I agreed, especially after I caught our current cabbie's curious look in the rearview mirror.

"You want him to drop us off on Beale?" Tolliver asked. "Maybe we could go listen to some music before supper?"

I glanced at my watch. It seemed unlikely that there would be good blues playing at five in the afternoon. "Why don't you go?" I suggested. "I'll go back to the hotel and take a nap."

So Tolliver got out at B.B. King's Blues Club on legendary Beale Street, and reminded the cabbie where he was to drop me off. The cabbie made a face, said, "Sure, man, I little on the protective side," the man said when I was paying him. "Your man is a worrier."

"Yes," I said. "My brother."

"Your brother?" The cabbie looked at me, half-smiling, sure I was pulling his leg.

I told him to keep the change because I was kind of rattled, and I scrambled out of the cab and into the hotel without looking around me, which was stupid.

For the second time that day, someone seized hold of me. But this time it was a man, an angry man. He grabbed me as I walked into the lobby, and he marched me over to a chair before I could even be sure who he was.

Dr. Clyde Nunley was slightly better dressed than he had been the morning before. This afternoon he looked like a typical college professor in his sport jacket and dark slacks. His shoes needed shining.

"How'd you do it?" he asked me, still gripping my arm.

"What?"

"You've made a fool out of me. I was standing right there. Those records were sealed. I watched over them. No one else had read them. How did you do it? You make me look like an idiot in front of the students, and then your damn pimp calls me to ask me for my money."

I was disgusted, and I realized Dr. Nunley had been drinking.

I tried to yank my arm away. He'd scared me, so now I was proportionately angrier.

"Drop my arm and stand away from me," I said, and I said it sharply and loudly.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that the three (very young) staff members at the counter were buzzing around nervously, unsure of what to do. I was so glad when someone else stepped forward and clamped a hand on Dr. Nunley's shoulder.

"Let go of the lady," said the man who'd been in the class the day before. He had that stillness about him that says, "I know what I'm doing and no one messes with me."

"What?" Clyde Nunley was very confused by the interruption of his bullying session. His grip on me didn't loosen. I had a wild impulse to grab the arm of Mr. Student, so we'd all be standing there holding on to one another. We must look ridiculous.