Fifteen minutes later he was on the four-lane interstate beyond the city limits, doing a steady seventy miles an hour, wind whistling at the open windows and ruffling his hair. As he drove, he thought about Glenda Kleaver, and he hardly noticed the miles going by.
* * *
After high school, Chase had gone to State because it was just forty miles from home, so he could see his mom and dad more often, still get back to visit old friends from high school and to see a girl who had mattered to him then, before Vietnam changed everything.
Now, as he parked in front of the administration building, the campus seemed to be a strange place, as if he had not spent nearly four years in these classrooms, on these flagstone paths, under these canopies of willows and elms. This part of his life was all but lost to him because it was from the far side of the war. To recapture the mood and feeling of that time, to connect emotionally with these old haunts, he would have to cross through the river of war memories to the shores of the past – and that was a journey that he chose not to make.
In the Student Records Office, as the manager approached him, Chase decided that this time the simple truth would get the best response. “I’m curious to know who may have been here, asking about me, within the past week. I’m having some problems with a researcher who’s … well, been more or less harassing me.”
The manager was a small, pale, nervous man with a neatly clipped mustache. He ceaselessly picked up items around him, put them down, picked them up again: pencils, pens, a notepad, a pamphlet about the university’s tuition schedules and scholarship programs. He said that his name was Franklin Brown and that he was pleased to meet such a distinguished alumnus. “But there must’ve been dozens of inquiries about you in recent months, Mr. Chase, ever since the Medal of Honor was announced.”
“Do you have the names and addresses of everyone requesting records?”
“Oh, yes, of course. And as you may know, we provide those records only to prospective employers – and even then, only if you signed an automatic authorization when you graduated.”
“This man may have passed himself off as a prospective employer. He’s very convincing. Could you check your records and tell me who might have stopped in last Tuesday?”
“He could have requested the records by mail. Most of the inquiries we receive are by mail. Few people actually come in.”
“No. He didn’t have time to do it by mail.”
“Just a moment then,” Brown said. He brought a ledger to the counter and thumbed through it. “There was just the one gentleman that day.”
“Who was he?”
As he read it, Brown showed the entry to Chase. “Eric Blentz, Gateway Mall Tavern. It’s in the city.”
“I know exactly where it’s at,” Chase said.
Picking up a fountain pen, twisting it in his fingers, putting it down again, Brown asked, “Is he legitimate? Is he someone you’re seeking a position with?”
“No. It’s probably this reporter I mentioned, and he just made up the name Blentz. Do you remember what he looked like?”
“Certainly,” Brown said. “Nearly your height, though not robust at all, very thin, in fact, and with a stoop to his shoulders.”
“How old?”
“Thirty-eight, forty.”
“His face? Do you remember that?”
“Very ascetic features,” Brown said. “Very quick eyes. He kept looking from one of my girls here to the other, then at me, as if he didn’t trust us. His cheeks were drawn, an unhealthy complexion. A large thin nose, so thin the nostrils were very elliptical.”
“Hair?”
“Blond. He was quite sharp with me, impatient, self-important. Dressed very neatly, a high polish to his shoes. I don’t think there was a hair out of place on his head. And when I asked for his name and business address, he took the pen right out of my hand, turned the ledger around, and wrote it down himself because, as he said, everyone always spelled his name wrong, and he wanted it right this time.”