“I’ll be here,” said Thomas.
“Me too,” said Nathan.
“You, too, Othello,” said Mr. Farnham to Greg.
Mrs. Kaufman walked up to Mrs. Warden and tidied her long blond hair the way she might smooth out a bedspread. “Can I walk you to dinner?” she asked.
“I’ll be up in a minute,” said Mrs. Warden. “I need to think.”
“Do you want to stay down here alone?” asked Coach McPhee.
“Ben’s here,” she said, but when they looked to the back of the auditorium, Mr. Warden was gone.
Thomas wondered whether he had been there to see his wife break down.
Mr. Farnham called to Landon to leave the stage lights on. They’d be back in less than an hour.
“I’m going to skip dinner and work on my lines,” said Mrs. Warden. “I’ll be here when you return.”
Mr. McPhee and Mr. Farnham walked out together. Mrs. Kaufman asked Landon Hopkins to walk with her. Thomas, Greg, and Nathan left together. Outside the building they bundled up against the cold and walked straight for Stringfellow Hall.
They did not see Kemper Carella in the dark of the sidewalk to their right, nor did they notice him enter Bradley Hall.
SCENE 10
It would be crazy to make a move here, now, early evening in a lighted theater with the woman lying in bed on the stage of all places, but Carella was tempted. She was so hot. He had seen everybody associated with the production leave the theater building, and he knew where the husband was—hell, Carella had just run into the old astronaut pacing the campus sidewalks and mentally orbiting somewhere around Uranus.
Carella stood for a minute inside the door of the auditorium and watched her work on her lines. She would mumble the words, kneel on the bed, hold out her arms, melt her face into a sprezzatura seizure of terror. She was hot to watch, those titties bouncing up and down, that long foxy hair. What if he climbed up on the stage and tied her up?
“Who’s there?” she called from her bed.
She must’ve spotted him.
“It’s me,” he said.
She looked surprised to see him out among the seats. “The acoustics in here are strange,” she said. “I thought I heard a noise backstage.”
He walked down the closest aisle of the auditorium and hopped easily up onto the stage. She looked even better up close.
“Hi, Cindy,” he said. She didn’t like that name, he could tell.
“What do you want, Kemper? I don’t have much time.”
This won’t take much time, babe, he thought. Oh, how good it would be to peek under those blue jeans of yours.
“You’re working awfully hard on a play that doesn’t happen until March,” he said.
She asked him again what he wanted.
Before he could answer, the telephone rang. Carella answered it.
It was Patrick McPhee. “I’m at the gym looking for Dan Farnham,” he said. “Have you seen him over there?”
Daniel Farnham was nowhere in sight.
Carella hung up the telephone and turned back to Cynthia.
“Well?” she said. “What’s going on?”
He told her.
SCENE 11
After a dinner like that, you felt like getting something to eat.
It had been the worst ever—lasagna charred on the outside and cold on the inside, a salad that was nothing but lettuce and no dressing, stale bread, and canned fruit cocktail for dessert. The rumor was that everybody working in the dining hall had quit because they were scared that Angus Farrier would murder them. The truth was that the electrical power in Stringfellow Hall had gone out for the crucial half hour before dinner, so everyone on the staff had valiantly carried casseroles of lasagna to faculty apartments and common room kitchens around the campus in order to heat up the food. It meant that everyone had a buffet dinner instead of a sit-down, family-style meal at assigned tables. That part had been good; it had meant that Thomas and Greg could eat together instead of with their advisors. The bad part was that the power had come back on in time for them to see clearly what they were eating.
“They could have at least put out butter and salad dressing,” said Thomas.
“Or heated up the bread,” said Greg.
“Or put out some breakfast cereal.”
“Or driven us to McDonald’s.”
“Or given us the cheese and let us make our own pizza.”
“Do we have any food back in the room?” Greg asked Thomas.
“Just some crackers and some of that aerosol cheese.”
“I meant food,” said Greg.
They were walking in the cold from Stringfellow to Bradley Hall, where they hoped to finish their rehearsal before the 7:30 study hall.
“Why wouldn’t you kiss Mrs. Warden?”
Greg didn’t answer.
“I’m sorry I brought it up,” said Thomas.
“It’s her husband,” Greg said. “He scares me.”
Thomas was surprised. “Mr. Warden? He’s really nice.”
“I know he is,” said Greg. “But he’s got that mark on his face. I can’t kiss a lady who’s been kissing him. It’s like it’s contagious.”
They walked on a little farther.
“That doesn’t make sense,” said Thomas.
“I know it doesn’t make sense,” Greg said. “It just is. That’s just the way I am.”
It was starting to snow, though no flakes stuck to the ground yet. The boys were fifty yards from the light and warmth of Bradley Hall when a figure jumped suddenly in front of them from behind a tree. It was someone dressed in a hooded ski jacket. A ski mask covered his face, and the thick gloves he wore made his hands look huge. The person shrieked a loud death yell and surprised them so badly that they joined in the shriek, like dogs hearing a siren. Then they recognized the figure as Richard, who was leaning against the tree and laughing helplessly.
Thomas had to admit it was pretty funny. His older sister, Barbara, used to scare him when they were little, and he would do the same thing to his younger brother, Jeff. He thought it was strange that something as bad as fear could be so entertaining as long as there really
