These are snippets from the original FLIPKA which give some insight into the character of Louie Lopinsky otherwise called The Professor or, affectionately, Lo.
AFTER WE LEFT the clinic, Lopinsky gave me a lift to downtown Ely and bought me a therapeutic hot fudge sundae at the Dairy Queen. I was wrong about him, of course. He wasn’t an FBI agent and, what was worse, he thought it endlessly entertaining I even had such a silly notion. “My students will get a kick out of that story,” he laughed.
“If you’re not a federal agent, then why were you waving a badge around at the airstrip?” I asked.
“Waving a badge? I don’t have a badge, but I do have a library card. University of North Carolina staff member with special access to vaulted manuscripts.” He pulled out the contents of his wallet and spread them over the sticky Formica table, to prove he was as lethal as the boy next door. He’d opted for fries instead of a sundae, dumping them in a lake of blood-red ketchup and sprinkling them with an extra dose of salt. The two of us were poster children for unhealthy eating, but I didn’t care.
He thought a minute. “They probably jumped to that conclusion because my plane still has government tags. You see, I bought it a few weeks ago at auction and have been too preoccupied preparing for my trip to handle the legalities.”
I still wasn’t convinced. College professors generally don’t make enough money to take up flying. “So, tell me about this theory you have regarding the Civil War?”
“Haven’t you ever heard that it’s bad luck to talk about a book until it’s practically at the publishers?”
“I know fiction writers don’t like to jinx their work but … a history professor?”
“History walks the fine line between fiction, folklore, and fact, don’t you think? Here, listen to this,” he said, pulling a folded piece of paper from his coat pocket:
There are glittering caves wherein torches are kindled and men walk on the sandy floors under the echoing domes, wherein gems and crystals and veins of precious ores glint in the polished walls; and the light glows through folded marble, shell-like, translucent as living hands.
“Sounds like Tolkien. The description of Lothlorien, if I remember correctly.”
“Yes, but this was written before Tolkien was born,” he “explained. This is a copy of a letter to Reverend Simon Olivore from his son, Major Sebastian Olivore, circa 1860s.”
Sebastian Olivore. So his words had found and beguiled before.
… later in the conversation
“I think the Major saw something he wasn’t supposed to. That’s why his letters suddenly stopped coming and why his family was unable to find out what happened to him.” He dangled a soggy fry in my direction. “Care for a fry?”
“No thanks—I like my fries dipped in ketchup, not drowning in it. Besides, I’m a Cheetos lady.”
“I know.” He hesitated. “You really don’t remember talking to me in the hospital, do you?”
“I only remember you telling me something about the Nova—I thought you were a cop.”
“My poor ego.”
It had been so long that I couldn’t tell. Was this man flirting with me? I had to admit the way he wiggled his fries in the ketchup, raised them dripping with sticky sweetness to his lips, and slurped them down his gullet, humming with pleasure like a dewy-eyed seal with an oyster, made me tingle. You gotta love a man who relishes eating
Saying nothing in particular 