Labyrinth Read Online Free Page A
Author: Jon Land
âYou got the ball, son. Youâre the one whoâs got to live with this in the long run.â
Now, drinking his third Chivas Regal, Charney ran Royâs final words through his mind. He could live with himself, he supposed; he couldnât like himself any less anyway. He was doing what had to be done, what the job demanded of him. Maybe that was the problem; he had been in Washington too long, had let his role consume him until it deadened his conscience. Locke was the best man for this assignment, so he would make the offer too tempting for Locke to refuse. Charney was good at that.
He recalled his earliest impressions of Locke at double-session fall football practice at Brown. No one hit the bags harder, took the tires faster. Locke was a kid driven to make that team. In the end numbers had done him in. Faceless men had posted his name and that was that.
Charney shuddered at the thought he had become one of the faceless men, playing with numbers and making cuts of a different variety. He didnât relish that power but accepted it. It was part of the job and the job was him. He glanced at the phone on the coffee table in the gloomy room. One call and the wheels would be in motion, irrevocable from that point.
Christopher Locke had a wife and three kids. Charney wondered why Calvin Roy hadnât asked about that. Then he realized. Roy didnât want to know. The less said, the better. Charney glanced again at the phone. The choice, the decision, was his. He leaned back and squeezed his eyes closed, fighting back the pain that had started in his temples, only a dull throb now but certain to grow into a pounding ache.
Iâm looking out atâ
What had Lubeck seen?
Christopher Locke was the man to find out, Charney told himself as he poured another glass of Chivas.
Chapter 2
âIN THE NEWS this afternoonââ
Christopher Locke turned the radio off. Traffic was backed up all the way along 16th Street and the LTDâs air conditioner was on the blink as usual, leaving him a victim of the sweltering spring air.
Locke hit the horn out of sheer frustration.
The news from the tenure hearing shouldnât have surprised him. Heâd seen it coming for months now. The signals were all there. The department chairman didnât like his methods, and popularity with the students didnât count for anything. Of course he was popular, they told him, his courses regularly produced the highest percentage of Aâs in the entire English department. Locke never cared much for grades. The academic pressure at Georgetown was sufficiently high without his adding to it. He wanted students in his classes to relax, to be able to learn and enjoy without worrying about their grade point average. So he was an easy grader, albeit a consistent one who never passed papers to his graduate assistants for marking.
But that apparently didnât help his cause with the tenure board. His philosophy was the exception, not the rule, and so he was out of a job again. He would certainly have time now to work on his novels. Why kid himself, though? The truth was that all the time in the world couldnât salvage them. He was a failure as a novelist and now, apparently, a failure as a professor as well.
A horn blared to his rear. Locke realized traffic was moving again. He waved an apologetic hand behind him and gave the LTD a little gas. His shirt was sticking to the upholstery now.
In the end, he thought, everything came down to security. You worked your whole life to reach a stage where worry was nonexistent, where the rudiments of happiness were available and, with a minimum of unpleasant effort, attainable. What would happen to that security now? Without the Georgetown salary and benefits, how would his family survive? Much of his savings would have to go toward the kidsâ educations, and there was still the mortgage on their home in Silver Spring to consider. The bills came in piles Chris just
Now, drinking his third Chivas Regal, Charney ran Royâs final words through his mind. He could live with himself, he supposed; he couldnât like himself any less anyway. He was doing what had to be done, what the job demanded of him. Maybe that was the problem; he had been in Washington too long, had let his role consume him until it deadened his conscience. Locke was the best man for this assignment, so he would make the offer too tempting for Locke to refuse. Charney was good at that.
He recalled his earliest impressions of Locke at double-session fall football practice at Brown. No one hit the bags harder, took the tires faster. Locke was a kid driven to make that team. In the end numbers had done him in. Faceless men had posted his name and that was that.
Charney shuddered at the thought he had become one of the faceless men, playing with numbers and making cuts of a different variety. He didnât relish that power but accepted it. It was part of the job and the job was him. He glanced at the phone on the coffee table in the gloomy room. One call and the wheels would be in motion, irrevocable from that point.
Christopher Locke had a wife and three kids. Charney wondered why Calvin Roy hadnât asked about that. Then he realized. Roy didnât want to know. The less said, the better. Charney glanced again at the phone. The choice, the decision, was his. He leaned back and squeezed his eyes closed, fighting back the pain that had started in his temples, only a dull throb now but certain to grow into a pounding ache.
Iâm looking out atâ
What had Lubeck seen?
Christopher Locke was the man to find out, Charney told himself as he poured another glass of Chivas.
Chapter 2
âIN THE NEWS this afternoonââ
Christopher Locke turned the radio off. Traffic was backed up all the way along 16th Street and the LTDâs air conditioner was on the blink as usual, leaving him a victim of the sweltering spring air.
Locke hit the horn out of sheer frustration.
The news from the tenure hearing shouldnât have surprised him. Heâd seen it coming for months now. The signals were all there. The department chairman didnât like his methods, and popularity with the students didnât count for anything. Of course he was popular, they told him, his courses regularly produced the highest percentage of Aâs in the entire English department. Locke never cared much for grades. The academic pressure at Georgetown was sufficiently high without his adding to it. He wanted students in his classes to relax, to be able to learn and enjoy without worrying about their grade point average. So he was an easy grader, albeit a consistent one who never passed papers to his graduate assistants for marking.
But that apparently didnât help his cause with the tenure board. His philosophy was the exception, not the rule, and so he was out of a job again. He would certainly have time now to work on his novels. Why kid himself, though? The truth was that all the time in the world couldnât salvage them. He was a failure as a novelist and now, apparently, a failure as a professor as well.
A horn blared to his rear. Locke realized traffic was moving again. He waved an apologetic hand behind him and gave the LTD a little gas. His shirt was sticking to the upholstery now.
In the end, he thought, everything came down to security. You worked your whole life to reach a stage where worry was nonexistent, where the rudiments of happiness were available and, with a minimum of unpleasant effort, attainable. What would happen to that security now? Without the Georgetown salary and benefits, how would his family survive? Much of his savings would have to go toward the kidsâ educations, and there was still the mortgage on their home in Silver Spring to consider. The bills came in piles Chris just
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