“When did it get so cold out there?” He rubbed his hands together briskly. “Now, you’re probably wondering why you’re here.” He grinned at me. “I think you have potential, Jeremy. I liked your answer in class today. It was honest and thoughtful. I’d like you to be my research assistant this semester, if you’re willing.”

“Yes, sir. Of course.”

“Good. It’s settled then. For tomorrow, I’ll need a summary of every case that has cited Marshall v. City of Allegheny. That’s all for now, Mr. Davis.”

He turned his attention to papers on his desk, as if I were already gone. I thanked him and backed out quickly. Research assistant? Holy shit! I thought. Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit. This was it. This was the transformation. I’d always thought of law as a way to help people, the way my grandfather had helped people, but this was something totally different. A window had just opened to power, the good kind of power, greatness even. My grandfather helped a dozen clients a year. I could pass a law and help millions of people. I could negotiate peace between two countries and end a war. That was the game I was being asked to join now. And-I let my mind wander just a bit-there could be travel, to foreign capitals on important missions, perhaps escorted by beautiful women like Daphne Goodwin who one week ago were in a different universe than I was, but now it was suddenly plausible. More than plausible. I imagined myself in a tuxedo in exotic places with Daphne pressed up next to me-Spanish castles, Italian villas, Greek islands…

I had to catch myself. It was a research assignment. I had a long night ahead of me in the library. I wasn’t sure I even knew how to do what he’d asked. I hoped the librarians were helpful.

I was halfway down the hall to the elevator, when, from behind, I heard the professor say something strange to himself.

“V and D, perhaps?”

V and D? What was he talking about?

“We’ll see,” said a second voice.

I looked back, just in time to see the door close.

“In his office?” Nigel was leaning back in his chair in the student lounge the next day, polishing an apple on the lapel of a three-piece-suit. “My friend, you are in the catbird seat!”

“Nigel, did anyone ever tell you you talk like a 1940s movie?”

“Jeremy, I am a renaissance man in an age of specialization.”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

Nigel laughed and slapped me on the back. His good nature was infectious. Even strangers on the sofas around us looked over and smiled. Most people were studying. A few were hovering around, watching a chess game by the window.

“Ryan Groon,” Nigel said, inclining his head toward one of the chess players. “First in the nation in competitive chess for his age group. He can play blindfolded.”

“Where are you from, Nigel?”

“ England, originally. My father was in the foreign service. My mother is an American actress. Penny James, have you heard of her? No? She was very well known in the seventies. Anyway, I grew up in London and Connecticut, went to Princeton, and now I’m here.”

I could picture Nigel on a beach somewhere, splashing around as a kid while people stared at the gorgeous American actress stretched out under an umbrella. Maybe in the background, his father loomed in a white suit and straw hat, speaking into a phone some waiter held for him on a silver tray. I could see both parents in Nigel’s face: the strong, forceful features of the diplomat, the graceful good looks of the movie star. It all made sense now.

“Say,” Nigel said. “I want to show you something.”

He pulled a book from his bag.

“With your permission,” Nigel said, “I’d like to ask Daphne out before you get your claws into her. Eh? Of course she’ll say no, but I’m not one to look back in eighty years and wonder what if? Whad’ya say?”

I admit, the idea of Nigel asking Daphne out annoyed me a little bit. After all, wasn’t I the one she was looking at in class? But still, Nigel and Daphne made sense together. Daphne and me…

“Sure, why not?” I told him.

“Excellent! Good man! I’m going to present her with this, as a symbol of my intentions.”

He produced a book. It looked like an antique, leather-bound with gold edging on the pages. It was a collection of essays.

“Nigel,” I said slowly. “Are you sure that’s what you want to give her?”

“What’s wrong with it?” he asked. He actually looked a little hurt.

“Nothing, nothing. It’s really nice. I’m sure she loves political theory. I was just thinking, maybe you could go for something a little more romantic. Flowers, maybe?”

Nigel grinned at me. He waved his finger in my face.

“A Casanova to boot! Yes, that’s exactly what I’ll do. Flowers. Brilliant!”

I sort of shook my head and changed the subject.

“Nigel, can I ask you a question?”

“Anything.”

“Have you ever heard of something called ‘V and D’?”

Nigel looked up from polishing his apple. He seemed to pause for a second.

“No.”

Then he smiled, an easy, casual smile. “I’m having some friends over for dinner this weekend. Would you like to come?”

“Nigel, did you hear my question? V and D. That seemed to mean something to you. I just thought, with your background… you seem to know about everything…”

“Nope, never heard of it,” Nigel said, rising and taking a bite from his apple. “I think I’m going to watch Groon finish trouncing this young man over here, and then I’ll take a walk. Think about my dinner invitation. I promise good wine.”

One day, curiosity is going to kill me. Once an idea gets into my head, I can’t let it go. What was V and D? Why did Nigel get so weird when I mentioned it? He was such a know-it-all. V and D seemed like the only thing he didn’t want to brag about knowing.

I searched on the web and didn’t find anything useful, mostly sites about venereal disease. The world’s largest library was a hundred yards from my room, and I didn’t find anything there either.

That night, I met one of my oldest friends, Miles Monroe, in a dark booth at the back of The Idle Rich, a pub near my dorm. Miles was a man of voracious appetites. I found him with a pint of Guinness and a few empty glasses, a basket of onion rings next to a basket of fries, a cigar burning in the ashtray, and his head buried in a thick book of Durkheim essays. His leather satchel sat next to him in the booth, bulging with books. Miles was immense, nearly six-seven with the physique of someone who read philosophy and ate onion rings all day. Miles might not live to be forty, but he was having a great time.

“How’s the search for the holy PhD going?”

Miles looked up and saw me. A smile opened in the middle of his shaggy philosopher’s beard.

“Great,” he said. “Just twelve more years to go.”

He rose and gave me a giant bear-hug and slapped me on the back. I smelled a faint hint of marijuana on his tweed jacket.

“It’s good to see you, Jeremy.”

Back in high school, Miles Monroe always looked out for me. He was three years older, the captain of our debate team when I was just a freshman. They called him “The Beast,” because he was a force of nature on the team, throwing his gargantuan body around and jabbing his finger while speaking in his rich, booming voice. We all knew he would go to college, but when he got into college here, the news shot quickly around our town. Everyone was surprised, because he was the first person from Lamar to get in. Ever. But no one was surprised that he was the one to do it. According to town gossip, passed from mom to mom in grocery stores and carpool lines, he made perfect grades in law school and had an amazing job lined up at a blue-chip New York firm after graduation. And then something happened. At the last minute, he rejected his job offer, grew a beard, and enrolled in the philosophy PhD program. His earning potential shrank from three million a year to thirty thousand. After that, the news about Miles tapered off. He became just another bright kid who peaked early and fell back into normal boring life. But, he’d always had a love for all things gossipy and arcane, so I thought he’d be the perfect brain to pick.