Free Irish Gilt by Ralph McInerny Page B

up on him, but the phone was not answered. He put his briefcase on the desk and opened it. Inside was a folder from the archives. All he had to do now was plant it in Eggs’s room and the campus would be too hot for him. Then Boris could proceed with his great plan to realize enough from the sale of Zahm items to get his own finances in order. The diary alone would command a pretty sum.
    He opened the desk drawer and put his hand inside, groping about, wanting the reassuring feel of the package that spelled his return to financial health. But nothing met his questing hand. He pulled the drawer entirely free and looked at its rectangular emptiness. The plastic bag and the diary that it had contained were gone.
    The mirror above the desk reflected his dumbfounded expression. Then he grabbed the phone and asked the operator to connect him with Professor Knight’s apartment. The Morris Inn was part of the university telephone system. After a pause, a ringing began. Phil Knight answered, thank God.
    â€œYou’re a private investigator.”
    â€œWho is this?”
    â€œI’m sorry. Boris Henry. I want to hire you. I’ve been robbed.”

17
    â€œHave him charged with stalking,” Marjorie advised. “If you’re sure, that is.”
    â€œOf course I’m sure,” Bernice said. “Every time I turn around, there he is.”
    â€œIt must be love,” Marjorie said, and sighed. “If a husband can be in love.” She was getting a little tired of Bernice going on about the men in her life. A few days ago it had been the fascinating man she had run into, a writer, doing work somewhere in the library.
    â€œWe talked and talked.” Bernice’s eyes lifted and seemed to lose their focus.
    â€œAbout what?”
    â€œWe found we had a lot in common.”
    â€œYou say he’s middle-aged?”
    â€œMiddle-aged! I never said that. He’s older than we are, sure. But still youthful.”
    That had been bad enough to, listen to, but now Bernice claimed that her former husband, the immigrant, was following her around.
    â€œI suppose he’s seen you with your middle-aged lover.”
    Bernice was too absorbed to be annoyed by this. “He confronted him!” She leaned toward Marjorie, eyes wide. “On a campus sidewalk, people all around. And that’s not all.”
    â€œTell me,” Marjorie said without enthusiasm.
    â€œHe followed me to the Morris Inn, where Eggs and I and a friend of his were having a drink—”
    â€œEggs?”
    â€œFor X. Well, anyway…”
    Marjorie wore a fixed smile through the narrative. Why were all these interesting things happening to a skinny little thing like Bernice?
    â€œMaybe you could talk your Mr. Eggs into having Ricardo’s green card revoked.”
    â€œOh, Marjorie.” But Bernice seemed to like it now when Marjorie knocked Ricardo.
    â€œMaybe get him deported as an undesirable alien.”
    â€œHe’s as much of an American as I am.”
    â€œWhere did you emigrate from?”
    â€œSo how are things with you?”
    Meaning, how was her love life. The problem was, there wasn’t much to tell, unless she stretched a point here and there, as she did when she whispered about the pawing professor at IUSB. It became so vivid as she talked that Marjorie herself almost believed that the harmless old codger who taught real estate law—she was back to her original ambition—had fondled her, cooing in her ear as he patted her bottom.
    â€œWhere did this happen?”
    â€œHe got me into the phone booth with the excuse that he couldn’t read the directory.”
    â€œYou were in a phone booth with him?”
    Marjorie began to think that she should take up writing fiction. It seemed a way of making her life at least a little bit interesting.
    Afterward, she thought of telephoning Ricardo, but she was afraid he would hang up on her when she told him who it