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mean aside from all those parents who called me?   And besides every student he ever had?“
    “Not to mention the staff members who had to deal with him,“ Tomlin added.
    “And most of the faculty members who were here then,“ Fox said. “And then there’s me, of course. I had plenty of trouble with him.“
    “And just think about everybody he’s screwed in his insurance business,“ Tomlin said. He tossed his cigarette to the floor and lit another one. “There must be plenty of those.“
    Burns looked around the boiler room. The boiler itself was huge. It looked a little like some kind of alien spaceship that had been trapped in a brick barn. It was wrapped in some kind of material that Burns strongly suspected had a large asbestos component.
    “I wonder who found the body,“ he said.
    “I haven’t heard,“ Tomlin said. “You, Earl?“
    Fox shook his head. “Could have been his wife. He was at home when they found him. Why do you want to know, Carl?   You aren’t involved in this, I hope.“
    “I’m not involved,“ Burns said.
    “That’s good,“ Tomlin said. “Because we don’t want you to be distracted, do we Earl?“
    “No,“ Earl said. “We need you at your best for the big game.“
    The ball game again. Burns didn’t want to talk about it.
    Tomlin did. “There’s going to be a pretty good crowd. I think we can win, don’t you?“
    Burns didn’t think so, not with him on the team. He didn’t know how he’d ever gotten himself into this mess in the first place. It had started out innocently enough, just a suggestion that there be some sort of faculty baseball team, and Burns had never expected anything to come of it. But something had, and now he was going to be playing second base.
    It could have been worse, however. The original idea had been baseball, but even Mal Tomlin, who was athletically inclined, had seen that real baseball took a lot more skill than nearly anyone on the faculty, except possibly some of the coaches and maybe Mal himself, could muster. So they had settled on softball, slow-pitch softball.
    Even slow-pitch softball, however, required quite a bit of eye/hand coordination and stamina, both of which Burns had in very short supply.
    “You haven’t looked too sharp in the workouts,“ Tomlin said to Burns. “I thought you said you’d played before.“
    “It’s been a long time,“ Burns said.
    It had been since Burns played his one season of Little League ball, in fact, but he didn’t see the need of mentioning that minor point. Maybe if he’d said something earlier, it would have been all right, but now it was too late. Macho guys like ballplayers, even slow-pitch softball players, didn’t back down from a challenge.
    “It would be pretty embarrassing if the student team beat the faculty team,“ Fox said. “It might give them the idea that they’re somehow superior to us.“
    “They are superior to us,“ Burns pointed out. “They’re younger, faster, and in a lot better shape.“
    “Speak for yourself,“ Tomlin said. “Personally, I’m in great shape.“
    He breathed out a great cloud of white smoke and then began to cough violently. Burns, thinking Tomlin might strangle, got up and started to pound him on the back.
    Tomlin began to yell and cough at the same time, not an easy trick. The yelling was incomprehensible, but Burns got the idea that Tomlin wanted him to stop hitting him. So he stopped.
    “Jesus Christ,“ Tomlin gasped when he’d gotten his breath back. “You didn’t have to do that. I was fine. Just a little tickle in my throat.“
    His face was red as a Martian sunset, and he was making wet wheezing noises after every third word.
    “I can see that you’re fine,“ Burns said. “You could probably go out and run five miles right now.“
    “I could. Faster than you could, that’s for sure.“
    Burns didn’t doubt that. Speed wasn’t one of Burns’s natural attributes. Even if Tomlin had to crawl, he’d be faster than