College-Cut Kill

Chapter One Brethern, Here’s to Death!

It was half past twelve on one of those early September days in Manhattan when the streets are Dutch ovens and a girl who can look crisp is a treasure indeed. I was completing the last draft of the current three-part blast, with Dolly sitting at my elbow noting the changes I wanted.

Miss Riven came in simultaneously with her crisp rap at the door, and said, “Mr. Engelborg wishes to see you immediately, Mr. Arlin.”

She did a Prussian drill-sergeant’s about-face and went back through the door, shutting it with a crisp clack that only Miss Riven can seem to get out of a door.

“Her!” Dolly said. “Her!” She made it sound like a dirty name.

“She thinks I work here,” I said. During the six weeks that I had been provided with office space and Dolly, she and I had become good friends. “Look, lovely. I can’t see anything more we need. Type it up with three carbons and get one over to the legal eagles for checking.”

I hesitated, decided against my coat, and went down through the offices full of common people to the shrine where Engelborg, the almighty, flings his weight around.

Miss Riven gave me a cool look, glanced at her watch and said, “You may go right in, Mr. Arlin.”

I pushed the door open. Engelborg, who looks like a giant blond panda, said, “This is Arlin. Joe, meet Mr. Flynn.”

Flynn merely nodded but he stared at me intently. He was a big, sagging man in his late fifties with an executive air about him. There was a bloodhound sadness about his eyes.

“Arlin,” said Engelborg, “is just finishing up a hot series on real estate swindles.”

“It’s all done,” I said. “Ought to be out of the typewriter tomorrow. That is, if the lawyers have no kick.”

“Good,” Engelborg grunted. “I want you to understand, Mr. Flynn, that Arlin isn’t a part of this organization. He works on a free-lance basis and this particular job was so hot we wanted him right here so we could coordinate more closely. What are your plans, Joe?”

I didn’t like the sound of that. I said, “I am going to wait until I get page proofs on the first installment and then I am going to go to Maine.”

“I understand,” Flynn said, “that you’re out of college two years. The University of Wisconsin. You were a Gamma U there?”

“That’s right.” I couldn’t smell which way this was going. Flynn looked at me as though he resented me in a tired way.

“He looks young enough, doesn’t he?” Engelborg said.

Flynn nodded.

That has been a sore point with me. When I was twenty I looked fifteen. Now, at twenty-eight, I look twenty. Professionally that has its limitations. Emotionally it’s all right. I play on their maternal instincts.

“So I look young,” I said. “Gee, thanks.”

“Take it easy, Joe,” Engelborg said. “Real easy. Don’t get upset. How’d you like to go to college?”

“Thanks, I’ve been.”

Flynn spoke heavily. “Let me talk, Arlin. My son is dead. He died last June at the age of nineteen. Everyone says he hung himself. I went down there. He was at West Coast University in Florida. I cannot believe he hung himself. He was a Gamma U. Other boys in that house died last year. In different ways. Automobiles. One drowned. Too many died. I cannot get help from the police. A private investigation firm would be too heavy-handed.

“Mr. Engelborg has been my good friend for many years. Last night I talked to him about this. He mentioned you. We discussed it. I want to pay you to go down and register for this fall term which starts very soon. I have certain influence and so does Engelborg. It can be arranged. We have a friend at the University of Wisconsin. The first three years of your credits will be transferred so you can enter as a senior. I know the secretary of the national chapter of Gamma U. There will be no trouble from that end.”

I sat down. I kept my voice as calm and logical as I could. “Mr. Flynn, I appreciate your problem. There are many inexplicable suicides among young people.”

“Teddy did not kill himself. I know that. I must have it proven. I have two other boys, younger boys. I don’t want this thing hanging over them.”

“Which would be better? Suicide or murder? If it isn’t one it’s the other.”

“Suicide is a sign of basic weakness. Teddy was not weak. I want you to go down there and live in that house and find out what happened.” He was as positive and undeniable as an avalanche.

I appealed to Mr. Engelborg. “Look, that isn’t my line. I find things out to write them up.”

Engelborg said, “You’ve done some very slick investigatory work, Joe. Those dock gangs, the Bermuda dope setup.”

“I’m my own man,” I said. “I do what I please.”

“That’s right, Joe,” Engelborg said.

“I don’t want to go to college. I want to go to Maine. Brother, it’s hot down there now. I’m tired. I want to go fishing.”

“You’ll wonder,” Flynn said, “all the rest of your life. You’ll wonder what kind of a thing you might have uncovered. What kind of a twisted, diseased thing it is that causes the deaths of fine young boys.”

“I won’t do it,” I said.

“You will be paid all expenses, plus a thousand a month plus a bonus of five thousand when it is all over, no matter what your conclusion is.”

“I hate Florida,” I said.

The blue gulf sparkled on my right as I drove south. The sun glinted off the chrome of the convertible, needling through the dark glasses. My luggage was stacked in the back end and I had not had to change to kollege kut klothes because the veterans pretty much took that aspect out of higher education. I had been one myself, the navy taking out a four-year chunk so that I got out when I had turned twenty-six.

The town of Sandson where the university was located turned out to be half on the mainland and half on a long island connected to the mainland by a half-mile public causeway. The university was inland from the mainland half of the town, perched on a hill a hundred, feet high — which made it a mountain in that locality.

The timing was good and I arrived on the last day of registration. I dumped cash and traveler’s checks into the Sand-son National Bank and drove east along the wide main drag. The university turnoff was to the right just beyond the city limits. A curving road led up to the haphazard collection of Moorish, Neo-Gothic, Spanish and Twentieth Century Lavatory construction. The bright young girls walked and cycled by in their thin dresses, brown legs flashing, eyes measuring me and the car for possible future reference.

I told myself this was a wild goose chase, a big mistake, a bunch of wasted time. I told myself again. Then I stopped telling myself. It was too much fun dropping back into the college frame of mind. But this time I was doing it the way I wished I had been able to do it at Wisconsin. At Wisconsin I had been knocking myself out, wondering how tough it would be to make a living later. Here I was getting paid for the deal.

Temporary cardboard signs were tacked up, pointing the way to Administration and Registration. I parked beside the indicated building, took the transcript of my three years out of the glove compartment and went in. There were tables with people working at them, filling out the desired schedules of classes. I took one of the catalogues and one of the blanks and went to work. I laid out six courses.

Literature IV (Creative Writing), Psychology VIII (Abnormal), Philosophy III (Ethics), Political Science VI (Ecology of nations) Modern History II (1914–1950). Lastly, I dipped for an elective into the Business School, Accounting I (Basic Methods), because I have never been able to see quite eye to eye with the Collector of Internal Revenue.

Then I joined the line leading to the window titled A to K. The young lady was very crisp. I gave the name we had agreed on — Rodney J. Arlin. It’s my name. The one my stuff has been published under is R. Joseph Arlin, and we thought the name might be just a shade too familiar to the reading public of one certain large magazine.

She checked her card file. “Arlin, Rodney J. We have you listed as a transfer. You have your transcript?” I handed it over. She checked it carefully.

“We can give you full credit for the hours shown here, and admit you as a senior. As a senior you are not restricted to living on the campus. Do you have a place to live yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Advise us immediately when you have an address. Your schedule is approved. Tuition will be three eighty-five for each semester. Yes, a check is acceptable. Take one of the getting acquainted bulletins as you leave. They’re on that far table. Class hours and rooms are posted on all bulletin boards. Compulsory meeting tomorrow morning at nine. As a senior you will attend the meeting in the Science Building auditorium. Next, please.”

I found the cafeteria, had a quick lunch and went off in search of the brethren. I found them in a rambling Miami-type house of cinderblock, with a big overhang to kill the heat of the sun, sprinklers turning lazily on the green lawn. There was a parking area to the left of the house with a dozen cars lined up in it, eight of them convertibles of recent vintage. I parked and went around to the front. The door was open. The interior looked dim and invitingly cool.

I punched the bell and stepped inside. Two of the brethren came into the hallway and stared at me curiously, warily. One, with heavy bone-structure, I immediately type-cast as a working guard or tackle. The other was the smooth-dan type that inhabits all major fraternities. Careful, casual, a shade haughty and a bit too handsome.

I picked him to slip the grip to. “Brother Arlin,” I announced. “Beta chapter at Wisconsin. Just transferred here as a senior.”

He looked slightly pained. “Nice to see you, Arlin. I’m Bradley Carroll and this is Brother Siminik.”

He was giving me the inch-by-inch survey — and I knew right then that it was a political house. By that I mean one with cliques, possibly two strong ones. Bradley was trying to decide whether I’d be any addition to his clique, or whether I might be permitted to join the other as dead weight. We were like a couple of dogs that circle each other, stiff-legged.

I sighed inwardly. The next move was too obvious. “I put my wagon in the parking area. Hope it’s all right there.” I took out a pack and offered him a cigarette. Siminik refused it. I lighted Bradley Carroll’s with a gold lighter, wide-ribbed, a thing I would never buy for myself, but something that a girl named Ann thought I ought to have.

“You drove down?” he asked politely. “Where from?” is what he was trying to say.

“From New York. Three days on the road.”

“Oh, you live in New York?”

“No, I just took a place there for the summer. Everybody says it’s a hell of a place to spend a summer. Not me.”

He was still wary, but warmer. “Say, we’re being pretty inhospitable, Arlin. Come on back to my room.”

It was an exceedingly pleasant room. The bottle on the coffee table was the very best bourbon. Siminik wasn’t drinking. Carroll mixed me a stiff one. He kept his good-looking slightly bovine eyes on me during our casual talk. I let him know without saying as much that I had no financial worries, that I was neither an athlete nor a bookworm, that I intended to sandwich a very good series of very good times in between the necessary study.

We went through the slightly oriental ceremonies until it was time to come to the point. “Would you recommend living in the house?” I asked.

He hadn’t expected the question that way. “It’s... very pleasant. The food is good.” He suddenly realized that he was on the defensive, an unthinkable position. “But of course,” he said quickly, “I can’t say whether there’d be room for you. I mean a private room, of course.”

“The house is too small?”

“Not that. Seniors are entitled to private rooms if they wish to live in the house. Juniors go two to a room and sophomores bunk in the dorm. There are only eight private rooms and all those are spoken for this semester.”

Siminik said, “Brad, the room that Flynn was going to—”

Brad Carroll said hastily, “Quent is taking that one, Al. I thought you knew.”

“Somebody drop out?” I asked very casually.

“No,” Siminik said, “he—”

“—won’t be here this year,” Carroll said.

I let it go. No point in pushing.

“You’ll have to see Arthur Marris anyway,” Brad Carroll said. “He’s house president and he handles the quarters problem. You might care to bunk with one of the juniors. That’s been done before and I think there’s one vacancy.”

I yawned. “I don’t know as I want to stay in the house anyway. I want to look around first. Maybe I can get some sort of a layout on the beach.”

“On the beach,” said Al Siminik, “it costs like there’s a river of oil under the land.”

Brad looked at him as though he had made a rude noise in public. He gave me an apologetic glance that said, “What else can you expect from knuckled-headed athletes?”

As I was leaving, promising to be back for dinner, I met two more of the brethren, one a shy, blond likeable sophomore named Ben Charity with a Georgia accent, the other a lean, hot-eyed, dark-haired, less-likeable junior named Bill Armand. I got over to the beach part of Sandson at about three-thirty. I found a small rental office inhabited by a vast, saggy female with an acid tongue.

“How much can you go for?” she said without hesitation. “If you want it through the winter it’ll come high. From now until Christmas I can find you something for peanuts.”

We went in my car to three places. I went back and took the second one, mostly because of its isolation. Bedroom, bath and kitchen made one side of an L and the living room made the other side. The L enclosed a small stone patio overlooking the gulf. It was sparkling new, completely furnished, and though the gulf front lot was small, a high thick hedge on either side kept the neighbors out. The car port was at the rear and it was ample protection against salt mist off the gulf. Two-eighty a month until the end of December. Four hundred after that.

I paid my two months in advance, unpacked, raided a package store for all the necessary, bought a typing table and still had time for a dip in the warm gulf before dressing to run back over to dine amid the brethren.

The house was noisy when I went in. In the lounge somebody had racked a bunch of very poor bop on the machine. There was laughing and shouting going on back in the bedroom wing. Suitcases were stacked in the hall. Through the doorway to the dining room I could see the waiters setting the big table in the middle, the smaller tables around the walls.

A little redheaded sophomore with the face of an angel collared me. “Are you Brother Arlin? Come on with me. Brother Carroll said to wait for you and take you back to his room.”

I told him I could find it and went back by myself. Brother Carroll was being the merry host. He smiled at me with what I guessed was his nearest approach to friendliness and steered me over to a tall boy. I found myself liking him immediately. He had gauntness and deep-set eyes and a firm-lipped wide sensitive mouth. He was older than the others.

“I’m Arthur Marris,” he said. “I’m glad to know you, Arlin. You do have a first name.”

I swallowed hard and said it. “Rodney. Rod, usually.”

Siminik was there, drinking gingerale, and another senior named Step Krindall, a bulging, pink, prematurely bald boy.

“Martini all right?” Brad asked. I nodded and took the cool cocktail glass he handed me.

“I think we’ll be able to make you comfortable if you’d like to move into the house, Rod,” Arthur Marris said.

“I can see you’re pretty crowded and I’m an outsider,” I said. “I’ve taken a place on the beach. Turn left at The Dunes. Right at the end of the road. I see no reason why it can’t be the Gamma U annex.”

Arthur Marris looked a little hurt. He glanced at his watch. “One more round and then we’d better go in,” he said.

The names and faces were slightly blurred at dinner. I knew I’d get a chance to straighten them out later. The cliques began to straighten out in my mind. Brad Carroll, with Siminik as a stooge, ran the opposition to Arthur Marris. The controlling group in the fraternity during the past years had been composed of veterans. Marris was one of the last of them in school. Bald-headed Step Krindall and Marris were the only two left in the house.

Brad Carroll was the leader of the group trying to get the reins of authority back into the hands of the younger nonveteran group. His biggest following was among the sophomores. Better than half the seniors and almost half the juniors seemed allied with Marris. With enough voting strength, Brad Carroll could effectively grab the power from Marris this year, even though Marris would retain the title as president of the house.

I found that there were thirty-three members. Ten seniors, nine juniors and fourteen sophomores. They hoped to take in fifteen freshmen who would not be permitted to live in a house until their sophomore year. Of the active members living in the house, eight were seniors, seven were juniors and ten were sophomores. My presence brought the number of seniors up to eleven.

After dinner, much to Brad’s poorly concealed concern, Arthur Marris took me off to his room. Daylight was fading. He lit his pipe, the match flare flickering on his strong features.

“How do you like the chapter?” he asked.

“Fine. Fine! Of course, I’m not acquainted yet, but everything seems—”

“You’re not a kid, Rod. You don’t handle yourself like a kid. You spoke of the navy at dinner. How old are you?”

“Twenty-six,” I said, chopping off a couple of years.

“I’m twenty-five. I can talk to you as man to man. That sounds corny, doesn’t it? I want to ask you if you’ve noticed the tension. I can feel it. It’s all underneath, you know. I brought you in here to talk to you about it. Part of my job is to protect the reputation of the chapter. You’ll make friends outside the house. They’ll gossip. I prefer that you hear the bad things from me, not from outsiders.”

I shrugged. “So the boys get a little rough sometimes. Is that serious?”

“This is something else. This is a jinxed house, Rod. I want to tell you a little about last year. I was a junior. The house president was a senior named Harv Lorr. In October, just as the rushing season was about to begin, two sophomores on their way back from Tampa rolled a car. Both of them were killed.”

I whistled softly. “A tough break.”

“That’s what we all thought. Just before Christmas vacation one of my best friends went on a beach party. His body was washed up two days later.”

“Accidents in a row like that aren’t too unusual.”

His voice was grim. “In March a boy, a senior, named Tod Sherman, was alone in his room. The guess is that he was cleaning his gun, an army .45. It was against the rules to have it in the house. His door wasn’t locked. It went off and killed him.”

“Maybe they come in threes.”

“In June, during the last week of school, one of the most popular kids in the house hung himself. A boy named Teddy Flynn. He was a senior, a very bright boy. Ha was graduating a week before his twentieth birthday. He hung himself in this room. I took it for this term because no one else wanted it. He used heavy copper wire and fastened it to a pipe that runs across the ceiling of that clothes closet.”

It bothered me to think that it had happened in this room. It made the whole situation less of an academic problem. It made me realize that I had taken a smart-alec attitude from the beginning. Now that was gone. There was a tangible feeling of evil. I could taste it in the back of my throat.

“Let me get this straight, Arthur. Why are you telling me this?”

“One, two or three deaths might be written off as accident and coincidence. I think five can too, in this case. But outsiders don’t see it that way. They think it’s fishy.”

“Do the police?”

“Oh, no. I didn’t mean that responsible people consider it fishy. The kids in the other houses do. By next year, it will all be forgotten. The transient population will take care of that. But this year is going to be rough. It’ll affect our pledge total. There’ll be a lot of whispering. For those inside the group it’ll mean a stronger unifying force, I suppose. I thought you, as a senior transfer, should know all this.”

“Why did the Flynn boy kill himself?”

“We’ll never really know, I guess. His gal was really broken up. She was a junior last year.”

“Did she come back?”

“I saw her at registration. Her name is Mathilda Owen. Tilly. You’ll probably run into her sooner or later. This is a big school, but she’ll travel in our group, I imagine.”

“The five boys that died, Arthur. Outside of their being members of the fraternity, is there anything else to tie the five of them together?”

“No. Nothing.”

“Teddy Flynn hung, Tod Sherman shot, two sophomores killed in a car and one unnamed guy drowned.”

“That’s it. The boy who drowned was Rex Winniger. The sophomores were Harry Welly and Ban Forrith. It was... a pretty bad year here.”

“I can imagine.”

He leaned over and put on the desk lamp. Evil was thrust back into the far shadows. He smiled without humor and said, “There had better not be any accidents this term.”

I made myself laugh. “Hell, all the accidents for the next ten years are used up now. We’re over the quota.”