grin. ‘And was there a lot of crap being thrown at you?’

‘Well, this guy—Stan Donnelly—was one tough-looking punk and I thought for a while he wasn’t going to come clean.’

‘How did you find him in the first place?’

Robinson looked embarrassed.

‘
You
come clean, Maurice-Mike,’ said Vera.

‘The internet.’

The baroness laughed. ‘The typewriter’s just a prop, I presume.’

‘Saw it on eBay and couldn’t resist it.’

‘OK. Your guilty secret is out. I won’t hold it against you that you’re technologically literate.’

‘Actually Mike’s a whiz on the net, Jack,’ said Vera. ‘Better than me. That’s why I gave him a job.’

The baroness raised an eyebrow. ‘You can tell me about that later. What about Donnelly. How did you locate him?’

‘Easy. I tracked Gonzales and Fortier-Pritchardson to the same Ohio school ten years ago. He was a student and she was Dean of Students. My hunch was that if he’s tall and really dumb he’d have got to college on a basketball scholarship, so that’s what I went there to investigate.’

‘I surmise from your happy grin that your hunch was right.’

‘Sure was. I spun a cock-and-bull story to a secretary about a long-lost uncle I was trying to trace and she showed me photo albums and then I had Gonzales and the names of the guys on his team. Stan Donnelly was the first one I found on the net because he’d become a professional player who was a coach at a small Christian college only fifty miles down the highway. I saw him this morning.’

‘Good lad.’

‘Donnelly was pretending he couldn’t remember Gonzales, but finally I broke him.’

‘By pressing the muzzle of your gun to his right temple, no doubt?’

Robinson laughed. ‘Not quite. He looked hard-up, so I told him I’d give him a hundred bills if he told me something that was worth it. He coughed for one hundred and fifty. I didn’t think you’d mind.’

‘My dear Mike, as I told you, what I want are results. And I’m not a cheapskate.’

‘I have your results, doll.’ He stopped. ‘Sorry, I got carried away.’

‘It takes a lot to offend me, Mike,’ said the baroness. ‘And you, as they say here, are not in that ballpark. Get on with the story.’

Heidi came skating over with a tray of dishes, lurched as she reached the table, cannoned into the edge of the booth and fell to the floor with an enormous crash. It took several minutes for the baroness and her guests to calm her down and for the broken crockery and salad to be swept up and the trio’s main dishes delivered safely.

‘You need to eat up, Mike. You’ve had a long day. Give us the gist in a couple of sentences and we can have the full story when you’ve cleared your plate.’

‘Gonzales was violent and mean, he was chucked off the team because of his behaviour, he got crap grades, and he’d have been thrown out of college if Fortier-Pritchardson hadn’t saved him by finding that he’d suffered from racial harrassment. Donnelly said he must have been screwing the bitch senseless. When I told him Gonzales had a Ph.D. he nearly choked from laughing.’ And Robinson bent thankfully to his vast plate of corned beef.

***

At that precise moment, the Provost was wailing to the President. ‘She’s crazy. Diane says what she said was certifiably crazy. And she holds her responsible for firing up Jimmy Rawlings. Supposedly he’s organising a march through the campus tomorrow morning protesting our hiring an Islamophobe who insulted Allah by saying Islam was a primitive religion. I don’t know what we’re going to do.’

‘
You
don’t know what
you’re
fucking going to do,’ said the President. ‘It’s your sorry ass that’s on the line, not mine. I’m in New York and none of this is my fault. You chose Lady fucking Troutbeck. And Diane carries the can for choosing Jimmy Fucking Rawlings. And so do you for accepting her recommendation.’

‘I’d had several refusals when I met Troutbeck. How was I to know she was a mad right-winger? You expect senior academics to be liberals. Why’s she doing this?’

‘Sounds like wilful cuntishness to me. You should have checked her out.’

‘I told Marjorie to, and she passed her. Said she was a radical. But didn’t say anything about her being a radical reactionary.’

‘You shouldn’t have trusted Marjorie. Don’t you remember why we got rid of her?’

‘I don’t trust Marjorie, but Ethan wasn’t around and I trusted her enough just to run a check,’ shouted the Provost. ‘I was busy and in England and I didn’t think there was a problem. And Rawlings would have been OK if she hadn’t been here. What am I to do now?’

‘It’s obvious. Get some reliable students mobilised to complain about Troutbeck. If things are made difficult for her and we offer her a good package, we can get her on a plane out of Indiana double-quick.’

‘Ethan’s already having her trailed to see if we can get anything on her.’

‘Tell him to do a bit of intimidating if necessary.’

‘I’m not sure that would work,’ said the Provost.

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘You don’t know her like I do.’

‘Nonsense. Ethan could intimidate Donald Rumsfeld.’

‘What about Rawlings?’

‘We’ll pander to his ego by making Troutbeck his sacrificial victim. Then we’ll bribe him to shut the fuck up.’

***

‘So what’s a nice couple like you doing in a job like this?’

‘My dad was a P.I.,’ said Vera, ‘and I joined him when I finished high school. I’d still be there in Chicago if I hadn’t met Mike, who had just graduated and was moving to New Paddington to go to graduate school. He wanted me, I wanted him, and he needed work so we set up M and V.’

‘What made you want to go to Freeman, Mike?’ asked the baroness.

‘I wanted to do film studies and my college was crap at it. Freeman had a good reputation.’

‘You amaze me.’

Robinson sighed, and swallowed more coffee. ‘There was a really great two-year course in noir P.I. films.’

‘Was? You mean you’ve finished it.’

‘It’s more like it finished me. I loved the first year, but then our prof was pushed out and a moron took over. This past year we’ve being going almost still by still through great movies and the books they’re based on looking for racism and sexism. Can you imagine?’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘Philip Marlowe uses words like negro and mocks Indians, Sam Spade turns a woman in even though she’ll get the electric chair, all the heroes are violent, they all see women as sex-objects and are substance abusers, Sidney Greenstreet’s fatness was portrayed negatively, and Peter Lorre was always being ridiculed for being short.’

‘I see. So you decided to ape Mike Hammer just to wind the moron up?’

‘You got it. Do you remember the end of
I,The Jury
?’

‘No.’

‘“How c-could you?” she gasped. I only had a moment before talking to a corpse, but I got it in. ‘It was easy,’ I said.”’

‘Not a sentimentalist, Mickey Spillane.’

‘When I said that showed the integrity and innate justice and moral sense of Hammer, I thought Dr. Pappas-Lott would explode.’

‘Pappas-Lott? What was she doing teaching you? She’s the Dean.’

‘She took over the course to use it for what she called a series of master classes. There are always instructors there being shown how to teach.’

‘
Can
she teach?’

‘If you think grading students by how many unacceptable words or actions they can ferret out of a book or a film is teaching, then she sure can.’

Vera took his hand and patted it. ‘Never mind, Maurice-Mike, what good would a master’s be to you anyway?’

‘Didn’t you finish?’ asked the baroness.

‘I was disqualified for inappropriate behaviour and language and I couldn’t be bothered appealing. Freeman means nothing to me: I just went to classes. And who wants to be an academic anyway? Through Vera-Velda I’ve found a job I love. We’ll move out of New Paddington soon and go somewhere there’ll be work.’

***

Before settling into her own office the following morning, the baroness called in next door and gave Marjorie a pithy account of what she had learned from Mike Robinson.

‘You mean you just walked off the street and hired these children? Are they even licensed?’

‘They are. It turns out that Velda-Vera is twenty-five and had five years’ experience as a gumshoe in Chicago before she met Mike, moved to New Paddington, and took him on as an employee. He’s been there for more than two years and has just qualified for a license.’

‘So what’s with this fedora/trenchcoat rubbish?’

‘It’s just fun, Marjorie. He’s a bit bored, and he was really just putting two fingers up at Pappas-Lott and her ilk. And he and Vera-Velda seem perfectly competent and really rather sweet. I’m enjoying them. Don’t be a spoil-sport.

‘What’s more, we now have independent evidence that Gonzales is a thoroughly bad piece of work and that the Provost is his willing accomplice. My mind is clarified. They’re obviously not fit to be in their jobs and we must see what we can do to get them out. The children will be digging for more dirt on them, and also having a look again at the death of Provost Haringey.’

‘What can they do that hasn’t been done?’

‘I don’t know, Marjorie, but I’m giving them a chance. Mike Robinson has flair, and from what I learned last night, Vera is excellent at screwing information out of unlikely sources.’

‘I’d be easier if it was Mike Hammer himself going after those rattlesnakes.’

The baroness yawned. ‘Stop worrying, Marjorie. Everything will be fine. Besides, they’re armed. Now, may I borrow some money off you? I had my wallet stolen after yesterday’s punch-up.’

‘How did that happen?’

‘Don’t know, except that there was a crush of students when I was leaving.’ She showed Marjorie her bag. ‘You see, it doesn’t have a zip, so you wouldn’t need to be one of Fagin’s finest to nick the wallet.’

‘What was in it?’

‘Nothing important. Just one credit card. And only fifty dollars or so. It was mainly some cards and phone numbers people have given me. That kind of thing. Stefano’s reported it to the cops.’

‘Do you think it was an act of vengeance?’

‘Probably just petty thieving.’

In response to the sound of shouting outside, Marjorie jumped up and went to the window. ‘Well, Jack, come and look at what’s goin’ on outside. That’s vengeance.’

‘It’s not much of a demo,’ said the baroness with a note of disappointment as she stared out of the window. Trailing through the campus after Jimmy Rawlings was a small line of young people, mostly brown or black, but a few white, many bearded and some carrying crudely made placards.

The baroness squinted. ‘Can you see what’s on the placards, Marjorie? I can only make out the word “insult.”’

‘I think it’s “insults.”
TROUTBECK INSULTS ALLAH
.’

‘That’s quite mild. No death threats?’

‘Not that I can see. In fact the others seem to be about reparations.
WE SLAVED YOU’LL PAY
.’

‘That’s quite good.’

‘And there’s something about Freeman. Do you think it’s about the name-change Rawlings was demanding?’

‘Maybe.’

The telephone rang. ‘Yes, yes, yes….How many?…That was quick….What are the details….Is that so?…Thanks.’

Marjorie put the phone down. ‘That was a friend in the Provost’s office, Jack. Three formal separate complaints were lodged against you just now alleging harassment—one racial, one religious, and the other sexual. You’ll be getting a letter from the Provost about them any time now. She’s anxious to proceed against you as soon as possible. And the Goon wants to interview you.’

‘What fun! What exactly are they complaining about?’

‘Your line about blacks needing to get over slavery and everything you said about Islam.’

‘Oh, good. And the sexual one?’

‘You touched someone inappropriately. Apparently you put your hand on a girl’s arm.’

‘Wow! Wait till I really make a pass. When did I do this?’

‘A student tried to remonstrate with you yesterday evening and you touched her.’

‘If she was the boring little creep who came up to me afterwards and went on and on about the insensitivity of what I’d said about sodding diversity, it’s true that I touched her in trying to get her out of my way.’

‘In this university, if they don’t like you, that will count as a prima facie case of sexual harassment.’

‘It’s a good thing they don’t like me, then. I wouldn’t want to miss this.’

***

‘It’s Betsy, Lady Troutbeck. Can I see you?’

‘Certainly. I’m free for the rest of the day. When? Where?’

‘If it’s OK with you, I’ll come by soon.’

‘Come to the hotel. I’ll feed you. And I’ll leave Horace in the office so we can have some peace. He’s been alternating between ‘Whoo! Whoo!’ and ‘Beverages!’ all morning, and it’s beginning to drive me mad.’

***

Two hours later, the baroness was back in her room jabbing her finger at the antipasti. ‘Have some of that salami. And a piece of the bruschetta. Paola made it and it’s very very good. Come on, Betsy. You’re looking peaky. You must eat up. Are you working too hard?’