spend restless hours fingering a set of dimly lit venetian blinds, gazing over the city like the ever doleful eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleberg?' He spun to his window and dug his fingers through the blinds, bending them irreparably. 'Or do you lean back in your chair with a glass of whiskey-which long ago replaced the opium pipe-delicately perched beside your crotch as a delightful blonde legs her way into your office with a piece in her purse?'
Jade stared at the professor for a while. 'Actually, no. I track suspects, Professor.'
Lithemeir waved his hand blindly as he moved a stack of papers over to one side of his desk, allowing a clearer path though which to see Jade. 'Please call me 'Doctor' if you must.' He suddenly froze and then sat forward excitedly. 'By the club foot of Lord Byron,' he said emphatically. 'You're Jade Marlow!'
'Yes, Professor.' Jade was losing patience. Patience was never one of his virtues, but on two hours of sleep and an empty stomach, he didn't even know what the word meant anymore. 'I did introduce myself. Recall?'
'Yes, yes. Marlow. 'The Tracker.' I recognize you from the papers of late. I'd imagine you're all over the television but I haven't turned one on in years.'
'It's not really that hard. All you have to do is push the power button on the remote.'
'Yes, yes,' he answered eagerly, ignoring Jade's sarcasm. 'I would be honored to help you, my dear Tracker. I confess 'I am a gentleman and a gamester, for both are the varnish of a complete man.''
Jade decided just to proceed blindly and ask questions. He cleared his throat and began. 'I'm tracking a man by the name of Allander Atlasia.' He felt a rush when he said the full name, as though he was mouthing a taboo and a desire simultaneously. 'He's a cruel man. Extraordinarily cruel. And he's intense, intense as all hell.' Jade leaned forward and grabbed a loose pencil from Dr. Lithemeir's desk, then began to play with it. In his eyes was the look of a man speaking of his absent lover. 'He refuses to stop short of anything. He'll act on all his fantasies, giving them full range at any cost. He pushes, he pushes to the edge and doesn't worry about the fall.'
Jade was pressing the pencil with his thumb, and it gave way with a resounding snap. Half of it clattered to the floor and rolled under his chair.
Dr. Lithemeir looked down at Jade's thumb, which was bleeding from where it had struck the jagged end of the broken pencil, and was startled to his feet. ''Which is the merchant, here,'' he said, ''and which the Jew?''
Jade jammed his thumb into his mouth and applied pressure on the wound to stop the bleeding. Pulling it from his mouth, he regarded it for a moment and then spoke calmly again. 'Just let me ask a few questions, then I'm out of your hair.'
'Proceed.'
'He left a quote I need-'
'A quotation, Mr. Marlow. 'Quote' is a verb. 'Quotation' is a noun.'
'Thanks for the grammar lesson. Now I know my day's not a total loss.' Jade reached into his pocket and pulled out the crumpled piece of paper which he smoothed on his knee but did not look at as he started to recite. ''Full fathom five-''
''Thy father lies,'' Dr. Lithemeir picked up the verse. ''Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade, but doth suffer a seachange into something rich and strange. Sea nymphs hourly ring his knell: Ding-dong. Hark! Now I hear them-Ding-dong, bell.''
When he finished his recitation, he closed his eyes, still enjoying the afterglow of the piece. The fan overhead limped in circles. Jade noticed several dings on its blades from the professor's cane.
'The Tempest,' Dr. Lithemeir said.
'Shakespeare?'
He nodded briskly, 'The last romance, the last play. Shakespeare's farewell to the stage.'
The last hurrah, Jade thought. It seemed appropriate to Allander's situation.
'Can you clue me in on its significance?' he asked. As Lithemeir started to speak, Jade cut in again. 'In plain English, please. Pretend you're speaking to your daughter.'
'My daughter is preparing her dissertation in the Romantic visual arts, Mr. Marlow. I don't find myself speaking down to her very often.' He punctuated his response by thumping his cane lightly on the floor. Another thought grabbed him and he no longer looked offended. 'In fact, my son is the intellectual unfortunate in the family,' he confessed heavily. 'He's a banker.'
He settled into his chair. 'Now in The Tempest we find a young man by the name of Ferdinand. This Ferdinand is washed up on the shore of an island, having survived a shipwreck. However, his father is nowhere to be found.' A wistful look crossed the professor's eyes as he contemplated the pain of getting washed ashore without one's father. 'This so-called 'poem' which you present is sung to Ferdinand by Ariel, who is a fairy.'
Jade started slightly in his chair.
'No, no. A fairy as in a flying elf. A Tinkerbellesque fairy if you must.'
'So it's a song about his dead father?'
The professor shook his head vehemently, as if allowing Jade's response to hang in the air uncontested, even for a moment, might validate it. 'No no. His father is quite well. He washes ashore elsewhere.'
'So if this… fairy is a fairy, then wouldn't it know that?'
'Precisely.'
'Then why's it telling Ferdinand his father died?'
Dr. Lithemeir grinned, pleased by Jade's curiosity. 'Perhaps because he represents Ferdinand's fantasy world. Ferdinand must allow himself a clean break from his paternal tie in order to properly mature and come to manhood.' He smiled self-consciously. 'That's the Cliff's Notes version, of course. Please don't quote me.'
Interesting, Jade thought. Another image of a dead father. The father having to die in order for the son's development to progress. What there is in every little boy. The Oedipal complex again. Why was Allander so fixated on it? he wondered.
Jade wasn't so sure that Dr. Yung was right in his assessment; he had a feeling that Allander might direct his rage toward his real parents. It seemed more and more that he was pointing back in that direction. Getting ready to go home.
'That's why he's able to win the fair maiden in the end,' the professor concluded.
'Either that or he used a really good line,' Jade said.
'Several of them, in fact,' Dr. Lithemeir replied. 'He couldn't help but score with the Bard of Avon writing his verse for him.'
Jade rose to leave.
'A rather suitable quotation from a man who submerged a large tower to effect his escape, don't you think, Mr. Marlow?' He looked at Jade with his head bent slightly and one eyebrow raised. You're not getting this at all, his look said.
'You know, Professor,' Jade said. 'I'm not as dumb as I look.'
Lithemeir laughed. 'Well, I suppose we should all be grateful for little miracles.' He rose from his chair and crossed to a shelf of books. He ran his thumb over the top of them, finally pulling a dusty paperback from the row and tossing it to Jade. Glancing at the cover, Jade saw that it was a copy of The Tempest.
'The play's the nook, wherein we'll catch the conscience of the crook,' Dr. Lithemeir said with a smile.
'I don't know if he has one, Professor,' Jade said. He tossed the book back. 'Don't really have time. I think I got the gist.'
The professor's smile faded as he remembered that the situation was more than a game.
'Thank you for your time.'
'It was a pleasure,' Jade heard the professor say as he swept past Ms. Jennings's desk. Again, she nearly dropped her cup of coffee.
'We'll have to do cocktails sometime,' he muttered over his shoulder.
Chapter 35
Allander awoke with the first light of morning, feeling the coolness of the breeze across his face. He sat up. His first instinct was to spring to his feet, but he restrained himself. A feeling of unmitigated freedom washed through him like an orgasm, leaving his head humming and his fingers tingling. He had no reason to be anywhere except right where he was. Propping his head on his arm, he lay back again, listening to the breeze in the leaves
