Tenth Commandment (46 page)

We finished the album and I turned back to the section devoted to photographs of Godfrey.

'Who is this he's with?' I pointed at a snapshot of two stalwart youths in football uniforms standing side by side, legs spread, hands on hips. The boy alongside Godfrey Knurr was a black.

'Oh, that's Jesse Karp,' she said, and I thought she sniffed. 'He's the principal of our high school now — would you believe it?'

'They were close friends?'

'Well . . . they were friends, I guess.'

'And this priest with Godfrey — is he the Reverend Stokes?'

'That's right. He helped Godfrey get into the seminary.

He helped Godfrey in so many ways. The poor m a n . . . '

I looked up.

'I thought you said he's retired?'

'Oh, he is. But doing, ah, poorly.'

'I'm sorry to hear it.'

'You're not planning to talk to him, are you?'

'I wasn't planning to, no, ma'am.'

'Well, he's not all there — if you know what I mean.'

'Ah. Too bad. Senile?'

'Not exactly,' she said, examining the pink nails on her plump fingers. 'I'm afraid the Reverend Stokes drinks a little more than is good for him.'

'What a shame,' I said.

'Isn't it?' she said earnestly. 'And he was such a fine man. To end his days like t h a t . . . So if you do talk to him, Mr Leopold, please keep that in mind.'

380

'Tabatchnick,' I murmured. 'I certainly shall.'

I turned to a page of six snapshots, each showing a young, confident Godfrey with a muscular arm about the shoulders of a different and pretty girl. The posture was possessive.

'He seems to have been popular with girls,' I observed.

'Oh law!' she cried. 'You have no idea! Calling him at all hours. Hanging around outside the house. Sending him notes and all. Popular? I should say! No flies on Godfrey Knurr.'

One of the six photos showed Godfrey with a girl shorter and younger than the others. Long, long flaxen hair fell to her waist. Even in the slightly out-of-focus snapshot she looked terribly vulnerable, unbearably fragile. I looked closer. One of her legs was encased in a heavy iron brace.

'Who is this girl?' I asked casually, pointing.

'Her?' Goldie Knurr said too quickly. 'Just one of Godfrey's friends. I don't recall her name.'

It was the first time she had actually lied to me. She was not a woman experienced in lying, and something happened to her voice; it weakened, became just a bit tremulous.

I closed the album.

'Well!' I said heartily. 'That was certainly interesting, and I thank you very much, Miss Knurr, for your kind cooperation. I think I've learned what I need.'

'And Godfrey will get the money?' she asked anxiously.

'Oh, that isn't my decision to make, Miss Knurr. But I've certainly discovered nothing today that will rule against it. Thank you for your time and hospitality.'

She helped me on with my coat, handed me my hat, went through the rigmarole of unlocking the door. Just before I left, she s a i d . . .

'If you see Godfrey again, Mr Leopold...'

'Yes?'

381

'Tell him that he owes me a letter,' she said, laughing gaily.

I went next to McKinley High School. It occupied an entire block with its playgrounds and basketball courts. As I marched up the front steps, the plate glass door opened and a black security guard, uniformed and armed with a nightstick, came out to confront me.

'Yes?' he said.

'Could you tell me if Mr Jesse Karp is principal of this school?' I asked.

'That's right.'

'I'd like to talk to him if I could.'

'You have an appointment?'

'No, I don't,' I admitted.

'Better call or write for an appointment,' he advised.

'Then they know you're coming — see? And you go right in.'

'This is about the record of a former student of McKinley High,' I said desperately. 'Couldn't you ask?'

He stared at me. Sometimes it's an advantage to be diminutive; I obviously represented no threat to him.

'I'll call up,' he said. 'You stay here.'

He went back inside, used a small telephone fixed to the wall. He was out again in a moment.

'They say to write a letter,' he reported. 'Records of former students will be forwarded — if you have a good reason for wanting them. Please enclose a stamped, self-addressed envelope.'

I sighed.

'Look,' I said, 'I know this is an imposition and I apologize for it. But could you make another call? Please?

Try to talk to Mr Karp or his assistant or his secretary. The student I want to ask about is Godfrey Knurr. That's K-n-u-r-r. I'd like to talk to Mr Karp personally about Godfrey Knurr. Please try just one more time.'

'Oh man,' he said, 'you're pushing it.'

382

'If they say no, then I'll go away and write a letter. I promise.'

He took a deep breath, then made up his mind and went back to the inside telephone. This time the conversation took longer and I could see him waiting as he was switched from phone to phone. Finally he hung up and came out to me.

'Looks like you clicked,' he said.

A few moments later, through the glass door, I saw a tall skinny lady striding towards us. The guard opened the door to let me enter just as she came up.

'To see Mr Karp?' she snapped.

'Yes, ma'am,' I said, taking off my hat. 'I'd like to -'

'Follow me,' she commanded.

The guard winked and I trailed after that erect spine down a waxed linoleum corridor and up two flights of stairs. Not a word was spoken. From somewhere I heard a ragged chorus of young voices singing 'Frère Jacques.'

We entered a large room with a frosted glass door bearing the legend: PRINCIPAL'S OFFICE. My conductress led the way past three secretaries, typing away like mad, and ushered me to the doorway of an inner office. The man inside, standing behind a desk piled high with ledgers and papers, looked up slowly.

'Mr Karp?' I said.

'That's right,' he said. 'And you?'

I had my business card ready.

'Leopold Tabatchnick, sir,' I sang out. 'Attorney-at-law. New York City.'

He took the proffered card, inspected it closely. 'And you want information about Godfrey Knurr?'

'That's correct, sir.'

I launched into the Stilton Foundation spiel. Through it all he stared at me steadily. Then he said:

'He's in trouble, isn't he?'

I almost collapsed. But I should have known it had to 383

happen eventually. 'Yes,' I said, nodding dumbly, 'he's in trouble.'

'Bad?'

'Bad enough,' I said.

'Had to happen,' he said.

He went to the door of his office and closed it. He took my hat and coat, hung them on an old-fashioned bent-wood coat tree. He gestured me to the worn oak armchair, then sat down in a creaking swivel chair behind his jumbled desk. He leaned back, hands clasped behind his head, and regarded me gravely.

'What's your real name?' he asked.

I decided to stop playing games.

'Joshua Bigg,' I said. 'I'm not a lawyer, but I really do work for that legal firm on the card. I'm the Chief Investigator.'

'Chief Investigator,' he repeated, nodding. 'Must be important to send you all the way out from New York.

What's the problem with Godfrey Knurr?'

'Uh, it involves women.'

'It would,' he said. 'And money?'

'Yes,' I said, 'and money. Mr Karp, if you insist, I will tell you in detail what the Reverend Godfrey Knurr is implicated in, and what he is suspected of having done.

But, because of the laws of slander, I'd rather not. He has not been charged with any crimes. As yet.'

'Crimes?' he echoed. 'It's come to that, has it? No, Mr Bigg, I really don't want to know. You wouldn't be here if it wasn't serious. W e l l . . . what can I tell you?'

'Anything about the man that will help me understand him.'

'Understand Godfrey Knurr?' he said, with a hard grin that had no mirth to it. 'No way! Besides, I can't tell you about the man. We lost touch when he went away to the seminary.'

'And you haven't seen him since?'

384

'Once,' he said. 'When he came back to visit his sister years and years ago. He looked me up and we had a few drinks together. It was not what you'd call a joyous reunion.'

'Well, can you tell me about the boy? Maybe it would help me understand what he's become.'

'Maybe,' he said doubtfully. 'Mr Bigg, when my family came up here from Mississippi, we were one of the first coloured families in the neighbourhood. It wasn't easy, I do assure you. But my daddy and older brothers got jobs in the mills, so we were eating. That was something. They put me in grade school here. Mostly Irish, Polish, and Ukrainian kids. I was the only black in my class. It would have been worse if it hadn't been for Godfrey Knurr.'

I must have looked surprised.

'Oh yes,' he said. 'He saved my ass more than once, I do assure you. This was in the eighth grade, and he was the biggest, strongest, smartest, best-looking boy in school.

The teachers loved him. Girls followed him down the street, passed him notes, gave him the cookies they baked in home economics class. I guess you could say he was the school hero.'

'Is that how you saw him?'

'Oh yes,' he said seriously, 'I do assure you. He was my hero, too. Protected me. Showed me around. Took me under his wing, you might say. I thought I was the luckiest kid in the world to have a friend like Godfrey Knurr. I worshipped him.'

'And then . . . ?' I asked.

'Then we went to high school together — right here in dear old McKinley — and Godfrey began to call in my markers. Do you know what that means?'

'I know.'

'It started gradually. Like we'd have to turn in a theme, and he'd ask me to write one for him because he had put it off to the last minute and he wanted to take a girl to the T.C.-P

385

movies. He was something with the girls. Or maybe we'd be taking a math test, and he'd make sure to sit next to me so that I could slip him the answers if he got stuck.'

'I thought you said he was smart?'

'He was. The smartest. If he had applied himself, and studied, he could have sailed through high school, just sailed, and ended up first in his class. But he had no discipline. There were always a dozen things he'd rather be doing than homework — mooning around with girls, playing a game of stickball in a vacant lot, going into Chicago to see a parade — whatever. So he began to lean on me more and more until I was practically carrying him.'

'You didn't object to this?'

Jesse Karp swung his creaking swivel chair around until he was looking out a window. I saw him in profile. A great brown bald dome. A hard, brooding expression.

'I didn't object,' he said in a rumbling, ponderous voice.

'At first. But then I began to grow up. Physically, I mean.

I really sprouted. In the tenth grade alone I put on four inches and almost thirty pounds. After a while I was as tall as Godfrey, as strong, and I was faster. Also, I was getting wiser. I realized how he was using me. I still went along with him, but it bothered me. I didn't want to get caught helping him cheat. I didn't want to lie for him anymore. I didn't want to do his homework or lend him my notes or write his themes. I began to resent his demands.'

'Do you think ... ' I said hesitantly, 'do you think that when you first came up here from the south, and he took you under his wing, as you said, do you think that right from the start, the both of you just kids, that he saw someone he could use? Maybe not right then, but in the future?'

Jesse Karp swung around to face me, to stare at me sombrely.

'You weren't raised to be an idiot, were you?' he said. 'I gave that question a lot of thought, and yes, I think he did 386

exactly that, He had a gift — if you can call it that — of selecting friends he could use. If not immediately, then in the future. He banked people. Just like a savings account that he could draw on when he was in need. It hurt me when I realized it. Now, after all these years, it still hurts. I thought he liked me. For myself, I mean.'

'He probably did,' I assured him. 'Probably in his own mind he doesn't know the difference. He only likes people he can use. The two are inseparable.'

'What you're saying is that he's not doing it deliberately? That he's not consciously plotting?'

'I think it's more like an instinct.'

'Maybe,' he said. 'Anyway, after I realized what he was doing, I decided against a sudden break. I didn't want to confront him or fight him or anything like that. But I gradually cooled it, gradually got out from under.'

'How did he take that?'

'Just fine. We stayed friends, I do assure you. But he got the message. Stopped asking me to do his themes and slip him the answers on exams. It didn't make any difference.

By that time he had a dozen other close friends, some boys but mostly girls, who were delighted to help him. He had so much charm. Even as a boy, he had so damned much charm, you wouldn't believe.'

'I'd believe,' I said. 'He's still got it.'

'Yes? Well, in our senior year, a couple of things happened that made me realize he was really bad news. He had a job for an hour after school every day working in a local drugstore. Jerking sodas and making deliveries — like that. He worked for maybe a month and then he was canned. There were rumours that he had been caught dipping into the till. That may or may not have been true.

Knowing Godfrey, I'd say it was probably true. Then, we were both on the high school football team. Competitors, you might say, because we both wanted to play quarterback, although sometimes the coach played us both at the 387

same time with one of us at halfback. But still, we both wanted to call the plays. Anyway, in our last season, three days before the big game with Edison High, someone pushed me down the cement steps to the locker room. I never saw who did it, so I can't swear to it, but I'll go to my grave believing it was Godfrey Knurr. All I got out of it, thank God, was a broken ankle.'

'But he played quarterback in the big game?'

'That's right.'