Charles Grant - Night Songs

"Wouldn't give you two cents for the lot of them," the principal said bitterly. "Damned state insists we have to train 'em, though. Don't know why Flocks doesn't do it; they've got the teachers and facilities. It's that fool at the high school, of course. Carter has him scared out of his wits. But as long as the kid insists on staying in, there's nothing the guy can do." He shook his head in empathetic resignation. "If the draft were still in, that jerk would be in khaki."

Colin listened without comment. In the first place, he really didn't mind the tutoring he'd volunteered for; he thought it a challenge, rather liked the extra money, and once in a while even Cart gave him hope there might be progress. But Efron was leading up to something else besides grousing. After all this time he knew the signs-the man was corralling his courage for something unpleasant he hadn't the finesse to open squarely. The last time it was a mild scolding for showing Gauguin nudes in the classroom; the time before that it was smoking in the schoolyard; and the time before that it was to announce to the faculty there'd be no raise in the fall.

"I, uh, don't see you out shaking hands," Efron said at last, with a jocular tone so false it nearly creaked. His pink face turned pinker. "I suppose you're saving it for the big party at the Run tomorrow night."

Colin trapped an ill-timed comment by wiping his mouth. "I'm not all that political, Bill, though I have to admit it'd be awfully tempting to make a speech. Maybe I will, just to see what Bob says." He laughed with a shake of his head. "Probably toss me out on my ear." He paused. "Are you going to be there?"

"Probably. If the wife is feeling better."

Colin barely managed to withhold a chuckle, arranging his expression artfully into a display of concern. Efron's wife was notorious for her illnesses, primarily contracted from the soap operas she watched; what the heroines suffered she felt bound to share, as long as it didn't seem that the suffering was fatal. Efron indulged her, and ignored the snide comments, and the rest of the island generally played the game-when there was nothing left to talk about, Mrs. Efron's latest provided an easy topic.

"Well, I hope she's well enough. It should be quite a bash."

Efron nodded thoughtfully, slipped a hand into his jacket pocket. "You won't be giving any speeches, then."

"I made the one last month at the town meeting, which proved to me I should stick to my canvases. Anyway, I figure people can ask me if they want to know more."

"And do they?"

He nodded. "Once in a while. You know how it is." A pause. "Here in school?"

He turned slowly and leaned as casually as he could against the door frame, trying to decide if the man was kidding or not. The look on the principal's face said he wasn't, and Colin almost lost his temper. "Bill, I'm surprised. You know me better than that. Here, I teach. I don't campaign. Anybody asks me, I tell them to wait until later."

Efron smiled in weak apology. "I know that, Colin. I just want to be sure you understand."

"It's been over a month. Why haven't you said anything before?"

The principal shrugged his wide, sagging shoulders. "Didn't see the need for it."

"And now?"

The question echoed off the empty foyer's beige-tiled walls, and Efron backed to a wall display case behind whose glass face were ranged a few polished trophies and dark-framed citations. He stared at them as if they were whispering in his ear.

"This isn't a big school, Colin, not like they have in Flocks or the city. But it does have a reputation. And a damned good one, I might add. There are more than a dozen kids here from the mainland whose parents are willing to pay extra to have them learn from us. Our students on the average do better in high school and in college than anyone else in the county." He traced a finger across the glass, as if he were trying to write a message. "I don't want people saying there's any undue influence here."

"You don't have to worry about that, Bill," he said, hoping his annoyance didn't show in his tone. "At least I don't hand out pamphlets to my students to take home to their parents." And the moment he said it he wished he'd kept his mouth shut.

Efron half-turned, frowning. "What's that supposed to mean?'

It was too late to retreat, but he didn't want to argue. A gesture, then, to deflect the tension. "Come on, Bill, don't play games, okay? It's a beautiful day and I don't want it spoiled for something silly like this."

"Are you saying Cameron uses his business to garner votes?"

Colin sighed mild disgust and walked toward the intersection of the foyer and the building's single hallway.

"Colin."

He stopped.

The hallway was deserted.

The voice behind him was solemn.

"Bob Cameron has a restaurant, and what he does there is his affair. It's private, and his customers don't have to read his material if they don't want to. On the other hand, this is a public school. We have a trust here, aside from a legal obligation. A word to the wise-don't abuse it."

He nodded without looking back, continued around the corner and headed for the faculty lounge. Once inside, with the door carefully closed behind him, he lashed out with a foot at the nearest chair, wincing when he connected with the aluminum tubing and a shock paralyzed his leg. Idiot, he thought as he hobbled to the back window and looked out at the schoolyard. Idiot-though he wasn't sure yet who deserved the label.

He put his palms on the sill and touched his forehead to the glass, staring at the swing sets, the seesaws, the benches and redwood tables. A man was out there- Denise and Frankie's father-stabbing listlessly at pieces of lunch paper and wrappings with a pole tipped with a nail, stuffing the catch into a canvas sack hanging from his shoulder. Colin watched him for five minutes without the man looking up.

Finally, after a long escaping sigh that fogged the pane, he had to admit that what he had heard wasn't much of a threat. In fact, 'threat' was definitely too strong a word since Efron never had been very effective with thunder. Yet the fact it had been tried made him wonder what, if anything, was next, and if there had been something else on the man's mind that hadn't been said. As he turned away from the custodian cleaning the yard, he wondered what Cameron had said to make Efron act.

He shook himself like a dog shedding rain, and decided he was overreacting to a perfectly reasonable suggestion. After all, it was Efron's job to keep his school and his teachers clean in more ways than one, and Colin was actually surprised it hadn't been brought up before. Surprised because Bill Efron was one of the casino's staunchest supporters, and if Colin won the election they'd be co-members on the Board.

Good lord, he thought with a start, wouldn't that be something else? A hell of a thing, since the Board also hired and fired all the teachers. He could see it all now: a smoke-filled room, a dramatic confrontation, Efron trying to dislodge Colin's tenure, and Colin passionately voting against him. He laughed aloud, once, and looked to the ceiling. It would have to be a first, unquestionably. What other teacher in the state had the power to save his own skin? Not only a first, it was ludicrous. Unreal.

He laughed again, this time to himself, and while laughing made his way back to his room for his jacket and briefcase. A check to be sure nothing was left behind, and he was out of the silent building before anyone could intercept him. He paused on the last step to allow his eyes to adjust to the sunlight, and turned right to follow the sidewalk past the school; a sharp left with the cracked pavement and he was heading toward Bridge Road. The block easily stretched twice as long as any he'd ever seen, so long in fact that each street was trisected by narrow concrete pathways lined with hurricane fencing and poplars for shade so pedestrians didn't have to walk all the way to the corner or the shops out on Neptune just to visit a friend.

A flock of gulls swept low overhead, slow-riding the currents like black-and-white kites, and he listened for a moment to their cries on the wind. It was the only sound he could hear, and his footsteps the only proof he wasn't caught in a dream. Nice, he thought as he did each day, very nice indeed.

Across the street there were high-mounted houses clustered under tall trees all the way to the corner, on his side the same until he reached Reverend Otter's fieldstone cottage, one of the few not raised for protection. Then the spired New England church with its vast rock garden on the side and a belfry ringed with a narrow widow's walk for sighting the fleet, the brown clapboard library that used to be someone's home (with an attending fat Doberman asleep and whimpering now in the sun), and finally he reached the corner and Cameron's Clipper Run.

Several cars passed him heading east. Folks on their way to Flocks for a Friday night outing, he guessed. He grinned and waved when one of them honked a horn, and an arm poked out a window to give him a wave back.

A group of kids playing ball in the street across the way.

Someone practicing on a tortured saxophone. Nice, he thought; I should live again and be so lucky.

A fluttering by the restaurant caught his attention, and he peered through the shade under raw-beamed eaves extending over the entrance. There was a white cloth banner tacked above the door, proclaiming the dancing and dinner that would be held tomorrow night, all in the name of a successful season's finish. As if, he thought in mild disgust, every season before this one had been a total disaster. But it was a good way to discover how many votes the man had, and how many he needed to pry away from Colin.

He swung his briefcase out to batter at the hedge, and wondered maliciously where Bob had found the nerve to interfere with his job, but he also remembered those so-called friends he could have met last night, the ones Garve had described to him on the beach at Gran's funeral.

Tomorrow, he thought, should be interesting indeed.

He checked the sky, took a deep breath to smell the ocean, and decided he should go home before dropping in on Peg. He'd been wrestling with the idea all day, and now he felt a chill.

It was time. Perhaps it was too late. When he awoke this morning and watched the dawn shadows slip off the ceiling, he'd realized that not calling her when he'd returned last night was more than breaking an understood promise; it was stalling.

And not done very adroitly at that.

As he reached the police station and turned onto Neptune, he mocked himself for his procrastination. Subtle as a sledgehammer. Ross, you dumb jerk. Thank God you didn't decide to try your hand working for the State Department; World World Three before you even unpack your bags.

"Hey, Mr. Ross."

He blinked and looked to his right, saw El Nichols standing in the station doorway. "Hey, El, how's it going?"

The younger man looked tired, and his uniform was faintly rumpled. "Could be better, could be worse. You know how it is. I think the Screamer's put ants in the town's pants today, though. I've been out on more calls…" He shook his head once to mark his exasperation. "Little old ladies seeing prowlers on their back porches, stuff like that. And in the middle of the day, yet."

"Little old ladies know no clock, El. A prowler's a prowler whether the sun's out or not."

The deputy laughed, a rich and smooth sound that effectively smothered the rest of his souring mood.

"So," Colin said, "you catch any?"

"You kidding?" Eliot slumped against the frame and leaned forward, lowering his voice as if conspiring, or guarding against the ire of his friends. "Hattie over at the library had me go up and down between every damned stack while that monster dog of hers barked his damned fool head off the whole time I was there. Then she made me listen to some theory she has about this Greek or Roman guy named Tantalus and why he did what he did. Jesus, who the hell cares? I never even heard of the jerk.