The Grasshopper King (21 page)

Her eyes opened a little.

“Hi, there,” she said.

“Hi,” I repeated; vaulted into bed, pulled the covers over me.

“Sleepy.”

“Sleepy,” I agreed.

And amazingly, I was. My moment of exultation was through now and I was left perfectly, serenely, exhausted. I turned my body toward Julia's back and let one arm drape over her sweat-damp shoulder. She moved neither away from nor toward me, which was as I wanted it. I pressed my face into the pillow and twisted myself deeper into the sheets. I felt capable of racing through two weeks' sleep in the three hours before morning; and in the dim light of my desklamp, my arm thrown over Julia's warmness, I got down to the business of rest.

Events proceeded quickly. I showed McTaggett my discovery, and through him the word diffused within days to the strewn Gravinicists of the world. Daily I received flattering, inquisitive letters from my colleagues—so they called themselves now! I let them stack up on my desk. McTaggett assured me that upon the publication of my paper the department would grant me my degree at once. Even my parents were impressed. We were welcome, my mother told me, to stay with them if we wanted to save some money—an offer previously extended only on the condition that I give up my academic ambitions and resume my old station at the fry-o-lator.

And Julia—Julia accepted the reestablishment of my affections without a protest, with, in fact, a fierce and cattish enthusiasm that startled me anew each evening. My petulant self-denial dropped off me like a snakeskin. I was a red, sensitive, brand-new thing.

“Isn't that better?” she asked me. She'd put her bra back on and was standing in the window's orange light, looking out at the not-much-out-there; I was resting, out of breath, against the bathroom door.

“You're right,” I said.

Such a pleasure to hand over the keys.

“That's good to hear,” she said, not turning around.

“You're right,” I told her. “You're right, you're right, you're right.”

Now and then I forced myself to recall that all my success was the result of a simple stroke of luck. Sethius's letter might have come on someone else's watch, or it might never have come at all, or I might have been more sure-handed with my sandwich. But the letter
had
come, and to me. My future was assured; once my paper was done I could quit my job with Higgs; and in my private reckoning it seemed to me that the whole sorry story of my benighted youth had come, against all odds, to an entirely satisfactory conclusion.

But it was not the conclusion. One morning, a few weeks after my discovery, I opened the door to Higgs's house only to be hit full on by a man hurtling out. His momentum knocked me backwards; my heel
struck the scalloped edge of the front walk and the two of us plunged into the bushes.

I was stunned for a moment, there inside the hedge, until the stringent odor of the snapped branches tugged me back into full awareness. I could hear Julia's voice, from out on the walk: “Sammy? What happened?” But all I could see was the spiny network of branches, and my skinny assailant, heaped atop my chest in the green darkness. Shaped like an arrow. It was Treech.

“Sorry,” he said, managing to lift his face up a little. “One second.” Then he slumped back down, out of wind.

Into the thicket came Julia's hands; she took me by the wrists and dragged the two of us back into the light. Treech leaned on me woozily. I clapped my chest for breath. The two of us hung together like a just-finished relay team.

“Sorry,” Treech repeated, panting. “Just going . . . on my way.”

But this time he wasn't talking to me. Ellen had come out of the house, still in her slippers. In one hand she was clutching a crumpled sheet of paper, and in the other she held a serrated stone dagger, thrust out in front of her, its tip shaking with the shaking of her hand.

“You. Get. Out. Of. Here,” she said through gritted teeth, punctuating each word with a downward chop of the knife. I had long since disavowed the idea that Ellen was really dangerous; but now, her face emotionless, her skin flushed, her hands clenched so tightly that her tendons stood out up to her elbows, she seemed fully capable of reviving the dagger's long-dormant career as an agent of human sacrifice. I wished Treech would let go of me. I felt like a hostage.

We stood frozen, a diorama. Ellen's housedress flapped in the feeble breeze. A pigeon was pecking spitefully at something in the lawn. I became acutely conscious of the scratches I had incurred in my fall; I thought I could feel each tiny pain as a distinct sensation, requesting individual attention, a cold compress, a prod. But under the circumstances it seemed best to hold still.

“What
is
this?” Julia said. And at the sound of her voice Ellen softened a little. Her face became less masklike, her grip a little looser. The dagger drooped from her hand like a rejected flower. She seemed to consider; then she held out the crumpled paper to Julia.

“Read,” she said. And Julia took the page from Ellen's suddenly limp hand. When she was finished with it—her face dark—she handed it to me.

It was a letter from the Henderson Society, on stationery the color of old gauze, informing Mrs. Higgs that said Society, concerned about the continued mental degradation of Professor Higgs, and having been made aware of questionable practices in the guardianship of said Professor—I stopped there.

“Questionable practices?” I said, bewildered. “What are they talking about?”

“Read,”
Ellen said.

So I continued: the Society, having been made aware, etc., had filed suit for and been awarded custody of the abovementioned party, effective in one week's time—noon on Friday, the 11th of October. There followed a solid block of legal hocus-pocus, in eight-point type: I saw the word “exigency,” and the names of several psychiatrists. Below the text were affixed the signatures of the Society's officers and the relevant funtionaries of the court. I recognized the judge's name. He'd been a star basketball player at Chandler State, of Coach Mahemeny's vintage.

“This can't be right,” Julia said. “You can't sue for custody without a hearing or family court or something.”

“Oh, there was a hearing,” Treech said. “Maybe Mrs. Higgs shouldn't have skipped the court date.”

“What court date?” Ellen said.

“The one you signed the summons for.”

Ellen seemed to rediscover the dagger in her hand. “That's a lie.”

Treech held his hands up, edged backwards. “Hey,” he said, “I'm just a messenger.”

“Questionable practices?”
I burst out.

Treech drew himself up a bit. He was still speckled with tiny leaves. He looked at me with a little wrinkle in his brow; as if I, not he, were the one talking craziness.

“Honestly, Samuel, I didn't think you'd want to belabor the point—not
here
.” He glanced significantly at Julia.

“Let's belabor it,” I said. “For my peace of mind.”

“If you're determined to put it all on the table . . .” He produced three photographs from his bag and handed them to me.

I recognized the pictures immediately as the ones Treech had taken at our first meeting. But to my dismay they had somehow been tampered with. The first photo on the pile was the last one he had taken, with Ellen reaching to block the camera lens. Someone had added a rolling pin, mottled with flour, to Ellen's outstretched, clutching hand; and the annoyance on her face had been magnified, through a darkening of the brow and a tightening of the cheeks, into a feral grimace. The next picture was the one of Ellen and Higgs. Ellen had been given the rolling pin again, which she now brandished above Higgs as if about to administer a gleeful punishment. Higgs's gaze had been redirected to meet beseechingly with Ellen's. Fading bruises were laced artfully up and down his arms.

All three of us were in the final shot, which appeared, at first, to have been left alone. Ellen and I were standing against the wall, under the row of windows, facing the camera; Higgs was seated at his table. There were no rolling pins, no bruises, no suggestion of violence. But my own face, I saw after a moment, had been subtly changed; with horror, I realized that my expression was one of barely suppressed lust. And Ellen, the recipient of my painted-on ardor, had been given a proud smirk, as if to encourage me, and to mock her cuckold husband, whose oblivious stare had this time been left exactly as it was. The effect was stunningly realistic, and the implicit narrative obvious: Ellen and I had conspired to keep Higgs silent, through threats and corporal abuse, all so that I could
remain available for adultery—and on the university payroll. I was almost convinced myself.

“These pictures are doctored,” I said. My voice, even to me, sounded strident and guilty.

“Don't be ridiculous,” Treech snapped.

“It doesn't make sense. If this were going on, why would we let you take pictures of it?”

“Your poor judgment isn't any concern of mine.”

“And what about the tapes?” I asked, jabbing my finger at him. “There'd have to have been some sign on the tapes.”

“Save it for the judge,” Treech replied. Then he made a show of slapping his forehead. “Oops,” he said. “I forgot about how you skipped the hearing.”

“Ask him what they're going to do to Stanley when they take him away,” Ellen said, startling me.

I turned inquisitively back to Treech.

“Well,” he said. “He's obviously in need of psychological therapy. Communicative breakdown. Possible aphasia. Possible regression.” He ticked off the symptoms on his palm.

“They're going to shock him until he talks,” Ellen said.

“Oh my God,” said Julia.

“It's an established medical procedure,” Treech said mildly. “Your husband's health is extremely important to us. As I think this whole episode demonstrates.”

Ellen raised the knife again. Treech dipped into his bag, came out with his camera, and squeezed off a series of shots.

“Why, you,” she said, “don't you—”

“You have to admit,” he said, pocketing the camera, “that's not going to look good.” And he turned officiously and strode off into the campus, a bouncing arrow pointing at the sky.

There was a sharp crack. On the walk at Ellen's feet lay the dagger; the impact on the flagstone had snapped the handle neatly from the blade.

“Oh my God,” Julia said again.

I had begun to form a terrible suspicion which I wanted very badly to dispel.

“I'm going after him,” I said.

I caught up with Treech not far from the house, in a little tiled plaza adjoining the biology labs. He was sitting on a bench, his bag beside him, watching a loosely organized volleyball game. The sun pressed down on my shoulders; the breeze carried past me the languid cheers of the volleyball players. A tiny plane banked overhead. It was difficult to keep the gravity of my mission in mind.

When Treech saw me he shoved his bag aside and slapped the slats of the bench where the bag had been.

“Come here and sit down,” he said.

I came, I sat.

“You made good time,” Treech said.

“You were expecting me?”

“Well, I assume you're here demanding an apology. Of course you've got every right to be angry.”

“Yes,” I said, disarmed.

“You should have been notified earlier. It's not that we don't recognize your contributions. But we couldn't risk your letting something slip. He doesn't miss much.”

“He?”

Treech gave me that wrinkle-browed look again. “Higgs.”

“Notify me now.”

“What's left to say?” Treech said. “Once we found out he was holding out on us it was just a matter of deciding on a response.”

“He, Higgs. Was holding out on you.”

Treech peered at me, staring into my eyes as if searching for some flaw there, a burst blood vessel that would account for my behavior.

“Don't you remember telling me?”

So my suspicion was confirmed. I was Iago after all.

“All I wanted was for you to put a microphone in the bedroom,” I said weakly.

“We considered that. But he and his wife could have just gone outside at night, after you'd gone.”

“He doesn't go outside.”

Treech went on as if I hadn't spoken. “We could have just had you stay through the night, of course, or just hire another informant. Probably that's what we should have done all along; as in, to hell with the dean, to hell with his daughter. But who knows? He could have written her notes under cover of darkness. Thrown them in the fire when he was done, or eaten them. Even if you slept in the same room he'd have chances. Finger spelling. Things you'd never detect. Best just to get him out. That makes it simple.”

“But you said—something concrete. I didn't bring anything. There
isn't
anything. I thought you'd forgotten all about it.”