The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

The Professor Has Visitors

Previously: "The House on the Edge of Oblivion" 

You look at the time on your phone: a little after five. Too long until six, but not long enough to make it worth going home and coming back.

You decide to stick around and wait for Blackwell to show up—with luck, he will be along shortly. You settle into your truck with your phone to wait.

* * * * *

Twenty minutes pass, and you sit up at the sound of tires crunching on gravel. A battered, light-blue pick-up is making a wide turn on the other side of the road, and as you watch, astonished, it swings around to park with its grill less than a foot from the driver's-side door of your truck, blocking you in.

A moment later, the driver climbs out. He's a youngish man with short dark hair, wearing blue jeans and a dirty, white t-shirt. He gestures at you to roll down your window.

"Hey sport," he says in a lazy voice that yet has some steel in it. "What're you doin' parked out here?"

"Uh, I'm waiting for Mr. Black— for Professor Blackwell to get back."

"Oh, is he gone?"

"I guess so." You feel both baffled and intimidated by this man's threatening tone. "I'm supposed to meet him here at six o'clock, but I got here early."

"Five-thirty is early," the man agrees. "What's your business with him?"

"What business is it of yours?" you retort before you can stop yourself.

The glint in the man's dark eyes deepens, and you have a sudden vision of him shooting a strong arm through the window, to grasp you by the throat in a steely grip and choke the life out of you.

"He just asked me to meet him out here!" you stammer. "He owes me some money."

"Really. For what?" He glances over your face, from chin to crown. "You do a job for him?"

"No, I— I sold him something. He didn't have enough money on him so— What's with the questions? You're not a cop, are you?"

He holds your eye with a glittering one of his own, and again you have the quick impression that he might grab and hurt you.

But then he laughs—a sound that makes a shudder go through you.

"I do some work for the professor myself," he says. "I was driving by, saw you parked here. It's a lonely spot, I thought I'd better check you out. You don't mind if I wait here with you, until the professor gets back." It's not a question.

"I can't stop you," you mutter.

"Uh huh." He looks you over again. Then, to your alarm, he grips the top of your door.

"You said you sold him something," he says. "Not that I don't believe you, but what did you sell him, exactly?"

"A book." You feel the words dragged unwillingly out of you. "I found it at the used book store, it used to belong to the professor. I was taking it back because I decided I didn't want it, and he was there trying to buy it back from the— from the store. So I sold it back to him."

Again, he searches your face. "So what are you doing out here?"

"Getting my money!" Your protest comes out as a shriek despite yourself. "He didn't have enough on him to pay me the full amount!"

The man's eyes widen slightly. "How much does he owe you?" he asks.

"A couple of hundred."

"A couple of—? Interesting." A gleam of hunger now comes into his eyes.

For a long moment he searches you over again. Then he says, "As long as I'm here, I've got a little business I need to talk over with the professor too."

It's no real relief when he turns and clambers back into his own truck, where he settles back to watch you through the windshield with a thin smile.

After an unbearable moment of this, you sink down onto your back, out of sight, and try to focus again on your phone.

* * * * *

You are still boxed in by the other vehicle when you hear another car pull up, and after popping your head up to confirm that the driver of the sedan is the professor, you scramble over to let yourself out on the passenger's side. You inch away from the professor's other visitor when he joins you at your side.

At last, after a long moment of busying himself with a satchel, Professor Aubrey Blackwell heaves his bulk from the car. He is in a ghastly good cheer as he greets his two visitors.

"Ah, Mr. Prescott, isn't it?" he says to you. "Eager for your recompense, I deem. And Mr. Hansen," he adds with a colder enthusiasm. "I wasn't aware we had an appointment."

"I was in the neighborhood." The words seem to slither out of him.

"Ah. Well, if you'll join me inside, let me put my things away, I will see of what service I can be to you." Rolling with an ungainly stride on his prodigious bulk, he waddles through the gate and into the yard.

It's an uncomfortable walk you make through the dead yard and up the steps to the dark front door. The professor seems to take an inordinately long time fiddling with the lock, twisting the key this way and that, until he pushes the door open. You half-expect it to creak menacingly, but it falls back silently. He precedes his visitors into a dark and cool atrium.

"You know where the living room is," Blackwell says, and it takes you a moment to realize he is talking to Hansen. "I'll join you there momentarily. Mr. Prescott, pray lend me some few moments to put my things away, when I will be with you instantly."

Both men—Hansen at a quick but relaxed saunter, Blackwell more slowly—plunge down a long, wide and dark hallway, each to vanish around a corner into a different room.

You edge toward the front door, fighting the urge to flee.

But Blackwell rejoins you less than a minute later.

"Your promised compensation," he murmurs as he hands you an envelope. "You can count it in front of me if you wish. Have you reconsidered my offer of afterschool work? No? I understand. However," he continues as he pulls the front door back open, "if you should change your mind, you have my card, and I hope you will not be bashful about contacting me again."

He smiles at you—it is a very tight smile, and it fails utterly to connect with his eyes—and a moment later has gently pushed you out the door.

And despite the temptation to run far, run fast, or simply to run, you stand for a moment glowering at the door that he shuts in your face.

But then you recollect who is inside, and how you don't much care for either man. You glance uneasily about you—the dead grounds of the house are oppressively silent, and the sun seems to have gone behind a cloud—then as quickly as you can without actually running, you make a fast break for the front gate.

But outside you pause to look over the truck that has blocked you in. It's a small utility pick-up, with ladders and hoses and other assorted gear in the back, and it is dirty and dented and looks all-around ill-used. It is a powder-blue color, with the legend "Kraken Pool Supply" painted on the door, while the hood sports a jolly-looking octopus waving its arms as it disports itself over some cresty waves.

Not until you are driving away do you wonder what business a pool supply service has with Professor Blackwell. You didn't see a swimming pool at his villa.

* * * * *

But the whole affair, unsettling as it was, has netted you several hundred dollars, as you confirm when you peep inside the envelope. So your mood has risen considerably by the time you get home. Upstairs, after dinner, you spend an hour parceling and budgeting it out in various ways: this much for some new games, this much for some movies, this much for meals out with the guys.

Speaking of whom ...

You pull out three twenties, put the rest in your sock drawer, and plop onto your bed with your phone. What we doing tomorrow? (which is Saturday) you text Caleb Johansson, your best friend. You shoot the same question to your other best friend, Keith Tilley.

As you wait for them to reply, you scroll through the rest of the names on your contact list, which is depressingly short, and many of whom you would feel funny trying to text, as some of them you haven't spoken to since the end of your junior year. Only Carson Ioeger or James Lamont are unlikely to be taken aback by a text from you; and you flinch when your eye goes by Lisa Yarborough's name. She's the girl you were dating over the summer, until she broke up with you two weeks ago by announcing that you'd never actually been going out together.

First Keith and then Caleb finally reply to your text, and for an hour the three of you bounce texts back and forth, trying to settle on something to do tomorrow. By the time you've exhausted and frustrated yourselves, you've settled on a handful of choices which only await someone making a firm decision.

The first is to catch a showing of The Challengers: Vengeance Brigade, the big summer blockbuster which is now playing at the dollar theater. Similarly, the second is to take in a special showing of The Fly with some friends of Keith. Caleb, to your surprise, suggested a drive out to Russian Lake for some late-summer swimming. He also suggested doing something with Carson and James.

Or you might go out and buy those new games you want with the money you made, and just have the guys over to play them at your place.

Next: "Big Mouth at the Lake" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 5)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)"