The Lair (The Margellos World Republic of Letters) (36 page)

“Do you … live here?”

Peter looks at her, dazed, slow to answer. No, the assassin has no weapon, just the Decree.

“Please excuse me . . . I’m sorry, this is the notice, the witch stammers. Excuse me … I came by before. But you weren’t home.”

Peter gazes at her mutely, happy that he hadn’t been home.

“I came by, but you weren’t here, I left a note. Gattino. It’s about Gattino. He’s blind, poor guy.”

Yes, the condemned had received the message, a month before. The Argentinian Blind Man, the morbid note.

“He’s only six months old. He’s gray, and blind in one eye. With a respiratory infection. Have you seen him? Have you seen him around by any chance? He has short fur. He’s shy, very shy. He needs to be called by name, quietly, sweetly. Gatti-Gatti-Gattino, pss, pss, Gat-ti.”

She extends a photo of the cat with the white, dead eye. The Old Woman smiles sweetly, with the large teeth of a wild beast.

“Yes, ma’am, I found your sign posted to my door. I haven’t seen the orphan. I mean, the wanderer. I promise, of course, yes, I know the number. Both numbers. Yours, Helene, and your brother’s, Steve. Yes, yes, I have them. I will call, I will call you immediately.”

The sky is darkening. Muted decor. The disoriented wanderer is also muted, and alive. He forgets about suicide and melancholy. Troubled by the fate of Gattino. Italian name, from Buenos Aires.

He gazes up to the illegible sky, then to the ground in front of the steps, a carpet of leaves and insects. He inhales deeply and exhales slowly, in small doses.

The headlights catch him in between two bands of light, the car stops in front of the shack. Jennifer! The elegant head of security, in an Armani trench coat and a Dior scarf, the color of the wind. She gets out of the car, alert and smiling.

“Taking a walk? It’s good for the sleep, it’s good. May I come in?”

The elegant Vietnamese woman ignores the disarray inside.

“I brought a list of the students. There was, in fact, a course on Borges! Two years ago. A professor from Spain. I brought the list of her students. We’re going to compare the handwriting of each of them with the cursive on the postcard. The question is whether any of these was also your student at some point.”

The professor looks down the list.

“No, I don’t think so. None of these names look familiar. I will check. Tomorrow, at the registrar’s office.”

J.T. leaves the list on the table. Tara is not on the list. He doesn’t remember any of the names in front of him. Did Palade’s assassins infiltrate the killer among his students? There would have been no need, the killer could easily enter the campus, find the hermit’s cabin, watch for his return, appear smiling out of the bushes and calmly unload four bullets, four for the four crimes outlined by the compass of Buenos Aires. Or the killer could repeat the Palade scene: after two hours of class, Professor Ga
parhurries stiffly to the bathroom, his bladder demanding its rights. The stranger enters the next cabin. For some years now, the professor has risked soiling his trousers in the bathroom. Standing in front of the toilet, he moans quietly from the sting.

Climbed up on the seat in the next stall, the Messenger of Death targets the victim’s temple. It’s simpler than it was with poor Palade: he’s aiming at a standing victim, instead of sitting. It would be simple in the cabin, as well. It’s simple enough to duplicate the key. The nomad’s insomnias and nightmares would only help the killer. At two in the morning, Ga
paris in the middle of a neurotic episode, at three, at dawn, he’s riding an elephant, out of whose trunk flow heavy streams of tears. From the sky to the earth. The cinephile watches on the screen to see the aggressor approaching, twirling the shiny toy in his fingers, turning it toward the condemned. A murderous trajectory, the invisible labyrinth, eternity.

Peter smiles. He’d dozed off smiling. The paper J.T. left behind was trembling on his ample chest. He inhales deeply, snoring slightly, like a fat and tired baby chick.

On his chest the list of students who took the Borges course. A white, thin shield.

“We have a suspect. We compared the handwriting from the postcard with that of the students in the Borges course. There’s a suspect.”

“The text was typed.”

“But the name of the sender is handwritten. As well as the address.”

“Well, then?”

“The suspect is from California. Appears to be Polish, is here on scholarship, studies political science and is the editor in chief of the
Journal of Political Studies,
which the college publishes. Very intelligent, very social, and with a very cultivated mind.”

“Very, very, very. What’s his name?”

J.T. pronounces the name from the sheet on her desk, syllable by syllable.

“E-rast. Erast. Lo-jew-ski. Erast Lojewski. Lojewski. Polish parents, most likely. He graduates this year.”

J.T. was satisfied; she’d worked quickly, and her makeup did her justice.

“Did you take him in for questioning?”

“We can’t. We sent the writing samples to the lab in Washington. If we get a positive match, we’ll ask the prosecutor for permission to question him.”

Ga
par smiles, moved. The byzantine socialism that he was used to hadn’t prepared him for such scruples. The barbarian, I’m out of the cage. Captives and captors considered me a liberal buffoon, freethinker, good to let loose in the jungle of freedom. Yet I was a slave, just like everyone else. I had the mentality of a slave. More detached, maybe, longing for some kind of evasion. A barbarian, still. A real barbarian.

“Are you watching him?”

“We’re not allowed to. Not until we get the results from the lab. Would you feel more secure if he were under surveillance?”

“I don’t know… yes. I would. I didn’t sleep at home two nights ago.”

“Where did you sleep?”

“At a motel. On the main highway, not far from the college. I called a cab, I asked for the nearest motel, and the driver took me there. In the morning he brought me back.”

“Motels aren’t the safest of places.”

“I know. I’ve seen many American movies.”

“You should have called me. We would have figured something out.”

“I survived. I’m here. Honored both by the stalkers and the protectors. Excitement! I don’t have time to get bored.”

That same afternoon, J.T.—in a new, afternoon outfit—informs him that he wasn’t the only target. Two other professors had received the same threat! No, she couldn’t reveal their names. The information had surfaced during a discussion in the professors’ lounge; security had come by it accidentally.

One of the letters was written entirely by hand! The handwriting was identical to the other, and similar to Erast Lojewski’s writing. On the back the image of the Hermitage was replaced with a photograph from the
New York Times,
one image of Arafat and one of Pinochet.

The two American professors hadn’t notified the administration. The postcard had seemed a joke and didn’t warrant serious consideration. Was the Eastern European obsessed with specters and horrors? Is that what the Vietnamese American was suggesting? Hadn’t Professor Ga
par tried to convince Larry One and the Sailor Dean and the taciturn Vietnamese J.T. that the threat was a farce?

The calming news did little to calm him. If there were more of the same letters, it means that he’s not the only target. The sender isn’t necessarily a compatriot, Dima’s admirer or Palade’s assassin. But it might be a simple diversion to calm the potential victim and misguide the police.

“Professor Ga
par? I’m Gilbert. Professor Anteos Gilbert. Latin and Greek, ancient history. I hear that you’ve received a threatening letter.”

Aha, Tara’s professor! Tara’s letter? Yes, her letter, too, had been threatening at one point, in its own way.

Ga
par understands just in time that another letter is in question. “I also received one,” the Greek continues, patiently. “I hadn’t known.”

“You’d have had no way of knowing. These robots at the police department don’t communicate among themselves. Three hierarchies. Federal, state, and local. The local police don’t inform the FBI, and those guys don’t care one bit about the state and local cops. It’s every man for himself. I went to the New York State police. On the very night that I got the letter in the mail. Valia, my wife, had panicked. She insisted that we go immediately to the police to show them the letter. Valia is Russian …”