Richardson just made it to the bushes before he was very sick. It took him a long time to empty his stomach, and he was shaking and coughing when he was done, barely able to stand erect. His throat and mouth tasted of chewed tinfoil.
When he finally forced himself to turn back toward the statue, he saw Cut’n-Shoot grinning derisively at him from the shadow of the bridge. “One thing when I do it, another when you do, hah?”
“You could have stopped it. You had other food there. I saw it. You could have let the cat out of that thing, let it go.” His stomach contracted, and he thought he was going to be sick again, but there was nothing left to vomit.
“Waste not, want not,” Cut’n-Shoot chuckled. “’Sides, now you really do know trolls.”
With a mean cunning that he would not have suspected himself of possessing, Richardson designed an advertisement for a lost gray cat — even including the name he had never once called it — had a hundred copies xeroxed, and mounted them in sheltered places up and down Queen Anne Hill. Thus, when the owner returned from that enviable, enviable sabbatical in England, he would see that Richardson had done everything possible to track down his unfortunately vanished cat. Would have died soon anyway, old and incontinent as it was. He surely wouldn’t have wanted the poor thing peeing all over his nice condo.
The next morning he went to a pet shop in the Wallingford district, and bought two carrier cages, the first identical to the one he had found in the apartment. The second was a bit larger, since one never knew. With the latter in his hand, he continued his nightly routine, the only differences being that his rounds were now somewhat more purposeful, and that with purpose came a reduction in his drinking. He often whistled as he walked, which was unusual for him.
It astonished him to realize how many animals — strays and otherwise — were running loose on the streets of Seattle. Cats and the smaller dogs were the easiest to capture, though he felt a certain amount of guilt over the ones that came trustingly to his leather-gloved hands. But he learned that people make pets out of the most unlikely animals: He caught escaped ferrets on two or three occasions, lab rats and mice with surprising frequency, and once even a tame crow with clipped wings. He was going to set the crow free — it had a vocabulary of several words, and a way of cocking its head to consider him — but then he thought that its inability to fly would make it easy prey for any cat, and changed his mind.
He did go through cages rather often; there was no way to avoid that, given the Troll’s impetuous manner of opening them.
Feeding the Troll distracted him only somewhat from his terror of impending joblessness. It was now much too late to expect reprieve: All the best positions at even the worst colleges and universities had long since been snapped up without him ever applying, the community colleges were full, and thanks to Seattle’s highly educated population there were thirty people ahead of him in line for any on-call substituting, even assuming someone would have the human decency to come down ill. Meanwhile the ever-smiling Aussie had turned evasive Trappist. Richardson stopped sliding by his door.
He had no idea that he was going mad with fear, frustration, and weariness. Most people don’t; and most — frightened academic gypsies included — go on functioning fairly well. He remained faithful to his classes and his office hours; and if he was more terse with his students, and often more sharp tongued, still he fulfilled the function for which he was yet being paid as conscientiously as he knew how, because he still loved it. And love will keep you reasonably sane for a long time.
Then came the bright and breezy day when word began circulating through the department — a whisper only, at first, the merest of hints — that the Tenured Prodigal was not coming home.
At 9:30 P.M. a resurrected Richardson was thinking furiously as he knocked back half a bottle of Scotch and picked at his Indian takeout. This late in the game it would surely be impossible for Aussie to fill the Prodigal’s slot; he would have to extend Richardson now. And if God could create concrete Trolls that moved and miracles as plain as this one, why, He might yet manage a way to make this change permanent.
Richardson had no plans to go out, not even to round up a stray dog or cat (which had been growing more difficult in recent weeks, as Queen Anne residents had been keeping closer track of their pets, blaming coyotes for the recent disappearances). Considering what to say to Aussie in the morning was paramount. But eventually he could not bear to sit still and found his legs carrying him to Fremont after all. Something special was clearly called for, a little libation to luck, so at the PCC he bought more of the Eel River beef for the Troll, and for himself and Cut’n-Shoot a half gallon of a unique coconut-and-molasses ice cream he had found nowhere else.
He left the grocery grinning, turned left — and saw, a block up 34th Street, walking away, Dr. Philip Austin Watkins IV.
The Scotch proved stronger than good judgment. “Aussie!” he shouted. Then louder: “Aussie!” Bag swinging wildly, he began to run.
The department head had dined out late with friends, imbibing one too many himself as the evening wore on. “You’ve never been screwed until you’ve been screwed by the British,” he’d said, and meant it. Thank heavens he’d had foresight enough to lay contingency plans.
It took him a moment to realize that his name was being called, and a troubling moment more when he turned around to recognize who it was. His apprehension should perhaps have lasted longer: Instead of a simple greeting, followed by meaningless chat, Richardson slammed full tilt into the issue of the job opening. “Aussie, I heard about Brubaker. And you promised. You did promise.”
“I promised to do everything I could to help you,” Aussie countered. “And I did, but obviously it wasn’t enough. I’m sorry.”
“You can’t leave the slot open, and it’s too late—”
“Mr. Richardson. You knew you were a fill-in, just as I knew from the beginning that the Aiken grant was a recruiting hook in disguise. If the fish had bitten later I might have had to keep you on. As it happens, he did it while my own preferred replacement was still sitting by the phone at Kansas State, waiting for my call, exactly where he’s been since I first talked to him last April. The slot, as you call it, is already filled.”
“Oh.” Without thought, Richardson removed the frozen half gallon of coconut-molasses ice cream from his grocery bag and smashed Aussie in the head with it just as hard as he could. The man was insensible when he hit the ground, but not dead. Richardson was particularly glad of that.
“That was satisfactory,” Richardson said aloud, as though he were judging a presentation in class. He heard his voice echoing in his head, which interested him. Looking around quickly and seeing no one close enough to notice what he was doing, or to interfere with it, Richardson got Aussie — who was not a small person — on his feet, hooked an arm around his waist, and draped one of the chairman’s arms around his own neck, saying loudly and frequently, “Told you, Aussie; you can’t say I didn’t tell you. Sip the Calvados, I said, don’t guzzle it. Ah, come on, Aussie, help me a little bit here.”
Ordinarily, the walk to the Aurora Bridge would have taken Richardson a few minutes at most; dragging the unconscious Aussie, it took months, and by the time he came near the Troll’s overpass he was panting and sweating heavily. “The last lively!” he called out in a louder, different voice. “Here you go! Compliments of the chef.”
A hoarse, frantic voice behind him demanded, “What you doing? What the hell you doing?” Richardson let go of Aussie and turned to see Cut’n-Shoot gaping at him, his bleared eyes as wild as those of a horse in a burning barn. “What the hell you think you doing?”