Straight Man

theatrically, studying me as he does so. Surely this is a calculated tactic. I’m from the English department, and he’s probably concluded I don’t have much use for cops and lawyers. So, for the moment, neither does Dickie. Having established a common value system, maybe we can be friends. Maybe even do business. Who knows? In another ten or twenty minutes, maybe we’ll be all cuddly down at his end of the sofa. Either this is his thinking or he really doesn’t like cops and lawyers. “Who knew academic life would be so crazy?”
    “I had a pretty good idea,” I confess. “Both my parents were academics.”
    This simple intelligence bowls Dickie over. “No
kidding
? I didn’t
know
that.” He’s one stunned little CEO.
    “You’ve got one of my father’s books right here,” I say, picking up Devereaux Senior from the coffee table where I set him and handing him to Dickie.
    “I’ve got your novel up there too,” he says, giving Senior the once-over. “Did you notice?”
    He only thinks he does, actually. Devereaux Junior is resting comfortably in my coat pocket, his hard spine under my rib. I feel only a little disappointed to discover that Dickie apparently does have some knowledge of the books that reside upon his shelves, which means that Jacob Rose’s account of their acquisition is an exaggeration, if not an outright lie.
    “Tell me something,” Dickie says, tossing Senior back onto the coffee table, a little cavalierly it seems to me, at least for a man who has not himself authored a book, and therefore runs no risk of being himself tossed. “What’s your opinion of Lou Steinmetz?”
    I consider how to answer this.
    “Be honest,” Dickie urges. “It’s just us here.”
    “Well, he’s found a line of work that suits him,” I tell my new pal Dickie, who’s already moved us into the realm of confidentiality. “And he’s probably done less harm here than he’d have done someplace where they issue real bullets.”
    “Oh, the bullets are real enough,” Dickie assures me.
    “No
kidding
?” I say, my turn now to be bowled over. “Wow. And to think how I’ve been ragging him all these years. I better quit.”
    “Nah,” Dickie says, crossing one pleated leg over the other at the ankle. “From what I hear, you goad everybody.”
    I make what I hope is a smooth transition from bowled over to innocent, though my audience appears not to notice.
    “Between us?” he continues. We’re moving forward rapidly now, forging across the border of confidentiality and into intimacy. “When I watched you on television last night, I thought maybe you were goading
me
.”
    “But then you realized I wasn’t,” I add. For some reason I feel the need to supply the ending to his story.
    He recrosses his legs thoughtfully. “In fact, I asked my wife. I said, ‘Is this guy goading me?’ ”
    “Ah,” I say. “
She
was the one who realized?”
    “Anyway,” he continues, waving the whole goading issue away with the back of his hand. “Guess who I got a call from at seven o’clock this morning?”
    I can’t imagine he really wants me to guess. When I don’t, he doesn’t volunteer the information, however, and he’s grinning at me like I should know, so I take a flyer. “The chancellor?”
    “You got it,” he says, clearly gratified. “Guess what he wanted?”
    I take another flyer. “To know if there’s any way to fire a tenured full professor?”
    Dickie makes a hurt face. I’ve disappointed him. After first displaying prescience, I’ve now exhibited a surprising lack of imagination. “He wanted to apologize and assure me that I’ll have my budget soon. He wanted me to convey to you the complexity of our situation. You don’t have your budget because Jacob doesn’t have his budget because I don’t have my budget all the way up to the chancellor, who doesn’t have a budget because the legislature is dragging its feet. As per usual. The chancellor’s been promised a budget early next week, and he wanted to assure me that I’ll have mine by the end of that same week.”
    “That’s good news,” I say. “At a duck a day that means I only have to kill four or five ducks, and we’ve got close to thirty.”
    Dickie thinks this is pretty funny and laughs immoderately. I remain immoderately sober. If he’s at all disconcerted to be the only one laughing, he shows no sign. “No, seriously,” he says. “You did us all a favor, Hank. Last night—I admit it—I could