Here I was: Terry Oliver, a man with a case. To find the Tenny Bros. “Tenny” like “Tennyson.” But as it stood, I had no leads, no starts, no clues—only four telegrams from a Finnish company with no return address and a few futile Google searches under my belt. I knew I would have to make a call on an old friend, or a new enemy depending on how you looked at it.
The day before, I left Schlep with all the necessary instructions for my classes. When I walked into the office after a peaceful night of doing nothing, he was studiously applying a fake moustache and rouge to his face. It was a good disguise, meant to fool students and faculty alike. All sweetened by the fact that I’m neither mustachioed nor rosy-cheeked. Always one step ahead.
When I saw Schlep was in (his own) capable hands, I stepped out of Humanities and navigated the labyrinthine, protean construction of Library Mall. Some days it’s worse than the Wandering Rocks out there. But I made it all right, walking gently like a cat, as I wound through the revolving door of Memorial Library.
This old friend of mine: He hid in plain sight, if you knew where to find him. Just had to follow the clues. Or, no, the cues. He had a flair for the dramatic, something (oddly) picked up from years of reading Beckett, which isn’t dramatic at all. But I digress.
I made my way to the fourth mezzanine floor, touching the black “4M” twice for good luck. I was going to need it, talking to this guy. I made my way through the sliding stacks. Handy technology, these things: press a button and they slide forward and back in sequence, divulging all manner of books. Great space savers. The platforms don’t register any weight lower than 50 pounds though, so keep your small children and pets in sight I guess.
It had been a while since I paid my friend a visit, so I missed his stop a few times. But I got it right. His was the only card with a yen sign. I pushed the button and watched the stacks slide out.
As the shelves shuttered along the track, lolling by the corner of my left eye, the walls of books peeled away like an onion, disclosing strange breaks and blemishes in the texts: spaces in the shelves, stacked with knickknacks and appurtenances (coffee cups, canned biscuits, several flashlights) or whole shelves missing, wide enough for a man to crawl through.
After the last wall of books rolled by and came to a stop, I saw my friend resting in his hammock, practicing his German. He looked up at me with jaundiced beneficence. “Ah, Terrance,” he croaked.
“Professor Rice,” I said.
“That’s Professor Emeritus Rice.”
He wasn’t happy to see me these days, even as he basked in the glory of his retirement hideaway. I was like a tepid glass of milk left too long on someone’s kitchen counter.
“Well, what is it?” he said, reaching for another book. Opening it revealed a cavity, with a meerschaum pipe nestled on the cut text.
“Desecrating library books now?” I asked.
“Heaven forbid. This is my book… written in lorem ipsum.”
He was lighting his meerschaum pipe now, like he was back in his office with the smoke detector compromised. I didn’t like pipe smoke, but I admired the pipe’s design. It was carved to resemble John Barth smoking a meerschaum pipe, carved to resemble John Barth smoking a meerschaum pipe, carved to resemble… the professor called it (and his smoking habit) “his Infinite Regress.” But Rice looked nothing like John Barth. He looked an aged Jeff Goldblum.
“I need your help with something,” I told him.
“And I need your help, Terry. Help convincing me that I didn’t back the wrong goddamn horse.”
“Listen—”
“Why all this detective nonsense?”
“It’s a calling. I’m following it.”
“Teaching is a calling. You’re wanking off.”
“Look, I’ll be brief: I’m looking for the Tenny Bros.”
He puffed and something ghostly rose from the pipe bowl. Then he smiled placidly. “You poor bastard,” he muttered.
“What do you know?” I asked.
“Nothing. Nothing,” he said, maintaining that smile of his, which was so munificently critical.
“What?”
“I’m afraid office hours are over, Terry,” he said, pushing the button. The shelf shuddered next to me. “You won’t be satisfied with the answer, when you find it,” he added, as it closed in on him.
I was hot under the collar then. But, I guess that’s all I could expect from professor Rice. He was really becoming an old enemy now.
