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Quoth the Raven(75)



“Oh,” Gregor said. That didn’t sound very gracious. He added, “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to say thank you,” Freddie told him. “It’s like Jack says, I’m six five. I’ve got responsibilities. No. The thing is, I was wondering, have you seen Jack?”

“Do you mean Mr. Carroll?”

“Mr.—yeah, I guess I do.”

“Do you mean today?”

“Of course today.” Now the boy looked worse than confused. He was not, Gregor thought, a very smart boy. He wasn’t a very mature one, either. Gregor began to feel a little guilty. He was preoccupied, but that wasn’t any reason for putting this boy through what one of his nieces called The Grown-Up Rag. This particular niece of his had just turned seventeen.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m afraid my mind is on something else. You’re looking for Jack Carroll? Why? Is he missing?”

“Yeah,” Freddie said, “he’s missing. I’ve been looking for him all day. And you know what’s weird? Chessey’s missing, too.”

“Chessey Flint?”

“Right.” Freddie obviously thought that everybody, even the President of the United States, must know who “Chessey” was and that she was the girlfriend of Jack Carroll. It was information in the atmosphere, like the fact that the Pope was Polish and Ozzie Osbourne was being persecuted by the middle-class mothers of America. He turned around and stared into the crowd for a moment, as if he expected one or the other of the reigning deities of Independence College to materialize in front of his eyes. Then he turned back again.

“The thing is,” he said, “it’s really important for me to find Jack. It’s really important for all of us. Nothing is getting done.”

“Is there a lot to get done?”

“Oh, yeah,” Freddie said. “The bonfire’s tonight. Do you know about the bonfire?”

“Of course I do.”

“Yeah, I guess everybody knows about it. Jack’s president of students. He’s supposed to be running things. And he’s not here.”

“I could see where that would be a problem.”

“It’s not like we don’t know what to do,” Freddie said. “I mean, Jack’s a good organizer, if you get the picture. We’ve got it all set up. But he’s supposed to be here.”

“Have you tried—”

“I’ve tried everything,” Freddie said. “I went to his room. I went to Chessey’s room. I couldn’t even find Evie Westerman. Hell, Mr. Demarkian, I went all the way up to that Climbing Club cabin and all I got was zip.”

“Zip,” Gregor repeated dubiously. And then he began to smile.

And smile.

And smile.

Jack Carroll.

Chessey Flint.

Evie Westerman.

All missing.

Oh, Lord. There was only one explanation for his having missed this one, and that was that he had to be getting old.

He thought of that figure up on King George’s Scaffold in the early hours of the morning, capering around in its bat suit, and nearly laughed out loud.

Then he saw Freddie Murchison staring at him in alarm—the boy had to think he was crazy—and made himself calm down. He clasped Freddie on the back in just the hearty way he had hated adults for when he was in college and said, “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure Jack will be back in time for the bonfire. He struck me as a very responsible young man.”

“Well, yes,” Freddie said, “that’s the point, isn’t it? I mean, Jack never misses out, not on anything, so what I want to know is, where the Hell has he gotten to? I mean,

Mr. Demarkian, with the stuff that’s been happening around here, I think—”

“Don’t think,” Gregor said. “Go play. Mr. Carroll will be back.”

“Mr. Demarkian—”

Gregor didn’t hear the rest of it. He didn’t want to hear the rest of it. He was bopping along the path, working his way back to Constitution House, in the best mood he’d been in since he first stepped onto this campus the day before. It was remarkable how much easier it was to make his way through the crowd once he was in a good and hopeful mood.

As for the rest of it, in his private—and soon to be not so private—opinion, David Markham was a goddamned fool.





Three


1


DR. ALICE ELKINSON’S SENIOR seminar in the Foundations of the American Industrial Revolution ended at twelve o’clock, and by the time the noon bells rang out across campus, she had decided she was having a bad day. Alice often had a bad day on Halloween. It was trying enough that so many students cut class. With all the fuss going on on the quad and on Minuteman Field, she almost couldn’t blame them for that. It was worse with the ones who did come, because they only seemed to drive her wild. Was it really necessary for Ted Barrows to deliver his paper on the evolution of patent law with a Freddie Kreuger mask over his face and a sack of ketchup around his neck that squirted every time he hit a high note? What exactly possessed someone like Shelley Linnington—whose ordinary modus operandi was mousy timidity and whining complaint—to let out a piercing scream in the middle of Carl Dorfman’s presentation on the technology of mass production and pretend to faint? Alice had scheduled the papers because she’d thought they’d help. She’d had Halloweens when no one showed up for her classes at all. Now she realized she’d done something she’d been warned against, but never listened to the warnings about. Her whole life had been like that. Don’t get your doctorate—you’ll make yourself so overqualified, you’ll never get a real job. Don’t wear your blouses with three buttons undone—nobody will take you seriously as a scholar. Don’t fall in love with a man in your own department—you’ll ruin both your careers. Don’t—