Right to Die

statements without telling the truth. A valued skill in an advocate. Her husband died, all right, but she gave him about ten cc’s of propulsion along the way.”
    “She killed him?”
    “The word I’ve heard her use is ‘help.’ She helped him find the peace that comes with sleep a tad sooner than his system otherwise dictated. Understand now. We’re not talking about pulling the plug on a machine that’s maintaining some veggie. We’re talking murder.”
    “Like that Michigan doctor and the ‘suicide machine’?”
    “Not exactly. The doctor merely designed a machine for that unfortunate Alzheimer’s patient to use. Aiding and abetting a suicide, so to speak. Maisy went way beyond that. She gave her husband a fatal dose, and still gets to inherit from him. Outrageous, no?”
    “My!”
    “Yes. And that’s not the half of it. There was some incredible scandal in Spain —that’s where all this happened. Some prosecutor got bribed, poor bastard blew his head off, I think. But Maisy enjoys the dead don’s money, and thanks to our revered dean, she gets to teach the courses she wants at the times she wants to, curriculum and schedule and the rest of us be damned.”
    “Why is that?”
    “Not for the reason you’d think. No, our Maisy is oh-so-happily married to some tennis has-been she wouldn’t think of spreading them for anything so crass as professional advancement. You see, the dean is sitting in his chair around the corner because she turned it down.”
    “Professor Andrus was offered the deanship?”
    “And she said, ‘Oh, no thanks, I have all these other, more important irons in the fire. I couldn’t possibly take on the mundane task of guiding the institution that nurtured me.’ My God, can you imagine the regents offering her the job of administering this law school? I mean, forget that Maisy snuffed her own husband, the woman can’t even keep up with her committee work!”
    “What do the students think of her?”
    “ ‘The Cunt That Belches Fire’?”
    I thought about the notes.
    Strock continued without prompting. “They love her. There is no justice, is there? Of course, Maisy teaches nonsense subjects like Law and Society or Sociology of Law. All of the touchy-feely stuff is really just a cover for indoctrinating the poor munchkins. The woman treats them like shit, then gives everybody A’s and B’s, so they figure they learned something. All they ever learn is how to be thankful for being manipulated into agreeing with her theories.”
    I’d about had my fill of Professor Strock. “Well, thanks for all your help.”
    He made a dismissive gesture. “Far be it from me to discourage you from retaining Maisy, even indirectly, but you’re aware, are you not, that she is leaving us for a while?”
    “Leaving?”
    “Yes. A visitorship for the coming quarter. Spared of the cruelest months of the winter by venturing to San Diego with Bjom.”
    “Bjom?”
    “Or whatever the tennis bum’s name is. I’ve never actually met him, but I hope he bleeds her dry. That would be poetic justice, at least.”
    I stood up. “Thanks again.”
    Strock made no effort to rise. “Pleasure.”
    As I reached the door, he said, “Oh, Mr. Cuddy?”
    “Yes?”
    “One more thing. Maisy is participating in a debate tonight.”
    “She mentioned it.”
    “You really ought to go. Get a sense of how she comes across in a public forum.”
    “Will you be there, Professor?”
    Strock smiled like a man serving his kids roast rabbit for Easter dinner. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

= 7 =

    After leaving Walter Strock, I picked up my box of files from Inés Roja. By the time I got outside the school building, I realized the load was going to be too heavy to carry under one arm and too awkward to ferry in front of me under two. Since there were no cabs, it seemed to make more sense to find a place for lunch. Across the street and down from the school was Bandy’s, a burger-and-beer dug-out owned by another Vietnam vet in my student days.
    Sometimes nostalgia is a bad emotion to indulge.
    The interior was still dark and just a little dank. The floor was still tacky from spilled beer, the vinyl in the booths still taped at the seats. But instead of the Stones or the Doors, the speakers blared Grace Jones doing a bad Katharine Hepburn imitation as she recited rather than sang some lyric about walking in the rain. The barkeep had a purple Mohawk and more pieces of metal piercing his ears and