Last Things (13 page)

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Authors: Ralph McInerny

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BOOK: Last Things
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Raymond turned and headed toward his car, but his arm was gripped as the bearded nut tried awkwardly to follow him with the bike between his legs. Raymond shook his arm free. The bearded professor lost his balance and crashed to the ground. Passing students paused to stare.
Sprawled on the ground, the bearded Cassirer cried after him, “Good-bye, Father!”
“Where in God's name have you been?” Hazel demanded when Tuttle called his office. “Don't you have your cell phone with you?”
“I didn't turn it on, I guess.”
“You idiot.”
The cell phone had been Hazel's decision, so he could never be out of reach. That is why he never turned it on.
“What's up?”
“A professor named Cassirer has been here looking for you. He says he hired you.”
“He did.”
“Well, you might have told me.”
Tuttle's relationship with Hazel was hard to explain. Technically she was his employee, but she acted as if he was hers. Her designs on him seemed to go beyond the office. The woman was a predator, not to be denied, and he was forever ducking out of the way of her attempts at affection, usually accompanied by a softening insult.
Hazel told him that she had interviewed Cassirer and taken down pages of information.
“I am going to put Barbara on it. What do we know of academic law?”
Barbara was a paralegal whose knowledge of the law was undoubtedly
impressive, however embarrassing it was to have to depend on it. But Hazel was right. He understood Cassirer's complaint even less after having talked with the bearded young man with the intense stare and nervous twitch of the shoulders—Atlas trying to relieve himself of his burden.
Tuttle had had lunch with Peanuts Pianone, whose status on the Fox River Police force was analogous to Tuttle's in the Fox River bar. Peanuts was a stolid, almost autistic man in his late thirties whose one emotion was resentment at the treatment he received as a cop. He owed his job to the influence of his family, family in the Sicilian as well as in the biological sense, and his superiors kept him out of harm's way and out from underfoot. He spent hours lazing away his workday in the pressroom of the courthouse, seething at the ascendancy of Agnes Lamb, a young African-American who had been hired for reasons of political correctness but who had proved to be a natural cop. Before Hazel, it had been their practice to have Chinese food delivered to Tuttle's office, where they could pig out at leisure and then drop into a nap. In the era of Hazel, Peanuts would not come near the office—one visit had sufficed to establish their mutual contempt—and today they'd had lunch at the Great Wall, lolling over a second pot of tea. Tuttle's fortune cookie had contained an enigmatic message:
Your Fears Are Not Unfounded.
“I made a three o'clock appointment for you with Cassirer.”
“There?”
“In his office. He said you would know how to find it.”
“Right.”
“Maybe I ought to be there.”
Tuttle hung up as if he had not heard the question. Hazel's urgency confirmed his sense that he had stumbled into a good thing with Cassirer. And to think he nearly had not answered the
phone when the professor called again after Tuttle's visit to campus. He usually ignored its ringing when Hazel was not in the office, and on the occasion she had been down the hall to the Ladies. But before the caller received instructions to leave a message after the beep, Tuttle had picked up the phone. He came to believe that once again he had been inspired to do so by his father in the beyond.
“How did it go with Andrew Bernardo?”
“He understands the situation.”
“He voted against me again!”
“Hmmm.”
“Tuttle, this is war.”
And now he had called the office, wanting to consult his lawyer.
His first face-to-face with Cassirer had been in the cafeteria in the student center. Where would the man's office be? Tuttle parked across from the main entrance and stopped at the guard shack.
“Where would I find someone who teaches English?”
“You want to become a student?” The guard was in uniform, and his evil smile revealed a golden eyetooth.
“I figure with an education I could get a job like yours.”
“You're Tuttle, aren't you?” An arthritic hand extended. “Woodward. I remember you around the courthouse. Who you looking for?”
“Horst Cassirer.”
Woodward consulted a dog-eared campus directory, his lips moving as he ran a crooked finger down the page.
“English is in Arts & Letters. Know where that is?”
“Refresh my memory.”
Tuttle followed the fulsome instructions through the maze of
campus walks. Finally he stopped a passing group of students and asked where Arts & Letters was. A slack-jawed coed with snarled hair pointed it out. Tuttle thanked her.
“What are you looking for?”
“The English Department.”
“Come on, I'll show you.”
She left the others, took Tuttle's elbow, and steered him along as if she were placing him under arrest. Inside, the janitor had just swabbed the hallway, and there were signs in English and Spanish warning the less than sure-footed. It was the girl not Tuttle who lost her footing and whose grip on his elbow became functional. He steadied her.
“I would have sued,” she said.
Tuttle took off his tweed hat and extracted a business card which he handed her. “In case you ever do fall.”
“Usually it's the sidewalks in winter. This place is a hazard.” She looked at the card, then at Tuttle. “You're Professor Cassirer's lawyer, aren't you?”
“Do you know him?”
“He's the worst teacher I've ever had.”
“Well, you're still young.” Tuttle thought of the lousy teachers he had in law school, many several times. Again she lost her footing and he steadied her.
“Keep me in mind.”
“How can you represent someone like Cassirer?” She peered at him. “You're cute.”
He was reminded of Hazel, as she must have been before she had become a harridan. The girl seemed more flustered by her remark than he was. She pointed to a door. “That's it.”
Inside a little woman sat staring at a computer screen, hard at work. She seemed to be playing a game. When she became
aware of Tuttle's presence, she turned the monitor so he could not see the screen.
“I am looking for Professor Cassirer.”
A toothy woman popped out of a room that contained the mailboxes of the professors.
“You're looking for Horst Cassirer?” She inspected Tuttle and was unimpressed.
“I'm his lawyer.”
She was transformed by this information. Now she took his elbow. “I'll take you to his office.”
Cassirer's office was in another building, and on the way Professor St. Clair identified herself and pumped Tuttle, wanting to know why he wanted to see Cassirer.
“Lawyer-client privilege,” Tuttle said importantly.
“I already know why. He's going to take them to court, isn't he? Look, I will help in any way I can. This is the worst injustice since the Galileo case.”
“That bad?” Who was Galileo? Perhaps a client he might have had.
“In this day and age, worse.”
When they arrived at Cassirer's door, she knocked, and there was an animal sound from within.
“Good. He's back from class.”
The office was a mess, papers strewn everywhere, a wild-eyed Cassirer standing in their midst. He looked at his colleague.
“Those goddamn papers give illiteracy a bad name.”
“I've brought your lawyer.”
Cassirer subsided, taking note of Tuttle. He looked at his watch. “You're late.”
“He went by the departmental office.”
“Did you talk to Gogarty?”
“I got him out of there before she knew he was there,” Professor St. Clair simpered. “I told him I am at his disposal.” She turned to Tuttle. “What is your name?”
In answer he extracted another card from his hat and handed it to her. Suddenly the campus seemed a lush field of possible clients.
“I can stay if you want, Horst.”
He shook his head. “No.”
“I meant it about wanting to help. You have my total support, Horst.”
He nodded as at the self-evident. “Not now.”
With great reluctance she took her leave. Before closing the door, she flourished Tuttle's card. He smiled, but he was glad to see her go.
“Well, they've done it. They voted me down.”
“Tell me in your own words.”
He got out the little tape recorder that Hazel had equipped him with, along with the cell phone, turned it on, and placed it on Cassirer's desk. The slowly turning cassette tape galvanized Cassirer. He placed Tuttle in a chair across his desk, but it was to the tape recorder that he addressed his grievances. Hazel would type it out and follow up on it with Barbara. Tuttle nodded through the unintelligible narrative. Whoever Galileo was he didn't hold a candle to Cassirer in the matter of injustice.
“Did they tell you the result of the vote?”
“Ha! Lily did.”
Employing his powerful deductive powers Tuttle surmised that Lily was Professor St. Clair.
“They will say that she violated the confidentiality of the committee. I assume you read the faculty manual.”
Tuttle had tried. On the whole, he preferred
Mad
magazine.
“The question is how best to proceed.”
“That's obvious. I want to sue the college.”
“For refusing you tenure?”
“That is the cause, but I intend to bring this place to its knees. They are attempting to damage a reputation recognized far and wide. There are schools who will be influenced by a denial of tenure, even by such a wasteland as this. That will be our approach: the assassination of my professional character.”
“Sounds good.”
The thing about Cassirer, Tuttle would prefer being on the opposite side.
“Who is the college's lawyer?”
“I don't know.”
“I'll find out.”
Tuttle wondered if he might strike a deal with the college lawyer, man to man, to hell with Cassirer. In return, he could offer to testify to Cassirer's bad-mouthing of the college.
“I'll get on it.”
“We have to work together on this, hand in hand.”
“Exactly how I want it.”
Tuttle left and maneuvered down the unslippery hallway of the faculty office building. From the guard shack, Woodward waved. Tuttle responded distractedly, came to a stop and got out his cell phone, and made a great drama of putting through a call to Hazel. He got the answering machine. After the beep, he said, “This is going to be a piece of cake.”
Margaret seemed surprised when Eleanor told her the children thought it would be wise for her to look over things, to make sure everything was in order.
“What things?”
“Margaret, I know you don't want to think about this now, and you don't have to. I'll do it for you. Remember, I have had this experience twice myself.”
Margaret was angered by the suggestion that Fulvio was dying, despite her campaign to have him see a priest.
“There is the soul, Margaret, and then there is the body. Where does Fulvio keep his papers?”
“Eleanor, I don't know what you're talking about. You act as if I'm a widow!”
“We don't know what might happen. How often we read of women left alone who have no idea what practical arrangements their husbands have made for them.”
“I won't talk about it.”
“Of course you won't. And you don't have to do anything either. That is why the children suggested I take a look.”
This exchange went on and on, Margaret refusing to acknowledge the seriousness of Fulvio's condition. Eleanor felt sympathy with her one-time sister-in-law, but her affair with Fulvio had lessened her opinion of Margaret. She could not imagine that Joe
or Alfred could have acted as Fulvio had with her without her suspecting. Almost, she felt that Margaret was responsible for her succumbing to Fulvio. What had she thought they were up to at the lake when they sailed away around that island? For that matter, what had the children thought? Other than Raymond, that is. Raymond had known. She did not want to remember the awful day when he had walked in on them. Thank God, he hadn't pretended any loftiness with her when they met in the hospital after all those years. Of course Raymond had lost any moral authority he might have had.
Margaret had been at some parish affair, the children were in school, there had seemed to be no risk in coming when Fulvio called. It was tasteless of course to deceive Margaret in her own home, but the whole affair was tasteless. That, she had come to see in retrospect, was one of its great attractions. She had been a prim and proper wife to two men, but with Fulvio she was a tramp.
When she arrived, Fulvio closed the door, took her in his arms, and all but forced her onto the couch.
“Let me catch my breath, for heaven's sake.”
“I like you breathless.”
“You haven't shaved.”
In response, he gave her a whisker rub. He put his tongue in her ear. She writhed and struggled, in mock resistance. He liked to triumph and dominate. She hadn't been in the house ten minutes when the door opened and Raymond walked in.
Fulvio was on his feet and wringing his son's hand, blocking his view while Eleanor adjusted her dress, patted her hair, and wondered what in the name of God Raymond would think.
“This is a surprise,” Fulvio said in a booming voice. He was pounding his clerical son on the back. “Got the day off?”
“No, not exactly.” Eleanor was on her feet now too, and took her cue from Fulvio. She turned back to the couch and began to
lift its cushions, as if she were looking for something.
“Aunt Eleanor,” Raymond said, as if he had finally managed to identify her.
“Mom's at some church bazaar or other. Eleanor is going to join her there. Have you found it yet?”
Eleanor continued to look under the cushions.
“Her rosary,” Fulvio said. “The Fatima one. She was showing it to me and I tried to steal it from her and …
Eleanor opened her purse, back to the two men, and took out a rosary. She turned. “Here it is.”
“Go along then,” Fulvio said. “I want to visit with my son.”
“I can't really stay long, Dad.”
“All the more reason to use what time we have.”
He gave Eleanor a peck on the cheek. “Off you go. And keep your darned rosary.”
“He must have known,” she said to Fulvio later, when he told her not to worry about Raymond.
“He is innocent as a lamb. He's a priest.”
“Priests hear confessions.”
“Eleanor, stop worrying about it.”
But that had been their last time together, which meant that Fulvio was not as certain as he seemed that Raymond had not understood that they had not been looking for a rosary when he walked in. It seemed sacrilegious to use such an excuse. Perhaps Fulvio thought it would appeal to the priest in Raymond.
“Didn't he say anything?”
“He said lots of things.”
“I mean about us.”
“Do you think he'd think I was groping his aunt?”
“I don't know what he thought.”
“That's right. And even if he figured it out he isn't going to say anything.”
She took consolation in his confidence. But as the weeks and then months passed and there were no calls from Fulvio, no suggestions that they meet here or there, she understood it was over. That is when she began to write those idiotic letters, letters she had to find if Fulvio had kept them, as he said he had.
Now she took advantage of Margaret's confusion and moved toward the room where Fulvio had a desk and a file cabinet. The sight of the four shut drawers in that metal cabinet made her want to push Margaret aside and pull them open.
“Andrew will look after the financial side, checkbook, that sort of thing. Where would he keep things like insurance policies?”
“I don't know. I don't care.”
“Margaret, go to him. That is far more important than this.” She was seated at the desk now and laid her hands upon it as if it were an Ouija board that would tell her what she wanted to know. Her letters could have been lying about in the open, and Margaret would never have seen them. The suggestion that she be with Fulvio was an inspiration, but there was a catch.
“You'll have to drive me.”
She wanted to suggest a cab, get her out of the house. But she checked the impulse.
“Of course, I'll drive you. Margaret, I just want to help.”
So she had driven Margaret to the hospital, let her off at the main entrance, watched her hurry inside, and then gone back to the house.
For two hours she searched the desk and file cabinets, having found the key in the center drawer of the desk. She had no idea what half the papers Fulvio kept were. The identifying tabs on the dividers in the drawer might have been written in a foreign language. In fact they were. Italian. The language he had not cared to speak but had learned in childhood was used as a kind of code.
She did find letters, letters from women, and read them with
shocked avidity. Had she imagined that she represented Fulvio's single excursion into infidelity? She had been one of a series. There were letters before and after the years of their affair and during it.
Poor Margaret
, she thought. But she meant poor Eleanor. How cheap it made her feel that she was just one of half a dozen women who had been stupid enough to let Fulvio have his way with her and then to write him about it. Some of the letters were embarrassingly graphic, but Eleanor understood their meaning from her own experience. The signatures were all nicknames. Fulvio had called her Mona Lisa, but she had not had the good sense to write under that name. She had signed hers Eleanor. But she could not find them.
She sat back and tried to feel relief. She was different from the others. Fulvio had respected her enough to get rid of her letters. But why on earth had he kept these? Trophies? Any relief she might have felt at not finding those damnable letters evaporated when she realized he could have kept them somewhere else. But if he had kept them, why not here with these others? Because she was different; it hadn't been the same thing at all.
It had been worse. Whoever these other silly women were they were not related to him. She thought of Margaret. Good Lord, she would have to bring her back from the hospital. The inconvenience seemed a kind of expiation.

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