Thicker Than Blood - the Complete Andrew Z. Thomas Trilogy - Blake Crouch [54]
I passed beneath the portico of a stone-columned building, the largest of the ten or so in the vicinity, and walked up the steps. A great clock surmounted the roof, surrounded by scaffolding, its black hands stuck suspiciously on 4:20.
Inside, the building was dim and stale. The floor was constructed of burnished marble, and the walls of the foyer, wooden and intricately carved, were adorned with large portraits of former deans, founders, and dead professors. A life-size statue stood in the center of the circular room, staring vacuously at me. I didn’t stop to see who he was.
Glass double doors led into the office of the university registrar. I caught my reflection as I pushed them open — my hair and recent beard now brown, a pair of wire-framed spectacles on the bridge of my nose. In jeans and wearing a faded denim shirt under my jacket, I looked nothing like myself.
In the bright windowless room, there were several open cubicles, each holding a desk and portioned off from the cubicle next to it. I walked to the closest one, where a woman typed fervidly on a computer. She looked up from the screen and smiled as I approached.
"May I help you?" she asked. I sat down in the chair before her desk. The constant pecking of fingers on keyboards would’ve driven me insane.
"I need a campus map, a class directory for this semester, and a campus phone book."
She opened a filing cabinet and withdrew a booklet and a blue pamphlet.
"Here’s a map and here’s the phone book," she said, setting the items on her tidy desk. "I’ll have to get a class directory from the closet." She walked across the room, mumbling something to another secretary as she passed. I opened the phone book. It was only fifty pages thick, with the faculty listings in the first ten pages and those of the two thousand students in the remaining forty. I thumbed through it to the P’s.
I skipped over the entries for Page and Paine, then spotted "Parker, David L." The information given beneath the name was sparse — only an office number — Gerard 209 — and a corresponding phone number.
The woman returned and handed me a directory of classes. "Here you are, sir."
"Thanks. Are the students in class today?" I asked, rising.
She shook her head doubtfully. "They’re supposed to be," she said, "but this is the first cold snap of the season, so a fair number probably played hooky to go skiing."
I thanked her again, then walked out of the office and into the foyer, where I passed three college girls standing in a circle beside the statue, whispering to each other. Exiting the building, I walked through snow flurries to the gazebo and sat down on the bench that circumnavigated the interior of the structure. First, I unfolded the map and located Gerard Hall. I could see it from where I sat, a two-story building that displayed the same charmingly decrepit brick as the others.
With hot breath, I warmed my hands, then opened the directory of classes, a thick booklet, its first ten pages crammed with mountains of information regarding registering for classes and buying books. I found an alphabetical listing of the classes and their schedules, and flipping through anthropology, biology, communications, English, and French, stopped finally at the roster of history classes for fall ’96. There was a full page of history courses, and I skimmed down the list until I saw his name:
Hist 089 History of Rome LEC 3.0 35
26229 001 TR 11:00AM-12:15PM HD 107 Parker, D.L.
It appeared to be the only course he taught, and, glancing at my watch, I realized that it was currently in session.
According to the building abbreviation key, HD stood for Howard Hall. I found it on the blue map. Just twenty yards away, it was one of the closest buildings to the gazebo. An apprehensive knocking started in my chest as I looked down the walkway leading