Irrational Numbers Read online

  Titters of laughter erupted.

  Gotcha.

  From long experience, Bonnie knew if she could either make her students laugh or connect her subject matter to an area of fascination, in this case sex, she had them. In one stroke, she’d done both.

  Below France, Bonnie wrote Greece fourth century A.D. “Ready for your second clue?”

  A chorus of high-pitched voices complained that she hadn’t written all the first clues on the blackboard.

  Bonnie turned back around and stared at the near empty board. “You know, I believe you’re right. Whatever are you going to do about that?”

  Writing furiously, they began to exchange information.

  After about a minute, Bonnie tapped on the board. “Clue number two.”

  Pens in hand, they stared at her with their unlined upturned faces.

  “Here goes. Our Greek mathematician, legend has it, was the product of eugenics.”

  Hands shot up requesting a definition of eugenics and its spelling.

  She wrote the word on the board and underlined it. “Eugenics is the science of selective breeding. Theoretically, our mathematician was the end result of generations of controlled reproduction. She was a designed human being—designed to be brilliant, beautiful, strong, and articulate. Like Mary Poppins, she was practically perfect. And like most perfect human beings this planet has produced, someone murdered her. What makes her different is that the person who ordered her death was one of the first popes of the Catholic Church.”

  From the back of the room, a thin black girl whispered, “Cool.”

  Again, Bonnie waited while they scrambled to write down their collective thoughts. This time they were quicker. Bonnie was always amazed at the adaptability of the human species, especially the young.

  She wrote Germany followed by 1882—1935. “Ready?”

  Every head nodded yes.

  “Our next genius had to flee her native Germany. She was Jewish, and at times, this normally civilized country turns from Jekyll to Hyde. Our mathematician and her family came to the United States, only to find that discrimination could speak English as well as German. Overcoming extreme prejudice, this time sexist discrimination, she eventually taught mathematics at Princeton.”

  Next came Scotland and 1780–1872.

  When everyone signaled their readiness, Bonnie began. “This woman astounded the mathematical community of England, first for her brilliance, then a second time when it was learned she was self-taught. At a time when education was thought to be detrimental to the health and well-being of females, this particular female taught herself to read Latin, even before she could adequately read in her native tongue. Her parents were so upset by this turn of events they sought to put an end to her self-education by first denying her heat and light in her bedroom. When this didn’t work, they took away her clothing. When that didn’t work, they married her off to an uneducated man who barely tolerated reading, let alone mathematics.”

  A blond girl front and center raised her hand. “How did she get around that?”

  Keeping a smile from her face, Bonnie replied, “She outlived him and inherited his fortune.”

  To a girl, Bonnie’s students nodded their approval of this solution.

  Bonnie wrote Italy 1718–1789 on the board.

  “This lady could speak five languages by the time she was nine years of age. Her father was a university professor, and she entertained his learned guests with her knowledge of mathematics, science, philosophy, politics, and art. Although she did most of her work in geometry, she is best known because a single word from one of her manuscripts was mistranslated. Because of this error, later generations would mistakenly believe she was a satanist.”

  Bonnie wrote Russia and 1850—1891.

  “It was reported that the last of our women learned mathematics initially because of wallpaper. Whether by design or just because he was too cheap to purchase real wallpaper, our mathematician’s father papered her bedroom with copies of Isaac Newton’s manuscript pages delineating integral and differential calculus. She spent hours poring over the strange symbols on her bedroom wall. When she was old enough to attend university, our mathematician showed a facility for analysis she attributed to the time she spent studying, not just in her room, but studying her room itself.”

  Bonnie stifled a yawn and returned to the desk she’d been sitting on earlier. “We’re going to quit early today, so you can get started with your scavenger hunt. Before we go, I want to leave you with a parting thought. How many of you have read Alice in Wonderland?”

  Bonnie wasn’t surprised when no one raised a hand. “Well, you should. Lewis Carroll, whose real name was Charles Dodsgon, was a mathematician.”

  Several students groaned as though she had just told a bad joke.

  “Get over it. You might as well get used to the fact I’ve got a one-track mind.”

  Bonnie opened a book she’d left lying on the seat of the desk. “The passage I’m going to read, really just one line, is the Red Queen talking to Alice. There aren’t too many lines from literature that describe better the plight of the historic female striving to make it in the predominantly male-dominated field of mathematics.”

  You have to run as fast as you can just to stay in one place. If you want to actually get somewhere you must run twice as fast as that.

  CHAPTER 3

  WHEN THE LAST OF HER SCAVENGER HUNTERS HIGHtailed it out of her room, Bonnie collected her fanny pack and dragged her now even more tired body into the hall. She waved good-bye to the black girl—Emily, Bonnie recalled—who thought Hypatia’s death was so cool.

  “Remember, Emily, I’m a math teacher, and this is a math class. Don’t just gather a lot of juicy history facts. Come back with at least a little math.”

  The girl nodded in that absentminded way teenagers do when they’re giving you about 11 percent of their attention.

  Give the girl a break, Pinkwater. It’s summer, after all.

  Bonnie checked her Mickey Mouse watch. 9:10.

  Thank You, Jesus.

  She still had most of the day. Maybe she’d give Armen a call.

  “Bonnie,” a shrill voice from behind her called. Marcie Englehart.

  Oh God, oh God, oh God.

  Before Bonnie could consider any possible evasive action, the school nurse was upon her, hard into Bonnie’s space, perfume and cigarette breath at twelve o’clock.

  “I thought I heard your voice.” Her gray-blond hair and pink cheeks not six inches away, Marcie trapped Bonnie against her classroom door. “You must be a glutton for punishment, Pinkwater. Didn’t anybody tell you school doesn’t start for three more weeks?”

  Marcie’s horsey laugh culminated in a snort.

  Bonnie didn’t think Marcie really gave a good Goddamn about a summer math history class, so she didn’t attempt to explain her presence at the school. Besides, an explanation would only extend the torture.

  “Hi, Marcie.”

  Bonnie slipped past the woman to the relative expanse of the open hall. “I could ask you the same thing. What’s the school nurse doing at an empty school?” Bonnie immediately regretted the question. No telling what avenues of information Marcie would feel compelled to share now that Bonnie had primed the pump.

  Without warning, the nurse poked Bonnie in the forehead with her index finger.

  What the hell?

  “Earth to Bonnie,” Marcie said. “I sent you an e-mail in May. Today’s the day of the sport physicals. We had a couple of docs in here from the Springs. Checked out the kids. Got them all set up for fall sports.”

  Bonnie rubbed her forehead, wanting to smack the odious woman. She thought better of it and concentrated on making her escape. “I remember. Well, listen, I got to fly. Going to the El Paso County Fair.” No need to tell this forehead-poking harpy she wasn’t going until six o’clock that night.

  None of her damn business anyway.

  Bonnie hadn’t gone three paces when Marcie’s voic
e froze her in her tracks. “Too bad about Lloyd.”

  Every molecule in Bonnie’s being screamed that she keep going, run in fact. To say that Marcie was the school’s gossipmonger was akin to saying Hurricane Katrina was a bit of bad weather. The woman had inroads to information that would astound the CIA.

  But Principal Lloyd Whittaker was perhaps Bonnie’s best friend on the planet. Against her better judgment, she asked, “What about Lloyd?”

  Marcie actually smacked her lips in preparation of dishing some juicy dirt. “So you haven’t heard?”

  Now the woman was playing with her. “No, Marcie, I haven’t heard.”

  “Well, I was at the Stop and Go day before yesterday, when who should pull up in that old pickup of his but our fearless leader himself.” Marcie chewed her lower lip in a transparent effort to look concerned. “The man looked awful. Eyes red and puffy. Lips cracked. Face all white and gray stubble. Ratty old T-shirt with tomato sauce stains—”

  “I get the picture, Marcie. Lloyd has shamelessly let himself go. But what harm is there in that? The man’s on vacation, for Pete’s sake.”

  “I said the same thing to myself, but I still put out a few feelers, asked a few questions of some friends.”

  Marcie’s clearinghouse of friends was legendary. She could give Sherlock Holmes’s Baker Street Irregulars a run for their dinero.

  “And?”

  “And, it’s Marjorie. She hasn’t been around East Plains all summer. Not in church. Not at any cookouts. Not at women’s softball. Not even at any of her bridge clubs.”

  This last revelation struck home. Lloyd’s wife, Marjorie, was addicted to bridge, played in no less than four clubs. “Maybe there’s been a family emergency.”

  Marcie shook her head in slow, seemingly sad arcs. “You know Vickie O’Malley?”

  “Pastor’s wife at the Baptist church?”

  “That’s her. She was at the city market, the one over in Henshaw, where Marjorie works? Anyway, Vickie asked about Marjorie and was told she quit and moved up to Denver. Been gone since the beginning of June.”

  Bonnie cast about for an explanation to toss back at Marcie—anything that would deny that Lloyd and Marjorie were having trouble.

  Before she could voice a possibility, Marcie shut her down. “She’s gone, Bon. Marjorie has left Lloyd. And the man is falling apart.”

  Bonnie hopped in Alice, The-Little-Subaru-That-Could, and turned on her cell phone. With any luck, she might be able to catch Lloyd at home. A blinking envelope icon told her she had a message.

  She punched in the icon. “Missus Pinkwater, this is Alf Quinn. I need to talk to you. Come on by the range.”

  Same old Alf. No wasted words. No—if you got the time. Not even a please. It was a wonder Leo hadn’t had a falling-out with his dad long before he did.

  Bonnie knew she’d end up going. What else was she supposed to do? Say, I’m too busy to the grieving father of a murdered son?

  But is he grieving?

  Bonnie immediately rejected the question and its implied answer. Of course the rude bastard was grieving. Probably even more so if he never patched things up with Leo.

  Oh, what the hell.

  The Quinn place was only a couple of miles from the school anyway, in a remote section of East Plains. And remote was the operative word. Alf, or as he called himself, Rattlesnake, ran what might be considered a shooting range and paintball course. He also gave demonstrations of exotic weapons—jeep-mounted machine guns, fifty-millimeter cannons, miniguns that fired nine thousand rounds a minute.

  The man was a legend. And the father of a dead homosexual boy, Bonnie reminded herself.

  At the corner of Highway 84 and Jackson Road, in the shade of a Russian olive tree, stood an oaken sign with the words Rattlesnake’s Shootin’ Range.

  Bonnie turned Alice’s nose down Jackson. Immediately, washboard ridges shook the ancient Subaru until Bonnie thought either it or she would fall to pieces. Little by little the rattle of the car was joined by the rat-a-tat of automatic weapons. Before she reached the turnoff onto Rattlesnake Road, the gunfire ceased.

  “The range is cold,” a familiar voice sounded over a loudspeaker. “Place your weapon on the table in front of you. Please do not fire while the red flag is hoisted.”

  Bonnie turned the dirt-road corner and pulled in front of a white stucco office. Six-inch green letters declared this, indeed, was the world-famous Rattlesnake’s Shootin’ Range.

  As soon as Bonnie exited her car, she saw Alf Rattlesnake Quinn standing hands-on-hips. He was about a hundred feet away, but he was hard to miss. At six-six he towered over the gaggle of grade school children behind the tables of the firing line. On the closest table lay a half-dozen firearms.

  Alf removed his military-style baseball cap and scratched his bald pate. “What we got here is the newest generation of noise suppressors, what the movies call silencers.”

  Rattlesnake replaced his hat and picked up a pistol with a cylinder affixed to its muzzle. He waited until the red flag was lowered, then drew a bead on a target fifty yards away.

  “Listen.” He squeezed the trigger.

  Bonnie expected at least a puff à la gangster movies. Instead the gun seemed to whistle. The click of the trigger was louder than the discharge of the gun. She was impressed.

  Rattlesnake held up the pistol and, with a press of a button, released the magazine into his hand. “Custom-designed technology allows even more of the muzzle noise to be masked.”

  As she trudged closer, Bonnie began to make out falsetto questions.

  “Who makes better ammo, us or the Russians? My dad says the Russian stuff is crap.”

  “How come we had to wear those ear protectors?”

  “How many tattoos do you have?”

  “You said the minigun fires nine thousand rounds a minute. How many is that a second?”

  Bonnie strode up and stood in their midst. “That’s one hundred fifty rounds a second or one round every point zero zero six seven seconds.” She made a point of emphasizing the zero zero.

  Every face turned in her direction, including Alf’s. “Ladies and gents, this here is Missus Bonnie Pinkwater. She’s one of the math teachers at East Plains, and if you ask me, the best of the bunch.”

  Bonnie offered Alf a grateful smile, already regretting her earlier assessment of this shameless flatterer. “Thank you, kind sir.”

  “You had my brother last year,” said a chubby freckle-faced girl with an almost spherical head. “Bobby Raintree.”

  Several other children chimed in with relatives who populated her classes in the recent past.

  “Whoa, slow down, you guys.” She turned her attention to Alf. “What is all this?” She waved a hand in the general direction of the round-headed girl.

  Before Alf could answer, Miss Roundhead piped, “We’re from the day camp. Tomorrow we’re going swimming.”

  From the girl’s tone, Bonnie had no doubt that if the girl had her way they’d be swimming right at this moment rather than at a dusty old shooting range.

  A boy, who could have been the girl’s brother, shook his equally round head in disagreement of this unspoken assessment. “Paintball is way cooler than swimming.”

  The girl stuck her tongue out at the boy.

  Alf’s smile never dimmed despite this minor melee. “Every two weeks we get a different group from the Rec Center. I was just showing them some weapons and the firing line before we suit them up for paintball. We’ll only be another couple of minutes. I want to show them a few more pieces. Why don’t you wait for me in the office?” He pointed with his chin back the way she’d come.

  He turned back toward the firing line leaving Bonnie staring at the two words he had tattooed at the base of his shaved skull—Semper Fi.

  Rattlesnake’s office was as messy as his firing line had been neat. Spent brass casings littered the floor. The barrel of an air-cooled machine gun lay diagonally across a stained desk blotter, which in turn sat
askew on a gray metal desk. A black military stencil declared the desk to be Property of Camp Pendleton. Propped against the wall, looking like it might teeter and fall any minute, was the windshield of a Jeep.

  Kicking through the brass, Bonnie made her way to the only seat in the room, a matching gray rolling chair behind the desk. As she sat, she noticed two framed pictures. Dressed in olive drab military fatigues, Alf Quinn had his son in a headlock. They were both mugging for the camera, their tongues protruding, their eyes wide.

  Happier times, Bonnie thought. The picture had to be at least five years old—pre-graduation-declaration. Definitely happier times.

  The other picture showed Leo and Seneca Berringer, her in a powder blue sleeveless gown, a white corsage wrapped about her wrist—a prom picture.

  Bonnie was musing over Alf’s decision to display the second photo, when the big man himself walked in.

  His broad shoulders filled the doorway. “At ease, smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.” He laughed and signaled her to stay seated.

  Bonnie squinted up at Alf, wondering how much longer he intended to keep up the façade of the jovial host. Your boy is dead, Rattlesnake. It’s okay to show it. “Got your message.”

  Alf removed his cap and scratched his head as if he was somehow lost in his own office. He pointed with his chin toward the photographs. “Loved that girl. Thought Seneca and Leo would end up together, make me a few grandbabies. Take over the range when I took to the rocker.”

  He chuckled mirthlessly and leaned two-fisted onto the desk. “I guess that’s what I get for thinking.”

  For one horrific moment, Bonnie was convinced this Gibraltar of a man might break down, then he inhaled mightily and recovered. “Since they were kids, they were inseparable. Used to drive me nuts the way they were always underfoot around the range.”

  From the sound of his voice and the faraway look in his eye, Bonnie could tell the man was painting the scene in the sepia tints of fond memories.

  “They played on the range?” she asked, immediately picturing buffaloes.