The file was a half inch thick, and I wasn’t sure how best to mine it for other useful information. For an insane moment I considered simply taking it, but taking it, I realized, could put Debbie in a very bad spot. If the file were requested while I had it, she would be held responsible for its loss. Even if the disappearance went undetected by anyone else, there would be the awkward matter of how to return it. Last but not least, if I borrowed the file, Debbie would no longer have plausible deniability, whereas if I simply scanned it here and kept my mouth shut, she could honestly say she didn’t know that I had seen it.
Scan it here. The words echoed in my mind, and I checked the credenza behind Debbie’s desk, desperately seeking a scanner or copier. No such luck. Suddenly I thought of my phone, with its built-in camera. I could count on one hand the number of times I had actually used my cell phone’s camera, but I did know how. Or so I hoped.
The first photo I snapped made me jump—the phone made a noise like a camera shutter, but at a volume that seemed earsplitting to my paranoid ears. I flipped the toggle to silence the phone and began again, feeling a bit like a Cold War spy as I flipped pages and took photos. It wasn’t as easy as I’d expected it to be; at such close range, the focus was tricky, and I ended up taking two or three shots of most pages in order to get legible images. But soon I got into a groove, snapping swiftly, keeping time to the theme music from Mission: Impossible, which I heard playing in my head.
I had made it halfway through the file when I heard voices approaching in the hall outside. “By the way,” I heard Debbie saying, in a surprisingly loud voice, “don’t forget the tailgate party we’re putting together for next Saturday’s game. Are you coming?” I heard a low, indistinct reply, then Debbie resumed, at bullhorn volume. “Great! Could you bring some plastic cups? And some napkins? Terrific—thank you!”
I flipped the folder closed, whirled, and placed it on the end table in its original spot, and then lunged for the door handle, just as I saw it begin to move. I gave the handle a quick twist to pop the lock button, then swung the door inward, so abruptly that Debbie, still holding the outside handle, stumbled forward with a yelp of surprise.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” I said. “I didn’t know you were there. I realized I need to get going—can’t keep the provost waiting, you know.”
“Never a good idea,” she said. “But what a shame—we didn’t even get a chance to talk!” Methinks thou dost protest too much, I thought, wondering if her assistant could see through our little charade; wondering, on second thought, if her assistant had actually played a supporting-actress role in our charade. “Call me and let’s have lunch sometime,” Debbie said, taking my elbow and steering me toward the exit, just in case I had any doubt what my next move should be. “I’d love to get caught up on your work, and the family, and . . . everything.”
“I will,” I said. “Soon as the dust settles. Or the smoke clears.”
“Take care, Dr. Brockton.”
“I’ll try,” I said. “Thank you. Very much.”
“You are most welcome.”
MY SPY MISSION AT INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION HAD been so brief that I showed up at the provost’s office thirty minutes ahead of schedule. His door was closed, which I took to mean one of two things: either he wasn’t in, or he was in but didn’t want to be disturbed. “I can come back,” I told his secretary. “My office is only a football field away.”
“Hang on just a minute, if you don’t mind,” she said. “He should be finishing up this meeting any second, and maybe you could slip in before his next one. He told me he only needs five minutes with you.”
I sat down in one of those wingbacked leather armchairs that administrators high up the academic food chain seem required to own. The leather was glossy and supple, trimmed with domed brass nails along the fronts of the arms and the wings. The chair was impressive, but it wasn’t actually comfortable. Then again, perhaps it wasn’t meant to be comfortable.
The provost’s door opened, and a young assistant professor emerged. I vaguely recognized him—English, perhaps?—but his face was ashen and drooping and his gaze downcast. As he passed, I looked up into his eyes, and I was startled to see that he’d been crying.
The provost appeared in his office, looking hale and hearty. He, clearly, had not just been crying. “Come in, come in,” he boomed.
“I’m afraid to,” I said, “after seeing what you did to that last guy.”
He grimaced slightly. “Not everyone’s cut out to be a professor,” he said. He cocked his head toward another massive chair, this one in his plush inner sanctum, and settled into his own thronelike seat. “I sometimes think we should try to turn out fewer Ph.D.s, not more, so we don’t flood the market with overeducated, underemployed french-fry cooks. But then I see the financials, and I tell my overworked, underpaid professors to put more butts in more seats.” He gave me an ironic smile, then tented his fingers in a way that I suspected he had practiced, to make him look Solomonic. “How long have you been here at UT, Bill?”
“Twenty-five years,” I said. “No—twenty-six.”
“You’ve had a really good run.”