Raphael, of course, missed his father, but he nonetheless played in every game that season. “He would have wanted it that way,” he explained. He was touched, even moved almost to tears by the moment of silence dedicated to his father just prior to the game the Friday after the funeral. Then he went out onto the field and destroyed the visiting team.
Mr. Taylor’s affairs, of course, were in absolute order. Certain wise investments and several insurance policies provided for the security of his family, and his elder brother, Harry, a Port Angeles realtor, had been named executor of his estate. Harry Taylor was a bluff, balding, florid-faced man with a good head for business and a great deal of sound, practical advice for his brother’s widow. He took his responsibilities as executor quite seriously and visited often.
That winter, when the question of college arose, Mrs. Taylor faced the issue with dread. Money was not a problem, since her husband had carried a special insurance policy with some very liberal provisions to guarantee his son’s education. There were also scholarship offers from as far away as southern California, since Raphael had twice been named to the all-state football team. In the end, however, the question was deferred by the young man’s rather surprising decision to attend the local junior college. He had many reasons for the choice, not the least of which was his full realization of what anguish an abrupt separation would cause his mother, coming as it must so soon after her bereavement.
And so it was that Raphael continued to play local football, his uncle Harry basked in reflected celebrity, and his mother enjoyed the reprieve the decision had granted her.
At the end of two years, however, the decision could no longer be put off. Raphael privately considered his options and independently made his choice.
“Reed?” his uncle said, stunned.
“It’s a good school, Uncle Harry,” Raphael pointed out, “the best school in this part of the country. They say it’s one of the top ten colleges in the United States.”
“But they don’t even have a football team, do they?”
“I don’t know,” Raphael replied. “I don’t think so.”
“You could go to Stanford. That’s a good school, too.”
Raphael nodded thoughtfully. “Yes,” he agreed, “but it’s too big.”
“They’ve got a good team. You might even get a chance to play in the Rose Bowl.”
“Maybe, but I think I’d rather go to Reed. I’ve had a lot of fun playing football, but I think it’s time I moved on to something else, don’t you?”
“Where is this college located?” Mrs. Taylor asked faintly.
“Portland,” Raphael replied.
“In Oregon?” Mrs. Taylor asked even more faintly.
Raphael nodded.
Mrs. Taylor’s heart sank.
ii
Portland, the city of the roses, bestrides the banks of the Willamette River near where that stream joins the Columbia. It is a pleasant city, filled with trees and fine old Victorian houses. The campus of Reed College, where Raphael was enrolled, lies somewhat to the east of the river, and has about it a dreamy, timeless quality. The very buildings that rise from the broad lawns identify the place as a college, since such a random collection of Georgian manors, medieval cathedrals, and starkly modern structures of brick and glass could exist for no other reason.
In his car of recent vintage with its backseat filled with the new and expensive luggage his mother had bought and tearfully given him, Raphael Taylor pulled rather wearily into the student parking lot and stopped. The trip had been quite long, and he was unaccustomed to freeway driving. There was, however, an exhilaration about it all. He was on his own for the first time in his life, and that was something.
Thanks to his uncle’s careful correspondence with the registrar and the bursar, all arrangements had been made well in advance, and Raphael knew precisely where his dormitory was located. With his jacket under his arm and two suitcases rather self-consciously swinging at his sides, he walked across to the manselike solidity of the dorm, feeling a certain superiority to the small crowd of bewildered-looking freshmen milling uncertainly around in front of the administration building.
His room was on the third floor, and Raphael was puffing slightly as he reached the top of the stairs. The door at the end of the hall was open, and billowing clouds of smoke were rolling out. Raphael’s stomach turned cold. Everything had gone too well up until now. He went down the hall and into the smoke.
A young man with olive skin and sleek black hair brushed by him carrying a large vase filled with water. “Don’t just stand there, man,” he said to Raphael in a rich baritone voice. “Help me put this son of a bitch out.” He rushed into the room, bent slightly, and threw the water into a small fireplace that seemed to be the source of all the smoke. The fire hissed spitefully, and clouds of steam boiled out to mingle blindingly with the smoke.
“Damn!” the dark-haired man swore, and started back for more water.
Raphael saw the problem immediately. “Wait,” he said. He set down his suitcases, stepped across to the evilly fuming fireplace, and pulled the brass handle sticking out of the bricks just below the mantelpiece. The damper opened with a clank, and the fireplace immediately stopped belching smoke into the room. “It’s a good idea to open the chimney before you build the fire,” he suggested.
The other man stared at the fireplace for a moment, and then he threw back his head and began to laugh. “There’s a certain logic there, I guess,” he admitted. He collapsed on the bed near the door, still laughing.
Raphael crossed the room and opened the window. The smoke rushed out past him.
“It’s a good thing you came by when you did,” the dark-haired man said. “I was well on my way to being smoked like a Virginia ham.” He was somewhat shorter than Raphael, and more slender. His olive skin and black hair suggested a Mediterranean background, Italian perhaps or Spanish, but there was no Latin softness in his dark eyes. They were as hard as obsidian and watchful, even wary. His clothing was expensive-tailored, Raphael surmised, definitely tailored-and his wristwatch was not so much a timepiece as it was a statement.
Then the young man looked at Raphael as if seeing him for the first time, and something peculiar happened to his face. His eyes widened, and a strange pallor turned his olive complexion slightly green. His eyes narrowed, seeming almost to glitter. It was as if a shock of recognition had passed through him. “You must be Edwards, right?” His expression seemed tight somehow.
“Sorry,” Raphael replied. “The name’s Taylor.”
“I thought you might be my roomie.”
“No. I’m two doors up the hall.”
“Oh, well”-the stranger shrugged, making a wry face-“there goes my chance to keep the knowledge of my little blunder a secret. Edwards is bound to smell the smoke when he gets here.” He rose to his feet and extended his hand. “J. D. Flood,” he said by way of introducing himself.
“Rafe Taylor,” Raphael responded. They shook hands. “What were you burning, Flood?”
“Some pieces of a packing crate. I’ve never had a dormitory room with a fireplace before, so I had to try it. Hell, I was even going out to buy a pipe.” He raised one eyebrow. “Rafe-is that short for Raphael?”
“Afraid so. It was a romantic notion of my mother’s. You wouldn’t believe how many school-yard brawls it started.”
Flood’s face darkened noticeably. “Unreal,” he said. That strange, almost shocked expression that had appeared in his eyes when he had first looked at Raphael returned, and there was a distinct tightening in his face. Once again Raphael felt that momentary warning as if something were telling him to be very careful about this glib young man. In that private place within his mind from which he had always watched and made decisions, he began to erect some cautionary defenses. “And what does the J.D. stand for?” he asked, trying to make it sound casual.
“Jacob Damon Flood, Junior,” Flood said with distaste.
“Jake?” Raphael suggested.
“Not hardly.”
“J.D. then?”
“That’s worse. That’s what they call my father.”
“How about Damon?”
Flood considered that. “Why not? How about a martini?”
“Is it legal? In the dorm, I mean?”
“Who gives a shit? I’m not going to start paying any attention to the rules at this late date.”
Raphael shrugged. “Most of my drinking has been limited to beer, but I’ll give it a try.”
“That’s the spirit,” Flood said, opening one of his suitcases and taking out a couple of bottles. “I laid in some ice a bit earlier. I make a mean martini-it’s one of the few things I’ve actually learned.” He busied himself with a silver shaker. “Any cretin can swill liquor out of a bottle,” he went on with a certain brittle extravagance, “but a gentleman boozes it up with class.”