“Oh, shit,” Gavin says, looking down at his pants pocket. The material of his pajamas is so thin, I can see a bright pink phone flashing in his front pocket as the ring tone continues to sound.
Howard holds his smartphone toward me so that I’m able to see the name on the screen of the person he’d dialed.
Jasmine Albright—Emergency Contact.
34
Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance.
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
What was that you were saying about how Gavin didn’t go into my room?”
Howard’s lower chin has begun to tremble, the way it did in the hall director’s office right before he’d started to cry.
Only this time he doesn’t look like he’s about to cry. He looks furious.
“Howard,” I say. I’ve dropped the act. I’m sincerely frightened over what he might do next. We’ve just proven that he’s killed one person, and probably tried to kill at least one other. There’s no telling what he might do next. “Howard, I’m sorry. We did it because we’re worried about you. We care about you, and we want to get you the help you need.”
“Don’t you get it? It’s too late for help.”
On the word “help,” Howard hurls his cell phone across the lobby. It whizzes so close to a kid who’s strolling into the building, carrying his skateboard, it almost hits him in the face. Instead, it smashes against one of the marble walls near the ornately carved fireplace, which hasn’t been lit since I’ve worked at Fischer Hall.
“Hey, man,” the kid with the skateboard says, giving Howard a dirty look. “What are you trying to do, kill someone?”
Gavin and I exchange wide-eyed glances. Um, yes, actually.
Kyle Cheeseman and Joshua Dungarden enter the building from the protest just in time to see the projectile go flying. Both of them gawk at Howard as well.
“What’s the matter, dude?” Joshua asks, seeing his friend’s face, as well as the expressions on ours, not to mention Pete, who is standing, rigid, behind the security desk. It takes an emergency of some momentousness to cause Pete to stand.
Howard shrugs off the gentle hand Joshua’s laid upon his shoulder.
“I’m not going to jail!” he screams.
Then he runs past his startled friends, as well as the skateboarder and Pete, before the security guard can react. Instead of dashing outside, he heads through the lobby straight into the cafeteria, which I can tell from the busy hum emanating from its open doors has become crowded with late-rising Friday-morning diners.
“Shit,” I say, grabbing my purse and tearing out from behind the front desk. “Shit, shit, shit, shit.”
“Heather,” Gavin cries. “Wait. What do you want me to do?”
“Stay there,” I shout, trying to remember from the crisis management seminars I attended over the summer what one is supposed to do in situations like this. The only thing I can recall is a video from Homeland Security that instructed us that, if attacked in our workplace by gunmen, we’re supposed to run, then hide, then, as a last resort, throw a pair of scissors at the attackers.
Tom Snelling and I had laughed until we cried at the idea of throwing a pair of scissors at an armed gunman, particularly the one in the video, who was dressed in full body armor. We’d been asked by Simon Hague, who’d been running the seminar, to leave until we could compose ourselves. We’d gone out for gelato and then shopping for shoes to match my wedding gown. (I’d asked Tom if he wanted to be an honorary bridesmaid, but he’d refused on the grounds of preferring to work behind the scenes to “beautify” me.)
The information from the seminar isn’t very useful in a situation concerning an unarmed, clearly deranged student, even if he has already killed one person, attempted to kill another, and seems ready to kill himself.
I call over my shoulder, “Keep people from going into the dining hall!”
I don’t stick around to see how Gavin processes this information. I follow Pete as he sprints into the cafeteria, shouting into his radio, “We’ve got a ten-fifty in progress at Fischer Hall, I repeat, a ten-fifty who is a danger to himself and probably others. Send units immediately.”
“What’s a ten-fifty?” I ask him.
“Disorderly person,” he says. We’ve stopped in the middle of the cafeteria, where there are quite a few empty tables, but even more that are crowded with freshmen in their pajamas enjoying healthful egg-white omelets. I immediately recognize Kaileigh, who’s apparently taking a break from her busy protesting schedule to have breakfast with her mother and a balding man who can only be her father.
Kaileigh ducks her head when I attempt to make eye contact, however, and pretends not to know who I am as she heads toward the bagel bar. I am now apparently one of the Evil Administrators, and the Enemy.
Great.
Everyone else in the dining hall seems to be staring at us, however (except Mrs. Harris, who is engrossed in what appears to be a frittata). The security guard and the girl with the big purse who’ve come running in for no evident reason are the source of a great deal of interest and whispered speculation.
“I don’t really know how else to classify him,” Pete is going on. “Disorderly seems good. I could have said it was an assault, but he hasn’t really assaulted anyone . . . today, anyway.”
I feel that Pete is overthinking things. “Do you see him anywhere?”
I’m scanning the tables, the bagel bar, the fresh-fruit spa water bar, and the hot food line. There are people everywhere, but none of them is Howard.
“No. Do you?”
“I’m guessing he ducked through the kitchen doors and out the back exit.”
“Crap,” Pete says with a sigh as he begins trundling toward the kitchen door. “Why do they always have to run? I hate running.”
“Mi amor.” Magda approaches us, having abandoned her post by the ID scanner. “Heather. What are you two doing in here? And why do you look so sweaty?”
“Did a kid just run through here?” Pete asks. “Asian kid in a hoodie?”
Magda shrugs. “I don’t know, I was busy, the guy is here.” She points at “the guy,” who turns out to be the snack-cake deliveryman. He is stuffing fresh delicious fruit pies and chocolate cakes into the snack rack. I try not to let this distract me, but register it for later, since I still have some declining dollars left on my ID card. “I didn’t see anything. What did this boy do? Try to sneak into the building? Is he a deliveryman? Is he from Charlie Mom’s? Is he trying to put menus under all the doors again?”