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Page 20.
 "Don't worry about Minica for a moment," said Claire. The Lightfields stood on either side of poor Minica, as if she were a pickpocket who had been captured by railroad police, and was about to be escorted away in handcuffs.
Tony was a tall, robust, slightly fleshy man with heavy-rimmed dark glasses. Claire was a tall, willowy blonde with a fine, freckled face, small mouth, and too-dry strawberry hair looped in a generous but efficient coiffure. Jack, a connoisseur of freckled women, noted that she had a strong concentration of faint, lemonade-colored freckles of mostly medium diameter—not the more iconic orange freckles of the classic redhead, which was a favorite. Redheads might have a temperamental edge, usually owing to a Celtic gene pool that also gave them carrot hair, but they often had an inferiority complex, having been teased all their lives about those million tiny rust spots. His favorite line with such a woman was "do you have them all over?" and the answer, when one was given in lieu of a slap in the face, was often "oh yes, dreadful, all over every inch of me," followed in the next instant by a stunned realization that she had just revealed the most intimate secret of her private parts. From there, it was then either that slap, or else a shrug ("why not, now that the cat's out of the bag") and an intimate exploration lasting all night. Slightly lower down the interest scale were dark-haired women of all races, who sported smaller, chocolate dots amid features Jack Gray found intriguing and exotic. By contrast, the Anglo-Saxon properness of a Claire Lightfield—with her galaxy of faint lemon spots over milky skin—produced snores. Collectively, these spots were called ephelides, which Jack found especially attractive in themselves, but more so because of the tenderness and insecurity they caused many of their bearers—a source of anxiety and self-reproach with which Jack was entirely happy to help them struggle, both morally and in compromising postures that felt remarkably refreshing and exhilarating to both parties during prolonged and noisy sex. Jack never messed with married women, in any case—which left Claire Lightfield outside the realm of anything more than an occasional flirtatious remark—a fact much appreciated by Tony Lightfield as well, since he'd be no match for Jack Gray in deadly, hand-to-hand combat. That was the delightful thing about polite society, Jack found. One rose above humanity's inbred, primitive, violent impulses. A sense of humor helped, also.
Claire took Jack aside. "Great work on the Baidu event." Event was what you called a situation or a case these days, just as branches and departments were now companies, by definition subsidiary to the independent government or business entities known as corporations. At the top of the food chain were a dozen multi-industry, global cartels like Camelback, defined as consortia (plural of consortium). When these came to encapsulate entire national governments, the snide term for them was corponations.
"My pleasure entirely," Jack said. "Speaking for Mr. Rector and for Compass News, I want to tell you that we enjoy our business with you, and hope to engage in more of it soon." Johannes was the enigmatic Chief Executive Officer of Compass News, who signed Jack's paychecks.
"I never know when you are teasing, and when you are straight, Jack." Claire sighed. One some previous occasion, after a more suggestive reparté, Claire had said: "I can't imagine the things your girlfriends say to you at moments like this."
"I'm not myself when I'm working," Jack had said. It was true in more ways than one.
Just now, Claire's small pink lips pursed over straight, even teeth that were slightly grayed with antibiotic discoloration in childhood. "Tony and I will entertain Minica. You go give a bang-up talk. I can't wait to hear what the Circus Flaminius is all about."
Jack watched as Claire and Tony, still with Minica between them—all three of them about 5'8"—walked off amid the roiling crowd in search of folding seats in a row together. Jack's gaze followed Tony's jacket, Minica's pert behind in a tight white dress, and Claire's slender but more regal posterior in a red dress.
When he stood alone and waiting to be called to the podium, Jack spotted a man outside, dressed like a docent, with the most un-docentlike expression on his face.
For a moment, Jack thought it was because he fit that old adage: qui nocent, docent. It was a twist on words, in various ways. The old saying was 'those who can't, teach.' Before he could enjoy the word play on docent, something terrible struck him.
Instantly, Jack's hackles stood on end.
It was the man's body language.
The man seemed fixated on Jack, but was hesitant to come inside, and in fact seemed to have nothing to do with the actual proceedings of the History Club's lecture on the Circus Flaminius.
Just by luck, Jack's gaze had met his hunter's ferocious look. It was a slip on the murderer's part, for which Jack thanked his lucky stars.
From here on, Jack's moves would be tactical. He would give away the fact that he knew the man had come to murder him. But he would gear his every move to the upcoming death struggle.
Jack exchanged a few words with the event coordinator on duty, an English professor who translated classics from Latin and Attic Greek.
Jack was, however, more interested in speaking with the rouge-jacketed real docent who had been handing out programs at the door. His name tag read Larry.
"Say, Larry," Jack said as the two men stood in the center of the hall, "don't look now, but there is an odd duck out there, dressed like you."
"Yes, Dr. Gray." Larry swiveled his eyeballs at an amazing angle, while the rest of his body, including his head, remained frozen in the direction of Jack. "I don't know him, Dr. Gray. Never seen him before, and I know all the regular twenty or so docents."
"Thanks, Larry. Don't let him see you looking at him. I think he's the guy who escaped from the mental institution a few days ago."
Larry's eyes bulged. "No. You don't say. Was that in the news? I must have missed it."
"It's been all over the air waves. He killed three nurses and a doctor with an ice pick, and then he escaped over the electrified fence in great big leaps, four feet at a time. He's a veritable chimpanzee, that guy."
"Sh-should I call the police?"
"I'd wait a few minutes, and then saunter down the hall to the kitchen in back. Don’t let him think you're on to him. There's a phone, and you can dial 0 for the campus switchboard. Let them call 911, and then come back here and lock the door so he can't come in. Got that? Tell them you're sure it's a murderer, because I said so, and we are all in danger. Best send the SWAT team if possible."
"Y…yessir." Larry looked at the clock, saw the time, and quickly swung both wings of the double door shut. Then he hurried off through a side door in the rear of the hall toward the kitchen.
Could it be this soon?—Zhang Mei, and her promise to find him and kill him, no matter where on earth he tried to hide.
Jack glanced at the clock. It was 7:10 p.m., and the crowd was making restless feet. The small hall echoed with their voices and shuffling. There were a few annoyed coughs. Jack hurried to the podium where he faced about eighty men and women, all of whom looked very genial, but most of whom had probably not had sex together since their last child was born, now of college age. It would not do to trifle with such people. The imaginary chimp in the insane asylum had nothing on these repressed sex fiends when they dropped their civilized veneer and started saying things like "Now see here…"
"Ladies and gentlemen," said the English professor. "It give me great pleasure…blah blah blah…and so, without further ado, I give you Professor Jack Gray, our visiting lecturer in History and Classical Studies."
Polite round of applause as Jack replaced the English prof at the podium. On the slightly canted surface were a small reading light, a carafe of water, an unused, upside-down drinking glass, and a note pad with pencil.
"A funny thing happened to me on the way to the Circus Flaminius," Jack began.
A mixture of affectionate sneers and howls of derision rose. They were awake and paying attention. Most had some background in the subject matter, and would be happy to flay him over the slightest misstatement, all in good sport.
"The first thing I should clarify is that there never really was a Circus Flaminius in the sense that scholars thought until not long ago. The top brains in the profession, bless them, had inked out the exact spot in the lower Campus Martius, Field of Mars, just north of the Capitoline Hill, where they were certain this enormous phantom circus existed, which they assumed was yet another chariot-racing track similar to the Circus Maximus, or the Circus of Gaius and Nero, or the Circus Bassianus of Elagabalus, but the truth lies far from that.
"So here is the intriguing mystery. Why would a circus that was never a circus be so important that is has the complete 9th imperial district named for it? It's more baffling than why name the 11th district after the Circus Maximus, which actually was a chariot racing track in its final incarnation. The Flaminian area was more of a public plaza than a sporting venue." He had their attention now.
As Jack spoke, he was on auto-pilot. His senses were wide awake and flooded with adrenalin. The gun-holster at his ankle was becoming itchy, and drenched in sweat. He noted a faint movement among the trees outside. The room had two windows on that side, and he could see the fake docent moving against ambient city light that seeped through denuded trees. The more Jack thought of it, the more obvious it seemed—this must be the payback Zhang had promised before vanishing in that hallway in Baidu, leaving her meal ticked Big Yang dead on the carpet from a hail of Jack's bullets. He continued speaking:
"You see, the word circus actually does not specifically refer to a racing venue, like the Circus Maximus about a mile down the road on the south side of the Forum Boarium. The word circus more appropriately means a ring, like Piccadilly Circus in London. Cicero uses it to describe the whirling stars of the Milky Way. In our case in point, it most closely refers to the ancient Taurilian Games track, which was a circular track in the Prata or Meadow of Flaminius, on which horses were ridden in religious games dedicated to the Underworld… "
As Jack spoke, his throat felt dry and constricted. He poured himself a glass of water and drank. "Stuffy in here. Don't worry, in another hour we'll all be having steak and ale, and wondering if this really ever happened."
As laughter murmured through the audience, Jack held up his glass as if appraising the water. He was actually gazing into the reflection it afforded of the window behind him. In the distorted reflection, he noticed a furtive movement, this time against the lights from the main campus clock tower. His nemesis was carefully working his way into position for a clean shot. The intention was clearly to kill Jack, and escape in the panic that would follow. His only problem was that he must make damn sure his one shot nailed Jack through the head or the heart. Not even a neck shot, guaranteed to spurt blood like a fire hydrant, would absolutely guarantee a kill. This was one shot he must not botch, or the Dragon Lady would have him flayed alive. That might buy a little time until the police arrived.
"And so," Jack said, pulling shut the heavy red drapes over the windows, "right before the Second Punic War (you know, starring Hannibal and a hundred war elephants, in 218 BCE), a wealthy and powerful Roman named Flaminius Nepos did something civically responsible in keeping with his social stratum as a Patrician—he bought up most of the lower Campus Martius. Centuries earlier, this area, then known as the Prata Tarquinia, Meadow of Tarquin, had been the personal property of the last king, before the Romans tossed the monarchy out on its ear, and declared a democratic republic in 509 BCE. For Flaminius to buy this tract of wilderness outside the city walls was seen, at the time, sort of like the U.S. purchase of Alaska in 1867—what good could it be? A waste of money! Seward's Folly! Seward's Icebox! Flaminius' meadow or circuit or neighborhood!"
The audience murmured appreciatively. Jack understood his task well. Half these people were experts who knew too much, and half knew next to nothing. He must strike a middle balance. He must keep it lively for the experts, without overwhelming the spouses and English or Music professors.
As he spoke, Jack edged backwards and peered cautiously around a slightly raised curtain edge. The crowd made a loud noise of curiosity, like a hungry beast stirring in its swamp, and preparing to be either annoyed or amused—it wasn't sure which yet.
"In case you're wondering why I am peering through the curtain," Jack said, "I'm keeping an eye on the parking meter. I may have to run and drop in another nickel soon."
The crowd rumbled, faintly amused, and puzzled at the same time. Speaking of circuses, his audience reminded Jack of those attending the games of the arena, who must be given red meat at all times or they would threaten to riot. Senior faculty and their mothballed wives would make a poor show of doddering after Jack with arms upraised in zombie-fashion.
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Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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