Chapter Six
“Medieval Mall Chicks”
Professor Morowitz did not think it at all amusing. This was the third time he had been late to an appointment, and this time it would interfere with dinner. Professor Morowitz brooded. She had almost no chance of getting tenure, which wasn't altogether a pity, because she hated this second-rate University in the middle of nowhere. Her office was the worst in the building; rats had eaten half of her latest manuscript; her apartment was just as bad; and the half-hearted affair she was conducting with a member of the chemistry department was almost more excruciatingly dull than being celibate.
She had a dinner date with her chemist in—she looked at the clock on her wall—fifteen minutes, and if what's his name didn't show up soon, she'd be late.
It rather amazed her that only three months ago she had been excited at the prospect of a student's coming to Herschberg for the sole purpose of studying with her. She had to admit that her specialty was rather abstruse (she was an expert in a peasant cult that had swept adolescent girls in thirteenth-century Provence; the girls had abandoned their families to found a communal cow market dedicated to the worship of Christ—"They were medieval mall chicks," she told all her friends). She had been pleasantly surprised to receive a letter from an undergraduate on the east coast saying that had found her writings on the subject fascinating and asking if he could come study with her. But once he had arrived, he had been annoying in the extreme.
Missed appointments were hardly his only problem. Even though his transcripts showed him to have been a fine student with an extensive background in medieval French history, he seemed to know almost nothing of the period. If the thought weren't so ridiculous, she would have thought his academic record spurious.
And now it was precisely seven o'clock. Well, she wasn't going to wait for him any more. Tomorrow morning she'd write him a note telling him that he was in danger of being terminated from the program if he continued to miss classes and appointments with his academic advisor. There was no excuse for such poor performance.
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Professor Morowitz would have been slightly surprised to realize that her recalcitrant student actually felt slightly guilty at having missed his appointment once again. The Narc was hidden beneath the bushes that had been planted at incredible expense around the dormitory several years previously. The undergraduates were dead; there was no question of that. But he had heard the paramedic whisper to the President that the cop would live.
Another police car pulled in, completely blocking the Narc's view of things. Shit. Could he move somehow and regain his line of sight? He moved experimentally. The bushes made a loud rustle. The Narc stopped, he hoped, before attracting any attention. He wasn't going to learn anything this way unless the cops began talking louder. At least he was inside the police line and would probably be able to come out later, when everyone had left.
He was still brooding about how this might be accomplished when the bowling pin fell on his head, knocking him out and attracting the attention of everyone around.
Even though he didn't know it, his cover was blown.
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