Page 144

Patrick is on his feet. “I’d like five minutes with Mr. Knight,” he says to the room, and then, low and very fast, to me: “Whatever this is, don’t.”

Bastien looks at me. “Levi, this is not the way,” he says in a slow, measured voice, like I’m a wayward child.

“You do not speak to me,” I snap. “Your shoes are a disgrace. Who do you think you are?”

The quality of silence in the room is different from when I first came in. “Dr. Saint-Jacques,” the curly-haired woman asks, her eyes darting back and forth between us. She looks at the next question before her and stumbles at the words. “Would you characterize your relationship as a loving one?” It looks like she’s trying to find the most diplomatic way out of the car crash in front of her.

“He might,” I answer before he can speak. “I mean, look at him, and look at me. Of course he does. But I’m here to rip the Band-Aid off.”

Chapter fifty-one

Bastien

“Istalked him for months,” Levi says.

“What?” I manage. The committee gasps.

“Open your filthy mouth again and I will smack it shut,” he says without looking at me. “See, the thing is that I wanted into that study with the ayahuasca, but I didn’t make the cut because I was active duty. I first heard about Bastien through a buddy, and I tracked him down. When I saw an interview with him online I decided then and there that I was going to find him, fuck him, and clean him out. I mean, look at him and look at me.”

“Levi,” Patrick says. “Can we sidebar?”

“Turns out he’s poorer than I am. You’d think professors are solid. Nope. He’s flat broke and in debt.”

“Are you saying that you deliberately pursued Dr. Saint-Jacques?” Julia Spring asks, her malicious eyes glinting.

“He said no, a few times, before I taught him not to. The first time, he cried like a little bitch.”

“Levi!”

He turns to me and his hand comes up like he’ll backhand me. I flinch so hard my chair moves on the tile.

He laughs coldly. “You disgusting little faggot. You think I couldn’t do better?”

“What are you saying?” I ask.

“I’ve already told you to close your mouth. The next time you open it I’ll take my belt to you. Won’t be the first time.” He leans forward. “This is what you get when you pick up boys in bars. Old men like you should stick to the leftovers.”

I look at the committee and they are looking at me with pity. I shake my head and drop my voice to a whisper that fills the room. “I wish I never met you.”

I’ve said it. He straightens and turns his attention completely away from me. “You’ll get a long time to convince yourself you didn’t,” he says. He looks at the committee. “I figured that since you’re firing him today, I might as well do it too. You know. There’s no use for a sugar daddy with no sugar. But I want my pound of flesh. Because now I know something about how you get tenure. I looked up the rules. And Julia over here did not hit those rules. But you know what she was hitting? Good old Arthur. Years you two were fuckin’, and I got an ancient lesbian who took pictures.” He pulls a folder out of his backpack and tosses it, frisbee-style, to Pratchett. Arthur makes a grab for it, but she is alarmingly agile and elbows him in the gut to get there first.

“That’s all about you, Arthur! You won the Kirkfield in ’94 and ’95! Let’s see. Private money, given for one thing, spent on another. There’s a word for that. What’s the word?”

“Embezzlement,” Patrick says through gritted teeth.

“Thank you.” Levi doesn’t look at him. “Keep reading, ma’am. There’s good stuff in there. Like the complaint. Somebody wrote it all up—dates and numbers, and those receipts—did it properly, and sent it up the chain in March of ninety-six.”

Pratchett turns a page.

“And that would be you, Julia! Who knew you used to have a soul! And you know what happens? Nothing. Except that you, Artie, stop putting yourself out for that grant, but you’re quick to cultivate everybody you can to keep that money headed here. And you, Julia, get your tenure approved in ’98, despite having not really anything to show for it. No publications, no books, no reputation. But who needs accomplishments when you have dirt?”

Julia Spring, to her credit, is no delicate damsel. She looks like she’d stab him with a knitting needle as soon as look at him. “Mr. Knight!” she says.

“Oh, calm down. You’ll get your moment in the sun, and you’ll have to answer for it. Trust the process, darlin’. That’s what Bastien did.” He winks at her. She almost chokes in barely controlled rage.

He goes back to his chair. “I want to be clear though. I ain’t doing this because you’re railroading him. I do that every night for free. Take him. Do whatever. I’m done with him anyway. I spilled these beans because I don’t like either one of you.” He looks at Arthur Hughes and Julia Spring. “You’re a mean man and you’re a nasty bitch. Come after me and I will fuck you up.”

“You have spent the last few minutes telling this committee that you are a liar who has deceived and possibly abused a member of this faculty,” Hughes says. His voice is not steady. “Why would anybody in this room believe a single page of that?”