Triple Pursuit by Ralph McInerny Page A

…”
    The squeals from the women brought back memories of the Sinatra phenomenon. Jack raised his hands, as if in self-defense.
    â€œAll right. But I’ll count on your being hard of hearing.”

    â€œWhat?” said Desmond, cupping his ear. It got a big laugh.
    â€œYou’ll have to dance too,” Maud cried.
    â€œOf course he’ll dance,” Desmond assured her. It no longer hurt so much that Maud’s interest in him was fading. He would be sending Jack in as the second team and routing Rooney from the field.
    Rooney was nowhere in sight during this triumph, which dimmed it only a little. Austin had made a point of saying to Desmond how much he looked forward to the dance, speaking with Maud on his arm, so he could scarcely back out. The night of the dance Austin Rooney would be replaced by Jack Gallagher.
    Austin Rooney was with his niece Colleen, who had a strange story to tell.
    â€œThere isn’t anyone else I can tell, Uncle Austin. I can’t tell Father, and of course Jane must never know.”
    â€œWhat on earth is wrong?”
    And then she told him the story of Aggie, the office vamp, who, having lost out to Colleen with her now fiance, had decided to get revenge by seducing Tim.
    â€œâ€˜Seducing’?” Austin said with a little laugh. “That is an activity that usually goes in the opposite direction.”
    â€œYou don’t know Aggie.”
    â€œI don’t think I want to.”
    â€œShe has to be stopped.”
    â€œHave you talked with her?”
    â€œI wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. That’s what she’s after, to avenge herself on me.”
    Austin had lived his life in the hothouse of faculty life and was not disposed to dismiss his niece’s fears. He supposed an office could be like a campus, a place where petty quarrels sometimes blew into major storms. Male professors often acted as if they had droit du seigneur with their female students, and women faculty, wed and unwed, often
entered the competition on the excuse that they were protecting students. When Austin had begun teaching, the profession was highminded, moral and responsible. The notion that female students were legitimate prey would have shocked and horrified both male and female faculty. But now seminars were sponsored by national organizations decrying the alleged McCarthyism of monitoring the misbehavior of faculty with students. What a professor did behind the closed door of his office was nobody’s business. No matter that the student was vulnerable, flattered by an attention which was at first equivocal and then unmistakable. And they were dependent on the professor for their grade. Something akin to the Hollywood director’s couch was now operating in too many faculty offices. On this analogy, however limping, Austin was disposed to take Colleen’s concern seriously.
    â€œSurely you don’t doubt your brother.”
    â€œHe won’t know what hit him. Already they’re meeting regularly for drinks. People have noticed.”
    â€œColleen, I am trying to think what I can possibly do.”
    â€œIn part, you’ve already done it. I had to talk to someone.”
    â€œSweetheart, you can always talk to me.”
    What he could not tell her was that his receptivity to her fears was strengthened by memories of her father’s misbehavior. Jack had been a notorious womanizer during his golden years. When Austin had learned of this, he had gone to his brother-in-law, told him what he had heard, and asked for a denial. Jack’s brows had lifted in humorous disbelief.
    â€œDo you have your stole with you?”
    â€œIs it true?”
    â€œâ€˜It’?”
    â€œAre you running around with other women?”
    â€œThat is an interesting figure of speech, since the point is to get them stopped and horizontal.”
    Austin hit him in the mouth, with his open hand, then drove his fist into his stomach. Jack