And it is empty, isn’t it?
He sighed as he exhaled the last of his cigarette. But that was how it had to be, at least for the time being. Perhaps in a few years, if he found the right someone, someone who could understand and accept him, he might be ready to make another commitment. He’d be past forty-five then. Kind of late in life to be thinking of marriage again. But other people did it all the time, so why couldn’t he?
Perhaps because his first marriage had been so painful. Poor, long-suffering Diane—what he had put her through. She’d hung on longer than anyone had a right to expect while their marriage had died a lingering death, all because of him. Someday he might have the courage to try again and get it right the second time, but such a thing was impossible now. He still loved Diane.
He lit cigarette number seven and strolled into the hall. He had a sudden craving for human company but did not expect to find it in the department at lunch hour. Most of the faculty retreated to the lounge where they could eat in peace without interruption from students with questions and problems. Still, it was worth a look.
He pulled up short as he passed Lisl’s office. The door was open and someone was in there. He backed up a step. Lisl, working away at her terminal. Industry. He liked that, especially in a woman. He hesitated, then knocked on her doorframe.
“Working hard?”
Lisl turned with a startled expression, then she smiled. She had a wonderful smile.
“Ev! How are you? What’s up?”
“Nothing. Just wandering the halls, looking for someone to talk to. But if I’m disturbing you—”
“Don’t be silly. Come in, come in. Let me exit this”—she pressed a couple of keys and her terminal beeped—“and we’ll talk.”
She motioned him to one of the chairs. She’d lost more weight and was very trim now. Absolutely smashing in her snug sweater and knee-length skirt. Not at all what one would expect in a mathematics professor. That gave Ev a twinge of concern. Lisl’s level of attractiveness bordered on the unprofessional. A student might find it very difficult to concentrate on her words while she looked like that. He wondered if he should mention it to her … purely as a friend. Then again, maybe he should mind his own business.
“So,” he said as he sat down, “working on your paper?”
“Yes. It’s coming along pretty well. How about yours?”
“Oh, I’m bogged down on some of the calculations, but I think it’s all going to work out in the end.”
He wondered what her topic was but knew it wouldn’t be proper to ask. He was sure she’d have a good paper, but he was also sure his would be better. He was very excited about it.
Silence hung between them.
“So,” she said finally, “what have you been up to lately besides your paper? Anything exciting?”
He had to laugh. Exciting? Me? Excitement implied spontaneity, and for Ev spontaneity meant trouble. He had painstakingly arranged his life so as to eliminate the unexpected, structured his days so that each one followed a predictable pattern, so that every Wednesday was just like every other Wednesday. Excitement? He had no room in his life for excitement. He’d made sure of that.
“Well, I’m reading a rather exciting novel at the moment—an oldie but a goodie, you might say. It’s—”
“Excuse me,” said a voice behind him. “Am I interrupting something?”
Ev turned and saw that Losmara fellow Lisl had been keeping company with. He wondered what she saw in him. He was not at all the sort Ev would have matched with her. Too delicate. Lisl seemed the type who’d be more at home with a beefier male, one with more physical presence. But none of this was any real concern of his. Over the years he’d learned to mind his own business.
“Hi, Rafe,” Lisl said. “You remember Doctor Sanders?”
“Of course,” Losmara said, stepping forward and extending his hand. “I’ve been auditing a few of your lectures.”
“Have you now?” Ev said, rising and shaking hands. “I don’t remember seeing you there.”
The young man smiled. “I usually take a seat in a back row. I’m just there to listen, to keep a honed edge on my math. You can’t let your math get rusty in my end of Psych.”
Ev felt his attitude toward Losmara warming. Maybe there was more to him than he’d thought, some real depth behind that dandified, rich-kid appearance.
“I hope they’re useful.”
“They’re telling me what I want to know.”
Ev saw a look pass between Lisl and Losmara and realized he was a fifth wheel here.
“Well, I’ve got some odds and ends to clear up in my office. Nice talking to you, Lisl. And good luck to you, Mr. Losmara.”
They shook hands again and Ev left the two lovers alone. He still didn’t approve of faculty-student affairs, even when there was no academic relationship, but he had to admit that Rafe Losmara’s attitude toward learning indicated that he had the makings of a fine scholar.
2
“You’re auditing Ev’s lectures?” Lisl said after she’d closed her office door.
Rafe smiled. “Know thine enemy.”
“Ev’s not an enemy.”
“You wouldn’t think someone as prissy and ineffective as he could pose a threat, but don’t be surprised when he gets tenure and you’re left out in the cold.”
“He won’t if my paper’s as good as I think it is—as you say it is.”
“The relative quality of your papers is irrelevant. In the end the only thing that will matter is sex.”
“Sex?”
“Yes. He’s a male. You’re a female. He’ll get the post because of his Y chromosome, because of what hangs between his legs.”
“Bull, Rafe.”
He’d alluded to this before but Lisl refused to buy it. Still wouldn’t.
Rafe shrugged. “Suit yourself. Stick your head in the sand and hope for the best. That’s the way Primes always get cheated out of what they deserve—they let the leeches snatch it from under their noses.”
“Ev’s not a leech. He’s one of us.”
“Ev?” He barked a laugh. “Everett Sanders? A Prime? You’ve got to be kidding!”
“He’s got a brilliant mind, Rafe. One of the cleverest mathematicians I’ve ever met. He stands alone, he doesn’t need the approval of the crowd—an island if there ever was one. He’s all the things you say distinguish a Prime.”
“He’s a nonentity, a misfit, little more than an actor.” His voice dripped with scorn. “He plays at being a whiz but he’s nothing more than an accomplished poseur.”
When Rafe got like this—sniping at her opinions, goading her—she could almost hate him.
“You’re not qualified to judge his work,” she snapped.
The remark had the desired effect. Rafe turned to her with raised eyebrows, a smile playing about his lips.
“But I’m not judging his work, Lisl. I’m judging the man. I say he’s one of them, and with a little help from you, I can prove it.”
Lisl took a deep breath. She was almost afraid to hear this.
“What sort of help?”
“His keys. Get me his keys for half an hour and I’ll have what I need.”
“How can I—?”
“Make up a story. You lost your key to the front door of the building or something. Charm him, but get those keys.”
“And what are you going to do with them?”
“Never mind.” His half smile broadened into a grin. “You’ll know soon enough. Do you accept the challenge?”
Without replying, Lisl walked past him, through the door, and down the hall. She knocked on Ev’s open door.
“Ev?” she said as he looked up from his desk. “I left my storeroom key home. Can I borrow yours?”
“Of course.”
He went to the suit coat neatly hung on a hanger behind the door, reached into a side pocket, and produced a jangling ring. He picked out one and held it up for her as he handed her the entire ring.
“This one’s for the storeroom.”
“I’ll get these right back to you.”
“No hurry, Lisl,” he said with a smile. “I trust you.”
Damn, she thought as she thanked him. Why’d you have to say that?
Lisl’s pace was slower as she headed back to her office. She had a queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach, a sudden urge to run back and wrap the key ring in Ev’s bony fingers and tell him never, never, never let her get near them again. But she couldn’t give in to that sort of groundless feeling. What would Rafe think?
Sometimes—and this was one of them—she wondered if she let what Rafe thought matter too much to her. But she couldn’t help it. It did matter. Rafe mattered. And she was so afraid he would find her out, afraid she’d do something to give herself away.
Because she was convinced she wasn’t really a Prime.
Sure, Rafe called her one and didn’t seem to have any doubts about it, but Lisl was riddled with them. She felt like a fake. She’d read where a lot of accomplished people—neurosurgeons, judges, statesmen—felt the same way … felt deep inside that their lives were shams, that their success had been a combination of luck and cleverness and that they were nothing at all like the brilliant individuals people perceived them to be, how they lived in fear of the misstep that would reveal their true nothing selves.
Lisl had experienced vaguely similar feelings all through college and her postgraduate training. The work had been a breeze, her professors had told her time and again what a brilliant mind she had as they’d raved about her papers. Yet deep inside she’d never believed them. Rafe, she was sure, would lay the blame for all her insecurities on the way her parents had treated her, but finger pointing wouldn’t help Lisl get past the idea that all her academic accomplishments were nothing more than a bubble that one day would burst and allow the world to see the naked, frightened, inadequate little girl inside.
She was sure Brian had peeked inside the bubble. That had to be why he’d left her. She wasn’t going to let Rafe find out. She’d go on acting like one of his Primes as long as she could get away with it. It was mostly an attitude, of dividing up the world into people who mattered and people who didn’t, the few worth knowing and the great many not worth thinking about. She’d been practicing. It didn’t come naturally but she was getting the hang of it. And maybe if she acted like a Prime long enough, she’d become one.
So she would let Rafe have the keys, but she wasn’t going to let him pull any of his tricks on Ev. Ev was too nice a man.
She returned to her office and dropped the key ring in his outstretched palm.
“Here they are. But I hope you’re not planning any nastiness.”
Rafe shrugged. “Dirty tricks? They’re fun, but we’ve pulled enough of them on Brian during the last month to carry us the rest of the year, don’t you think?”
Lisl had to smile. Yes, they had indeed. They’d purchased subscriptions to The Advocate and other homosexual publications for his office waiting-room; Rafe had applied for membership in NAMBLA—the North American Man-Boy Love Association—in Brian’s name; and on a couple of occasions they’d sat in his waiting room and slipped samples of hardcore gay pornography between the pages of People and Time and Good Housekeeping. Dr. Brian Callahan’s sexual orientation was now seriously in question among his peers at the medical center.
The pièce de résistance had been the sign they had taped to the passenger side of Brian’s black Porsche one night shortly before he’d driven it home from the hospital. In fluorescent orange letters on black paper it had read:
BACK OFF! THIS CAR KILLS NIGGERS WHO TOUCH IT!
It had been dark in the parking lot and Brian had approached on the driver side. He had no inkling of the sign’s existence until he pulled to a stop at a light in the downtown black section and a group of infuriated youths attacked the car. Lisl and Rafe had been following a few car lengths behind. They watched the kids pound on his windows, break off his radio and car phone antennae, and kick dents in his doors and fenders. Lisl had been shocked when she caught herself avidly hoping they’d get a door open and vent some of their rage on Brian himself. The idea that she could hunger for something like that sickened her. Everyone had a dark side, but hers seemed so close to the surface now. That worried her.
But Brian roared off before they could touch him. Before he got away, the kids tore off the sign and shredded it, so no doubt he still was baffled as to what had precipitated the attack on his car.
But she’d noticed him taking a longer, more circuitous route home these days.
“They seem kind of childish now,” Lisl said, worrying anew about the darkness she’d discovered within her.
“That’s because they’ve served their purpose. They taught you that he does not have all the power, that you actually have power over him. You can make his life miserable when you choose and you can leave him alone when you choose. When you choose—that’s the lesson. And now that you’ve learned it we can move on to other things, leaving Doctor Callahan lying awake at nights wondering who, wondering why, wondering what next?”
“I don’t want to leave Ev like that.”
“Don’t worry. We’re just going to do a little snooping on Professor Sanders. That’s all. See what makes him tick.”
“Nothing more. You promise?”
“I won’t need anything more to prove to you that he’s a phony.”
“You’re wrong this time, Rafe. I think Ev is one of those WYSIWYG people.”
“‘What you see is what you get’? There is no such animal. And I’ll prove it to you tonight when we search his apartment.”
Lisl’s stomach lurched. Wasn’t that breaking and entering? And wasn’t that going just a bit too far? Then again, after all their thefts, she couldn’t very well back down now. She couldn’t surrender to Rafe’s theory about Ev. Because she knew he was wrong.
“We can’t do that. Not—not while he’s there.”
“He won’t be. It’s Wednesday night. He goes out every Wednesday night.”
“He does?” She had difficulty imagining Ev going out at all. “Where?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we’ll follow him sometime. But tonight we’ll take advantage of his unfailing routine and check out his digs, see what makes him tick.”
“Is this fair, Rafe?”
He laughed. “Fair? What’s fair got to do with it? This is a leech posing as a Prime! We’ve got to set things right.”
“Why do we have to—?”
“In fact,” Rafe went on, beginning to move about the office, slashing the air with his hand, “I’ve got a feeling Doctor Everett Sanders is a fag.”
“Knock it off, Rafe.”
“No. I’m serious. I mean, consider his name—Ev. What normal man lets himself be called Ev? It’s effeminate. And he’s such a priss, so neat and particular. Like a maiden aunt. And have you ever seen him with a woman?”
“No. But I’ve never seen him with a man either. Maybe he’s just asexual.”
“Maybe. But he’s hiding something. You can count on that. Have you seen his CV?”
“No. Why would I—?”
“He graduated cum laude from Emory, worked for a few years, then entered the masters program at Duke, went on for his doctorate, then came here to Darnell.”
“What’s wrong with that? Lots of people work in the real world before going on for postgraduate degrees.”
“Right. But there’s a ten-year blank spot in his curriculum vitae.”
“Ten years?”
Rafe nodded and placed his hands on her shoulders, his fingers brushing the base of her neck, raising delicious gooseflesh along her arms.
“Like he dropped off the face of the earth. He’s not telling anybody what he did with those years, which means he’s hiding something. And we’re going to find out what it is.”
Something occurred to her. “I could say the same thing about you, right? You did years of traveling between high school and college.�
�� She gave him a sly smile. “What were you doing all that time?”
“Becoming me.”
“Maybe Ev was doing the same.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
He began to knead the tense muscles in her neck and shoulders, magically relaxing them. She closed her eyes and reveled in the soothing sensations. As always, Rafe’s touch caused her doubts to dwindle, her fears to fade. Nothing mattered more than keeping him by her side. As she listened to Rafe’s soft voice, she found herself falling in line with his way of thinking. Her interest was piqued now.
What was Ev hiding?
3
Everett Sanders, Ph.D., where the fuck are you?
Renny sat and smoked a cigarette on the stoop outside the apartment house. Waiting. He’d been cooling here most of the day. This guy Sanders had to show up sooner or later. He hoped for sooner.
He was almost out of names. And just about out of hope. He’d checked out all but two of the people on Lisl Whitman’s guest list. If he didn’t hit pay dirt with this one or the final one, he’d be forced to write this trip off as a complete bust. No way. Too much time and money and good will back at Midtown North down the tubes for that. He needed to score here.
More than just a score—he needed to strike it rich. He needed Everett Sanders, Ph.D., AKA Father William Ryan, S.J., to walk up the steps, head bowed, lost in thought. Renny would recognize him in an instant and say, “Hey, Father Bill. How’s Danny doing?” Then he’d land a right hook and knock him back to the sidewalk. And extradition be damned, he’d stick him in his trunk and haul him back to Queens for arraignment.
A dream. A pipe dream.
As he was scuffing his latest cigarette butt into oblivion on the stone stoop, a bony guy in a tan raincoat started up the steps. At first glance he looked older, but close up Renny pegged him at somewhere in his mid-forties. This sallow, bifocaled ghost wasn’t Ryan, that was for sure. And hopefully he wasn’t Sanders either. Because if he was, that left only one more name to check.
“Excuse me,” Renny said, reaching for his badge. He’d been using his NYPD shield but not giving anyone a good enough look at it to realize it had been issued a long way from North Carolina.
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