Flesh

The bell rang again.

“Probably just a salesman, anyway.” After a few moments, he said, “Okay, he’s gone.”

“I was saying we could meet at Wally’s.”

“That’s awfully public.”

“That’s the idea. I don’t want any hassles.”

“Christ, Al. Okay. Wally’s. What time?”

“What time is it now?”

“About noon.”

“I’ll need some time to clean up and walk over there.”

“I can pick you up.”

“Thanks anyway. How about one-thirty?”

“Okay. I’ll buy you lunch.”

“Fine. See you then.” She hung up.

She didn’t want to see Evan.

Some things, she thought, you have to do.

It won’t be so bad.

It’ll be awful. I’ll have to tell him it’s over, tell him face-to-face and make him understand it’s final.

It’ll be awful, but it won’t last forever. Then it will be ended and I’ll come back here and Jake will show up, sooner or later.

Jake.

Just keep thinking about Jake, and the rest won’t be so bad. He’ll be here tonight.

This is getting nowhere, Jake thought. At more than half the doors he tried, nobody responded. The missing occupants, he supposed, were either in class or at work.

Of those people he spoke to, several had watched last night’s spectacle, but many claimed ignorance of the entire affair. None admitted to knowing the identity of the young man in the photograph, though three were pretty sure they had seen him on campus at one time or another. Nobody had seen anything, last night or today, that looked like a snake. Nobody had seen or heard anything strange except for the uproar over the car fire.

It seemed pointless, but Jake didn’t give up.

He had gone to every door of every apartment building on this side of the block except the one at the corner. Unlikely, he thought, that anyone so far from the scene noticed anything. But he might as well check, anyway, before crossing the road and trying the other side.

At the first two apartments on the ground floor, nobody came to the doors. At the third, he heard music inside. He rang the bell.

A woman in her late twenties opened the door. She was as tall as Jake, with a terry cloth headband around her black hair, thick eyebrows that almost met in the middle, prominent cheekbones, full lips, a jutting jaw, and broad shoulders. Her breasts strained the fabric of a top that looked like two red bandannas knotted together. Her belly was tanned and flat, striped with a few runnels of sweat. Her hips had the breadth of her shoulders. Instead of pants, she wore something that reminded Jake of a pirate’s eye patch—a black strap that slanted down from her hips, a black satin triangle not quite large enough to cover her hairless pubic area.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” Jake said. “It’s police business.” He held his wallet open.

She glanced at the badge, ignored the ID card, and licked some sweat from the corner of her mouth. “Come on in out of the cold,” she said.

He stepped into the apartment. In spite of the fan and open windows, the heat seemed worse than outside. The woman turned away, and Jake watched her walk to the stereo. A slim black strip clung to the center of her buttocks, leaving the flawless cheeks bare. They flexed as she walked.

She seemed as casual about her attire as if she were wearing a three-piece suit. Jake wished she would put on something to cover herself.

The woman turned the stereo down, and turned around. “Want some iced tea?”

“No thanks.”

“I’m Sam. Samantha Summers. Maybe you already know that.”

He shook his head. “Jake Corey,” he told her. “I’m making inquiries around the neighborhood about a situation last night.”

“So you’re not here to bust me, huh?”

“For what?”

Her heavy lips curled into a smile. “I’m sure I wouldn’t know. Corrupting the staid mentality of minors?”

“You’ve been doing a lot of that?”

“Some might say so. I’m an associate professor of philosophy at the university.”

Jake thought, You’re joking. Then he thought, Why didn’t I ever have a prof like this?

“Maybe I’ll sign up,” he said.

“Do that. I’ll help open you mind to the imponderables.”

“I could do without imponderables.”

Sam sat on the carpet in front of him. She lay back, folded her hands behind her head, and began doing sit- ups. Her legs were spread. She touched an elbow to the opposite knee, lowered her back to the floor, curled upward and touched the other elbow to the other knee. “How can I help you?” she asked without pausing.

You could help by stopping that, Jake thought. “Did you see this student last night?” he asked, and held the photo of Roland above her knees while she sat up three times. He tried to keep his eyes on the back of the picture.

“Dracula,” she said.

“He thought he was, maybe. He’s dead.”

Sam stopped. She took the photo from Jake and crossed her legs. “Dead?”

“He killed at least two people that we know about. Maybe more. When I found him last night, he was dead.”

“Well, I saw him. It was sometime after one o’clock. Maybe as late as two.”

“Are you sure?”

“He’s not a person I’m likely to forget. He used to get on my nerves following me around campus. His name’s something like Rupert or—”

“Roland. Where did you see him?”

“I was out running. I run five miles every night.”

“At one o’clock?”

“I like the night.”

“Where was he?”

“Just up the block. A young man was helping him into his car.”

The words hit Jake like a blow to the stomach.

“He seemed pretty out of it. I assumed he was drunk. I see a lot of that around here. Students don’t appear very adept at holding their liquor.”

“And somebody was with him? Do you know who it was?”

Her thick eyebrows lowered. “I don’t know his name. I do know that he’s a graduate student in the English department with a teaching assistantship.”

“Do you know where he lives?”

Sam shook her head. She handed the photo back to Jake.

“I have to find him right away. It’s urgent.”

“Was he in on the killings?”

“I doubt it. But Roland was…carrying a disease. I need to get to this guy before he infects someone.”

“If I had a school yearbook…”

“You don’t have one?”

“Afraid not.”

“Will you be here for a while?”