The School of Night Read Online Free Page B

executed. Warner, dead under mysterious circumstances. The Wizard Earl, shut away in the Tower for seventeen years. Roydon, reduced to abject poverty.
    â€œAnd the only one standing at the end,” I said, half dazed, “was the outsider. Shakespeare.”
    For the first time in our acquaintance, I think, Alonzo’s eyes glowed with fellow feeling.
    â€œYou’ve hit on it! The sweetest, the bitterest irony of all. This hayseed actor with the grammar-school education, the guy who couldn’t have gotten in Ralegh’s school even if he’d wanted to (and he probably did) was the one who weathered every change of ministry, from Elizabeth the First to James the First. The School of Night had to close its doors, but Shakespeare lived on.”
    â€œHis own little academe,” I murmured.
    Slowly, Alonzo sank back in his seat.
    â€œExactly,” he said, a long stream of Dunhill smoke forking from his nostrils. “The School of Night gives way to Shakespeare. The School of Day.”
    *   *   *
    I’d guess it was two in the morning when we finally settled our bill. Alonzo paid, as usual, and for a tip he left behind a neat little pile of bills. God knows how many, but the bartender was smiling.
    â€œHenry,” said Alonzo. “I believe I’m snockered.”
    Now I’m convinced that snockered is, by its nature, a funny word. Coming from Alonzo Wax’s mouth, it became quite exorbitantly funny. He couldn’t understand why this was, any more than I could explain it, but he came around to my way of thinking.
    â€œSnockered!” he shrieked. “Shhhh-nockered!”
    The bartender was no longer smiling by the time we left. Stepping with great care, Alonzo and I filed down the pavement and then, by common impulse, dashed across the street, our arms windmilling. We paused before the gates of Nassau Hall and stared up at its white tower, which held a special terror against the night’s black purple. A mass of blue clouds was sweeping in from the south, and a hush lay upon every casement window, every arch, and every gargoyle.
    â€œHenry.”
    Alonzo’s voice came at me from a vast distance.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œLet’s have our own school.”
    â€œWe’re already in school.”
    Never before, never since, have I seen him grin like that. His mouth pulled open like a sluice gate, and an entirely new Alonzo came flooding through.
    â€œA School of Night ,” he said. “Our very own. Let’s begin.”

4
    T HE DAY AFTER Alonzo’s funeral service, I deposited Bernard Styles’s check in what was left of my bank account. As promised, it cleared the next day. A good thing, because that morning I paid my landlord three months in back rent and took out two hundred dollars in good hard cash, which felt like Christmas and Easter in my jeans pocket as I strolled to Union Station to meet Lily Pentzler for lunch.
    Lily had chosen a multilevel restaurant called America, which, in addition to having a big name, has a big menu, the size of an exit sign. It has to be, I guess, to hold all that Cajun dirty rice and Navajo fry bread and Idaho shoestring fries and New England pot roast, and yet the menu was nothing beneath the weight of Lily’s stack of accordion files, which rose between us like Hadrian’s Wall. High enough to block Lily from view but powerless to stop her voice.
    â€œSo you’ve got the spare key to Alonzo’s apartment, right? Good. Now listen. This packet contains three copies of the will, stamped and notarized. You’ll have to file in probate, but there shouldn’t be any court proceedings. Alonzo lawyered everything. This folder lists all his leases and credit cards; you’ll have to terminate those. Here’s a bunch of contact info: Social Security, the post office, subscriptions, professional memberships. Don’t forget to set up a bank account for the estate; Bank of