Robert Ferrigno - Prayers for the assassin

For the next half hour, Rakkim took a series of buses back and forth across the Zone, hopped off in the middle of a block, and slipped into his apartment. No one knew where he lived, not even Mardi. He took a quick shower and slept for a few hours. When he awoke, he ate some cold chicken and swallowed four aspirin. Then he borrowed a stranger’s car from a long-term parking lot and drove to the university for a little breaking and entering.

Redbeard said he had gone over the office himself Friday evening when the campus was deserted, but Rakkim had to see for himself. He also wanted to talk to Sarah’s officemate, Dr. Barrie. She would probably stop in after her 3 P.M. class. The office had originally been designed for one professor, but either for budgetary reasons, or the moral imperative to minimize private contact between students and teacher, all offices were shared.

Rakkim checked Sarah’s desk drawers, mentally noting the items before moving them. There were plenty of yellow legal pads filled with Sarah’s notes for her classes “The USA Post-Iraq 301” and “Introduction to Forensic Popular Culture.” There were grade sheets and a thick handbook from the administration cataloging in voluminous detail the proper codes of conduct and comportment footnoted with the pertinent Qur’anic verses.

Tacked to the bookshelf, out of direct line-of-sight of visitors, was a copy of the old Bill of Rights. He knew there had been ten of them in the old regime, ten amendments, but it was odd to see them posted like this. He wasn’t sure if Sarah was asking for trouble or just wanted to remind herself of how things had changed. The First Amendment had been gutted, according to Sarah, and the former protection of the others limited. Most people didn’t seem to mind. Rakkim had once read that burning the flag actually used to be considered free speech. The complete elimination of the Second Amendment had been more controversial. There were old-timers still bitching about that, but they had turned in their guns, just like everybody else. No guns allowed, not for private citizens. Rakkim didn’t need a gun. He was plenty dangerous as he was.

He went through the bookcase: academic texts and biographies mostly, but the bottom shelf was devoted to Sarah’s passion, popular culture of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Books on Star Wars, X-Men, The Lord of the Rings, books on detective movies and horror movies, romantic comedies and political thrillers. Computer flashloads of fifty years of TV Guide and an encyclopedia of comic books. Picture books of fashionable shoes, and street-chic clothes, muscle cars and deco jewelry, anything and everything was of interest to her ravening curiosity. Everything fits, Rakkim, was one of her favorite sayings. Everything fits-it’s up to us to see the picture in the puzzle. She did too. Sarah read the cultural tea leaves at a glance, a mixture of insight and intuition that allowed her to form conclusions before most academics had even analyzed the data.

There were no books on China though. No downloads. He was hoping to find something to explain that pinhole in her world map, a Chinese cookbook or a travel guide to panda breeding grounds, but there was nothing. He had checked a geographical website this morning, found that the pinhole roughly corresponded to the site of the Three Gorges Dam, but he didn’t see the connection. Sarah was an expert on American history, and China had little to do with the new America. China was the global powerhouse, while the Islamic Republic was considered a technological backwater, politically fragmented, its former glory a thing of the past. So why was Sarah interested in China? Rakkim shook his head. Maybe it was just a pinprick. A mistake. Focus on the known, then allow flights of fancy, that’s what Redbeard would have advised.

What he knew was that Sarah had disappeared from the university Friday morning. She had left after her “Pre-War American History” class, abandoning her car in the faculty parking lot. Redbeard said she was fleeing an arranged marriage, but Rakkim didn’t believe it. If that was her reason, all she would have had to do was meet Rakkim at the Super Bowl and tell him she was ready to elope. So what was the trigger?

A pink note slid under the door.

It was a message for Sarah from Dr. Hobbs, history, asking her to call him about the presentation to the faculty senate. Rakkim stared at the door. Sarah had missed her Friday-afternoon class, and this morning’s “Advanced Methods of Historical Research” seminar, but most of her colleagues probably still didn’t know she was gone. So why was this the first message she had gotten? He checked her desk again. No notes. Her officemate though…pink messages were strewn across her desk.

Four messages for Dr. Barrie, all from other professors in the History Department; a change in a lunch date tomorrow, an invitation to an academic tea, a request for her notes on French-Algerian emigration patterns, and a second reminder to return a book to Dr. Phillipi. Two notes were for Sarah. One from the history department chair asking her to contact him, and another, stamped Sociology, from Marian, which said, “Did I get the day wrong? Call me.” He tucked the note from Marian into his pocket as he heard a key slip into the door. He had deliberately left it unlocked.

“What are you doing in here?” A middle-aged woman stood in the doorway, papers clutched to her chest.

“Dr. Barrie?” Rakkim offered his hand, which she didn’t take. “The office was unlocked, so I let myself in. I hope it’s okay. I’m waiting to interview Dr. Dougan.”

“Are you now?” Leaving the office door wide-open, Dr. Barrie walked over and dropped her papers onto her desk, sending the remaining pink slips flying. “Well, she stood you up, young man. Welcome to the club.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Her royal highness decided to take off on another one of her research jaunts, leaving me to pick up the slack. No prior notice, no indication of when she’ll be back.” Dr. Barrie sat heavily, pushed her glasses back with a forefinger. An overworked academic in a long-sleeved dress, her gray hair in disarray. “I have no interest in her so-called area of expertise. My focus is Muslim demographic patterns of the late twentieth century, not the popularist twaddle she promotes.”

Rakkim smiled. “I’m not a historian.”

“Count your lucky stars.” Dr. Barrie looked at him more closely. “What interview?”

“I’m writing an article on Professor Dougan for the Islamic-Catholic Digest.”

“Never heard of it.”

“We’re a small publication dedicated to better understanding within the community.”

“Which community?” demanded Dr. Barrie.

“Don’t ask me. The publisher got a grant, I just do the interviews.”

“Maybe when her highness deigns to return, I’ll put in for a grant and take a sabbatical to the south of France,” Dr. Barrie said. “There are some very interesting census documents I’d love to spend a month examining, and then come back and be interviewed by some nice young man.”

Rakkim pointed at the framed photographs on her desk. “Are those your kids?”

“My six beauties, and each one of them brought forth in pain and suffering.” Dr. Barrie crossed herself. “Good Catholics like good Muslims are not afraid to do their duty. Are you acquainted with Professor Dougan?”

“Not really. I skimmed her book though.”

“I don’t really have anything against her. I just think she lacks maturity. I’ve told her that a woman’s first responsibility is to marry and have children. She can pursue her profession once her children are grown. That’s what I did.” Dr. Barrie wiped her bulbous nose. “I work hard. I go to mass every day. I respect the authorities.” She straightened one of the photos, looked up at him. “Are you a moderate or a modern?”