MATHER CLIMBED THE STAIRS to the fourth floor, avoiding the use of the crowded elevators. He would take his chances now, but no more of them than necessary. He found the study hall crowded, some of his own students at the tables. He nodded at those who noticed him and ignored the whispering that sometimes followed in his wake. He laid a firm hand on Osterman’s shoulder, coming up unnoticed behind him. As the boy looked up, he said: “I want to talk with you. Come.”
Without protest the boy got up, leaving his open books, and followed him. Mather led the way to the English Department’s common room at the end of the hall. It was deserted as usual. Mather closed the door, and finding a key on the inside, turned it.
Osterman was at the age when his features changed, month to month. Mather had thought him a good-looking boy, rather virile, when he had had him in his classes. That no doubt accounted for the fury with which he had struck him when the boy had put his hand in his—and after which, except for the night in the Red Lantern, he had determinedly not thought of him at all. Now the boy’s face was soft and sallow, an effete corruption showing at his mouth that sickened Mather. He did not want to know more than his own instinct told him of Osterman’s relationship with the big blond partner to his own conspiracy. He wanted to know but one thing.
“How do I get in touch with Tom? Where can I reach him?”
“Tom?” The eyes were insolent.
Mather kept his hands at his side, but the boy saw the clenching of his fists and his own eyes strayed toward the door. Mather had left the key in it.
“I have a witness who will swear to your association with him.”
“Mr. Mather, why do you hate me so much? I’ve never harmed you. I’ve tried with all my might not to embarrass either one of us. I even tried at first to do what you said I should—to find a girl. Remember, after you hit me?” The boy was pouting, whining like a righteous child in its own defense.
“Or a psychiatrist, I think I said.”
“Do you know what I did, Mr. Mather? I walked straight across the park, into the building and asked the first girl I met to go out with me that night. And in spite of all the show you made over her in the Red Lantern, she was the most vulgar, horrid, pretentious hag. Besides which, she smelled.”
“And so you went back to the park for fresh air. And got picked up by Tom.”
“You make it sound so vulgar.”
“A pickup, man or woman, is vulgar,” Mather said.
“Oh, you Puritan! You’re a New England prude, if you don’t mind my saying it, Mr. Mather.”
“I don’t mind what you say—or to whom you say it, Osterman. I want one small piece of information from you. You took a notice from the bulletin board on Monday. What did you do with it?”
“I read it to Tom over the telephone. He’s been wanting to get a dog, one he wouldn’t have to pay much money for.”
Dear God, Mather thought. The boy could not be that simple. “But you took the notice down from the board!”
“I didn’t want them all to be gone before he could get there.”
“What did he say to you? And when? How did you know to watch the board?”
“He asked me to. He said a friend had told him when the litter was old enough he was going to advertise it there. And last week-end when I saw him, he reminded me to watch for it and call him right away.”
“What does Tom do for a living?” Mather asked. He had to know it all now. For the boy’s sake, not his own.
“He’s a construction engineer. He was working on the project south of the park. Now he’s gone to Florida. He’s promised to write to me.”
“Has he taken the puppy with him?” Mather asked, sick to his bones.
“I didn’t think to ask him. I shouldn’t think so, but I’d have been willing to keep it for him.”
Mather folded his arms. He was half-sitting on a desk. Someone rattled the door and then went away. “Jeffrey, just when did you meet him?”
“You want me to tell you that. All right. I met him when I needed him. When you struck me in the face. The next day—he’d seen it happen.”
“So I’d supposed. He asked you about me?”
“Not really. He wanted to know more about me … and the red-headed girl. Do you know, she’s had the nerve to keep going back to the Imagists? On her own!”
Mather realized that if he tried now to tell the boy what he knew of the man with whom he had taken up he would not believe him. “Don’t you have any parents, Jeffrey?”
“My mother’s in Boston … with a man.”
“I see. That accounts for your knowledgeableness about New England prudes. Did you ever meet a friend of Tom’s, a man he called Jerry?”
“No. We don’t mix with other people. Just ourselves. He has another life to lead.”
How true. “Did you see a police drawing of a man in this morning’s paper, a man wanted for questioning in Professor Bradley’s murder?”
“I don’t read newspapers. Bradley taught here at Central, didn’t he?”
“Tom and his other friend and I myself assisted in Bradley’s murder.” The moment he said the words, Mather recognized the irony: his first overt confession was to this sick boy. He was the more vehement when he added: “Unless I’m able to locate Tom today, I shall tell your story as well as my own to the police.”
The boy smiled a little, his round mouth unable to hold itself firm. He went deadly pale and Mather thought he was going to faint. He caught him by the arms and shook him. “You’ve been used, my boy, in more ways than one. Do you understand?”
“No! I’ll hear from him. I know I will.”
“What name did he give you? Tom what?”
“Jones. But I knew that was a joke.”
“Where did you call him? That notice about the puppies—where?”
“I’ll give you the number. I left the message for him.”
Mather let go of him. Osterman fumbled in his inside pocket and brought out an address book, his hands trembling so much that he could scarcely open the cover, on the back of which the number was written.
Mather waited, pencil and a match packet open in his hand. The boy held the book where he could see it for himself, a Spring telephone exchange, far downtown.
“It isn’t true what you said, is it?” Osterman whined. “You made it up to get Tom’s number out of me?”
Mather just looked at him. He picked up his valise, took it to his desk and, removing the notebook from it, he left the case on the chair under the desk.
The boy watched him, not moving from where he stood. “I wish I’d never met him!”
“So do I,” Mather said from the door.
Again he used the stairs, running down the four flights, passing only a workman with his toolbox on the way. Reaching the main floor he decided against the trafficked corridors and went on to the basement and outdoors by way of the loading entrance.
He was on the south side of the building where the traffic was almost entirely commercial. Nonetheless, he went on for several blocks angling east and south into the hatters’ district before he stepped into a public phone booth. He watched for a pause in the flow of buses and trucks, then deposited his dime and dialed.
After the second ring, a man’s voice shouted above the noise at his end: “Margueritta Import Company,” and when Mather did not respond at once: “Hello?”
“I must have the wrong number,” Mather said and hung up. He looked up the address of Margueritta Import in the phone book. It was on DePeyster Street. He then searched for the nearest public library. The Ottendorfer branch was within walking distance.
There, in the midst of newspaper-reading derelicts, he brought his “Confession” up to date, the last words: The Margueritta Import Company, DePeyster Street.
The librarian was kind enough to give him an envelope and sell him two five-cent stamps. He addressed the envelope to Lieutenant David Marks, marked it urgent, and going out mailed it at the nearest box. Then he took the Lexington Avenue subway downtown.