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“There’s time enough for that,” Rudolph said.
“Mark my words,” said Scanlon. “It’ll come to it. Look what they’ve done down in New York and out in California.”
“We’re not New York or California,” Rudolph said.
“We got students and niggers,” Scanlon said stubbornly. He drove silently for awhile. Then he said, “You shoulda been at your house last night, Mr. Mayor, then maybe you’d know what I was talking about.”
“I heard about it,” Rudolph said. “They trampled the garden.”
“They did a lot more than that,” Scanlon said. “I wasn’t there myself, but Ruberti was there, and he told me.” Ruberti was another policeman. “It was sinful what they did, Ruberti told me, sinful. They kept calling for you and singing dirty-minded songs, young girls, using the dirtiest language anybody ever heard, and they pulled up every plant in your garden and then when Mrs. Jordache opened the door …”
“She opened the door?” Rudolph was aghast. “What did she do that for?”
“Well, they started throwing things at the house. Clods of dirt, beer cans, and yelling, ‘Tell that motherfucker to come out.’ They meant you, Mr. Mayor, I’m ashamed to say. There was only Ruberti and Zimmerma
“Oh, Jesus,” Rudolph said.
“You might as well hear it now from me as later from somebody else,” Scanlon said. “When Mrs. Jordache opened the door, she was drunk. And she was stark naked.”
Rudolph made himself stare straight ahead at the tail lights of the cars ahead of him and into the blinding beams of light of the cars going the other way.
“There was a kid photographer there, from the school paper,” Scanlon went on, “and he took some flashlight pictures. Ruberti went for him, but the other kids made a kind of pocket and he got away. I don’t know what use they think they’re going to make of the pictures, but they got them.”
Rudolph ordered Scanlon to drive directly to the university. The main administration building was brilliantly floodlit and there were students at every window, throwing out thousands of pieces of paper from the files and shouting at the line of policemen, alarmingly few, but armed with their clubs now, who cordoned off the building. As he drove up to where Ottman’s car was parked under a tree, Rudolph saw what use had been made of the photograph of his wife taken naked the night before. It had been enormously blown up and it was hanging from a first-story window. In the glare of the floodlights, the image of Jean’s body, slender and perfect, her breasts full, her fists clenched and threatening, her face demented, hung, a mocking ba
When Rudolph got out of the car, some of the students at the windows recognized him and greeted him with a wild, triumphant howl. Somebody leaned out the window and shook Jean’s picture, so that it looked as though she were doing an obscene dance.
Ottman was standing beside his car, a big bandage over one eye, making his cap sit on the back of his head. Only six of the policemen had helmets. Rudolph remembered vetoing a request from Ottman for two dozen more helmets six months before, because it had seemed an u
“Your secretary told us you were on your way,” Ottman said, without any preliminaries, “so we held off on any action until you got here. They have Dorlacker and two professors locked in there with them. They only took the building at six o’clock tonight.”
Rudolph nodded, studying the building. At a window on the ground floor he saw Quentin McGovern. Quentin was a graduate student now and had a job as an assistant in the chemistry department. Quentin was gri
“Whatever else happens tonight, Ottman,” Rudolph said, “I want you to arrest that black man there, the third window from the left on the ground floor. His name is McGovern and if you don’t get him here get him at his home.”
Ottman nodded. “They want to talk to you, sir. They want you to go in there and discuss the situation with them.”
Rudolph shook his head. “There’s no situation to be discussed.” He wasn’t going to talk to anybody under the photograph of his naked wife. “Go in and clear the building.”
“It’s easier said than done,” Ottman said. “I’ve already called on them three times to come out. They just laugh.”
“I said clear the building.” Rudolph was raging, but cold. He knew what he was doing.
“How?” Ottman asked.
“You’ve got weapons.”
“You don’t mean you want us to use guns?” Ottman said incredulously. “As far as we know, none of them is armed.”
Rudolph hesitated. “No,” he said. “No guns. But you’ve got clubs and you’ve got tear gas.”
“You sure you don’t want us just to sit tight and wait till they get tired?” Ottman said. He sounded more tired himself than any of the students in the building would ever be. “And if things don’t improve, ask for the Guard, maybe?”
“No, I don’t want to sit and wait.” Rudolph didn’t say it, but he knew that Ottman knew he wanted that picture down immediately. “Tell your men to start with the grenades.”
“Mr. Mayor,” Ottman said slowly, “you’ll have to put that in writing for me. Signed.”
“Give me your pad,” Rudolph said.
Ottman gave him the pad, and Rudolph used the fender of Ottman’s car to steady it and wrote out the order, making sure that his handwriting was clear and legible. He signed his name and gave the pad back to Ottman, who tore off the top sheet on which Rudolph had written and carefully folded the piece of paper and put it in the pocket of his blouse. He buttoned the pocket of the blouse and then went along the line of police, some thirty strong, the town’s entire force, to give his orders. As he passed them, the men began to put on their gas masks.
The line of police moved slowly across the lawn toward the building, their shadows-, in the blaze of the floodlights, intense on the brilliant green grass. They did not keep a straight line, but wavered uncertainly, and they looked like a long, wounded animal, searching not to do harm, but to find a place to hide from its tormentors. Then the first grenade was shot off through one of the lower windows and there was a shout from within. Then more grenades were sent through other windows and the faces that had been there disappeared and one by one the policemen, helping each other, began to climb through the windows into the building.
There hadn’t been enough police to send around to the back of the building, and most of the students escaped that way. The acrid smell of the gas drifted out toward where Rudolph was standing, looking up toward where Jean’s picture was still hanging. A policeman appeared at the window above and ripped it away, taking it in with him.
It was all over quickly. There were only about twenty arrests. Three students were bleeding from scalp wounds and one boy was carried out with his hands up to his eyes. A policeman said he was blinded but that he hoped it was only temporary. Quentin McGovern was not among the group arrested.
Dorlacker came out with his two professors, their eyes tearing. Rudolph went over to him. “Are you all right?” he asked.
Dorlacker squinted to see who was addressing him. “I’m not talking to you, Jordache,” he said. “I’m making a statement to the press tomorrow and you can find out what I think of you if you’ll buy your own paper tomorrow night.” He got into somebody’s car and was driven away.
“Come on,” Rudolph said to Scanlon. “Drive me home.”