'You surely can.' she said. 'All the news that's fit to print, that's us.'
'Okay, you know there's a manuscript been stolen.'
'Yep.'
'I have some reason to believe that a radical student organization, SCACE, is involved in the theft.'
'Uh huh.'
'What I'm looking for are faculty connections with SCACE. What can you tell me?'
'Why you want to know about faculty connections?'
'I have reason to believe that a faculty member was involved in the theft.'
'I have reason to believe that information is a two-way go, sweetie,' she said. 'Ah is a member ob de press, baby. Information is man business.'
I liked her. She was old for a student, maybe twenty-eight. And she was tough.
'Fair enough,' I said. 'If you'll drop the Stepin Fetchit ' act, I'll tell you what I can. In trade?'
'Right on, brother,' she said.
'Two things. One, what's your name?'
'Iris Milford.'
'Two, do you know Terry Orchard?'
She nodded.
'Then you know she's a SCACE member. You also may know she's been arrested for murder.' She nodded again.
'I think the manuscript theft and the murder are connected.' I told her about Terry, and the murder, and Terry's memory of the phone call.
'Someone set her up,' I said. 'If someone wanted her out of the way they'd just have killed her. They wanted to kill Powell. They wouldn't go to the trouble and take the risk just to frame her. And they wanted to kill Powell in such a way as to keep people from digging into it. And it looked good?a couple of freaky kids living in what my aunt used to call sin. On drugs, long-haired, barefooted, radical, and on a bad trip, one shoots the other and tells some weird hallucinogenic story about guys in trench coats. The Hearst papers would have them part of an international sex club by the second day's story.'
'How come you're messing it up, then? If it's so good. How come you don't believe it?'
'I talked to her right after it happened. She's not that good a liar.'
'Why ain't it a trip? Maybe she really thinks she's telling you true. You ever been on a trip?'
'No. You?'
'Baby, I'm fat, black, widowed, pushing thirty, and got four kids. I don't need no additional problems. But she could think it happened. Got any better reason for thinking she's not guilty?'
'I like her.'
'All right,' she said. 'That's cool.'
'So, what do you know?'
'Not a hell of a lot. The kid Powell was a jerk, sulky, foolish. On an ego trip. Terry, I don't know. I've been in classes with her. She's bright, but she's screwed up. Jesus, they're so miserable, those kids, always so goddamn unhappy about racism and sexism and imperialism and militarism and capitalism. Man, I grew up in a tarpaper house in Fayette, Mississippi, with ten other kids. We were trying to stay alive; we didn't have time to be that goddamn unhappy.'
'How about a professor?'
'In SCACE, you got me. I do know that there's a lot of talk about drug dealing connected with SCACE.'
'For instance?'
'For instance, that Powell was dealing, and had big connections. He could get you smack, anything you wanted. But especially smack. A kid that can get unlimited smack is heavy in some circles.'
'Mob connection?'
'I don't know. I don't even know whether he really could get a big supply of smack. I just tell you what I hear. Kids like to talk big?especially to me, because I live in Roxbury, and they figure all us darkies are into drugs and crime, 'cause we been oppressed by you honky slumlords.'
'I want a professor,' I said. 'Try this. Name me the most radical faculty members in the university.'
'Oh, man. How the hell do I know? There's about thirty-five thousand people in this place.'
'Name me anyone, any that you know. I'm not the Feds. I'm not going to harass them. They can advocate cannibalism for all I care. I only want to get one kid out of trouble. Make me a list of any you can think of. They don't have to be active. Who is there that might be involved in stealing a manuscript and holding it for ransom?'
'I'll think on it,' she said.
'Think on it a lot. Get any of your friends who will think on it too. Students know things that deans and chairmen don't know.'
'Ain't that the truth.'
'How about an English professor? Wouldn't that be the best bet? It was a medieval manuscript. It was important because it referred to some medieval writer. Wouldn't an English professor be most likely to think of holding it for ransom?'
'Who's the writer it mentions?' she asked.
'Richard Rolle.'
'How much they want for him?'
'A hundred thousand dollars.'
'I'd give them some dough if they'd promise not to return it. You ever read his stuff?'
I shook my head.
'Don't,' she said.
'Can you think of any English professors who might fit my bill?'
'There's a lot of flakes in that department. There's a lot of flakes in most departments, if you really want to know. But English… ' She whistled, raised her eyebrows, and looked at the ceiling.
'Okay, but who is the flakiest? Who would you bet on if you had to bet?'
'Hayden,' she said. 'Lowell Hayden. He's one of those little pale guys with long, limp blond hair that looks like he hasn't started to shave yet, but he's like thirty-nine. You know? Serious as a bastard. Taught a freshman English course two years ago called The Rhetoric of Revolution. You dig? Yeah, he'd be the one, old Dr. Hayden.'
'What's he teach besides freshman English?'
'I don't know for sure. I know he teaches Chaucer, 'cause I took Chaucer with him.' I felt a little click in the back of my head. Something nudged at me. A Chaucer class had been mentioned before. I tucked the inkling away. I knew I could dredge it up later when I had time. I always could.
'Mrs. Milford, thank you. If you come up with anything, my number's on the card. I have an answering service. If I'm not there, leave a message.'
'Okay.'
I got up and looked around the basement room. 'Freedom of the press is a flaming sword,' I said. 'Use it wisely, hold it high, guard it well.'
Iris Milford looked at me strangely. I left.
The corridor in the basement of the library was almost empty. I looked at my watch. 5:05. Too late to find anyone in the English Department. I went home.
In my kitchen I sat at the counter and opened a can of beer. It was very quiet. I turned on the radio. Maybe I should buy a dog, I thought. He'd be glad to see me when I came home. The beer was good. I finished the can. And opened another. Where was I? I ran over the last couple of days in my mind. One: Terry Orchard didn't kill Dennis Powell. That was a working hypothesis. Two: the missing manuscript and the murder were two parts of the same thing, and if I found out anything about one, I'd know something about the other. That was another working hypothesis. What did I have in support of these hypotheses? About half a can of beer. There was that click I had when I talked with Iris Milford. Chaucer. She's had a Chaucer course with Lowell Hayden. I drank the rest of the beer and opened another can. It came back. Terry was up early for her Chaucer course the day Dennis had been telling some professor on the phone to cut his class. I looked at my face, reflected in the window over the
