Off to Be the Wizard - 2 - Spell or High Water by Scott Meyer

forgotten how to deal with suave guys like me. It’ll be like shooting fish in a barrel, only instead of fish, it’ll be ladies . And instead of shooting them, I’ll be—”
    “Yes, we know what you think you’ll be doing,” Phillip interrupted .
    “And instead of in a barrel , it’ll be—”
    “Shut up,” Phillip said. “You’re not coming. That’s final.”
    “Fine,” Gary seethed, “I’ll stay here. You two keep all the ladies for yourselves.”
    Roy had been making an effort to listen more than he talked, which doesn’t come naturally when you seem to be older than everyone around you by at least twenty years. Now he couldn’t contain himself. He had to figure something out. He turned to Gary and said, “Say, ‘the ladies’ again.”
    “ The ladies .”
    Roy shook his head and repeated. “The ladies.”
    Gary smiled, and repeated, “ The ladies .”
    “Why do you say it like that?”
    “ Like what?”
    Roy said, “It’s like you’re talking in italics.”
    Gary arched an eyebrow. “ Italics? ”

7.
    Two kinds of people spend time in police interrogation rooms: cops who have a suspect, and suspects the cops have. As such, interrogation rooms usually contain people who are happy to be there, sitting across a table from people who are unhappy to be there. Today was no exception.
    Agent Miller sat down sullenly, took a moment to scowl at his partner, Agent Murphy, who glanced blearily back at him. Miller turned to the man across the table and growled, “Well, here we are.”
    “Yes,” Jimmy said, smiling broadly. “Thanks for coming. I really appreciate it.”
    The two agents exchanged a look that was like stepping on a LEGO—quick and unpleasant. Agent Miller adjusted the frilly shade of the oversized decorative table lamp that had been scrounged from somewhere to provide light when the overhead fluorescents mysteriously conked out.
    Agent Miller opened the manila file folder that was sitting on the table and started reading aloud. “James ‘Jimmy’ Sadler. Sixty-two years old. You graduated from Caltech with a solid C average, and got a job at Intel. You came under scrutiny in 1986 when irregularities were found in your personnel file; specifically, you were shown to have been given a promotion that nobody remembered giving you. Shortly after the investigation began you disappeared without a trace. You finally turned up yesterday, here, at the headquarters of the Seattle PD, where you ask to speak to us.”
    Jimmy beamed, and said, “Yes, I wanted—”
    Agent Miller cut him off. “Shuddup, Jimmy. I wasn’t done telling my story. I was gonna say, before you so rudely interrupted me, that the Seattle PD called our office. Our office then had to call us, because we weren’t in our office. Would you like to know where we were, Jimmy?”
    Jimmy said, “Yes,” his smile fading slightly.
    “We were at the airport. You see, we’d just gotten off of a plane. A plane from Seattle. So, instead of going home, like we wanted to, we had to hop right back on a plane.”
    Now, Jimmy did lose his smile, replacing it with a well- practiced look of regret. “Oh, I’m sorry. I hoped to get you before you went back home. I figured you’d be here a few days, investigating .”
    Agent Miller’s eyes narrowed into slits. “Jimmy, do you know who we work for?”
    Jimmy shrugged. “The American taxpayers?”
    Miller scowled. “No. Well, yes, in a sense, but in a much more direct sense, we work for the U.S. Treasury Department. Do you know what the U.S. Treasury Department’s job is, Jimmy?”
    “To investigate—”
    Agent Miller cut him off again. “To be tight with money. That’s what the Treasury does. It obsessively tracks every penny of the taxpayers’ money. Do you suppose they feel like spending a lot of money doing it?”
    Jimmy nodded. “No, I suppose—”
    “No, they don’t, Jimmy!” Miller bellowed. “No, they don’t. So, what do you think are the odds of them paying for