in his other courses were such that a D wouldn't make him ineligible.'
'And that was it?' I said.
'No. I spoke to Dr. Roth, the academic coordinator for basketball. I said Dwayne was academically troubled. That I questioned his basic skills and that I thought perhaps he should be tested to see if we could help him.'
'What did she say?'
'She said she thought I was unduly worried. That Dwayne had been doing well in other classes, but that she'd talk with him.'
'She didn't press you to alter his grades?' I said.
Wagner shook his head. I thought about it for a minute.
'I didn't want to take away his chance,' Wagner said. 'There's not that many of us get a chance like Dwayne.'
'I know,' I said. 'I got the same problem ... among others.'
'It is Dwayne's fault too,' Wagner said.
'Yes. He knows he can't read. He hasn't done anything about it.'
Wagner looked down at his hands for a moment. 'Our fault too,' he said.
'Yeah,' I said. 'It is.'
25
SO far as I could tell no one had conspired to keep Dwayne in school, although Dr. Roth kept bothering me. If Wagner had told her, and he didn't seem to be lying, she had not only her own knowledge, but the testimony of a professor. Why would she run the risk of covering it up at that stage? For herself, the help-out-the-poor-little-darkie attitude might explain it. But once someone else knew, would she jeopardize herself? Not the Madelaine that I knew.
I swiveled my office chair around and pulled my phone closer and dialed information in Washington, D.C. In maybe two minutes I had tracked down the registrar's office at Georgetown University. They had no Madelaine Roth. I called the alumni office. They had a Madelaine Reilly who had married Simon Roth in 1984. She was a member of the class of '82. They did not know the status of the marriage; but Simon Roth lived currently in Fullerton, California, and Mrs. Roth lived in Newton, Massachusetts. I hung up and went to my file cabinet in the corner so when the door opened it was concealed. Susan said it was the single ugliest piece of furniture she had ever personally seen, though a friend of hers who worked for Bedford Travel claimed to have seen an uglier piece in Paraguay in 1981. I got out my file on Meade Alexander and thumbed through it. Ah ha! Gerry Broz graduated from Georgetown in 1983. So they could easily have been acquainted. Pays to do business with a professional detective.
While I was on a hot streak I called a New York City cop I'd met a couple of years ago when I had worked for Patricia Utley. He wasn't in. He'd call me back.
The office felt stuffy. I opened the window a crack and then went and opened my office door to get some cross ventilation. Hawk was leaning on the door jamb across the hall talking with the paralegal. I left the door open and went back and sat at my desk and thought about what I was doing. After about fifteen minutes of running it back and forth it was clear that I didn't know what I was doing. What I had accomplished so far was to make people want to kill me. I'd gotten Dwayne in trouble with his coach. I had already found out what I'd been hired to find out, and I wasn't telling the people who'd hired me. I knew Dwayne was shaving points. I knew Deegan and others had put him up to it. I knew Deegan was connected to Gerry Broz, and I knew that Dwayne's academic adviser could be connected to Gerry Broz. And I could find that out in time, if she was, or if she wasn't. And I knew that the faculty at Taft, by and large, didn't much care if Dwayne could read. What I didn't know was what good any of this did me, and how to get Dwayne out of the mess he was in without destroying his life.
I looked across the hall. Hawk had moved into the office and taken a seat next to the paralegal's desk. Easy for him. All he had to do was follow me around and keep people from shooting me in the back. I heard the paralegal laugh. What's so goddamned funny? Probably be moving in with her Monday. She laughed again, and the liquid hint of a giggle lurked in the laugh. Probably wants me to be best man.
The phone rang. I answered. A voice said, 'This is Corsetti.'
I said, 'Remember me? The killing on Seventy-Seventh Street, guy named Rambeau?'
'Body'd been there about a week,' Corsetti said.
'Yeah, that's it.'
'What do you need,' Corsetti said.
'I need to know about a guy named Bobby Deegan,' I said. 'Probably from Brooklyn.'
'Why?'
I told him without naming any names but Deegan's.
'I don't know him,' Corsetti said. 'I'll check with Brooklyn and get back to you.'
Across the hall Hawk's success continued. In about forty-five minutes the phone rang. I answered.
'This is Detective Kevin Maguire,' a voice said. 'Detective Corsetti from Manhattan says you're looking for information on Bobby Deegan.'
'I am.'
'Okay. Deegan's been in twice. Once for grand theft auto when he was about nineteen. Once for hijacking a cigarette truck ten years later. He hasn't worked a day in his life. Been hustling since he got out of Queens College.'
'Queens College?' I said.
