NEW YORK: JUNE 2

"...and, if nothing else, this semester should have taught you that there is no significant relationship between art and society—despite the ambitious pronunciamentos of the popular mass-culturists and mass-psychologists who are driven to spiteful inclusions when faced by important fields beyond their ken. The very concepts of 'society' and 'art' are mutually foreign, even antagonistic. The regulations and limitations of..."

Dr. Jonathan Hemlock, Professor of Art, spun out his closing lecture to the mass class in Art and Society—a course he abhorred to teach, but one which was the bread and butter of his department. His lecture style was broadly ironic, even insulting, but he was vastly popular with the students, each of whom imagined his neighbor was writhing under Dr. Hemlock's superior disdain. They interpreted his cold acidity as an attractive bitterness in the face of the unfeeling bourgeois world, an epitome of that Weltschmerzso precious to the melodramatic soul of the undergraduate.

Hemlock's popularity with students had several unrelated bases. For one, at thirty-seven he was the youngest full professor in the Art faculty. The students assumed therefore that he was a liberal. He was not a liberal, nor was he a conservative, a Tory, a wet, an isolationist or a Fabian. He was interested only in art, and he was indifferent to and bored by such things as politics, student freedom, the war on poverty, the plight of the Negro, war in Indochina, and ecology. But he could not escape his reputation as a "student's professor." For example, when he met classes after an interruption caused by a student revolt, he openly ridiculed the administration for lacking the ability and courage to crush so petty a demonstration. The students read this as a criticism of the establishment, and they admired him more than ever.

"...after all, there are only Art and non-Art. There are no such things as Black Art, Social Art, Young Art, Pop Art, Mass Art. These are merely fictional rubrics designed to grace, through classification, the crap of inferior daubers who..."

Male students who had read of Hemlock's international exploits as a mountain climber were impressed by the image of scholar/athlete, despite the fact that he had not climbed for several years. And young ladies were attracted by his arctic aloofness, which they assumed concealed a passionate and mysterious nature. But he was far from the physical idiom of the romantic type. Slim and of average height, only his precise and wiry movements and his veiled green-gray eyes recommended him to their sexual fantasies.

As one might suspect, Hemlock's popularity did not extend to the faculty. They resented his academic reputation, his refusal to serve on committees, his indifference to their projects and proposals, and his much-publicized student charisma, which term they always inflected so as to make it sound like the opposite of scholarly integrity. His major protection against their snide bile was the rumor that he was independently wealthy and lived in a mansion on Long Island. Typical academic liberals, the faculty were stunned and awkward in the face of wealth, even rumored wealth. There was no way for them to disprove or substantiate these rumors because none of them had ever been invited to his home, nor were they likely to be.

"...the appreciation of art cannot be learned. It requires special gifts—gifts which you naturally assume you possess because you have been brought up on the belief that you were created equal. What you don't realize is that this only means you are equal to one another..."

Speaking automatically, Hemlock allowed his eye to wander over the front row of his amphitheatre classroom. As usual, it was filled with smiling, nodding, mindless girls, their skirts hitched too high and their knees unconsciously apart. It occurred to him that, with their up-turned little smiles and round, empty eyes, they looked like a row of umlaut U's. He never had anything to do with the female students: students, virgins, and drunks he held to be off limits. Opportunities were rife, and he was not enfeebled by free-floating morality; but he was a sporting man, and he ranked the making of these dazzled imbeciles with shining deer and dynamiting fish at the base of the dam.

As always, the bell coincided with the last word of his lecture, so he wrapped up the course by wishing the students a peaceful summer unsullied by creative thought. They applauded, as they always did on last day, and he left quickly.

As he turned the corner of the hall, he encountered a mini-skirted co-ed with long black hair and eyes made up like a ballerina's. With excited catches of breath, she told him how much she had enjoyed the course and how she felt closer to Art than ever before.

"How nice."

"The problem I have, Dr. Hemlock, is that I have to keep a B average, or I lose my scholarship."

He fished in his pocket for his office keys.

"And I'm afraid I'm not going to do well enough in your final. I mean—I have gained a great feelingfor Art—but you can't always put feelings down on paper." She looked up at him, gathered her courage, and tried hard to make her eyes terribly meaningful. "So, if there's anything I can do to get a better grade—I mean, I'd be willing to do anything at all. Really."

Hemlock spoke gravely. "You've considered all the implications of that offer?"

She nodded and swallowed, her eyes shining with anticipation.

He lowered his voice confidentially. "Do you have anything planned for tonight?"

She cleared her throat and said no, she didn't.

Hemlock nodded. "Do you live alone?"

"My roommate's gone for the week."

"Good. Then I suggest you break out the books and study your ass off. That's the surest way I know to ensure your grade."

"But..."

"Yes?"

She crumpled. "Thank you."

"A pleasure."

She walked slowly down the hall as Hemlock entered his office, humming to himself. He liked the way he had done that. But his euphoria was transient. On his desk he found notes he had written to himself, reminders of bills soon due and past due. University rumors of private wealth were baseless; the truth was that Hemlock spent each year a little more than three times his income from teaching, books, and commissions for appraisal and evaluation. Most of his money—about forty thousand a year—he earned by moonlighting. Jonathan Hemlock worked for the Search and Sanction Division of CII. He was an assassin.

The telephone buzzed, and he pressed down the flashing button and lifted the receiver. "Yes?"

"Hemlock? Can you talk?" The voice belonged to Clement Pope, Mr. Dragon's first assistant. It was impossible to miss the strained, hushed tone. Pope loved playing spy.

"What can I do for you, Pope?"

"Mr. Dragon wants to see you."

"I assumed as much."

"Can you get over here in twenty minutes?"

"No." Actually, twenty minutes was ample time, but Jonathan loathed the personnel of Search and Sanction. "What about tomorrow?"

"This is top drawer. He wants to see you now."

"In an hour, then."

"Look, pal, if I were you I'd get my ass over here as soon as—" but Jonathan had hung up.

For the next half hour Jonathan puttered around his office. When he was sure he would arrive at Dragon's in something over the predicted hour, he called a taxi and left the campus.

As the grimy, ancient elevator tugged him to the top floor of a nondescript Third Avenue office building, Jonathan automatically noted the familiar details: the scaly gray paint on the walls, the annual inspection stamps slapped haphazardly over one another, the Otis recommendation for load limit, twice scratched out and reduced in deference to the aging machinery. He anticipated everything he would see for the next hour, and the anticipation made him uneasy.