Campus Tramp by Lawrence Block Read Free Book Online Page A

anybody else do the work?”
    “Not really. I’ve got a managing editor and a bunch of people who write bad news copy, but there’s nobody who knows enough about the technical side of it or who has enough time to spare to make much difference. I wouldn’t trust anybody else on make-up or head-writing, and I can’t get around the job of being down at the print-shop Friday. So there’s not much chance of sleeping for a while.”
    He straightened up. “Look,” he said, “get to work on proofing those galleys. Give a yell if you need me, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t because I’ll be going quietly nuts in here as it is. Okay?”
    “Okay.”
    “Come back with them when you’re done. And don’t mind me if I scream or throw ashtrays against the wall or anything like that. Okay?’”
    She nodded and turned away, walking out of the office. She found the style sheet and the sheet with proofreader’s marks on the bulletin board and took them with the galleys to one of the wooden tables. She studied both sheets of paper for several minutes until she managed to figure out what in the world they were about. Then she got down to the laborious business of proofreading the galleys.
    It was a quarter after one when she walked back into Don’s office, holding the batch of corrected galleys in front of her like a pagan making an offering to a god. He took them from her, glanced at them and tossed them into the OUT box.
    “That was fast,” he told her. “Think you did a good job?”
    “If there are any mistakes there you can shoot me.”
    He laughed, but the laughter was strained and she knew how tired he was. “There’ll be mistakes,” he said. “I’ll catch some of them on page proof and the others’ll wind up in the paper. They always do.”
    “Always?”
    He nodded. “We get them all the time. Nothing worth sending into the New Yorker , but we get some honeys. The best one that I can remember was when we were running this story about a wooded region that was partly private and partly open to the public. We had something about the public area, only we dropped one letter out of public and—”
    She felt herself blushing.
    “Well,” he said, “thanks a hell of a lot for coming in and helping me out. You’ve saved me a good bit of work and I appreciate it. Any time you feel like dropping in, the office is always open and I can always find something for you to do.”
    “Do you want me to go now?”
    “Don’t you want to get to sleep? It’s late.”
    “I’m not tired.”
    “But you’ve got classes tomorrow—”
    “I can cut them. I’d like to stay around.”
    “Well—”
    She grinned. “You just said that the office was always open and there would always be something for me to do.”
    “What could you do now?”
    “Anything. The office is messy—I could clean it up for you.”
    “The janitor does that in the morning.”
    “You could find something for me to do. Couldn’t you?”
    “I suppose so.” He butted the cigarette he was holding in the ashtray and looked at her again. “Are you sure you don’t want to get to sleep?”
    “Positive.”
    “Cutting classes is a bad habit to get into.”
    “Don’t you cut classes?”
    “I’ve cut most of my classes since the second semester of my freshman year,” he admitted. “I go to about one class out of every five.”
    “So?”
    “That just shows what a bad habit it is. I got into the habit and I’ve been at it ever since:”
    They were both smiling now. He stood up and walked out from behind the desk. “Tell you what,” he began. “I guess I’m not going to be able to get rid of you for a while so I might as well make the most of it. Let’s take a run down to the Landmine and grab some coffee.”
    “Landmine? What’s that?”
    “The Landmark Grill—only place in town that stays open all night. I call it the Landmine.”
    “I don’t want to keep you from your work. You’ll be up all night as it is.”
    “It’ll only