The Green Revolution (15 page)

Otto Bird regarded it with the same amusement as Roger. “Of course, no one is likening me to a blimp.”

“You lack the qualifications,” Roger said with a smile.

“It will die down,” Otto said. “Everything eventually does.”

It might have been a melancholy remark, but that was not Otto's style. At ninety-three he still got up every day with the optimism that had been with him all his life. Another day, things to do, so do them, don't worry that nightfall is inevitable.

So, despite Phil's protests and those of Bartholomew Hanlon and other students, Roger floated above the controversy as a metaphorical blimp. That became more difficult when Phil brought him Piero Macklin, a member of the television crew that had brought the Boston College game to a startled nation. Peter had stayed on.

“My father lives here.”

“'Here meaning Notre Dame?”

“Guido Senzamacula.”

“My dear friend. But your name?”

“A professional elision. How would Piero Senzamacula look among the credits?”

“Refreshing.”

“My father is all broken up about being linked with this campaign to eliminate football. He thinks I think he really is involved.”

“Names got on the list of sponsors in strange ways, Piero.”

“Including yours?”

“Including mine.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“Pretty much what I have been doing.”

“Which is?”

“Nothing.”

“I wish my father could take it so lightly. He talks about nothing else. Would you come with me to talk with Lipschutz?”

“I don't think it would do any good.”

“It would do me a lot of good. He has to understand how my father is taking this. He reacts to things in an exaggerated way. He is a rock-bottom loyalist so far as Notre Dame goes. The idea that he would campaign in a public way against something so connected with the university as football is unthinkable.”

“He is too upset to talk to Lipschutz himself?”

“I couldn't put him through that. He can't bear the sound of the man's name.”

*   *   *

Roger knew the location of Lipschutz's office because it was located near his own in Brownson Hall. For Roger, apart from isolation from other faculty offices, the attraction had been the adjacent parking lot where he could leave his golf cart and get to his office without running the gamut of stairs. They were in the little hallway off which his own office and Lipschutz's hideaway opened when there was a commotion behind them. Soon a distraught Lipschutz appeared. He looked wildly at Roger.

“We have been insulted! Publicly insulted.”

“The Goodyear Blimp business? I consider that almost praise.”

Lipschutz angrily dismissed this. He began to pick pieces of paper from his clothing. He had yet to take any notice of Piero.

Lipschutz had trouble with the key to his office, but finally he got it open and went raging inside, giving an incoherent tale of a confrontation on the steps of the main building. At his desk, he turned to Roger and there were actual tears in his eyes. “He tore it up!”

“Your petition?”

“And they cheered. It was like
Patton,
only all wrong.” His expression was desolate.

“Then it's over,” Roger said.

“Over! Over!” Lipschutz was transformed by the suggestion. “Never. Now it is a battle to the death. I will humble them, I promise you. I will get the last laugh. They will eat their horses before I am done with them.”

“Horst, you've made your point.”

Lipschutz's expression was almost of contempt. “You don't understand.”

“The research center?”

“How did you know of that?”

“Is it a secret? I think Father Carmody mentioned it.”

“Carmody! He was their henchman. He tore up the petition.”

Roger could not wait to get Father Carmody's account of what had happened on the steps of the Main Building. Suddenly, Piero moved to Lipschutz, grabbed the lapels of his jacket, and pulled him close.

“You drop that goddamn petition or I'll beat the shit out of you.” Piero spoke with a controlled rage, if not with the vocabulary Lipschutz was accustomed to.

“Who are you?” Horst's terrified eyes rolled to Roger. “Who is this maniac?”

Piero gave him a thorough shaking, then pushed him into the desk chair, which began to roll toward the wall, with the astounded Lipschutz looking at his assailant.

“My name is Senzamacula. Get out a sheet of paper. I want you to write that my father has never had anything to do with your stupid petition.”

“Roger,” Lipschutz yelped.

“Come, Piero,” Roger suggested. “I think you have made your point.”

Piero hesitated. The phone rang. It was Phil, calling to tell Roger what he and Jimmy had been doing.

Roger turned away, and told Phil about Piero's attack.

“I'm surprised it wasn't Wintheiser.”

Roger hung up and turned toward Piero. His face was still flushed with anger and his body tense. He was half the size of Wintheiser. Roger managed to get Piero out the door.

Settled in the golf cart, Piero said, “I could have killed the sonofabitch.”

15

There are levels of hell, and Professor Horst Lipschutz had descended through several of them in a single day. In retrospect, it seemed to him that he had been taken to the pinnacle of the Main Building and told that he could be master of all he surveyed. It had long rankled him that the administration was impervious to his suggestion for a research center, a real research center, that could justify the university's claims for itself. No one who had spent as much time in academic circles as he could really be surprised by the density and irrationality of his colleagues, nor did he by any means confine this assessment to the administration. The faculty were, if possible, worse. Imagine the reaction of Guido Senzamacula to the generous move that Lipschutz had made, adding him to the signatories of his petition, admittedly anticipating his agreement, but how could any rational animal disagree? That Otto Bird and Roger Knight denied that they had given him permission to include their names had been a disappointment, of course, but they had not made any public protest.

Of course, it was not the inclusion of other names on the petition that mattered. No need for false modesty. It was the first name, that of Horst Lipschutz that should have brought home to the administration the decision they faced. Had he ever seriously thought that he could persuade the university to drop football? Actually, he had. From the beginning, though, that had been a mere target of opportunity. Whether or not they saw reason on that matter was secondary; the essential thing was that, prompted in this way, they should finally concede the wisdom of entrusting the university's reputation as a research institution to his capable hands. Dear God, he had three books in the press at this very moment. His list of publications exceeded, he was sure, that of any other member of the faculty, and not merely in quantity. His was an international reputation. Had he not been honored by the Bavarian Academy?

*   *   *

To review his credentials now on this ignominious day was more than a justification for the tears that poured down his leathery cheeks, through the runnels that descended from either side of his nose to the corners of his mouth. A mouth whose lower lip trembled as he wept. Never in his worst nightmares had he been treated like this.

He tried unsuccessfully to eradicate from his mind the fiasco on the front steps of the administration building. How confidently he had marched there surrounded by a handful of representative supporters, his pace matching the beat of the drum that someone he did not recognize had thought to bring along. It was the drum that had made their presence one that could not be ignored. Finally, the doors of the entrance had opened, and Lipschutz took a deep breath. His moment of triumph was at hand. St. George Patton, pray for us. If he had known then what lay ahead …

He put his head on his desk and sobbed. His mistake had been to respond to that crooked finger of the evil little silver-haired priest who stood where the president should have been standing. Someone had whispered in his ear that this was Father Carmody, a power behind the scenes. An intermediary, nonetheless. He should have refused. He should have sent some lieutenant up those stairs. He should have …

Against his closed lids he could see again that dreadful priest tearing up his petition, tearing it again and again, disdainfully, and then flinging the pieces at him! It was the cheering and applause that accompanied this act that undid Lipschutz. He turned in confusion to what he had imagined were his supporters and other well-wishers. They were cheering, applauding, that abominable act. Then, as he stumbled down the stairs, brushing past the television, they began to laugh!

How in the name of God had he managed to get to his hideaway office, only a short distance from the scene of his ignominy? Ah, but his descent into hell was far from over. There was Roger Knight with some brute of a companion come to manhandle him.

Senzamacula! No doubt the coward had sent his muscular son to attack a colleague, to shake him as a terrier might shake a rat, to push him into his chair, which continued backward until his head hit the wall. Could there be anything worse than this day, in this life or the next?

*   *   *

Night fell and he remained in the office. He did not turn on the lights. The door was locked, of course, but what protection was a locked door against the forces of unreason? He grew hungry. He had to go to the bathroom. He did not dare. Only when he could bear the twin pains no longer did he unlock the door and look out. The men's room was at the end of the hall. There was a little alcove where machines delivered tasteless snacks for exorbitant prices. First things first. He went swiftly to the men's room. Inside, he hesitated before turning on the light. Nonsense. Still, he hid himself in a stall while he did his business. He could lift his feet from the floor if anyone intruded.

Relieved in several senses, he came out of the men's room. He was pondering the selections the machines offered when there was a sound behind him. An office door was opening. Lipschutz froze. At the sight of Roger Knight in the open door, Lipschutz cried out.

“Fear not, Horst. I am alone.”

“That maniac attacked me. You were a witness.”

“I want you to come with me. We don't want any repetition.”

“You think he will be back?”

“Maybe someone else. I'll take you where you'll be safe.”

Safe! Lipschutz could have cried out at all the word represented. “What did you mean, someone else?”

“Later. Let's go.”

Some minutes later, he accompanied his enormous colleague to his waiting golf cart.

“Where are we going, Roger?”

“Holy Cross House.”

PART THREE

1

Jimmy Stewart concluded that the presence of those matching shoe prints, some on the putting green, others up at the first tee where the towel was missing from the ball washer, might not prove that Willis had been killed, but they sure as hell meant that he had not died alone. Some guy with big feet had been there and for some oddball reason had stuffed the towel from the ball washer into Willis's mouth. Before or after he died, who knew? Phil Knight said that asking Feeney was like consulting the Delphic Oracle.

“The what?”

“Ask Roger.”

“First chance I get. What size shoe do you wear?”

“Eleven.”

“I wear a ten and I think I have big feet. Those prints were made by at least a fourteen.”

This exchange took place before Grafton began to write about the Cinderella Fella, his fanciful story accompanied by a photograph of one of those footprints. Alongside it was a scale indicating the size of the shoe, which was at least a fourteen.

*   *   *

“He died under the eyes of God,” Grafton had written piously, “but there was another pair of eyes as well, human eyes. In those small hours of that Sunday morning less than a week ago when, on the practice putting green of the Notre Dame golf course, Ignatius Willis went to meet his Maker. There was a human witness. He left his mark upon the greensward. (See accompanying photo.) And what happened there doubtless has left its mark on him.”

He was reading these lines, half aloud, half from memory, when Larry Douglas entered his office.

“Have you read my story?”

“That's why I'm here. Who took the picture?”

“I did.”

“What a great idea.”

“Without my words, it's only a picture.”

“Where can I get a copy?”

“Buy a paper.”

“I mean a clearer one. The original.”

Grafton took a small camera from his desk, turned it on, punched a button, and handed it to Larry. The young man from Notre Dame security studied it intently. “This is much clearer.”

“We're not a magazine, Larry. We use newsprint.”

“I think you and I are the only ones who still think something bad went on out there.”

Grafton nodded. “The police act as if you hadn't drawn their attention to those shoe prints.”

Larry's intent look became desolate. “That was my partner.”

“Your fiancée?”

“Don't say that!”

“You've broken up with her?”

“It's a long story.”

“It always is,” Grafton said wearily, as if from experience. Only monks had less experience of women than he.

“Let me take this and have a print made.”

“Larry, that camera is a tool of my trade.”

“There's a drugstore up the street where I can do it. I'll have it back to you in ten minutes.”

Grafton made a dismissive gesture, and Larry scooted from the office. Grafton was almost sorry he'd had the idea of accompanying his story with a photograph of that shoe print. It was distracting. How could the reader savor his prose with that huge picture competing for his attention? The ratio between words and picture suddenly seemed far more than a thousand.