The Ancient Nine

by Ian K. Smith, M. D.

  I reached around Pollack, grabbed Cindy’s hair, and tugged it. She screamed and fought me, but I managed to fling the wig to Pollack.

  “Holy shit!” he yelled. He threw the wig back at Cindy, and stood there frozen, a look of horror contorting his face. Becky screamed, and suddenly three guys with heavy beards, black bandannas, and tattoos riding up their biceps suddenly surrounded us.

  “They won’t leave us alone!” Becky yelled. Cindy had gotten the wig back on with one hand and held the other across her chest.

  I quickly searched for Hutch or Buzz, but they weren’t at the bar. I looked at the three bears surrounding us and thought how much this was going to hurt. Pollack was already backed up against the wall, and they were closing in on us. I had my hands ready to block my face. Suddenly I heard, “You boys wouldn’t be lookin’ for a fight, now, would ya?”

  We all looked up at the mountain of black flesh. There was Tiny, nose flared, the veins in his neck standing up like lead pipes. The area around us had cleared into a circle, and everyone was waiting to see what would happen next. I could see Claybrooke and Hutch fighting their way through the crowd. The three bears took one look at Tiny, then raised their hands in surrender and backed up.

  “Understanding is a wonderful thing,” Tiny said. He turned to us. “You guys wanna stay or go?”

  “Go,” Claybrooke said. “I’ll get my ass fried if one of our punchees gets hurt or ends up in jail tonight.”

  Tiny plowed a way for us through the restless crowd, and when we got outside Hutch turned to Pollack and said, “What the hell happened in there?”

  “Misunderstanding,” Pollack said.

  “Dude, what did you do to those girls?” Claybrooke said. “They were screaming like someone was trying to kill ’em.”

  When Pollack turned and looked hard at me, I knew it would remain our secret. “I didn’t mean to,” he said. “And let’s leave it at that.”

  We climbed into the back of the limousine, and Hutch gave Tiny our next destination, the Lion’s Den. Then he turned to Pollack and me and said, “I hope you animals can behave yourselves at this next spot. I happen to have a good reputation in there.”

  I tried pushing out of my mind the fact that I had just kissed a guy who had also felt me up, but every time I looked at Pollack, the horror kept flooding back.

  In a matter of minutes, a panorama of flashing neon lights flooded over us, and I knew that we were in Times Square, the heartbeat of the city and a reason why they said it never slept. A collage of people packed the sidewalks, and brightly lit stores remained open, hawking I  NY paraphernalia.

  “Couple of rules, gentlemen,” Hutch said. “First of all, there’s no touching the ladies unless they invite you to do a little exploring. If you put your hands on them without permission, you’ll get tossed by security. And don’t think because it’s dark you’ll get away with it. They have cameras everywhere. Second, no getting up onstage and joining the fun, I don’t care how much some chick turns you on, stay in your seat and let them come to you. Third, you can go back to the private rooms, but no more than two at a time. Last, have fun. I have the money to take care of everything.”

  Hutch led the way to the entrance, where two greasy-looking guys in black pin-striped suits and white alligator shoes immediately opened the velvet ropes as we approached.

  “These guys are pros,” Buzz said to me. “We just walk right in here, and they start taking care of us.”

  “It probably doesn’t hurt having a couple of thousand of Bickers’s dollars burning your pocket,” I said.

  A girl in a tight leather dress with a neckline running down to her exposed navel showed up out of nowhere. She said something to a woman behind the cashier and led us through a set of double doors. A long stage with two poles anchored the center of the room. An Asian woman wearing only an orange wig and a matching G-string crawled on the stage, and every time she opened her legs, the guys sitting in the front row would let out a cheer as if their team had just scored a touchdown. She expertly held her pose spread-eagle on a bed of dollar bills.

  Topless women mixed drinks at a bar along the wall near the entrance, and I noticed several smaller dance floors with spotlights, poles, and curved ladders. The girl escorted us to an elevated VIP area to the right of the stage that was guarded by two iron-faced security guards who robotically moved to let us pass.

  Hutch took a seat in the center of the table, and the rest of us fanned out on the sides. Buzz sat to my left and Pollack to my right. Cards and Claybrooke sat on the other side of the table. No sooner had we gotten comfortable than a beautiful black girl in a skintight leopard print dress showed up at the table with a bucket and two bottles of champagne. She introduced herself as Jaguar and told us that she’d be our exclusive waitress for the night. In addition to the champagne, Hutch ordered a bottle of Grey Goose vodka.

  Pollack leaned over to me and said, “You all right?”

  “As long as I don’t think about it,” I said.

  “Good, we’ll act like it never happened,” he said. “Our secret.” We shook hands underneath the table.

  “At least here we can see what we’re getting,” I said.

  “My thoughts exactly,” he said with a laugh.

  The lap dances started immediately, a parade of naked women, each impossibly beautiful. They snaked and crawled, gyrated and slithered, moving their bodies in ways I never thought possible. Old Bickerstaff was probably out cold by now, but he was with us in spirit. With his cash, six very horny college boys were living out every pimple-faced adolescent’s dream. Even Claybrooke joined in the fun. In fact, he and Cards were the first to take a trip to the private room, followed by Buzz and Pollack. I was getting close to being completely wasted, so I backed off the vodka and started drinking water.

  At about three o’clock, Cards leaned over to me and said, “I gotta go to sleep. If I stay up any longer, I’ll be dead in practice tomorrow.”

  “Same here,” I said.

  “You think it’ll look bad if we call it quits?”

  I looked at the members, each with their own woman riding their thighs and feeding them chocolates. “I think they have a lot more important things to worry about than us turning in early,” I said.

  “Look at Buzz,” Cards laughed.

  The tough wrestler from Iowa was slumped in his chair, shirt completely unbuttoned, his body motionless as drool puddled on his chest.

  “Maybe we should take him home too,” I said.

  So, Cards and I stood up, walked over to Buzz, and helped him to his feet.

  “Where you boys going?” Hutch asked.

  “Back to the apartment,” Cards said. “If I don’t get some sleep, I’m gonna pass out during practice tomorrow.”

  “You sure you wanna call it a night already?” Hutch said. “We’re gonna hit an after-hours spot next.”

  I couldn’t believe what he had just said. Wasn’t three o’clock already after hours? We begged off, and Claybrooke, even with a Russian version of Dolly Parton attempting to smother his face, had the wherewithal to remind us that we were his responsibility and he needed to make sure we returned to Cambridge safely. He instructed us to take the limousine back to the apartment then tell Tiny to return and pick up the rest of them. So, with Buzz’s arms slung over our shoulders, the three of us stumbled out of the Lion’s Den and fell into the backseat of the waiting limo.

  Tiny drove us to the Bickerstaff manse and informed us that he would be back first thing in the morning to take us to the airport. Somehow, we found our way upstairs to the third floor of the apartment. Buzz threw up all over the bathroom floor, and we did the best we could to clean up before putting him to bed.

  The combination of the darkness of the hallway and my head spinning like a dreidel made finding my room a bit of a challenge. The first two I tried were wrong, and the third was occupied. As I was about to close the door, I heard somebody ask, “Who’s there?”

  I could tell by t
he accent that it was Dominique Bickerstaff.

  I thought about pretending like I hadn’t heard her, but instead I whispered, “Spenser Collins. I’m sorry to bother you. I’m looking for my room.”

  “This is your room,” she said. “Come in quickly and lock the door behind you. I’ve been waiting for you all night.”

  I’m still not exactly sure what went through my mind, but in my condition, it wasn’t anything rational. I stood there for a second, trying to clear my head, fighting to make sense of what I should do. She beckoned me a second time, and I surrendered. That night, thirty-five floors above New York City, overlooking a sleeping Central Park, Dominique Cardona Bickerstaff made a boy from the South Side of Chicago feel like a man.

  24

  WHEN I STUMBLED into Lowell House the next morning, there were two messages waiting for me on my answering machine. The first was from Ashley, telling me where and when to meet her for the concert on Saturday. She left a not-so-subtle hint that she was going to arrive early and at the very least I should be on time. Hearing her voice made me feel guilty about my drunken New York escapades. The next message was from Reverend Campbell. Hearing his mighty baritone voice bounce around my small room made me feel like God had descended from the heavens and knocked on my door for a chat. He wanted to meet first thing in the morning at his house before his day of lectures and meetings began. He’d be waiting for me at precisely nine o’clock after his breakfast. I looked at my watch only to find that I had less than six minutes to get there.

  I quickly changed into a pair of khakis so that I wouldn’t be sitting in Campbell’s house in the same jeans I had worn in a strip joint several hours earlier. I biked over to Sparks House, doubled over and out of breath by the time the front door opened. The same dour-faced woman led me through a maze of rooms before entering a large salon with heavy antique furniture and forest green wallpaper. The room had been decorated with a distinctly aristocratic flair, earth tones and dark wood, and a Persian carpet that covered most of the hardwood floor. A large portrait of an old African American man, perhaps a relative of the Reverend, hung over the fireplace. Ceiling speakers emitted soft classical music, and I found Reverend Campbell seated in a high-backed tufted leather wing chair with a tea service next to him. He was tapping his foot as he wrote something in his appointment book. He looked up when I walked into the room.

  “Come in, Mr. Collins,” he said, closing the book and standing. We pumped hands and I was surprised by the strength of his grip. “Can I get you anything to drink?” he asked.

  With the pain knocking around the back of my head, the last word I wanted to hear was drink, even a nonalcoholic beverage. I had already popped several aspirin, but the jackhammer was still pounding the base of my skull.

  “I’m fine,” I said, waiting for his direction before taking a seat next to him. The chair was a lot more comfortable than it looked.

  “I wanted to get back to you about that mysterious passage you left with me last week,” he said. “Quite an odd little thing.”

  “What do you mean by odd, sir?”

  “I couldn’t recall having read it before, so I reached out to some of my colleagues at the Divinity School. A couple of them took a turn at it. They think it might be something from seventeenth-century Puritanical literature.”

  “Is that what makes it odd?” I said.

  “No, that makes it rare,” he said. “But what’s so odd is that some of our research faculty couldn’t place it, even after consulting several sources. And I might add, these are some of the greatest biblical scholars in the world.”

  These were not the words I wanted to hear, but I also wasn’t surprised. I knew that trying to identify the source with so little to go on would be a long shot. “So, you think it’s untraceable?” I asked.

  “Nothing’s untraceable.” Campbell smiled. “It just means the search might be a lot more difficult than I first anticipated.” He took a sip of tea, and I noticed the small gold signet ring on his right pinky, just like the one Percy wore. “Tell me something, Mr. Collins. How does it come to be that a biology concentrator from the South Side of Chicago who plays on the basketball team happens to find such an obscure passage?”

  His eyes bore down on me, and his tone was definitely less inquisitive than it was accusatory.

  “Like I said before, sir, I copied it down,” I said.

  “Yes, I remember you saying that. But you also declined to identify the source from which you copied it. Would you like to tell me what’s really going on?”

  I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. I definitely wasn’t prepared for this line of questioning.

  “Mr. Collins, I’ve been at this university for the better part of three decades,” he said. “I’ve seen and heard a lot in my tenure. As the minister of Memorial Church, I’ve been able to do much more than teach Scripture and ethics. I have become a confidant to many students who have sat exactly where you are right now and opened up on a variety of topics. The best teachers are also the best listeners, and I’d like to think that over the years I’ve earned my stripes with the students on this campus. You might consider these things and choose to trust me.”

  I felt like calling a time-out and running to phone Dalton to see what I should do. But I knew Dalton would vehemently forbid me from naming the book. We still didn’t know the boundaries of the circle of knowledge or whom it included. I had to tread very carefully here.

  “I found this passage in a dead man’s journal,” I said, splitting the truth. “But if you don’t mind, I prefer not to discuss his identity. I’m a little sensitive about it.”

  “That’s certainly your prerogative, Mr. Collins, and I respect that,” Campbell said. “But might I ask if this was a religious man?”

  “I never know what someone means when they use the word ‘religious,’” I said. “He believed in God and the importance of faith, but if you mean did he go to church every Sunday and pray before he went to bed every night, I honestly don’t know.”

  “But he was a Christian man, no?”

  “Yes, I’m certain of that.”

  “Was he a collector of rare manuscripts?”

  I was starting to get really nervous about where this was going. Campbell’s cunning could be as effective as it was stealthy.

  “I really didn’t know him well enough to answer that question,” I said. “I probably never should’ve looked through his journal, but I did. Curiosity got the best of me.”

  “You’re an excellent student with a strong academic background,” Campbell said. “You have won the respect and admiration of some very important people around here. I’m not saying there’s a problem, but I just wanted to make sure you weren’t in any kind of trouble.”

  “I’m fine, sir,” I said. “Other than all the work for Mettendorf’s class, everything is good.”

  “Yes, Harvey’s courses tend to be a challenge even for our brightest students,” he said. “What remains to be answered is how much of the difficulty is the material or Harvey himself.” He smiled softly. “That last comment is between you and me.”

  Campbell then reached down and pulled open a drawer in the table beside his chair. He picked up a folded piece of paper and handed it to me. “This is for you,” he said. “When all my other queries didn’t yield anything, I turned to one of my oldest friends for help. Here’s his name and phone number.”

  I opened the piece of paper—Dr. Charles Davenport, Professor Emeritus, HDS.

  “Professor Davenport is one of this school’s true gems,” Campbell said. “He’s written more analyses of seventeenth-century religious literature than any person alive. He’s slowed down a little the last couple of years, but he’s still active, giving lectures at universities around the world. I faxed him a copy of the passage, and he thinks he might be able to help you.”

  “When should I call him?” I said.

  “Anytime. He’s expecting to hear from you.”

  I tucked the slip of paper in my c
oat and stood. “Thanks for all your help, Reverend Campbell,” I said. “I’m grateful you took the time to look into this for me.”

  “I’m always here to help.” He smiled. “Good luck with the round ball this season. And for God’s sake, please beat those damn Princeton Tigers this year. My cousin teaches philosophy down there, and I can’t stand another year of him calling and gloating over a Princeton victory.”

  “Don’t worry, we have an answer for them this season,” I said. “We’ve got a freshman from New York who’s one of the best recruits in the league. With him clogging up the paint, we’re a much better team.”

  Campbell stood and smiled once more. “Yes, I’ve heard about that young man. Rumor has it, he’s as talented a boxer as he is a ball player.”

  I can’t even say that I was surprised that Campbell had heard about the punch. It seemed to me there was very little he didn’t know.

  25

  THE RENOWNED CHARLES Davenport answered his own phone, something that was surprisingly common amongst Harvard professors. The school’s philosophy was that teachers were there to educate the students, and however prominent they might be in the academy, they should remain accessible to those who ultimately gave the school purpose. Davenport seemed genuinely excited when I told him my name and the purpose of my call. He instructed me to come over to his office right away.

  Most of the Divinity School’s buildings were located north of the Yard on Francis Avenue, tucked behind the science complex and across the street from the Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Greenhouse. The central building, Andover Hall, housed large lecture halls, administrative offices, and a chapel. I rarely had any reason to visit this part of the campus.

  I found Davenport’s basement office with little difficulty. His door was slightly ajar when I approached. I knocked softly and entered only after his invitation.

  There were two things about Professor Charles Davenport that you’d never forget. He probably had the biggest ears of any man that’s walked the face of the earth, long doughy flaps that fell beneath his jawline with a forest of hair growing out of them. Then there were those glasses, big and black and rectangular, made all the more prominent by his hairless dome. He vaguely reminded me of the legendary Chicago Cubs announcer Harry Caray. The office was ridiculously cold, darker than a mausoleum, and so crammed with books that I couldn’t see the top of his desk or any other piece of furniture. He sat in a wooden chair propped over a manuscript in his lap.