Free The Matlock Paper by Robert Ludlum Page A

sight of Ralph Loring’s lifeless body in the telephone booth.
    Herron.
Lucas Herron!
    A seventy-year-old legend. A quiet scholar who was as much revered for his perceptions of the human condition as he was for his brilliance. A lovely man, an honored man. There had to be a mistake, an explanation.
    There was no time to ponder the inexplicable.
    Archer Beeson thought he was a “plant.” And now, someone else thought so, too. He couldn’t allow that. He had to think, force himself to
act
.
    Suddenly he understood. Beeson himself had told him what to do.
    No informer—no one not narcotized—would attempt it.
    Matlock looked over at the girl lying face down on the living room floor. He crossed rapidly around the dining table and ran to her side, unbuckling his belt as he did so. In swift movements, he took off his trousers and reached down, rolling her over on her back. He lay down beside her and undid the remaining two buttons on her blouse, pulling her brassiere until the hasp broke. She moaned and giggled, and when he touched her exposed breasts, she moaned again and lifted one leg over Matlock’s hip.
    “Pinky groovy, pinky groovy …” She began breathing through her mouth, pushing her pelvis into Matlock’s groin; her eyes half open, her hands reaching down, stroking his leg, her fingers clutching at his skin.
    Matlock kept his eyes toward the kitchen door, praying it would open.
    And then it did, and he shut his eyes.
    Archie Beeson stood in the dining area looking down at his wife and guest. Matlock, at the sound of Beeson’s footsteps, snapped his head back and feigned terrified confusion. He rose from the floor and immediately fell back down again. He grabbed his trousers and held them in front of his shorts, rising once more unsteadily and finally falling onto the couch.
    “Oh, Jesus! Oh, sweet Jesus, Archie! Christ, young fella! I didn’t think I was this freaked out!… I’m far out, Archie! What the hell, what do I
do?
I’m
gone
, man, I’m sorry! Christ, I’m sorry!”
    Beeson approached the couch, his half-naked wife at his feet. From his expression it was impossible totell what he was thinking. Or the extent of his anger.
    Or was it anger?
    His audible reaction was totally unexpected: he started to laugh. At first softly, and then with gathering momentum, until he became nearly hysterical.
    “Oh,
God
, old man! I said it! I
said
she was a minx!… Don’t worry. No tattle tales. No rapes, no dirty-old-man-on-the-faculty. But we’ll have our
seminar
. Oh, Christ, yes! That’ll be some
seminar!
And you’ll tell them all you picked
me!
Won’t you? Oh, yes! That’s what you’ll tell them, isn’t it?”
    Matlock looked into the wild eyes of the addict above him.
    “Sure. Sure, Archie. Whatever you say.”
    “You better believe it, old man! And don’t apologize. No apologies are necessary! The apologies are mine!” Archer Beeson collapsed on the floor in laughter. He reached over and cupped his wife’s left breast; she moaned and giggled her maddening, high-pitched giggle.
    And Matlock knew he had won.

7
    He was exhausted, both by the hour and by the tensions of the night. It was ten minutes past three and the choral strains of the “Carmina Burana” were still hammering in his ears. The image of the bare-breasted wife and the jackal-sounding husband—both writhing on the floor in front of him—added revulsion to the sickening taste in his mouth.
    But what bothered him most was the knowledge that Lucas Herron’s name was used within the context of such an evening.
    It was inconceivable.
    Lucas Herron. The “grand old bird,” as he was called. A reticent but obvious fixture of the Carlyle campus. The chairman of the Romance languages department and the embodiment of the quiet scholar with a deep and abiding compassion. There was always a glint in his eyes, a look of bemusement mixed with tolerance.
    To associate him—regardless of how remotely—with the narcotics world was