17. Lance #2
“Forgive me,” he says instead. “I’ve been seeing that photograph all over the campus.
The posters.” He says it carefully, like he knows it’s a tender place to press.
“It’s a strange thing they’ve done—taken the worst hour of two people’s lives and made it public property.
The town grieves it as though it happened to them.
It didn’t. It happened to you, and to your friend, and neither of you ever agreed to be looked at.
” He catches himself, and something sheepish crosses his face.
“I’m sorry. That was presumptuous. Occupational hazard. ”
I don’t have anything to say to that, because in ten years, nobody has said it. They all think the photograph is theirs. “That’s very perceptive.”
“I wish I could take all the credit for being very clever, but I’m not. Most of my research is about trauma among combat veterans. They get consumed similarly by the public, and they don’t like it.”
“No, we don’t. I really hope you get the job.”
“Me, too.” He smiles. “So, if you see any of my rivals—”
“I’ll make sure to slash their tires.”
“I was going to say, make sure that they get handled by the scary man in the front. He’s terrifying.”
I turn back to the screen. “Yes, you’re one of several people who were pre-approved. They should have cut you a check, but I’ll do it now and get you on your way.” I process it and hand him the paperwork. “What name?”
“Saint-Jacques. Sébastien Saint-Jacques.” He extends his hand. “Thank you. That’s very kind of you.”
Joe is still glaring at his screen when I walk the professor out to the waiting room. “Showoff,” he mutters.
“Coffee?” I offer.
“It’s the only thing that can get me through this day,” he grumbles.
I duck into the breakroom and set two pods in the machine. Joe’s phone rings and I hear him switch into his professional voice. I’m drumming my fingers on the counter, willing the coffee to drip faster, when I hear someone new at the reception desk.
“Good morning. I need to see someone about a travel reimbursement issue, please.”
I freeze. There is no one else in the world with that voice.
It’s low and a little husky, the kind of voice that doesn’t carry across a room but makes you lean in to hear it.
The smoke took his range and his volume, and what grew back is something warmer and more intimate—like he’s always telling you something just for you.
Every nerve in my body goes taut. I lean back as far as I can without losing my grip on the counter, trying to see around the doorframe.
Joe is frowning at his screen. Jonny is standing at the desk, searching through a tote bag for something. His hair is hooked behind his ears, but when he moves, it frees itself and a reddish strand curves against his cheek There are small hoops in his ears I didn’t notice at Captain Eddie’s.
“I can help with that,” I say from the doorway.
Jonny turns. “Lance,” he says. His face is unreadable. Then he gives Joe a stiff smile. “I’d be happy to wait for a proper appointment.”
Joe’s face is a picture of fake efficiency as he types. “Right. That appointment: morning or afternoon?”
“Morning.”
He scrolls through several weeks of completely empty days and picks one at random. “Third Monday in November,” he says without batting an eyelash.
“And the afternoon?”
“Something just before Thanksgiving, maybe. How do you feel about? Oh, sorry.” He clicks three more times through empty dates.
“How does February 16th look to you? I can book you in any time then.” He looks down.
“Except for ten. Or two. Or Four-thirty.” He catches my eye behind Jonny’s back and smiles.
“Oh, Mr. Broussard, I thought you had an absolute mountain of work to get through this morning?”
“I’ll manage. Mr. Bishop, if you’d like to follow me.”
Something flickers across Jonny’s face at being called Mr. Bishop by me—a grimace that’s half amusement and half pain—but he picks up his tote bag and follows me down the corridor.
My office is small and neat. A desk, a filing cabinet, a view of the campus mostly obscured by a tree. I close the door behind us and take my seat. He sits down across from me, back straight, hands folded on the orange folder in his lap.
“Now, Mr. Bishop,” I say, because the formality is the only thing keeping me functional, “what can the office of the Comptroller do for you?”
He pulls out the folder and pages through documents.
“This is a copy of the email exchange I had with a Mr. Oakley when he invited me to speak at the digital entrepreneurship conference next week. He agreed, on behalf of the university, to finance my transportation costs. There have been complications.”
“Oh?” I accept the documents and skim them. “What’s gone wrong?”
“Mr. Oakley booked me a return flight to Delhi immediately after the conference. I can’t use it. My visa renewal has been stuck in Delhi since March. Until it clears I can’t go back at all.”
“Any idea how long?”
He gives me a look that says he appreciates the sarcasm.
“God knows. Initially there was a debate about whether or not I needed a journalist’s visa, now they need proof that I am who I say I am, because my business name is not the same as my passport name.
So, that means that because the visa is held up, I can’t return to my own apartment for at least 180 days before my visa allows reentry.
I was planning to go to Istanbul instead. ”
I look at the paperwork. A return ticket to Delhi, booked and paid for, that he can’t use.
And a request for an open-jaw ticket to Istanbul that’s probably cheaper but isn’t what was agreed on paper.
“This is a deviation from the written contract. It’s something my boss would have to approve.
Let me photocopy these and see if he’s available. Can I get you anything? Water?”
“No, thank you.”
“I’ll be back as quick as I can.”
I close the door behind me. At Joe’s desk, I set down the folder. “When can I see Harlow?”
Joe checks the schedule. “He’s on a conference call, but you can sneak in there in about five minutes or less.”
“That’ll do.” I photocopy the file and stare at it while I wait. There is an angle here. All I need is for my boss to say yes, and Jonny walks out of my office with what he needs. I can do this one right.
Joe signals me. “Call ended early. Go.”
Rex Harlow, Comptroller General, has a corner office with a view of the quad and about forty years of paperwork in it.
Filing cabinets, three monitors, a whiteboard ruled into columns with fiscal-year deadlines written up in four colors.
The only personal things in the room are golf—framed scorecards, a putter mounted on two brackets, a photograph of him shaking hands with somebody on a green.
“Ah! Lance! Settling in?” he asks. “How’s your first few weeks been?”
“Great, sir. I’m glad to be here.”
“Please. Have a seat. I have a feeling you’re here to ask me to weigh in on something.”
I pass over the documents, but I’m distracted by the golf memorabilia.
“Do you play?” he asks, tracking my gaze.
“No, sir.”
“What a pity. It’s great exercise. Nobody does anymore. Anyway, what have we got?”
“I have a quick question about one of the guest speakers for the upcoming conference. Travel complications. We’ve agreed to get him back and forth, but his visa renewal has been held up in Indian bureaucracy, apparently.
As a result, he needs an open-jaw ticket rather than a return.
His contract specifies a return ticket only.
” I take a breath. “I think we should honor the spirit of the agreement and approve the change. The Istanbul ticket is actually cheaper than the Delhi one.”
“And who’s the speaker?” He looks at the papers in front of him.
“Jonny Bishop, sir. Digital entrepreneurship.”
“Bishop.” He doesn’t look up from the paperwork. “Local family?”
“He grew up here. He lost his mother and his brother and his grandmother in the fire.”
“Did he?” He turns a page. “Terrible thing.”
He glances over it, then looks at me sternly.
“I understand that this may be how they ran things in the Marines, but we don’t set aside legally binding documents here.
The spirit of a contract is not enforceable in court.
Who determines what the spirit of it is?
” He waves around the office. “And how do you explain that to a judge when you’re held for damages? ”
I grit my teeth. “Sir, we’re about to hand him a useless ticket to Delhi. He can’t get on that plane. This is his livelihood.”
“Then he should have been more careful about what he signed.” He sets the folder down.
“Mr. Broussard. There are genuine emergencies in this job and I deal with those the same day. There is a chemistry department waiting on equipment they cannot teach without. There is a Zamboni with a cracked compressor and a hockey program that has already sold tickets for December. Those go ahead of a request for new carpeting in the Student Union building that came in two months ago, and I made that call myself.”
“I understand, sir.”