The interior of the little car seems to him suddenly close and airless, and he reaches for the door handle in claustrophobic haste. As soon as the door swings out he stands, spilling the folder and its contents from his lap to the oil-slicked asphalt. A bell inside the car dings manically. For a moment he only stands in the cool morning air, trying to breathe it all into himself. But the papers begin to turn and shuffle in a low breeze and he bends to gather them again into the file. When they are back in some semblance of order, he reaches into the car and turns the key in the ignition, sets the alarm, and crosses Pulaski without a look for traffic in either direction.

REVEREND GREER IS the first to arrive at the church a half hour later. He pauses a moment on the stairs below the church's front doors and studies Jacob. After a moment he seems satisfied with what he sees and proceeds up the concrete steps heavily, pulling a key ring from a pocket and nodding to his visitor, who steps aside.

"We'll talk inside," is all he says by way of greeting.

The sanctuary is painted robin's-egg blue, with lavender carpet that matches the cushions on the wooden pews. The morning light falls gaily through the stained gla.s.s windows, which are small but busy with colored gla.s.s, rainbow hues from Noah's story set off by a single white dove, the serene face of a black Christ looking down through yellow rays. The room smells of flowers-lilies, Jacob thinks-and their scent hangs in the air with the oppressive weight of the odor in a funeral home. Greer moves silently over the carpet toward the back of the sanctuary and opens a white door. Jacob follows him through a threadbare hallway of Sunday school rooms and up a narrow staircase where someone has fitted a homemade rail fashioned out of plumbing pipe to the wall. At the top, Greer opens the door to his office, where an oak desk sits squarely in the middle of the room, and steps to the window. He turns on the air conditioning unit there, takes a seat behind his desk, and stares at Jacob wordlessly.

Jacob stands helplessly for a moment until Greer nods to a chair. He sits and crosses his legs, tapping the edge of the file folder against his ankle idly while he tries to decide how to open the conversation. A wisp of the dream flashes in his mind-the brick porch, his father's upturned collar-and he pushes it away by speaking.

"The school is prepared to make a donation to the church."

"A love offering," Greer smiles.

"You can call it what you want, just so long as the march doesn't happen this weekend."

Greer nods for him to go on.

"I've been authorized to negotiate a contribution. A substantial one. For you and your church, your colleagues, to do with as you see fit. We suggest a scholarship endowment. I'll work with you to set one up if you wish to pursue that course. I can write out a check this morning for twenty-five thousand dollars."

Again Greer nods, and Jacob lets the silence play out.

"But this is a one-time offer. The administration can see that this is a delicate and special situation, but this case will not set a precedent. I'm authorized to make one contribution, today. No more."

"No march tomorrow or ever, you mean?"

Jacob shrugs. "No march tomorrow, no more talk about the bas.e.m.e.nt."

Greer picks up a letter opener from his desk and tests its point against an index finger. "I do not like ultimatums. To me, they smack of bygone days, of masters and servants. Of orders given and obeyed."

"This is a business transaction, nothing more or less," Jacob says, the words thick in his mouth. He can hear movement in the church below them, the sound of the organ in the sanctuary being warmed up, a major scale tentatively played.

"I'll take it under advis.e.m.e.nt," Greer says, setting the letter opener back on his desk.

"There isn't time for advis.e.m.e.nt. I need your a.s.surance that your church members won't be on campus this weekend."

Greer's mouth tightens. "My people have operated without a.s.surances in South Carolina for four hundred years. A few hours will kill neither you," he says, "nor any of your colleagues."

But he seems to have heard the organist too. He rises and motions for Jacob to follow him. They descend the narrow staircase. At its bottom Greer turns toward the back of the church, keys the lock to a rear door, and throws it open to a playground, where particolored swing sets and slides litter the concrete pavement, the entire play lot surrounded by a chain-link fence six feet high. Greer indicates it all with a wave of his hand.

"It's nice," Jacob says after a moment.

"Perhaps it is. But look closer." Greer's hand drops toward the base of the fence and Jacob sees on the concrete there a number of tiny gla.s.s vials and, in one back corner, two syringes lying on the pavement. Their plungers are orange-handled-the same sharps used at the hospital. He sees that the reverend is watching him intently, so he nods grimly.

Greer seems pleased. "Quite different from the playgrounds of your youth, isn't it, Mister Thacker? Perhaps you can see why I am not so eager to step and fetch at your school's behest."

Jacob can feel the blood rising in his neck, in his cheeks. "The school has nothing to do with this," he says. "And you don't know the first thing about me."

Greer steps away and begins picking up the little vials. They clink together in his broad palm as he collects them. "Our youth operate in a world entirely bereft of your opportunities. Where you have networks and connections, they face closed doors and impossible odds. There is a great debt to be redressed."

"I was no more connected than your youth," Jacob says. "I worked my way up. n.o.body ever offered me a handout."

Greer pauses in his work to look over his shoulder with one eyebrow raised. "Oh? No decent schools in your neighborhood? No resources for a letter of recommendation? No community to see that you succeeded?"

"My community was West Columbia Textiles. My family poured their life into it."

"Earning a living wage while my people were digging out from under Jim Crow."

"It wasn't much of a wage. And they didn't do much living."

Greer seems not to have heard. He picks up the syringes and studies them. "Addicts," he says, shaking his head. "What's an addict? Somebody who's given up on living. Who's given up on the Lord."

Jacob barely suppresses a snort of disgust. The file in his hands seems ready to leap from his grasp.

"Or," Greer is saying, "someone who's faced obstacles so daunting you can only imagine them. Do you honestly expect me to be moved by the fact that you were born to a linthead family across the river?" Greer smiles, his eyes feline. "If I had a nickel for every cracker up-by-my-bootstraps story I've ever heard, I'd be a wealthy man. Am I supposed to feel sympathetic?"

Jacob is moving toward him across the concrete before he finishes the question. He holds the file out and slaps it against Greer's chest while the man takes a step back.

"I don't care a d.a.m.n how you feel. f.u.c.k you and your sympathy and your sanct.i.ty. Read that file. It's a copy of your record from the treatment clinic. A very interesting account of cocaine abuse and recovery. Confidential, up to now. But if it were to be leaked to the press, it would become public in record time. You'd be back down to your bootstraps in a week."

Greer drops the syringes and the vials, a few of which shatter on the ground. He clutches the file against his chest weakly. "This is malpractice," he says, his voice nearly a whisper.

"This is hardball. You dealt the play."

Jacob turns back toward the church, already reaching into his pocket for the car keys. He feels the folded check in his pocket and stops, turns back to face Greer.

"And the donation," he says, "is rescinded." He is improvising now, well past the boundaries of the plan McMichaels gave him last night, but the freedom feels viscerally good. "I've taken it under advis.e.m.e.nt, and I don't think much of our contribution would actually reach your youth. We'll pursue other avenues for making a contribution."

He leaves the reverend there, alone on the forlorn playground, looking for all the world like a soul lost in a purgatory of his own making, a shade wandering in a familiar, bitter landscape.

FOR THE FIRST time in weeks, Jacob immerses himself totally in his paperwork, spending more time on each form and press release and e-mail response than is really necessary, trying to smother the aching thoughts in his brain with the ma.s.s of administrative minutiae as though his very sanity depended on it. Which he supposes it does: every time he allows his mind to wander, it flashes back to the Ebenezer church or to the image of McMichaels holding out the manila file folder. Or to the thought of a woman left deserted and on her own over a century ago, in this very building. And every time he has glanced up from his desk, his eyes have met the d.a.m.ning smiles of his parents in the snapshot on his bookshelf-or, worse, the group portrait of the cla.s.s of 1860, from which Frederick Augustus Johnston stares down like an enigma. So when he hears a soft knock on his door he only burrows deeper into the budget form in front of him, hoping the visitor will come back later.

Instead, McMichaels's secretary, Elizabeth, sets a thick manila envelope on his desk, on top of the budget report.

"From Janice Tanaka," she says.

He picks up the envelope. "This isn't a campus mailer," he says, peeling a Post-it note from the heavy package.

"Janice delivered it this morning. Herself."

Jacob realizes he has never thought of Janice outside her warren of filing cabinets at the archives. He imagines her blinking in the sunlight and the open air of the campus on her journey to Administration.

"I think you're growing on her, Jacob." Elizabeth smiles.

He holds the Post-it note close to his face so that he can make out Janice's tiny, cramped script. "There is a good deal of material here," it reads. "I hope you'll review it carefully. I've noticed administrators tend to read cursorily at best." Another schooling from Janice Tanaka. The Completist.

"And Yara Nasir is here to see you," Elizabeth says.

"What for?"

"For her interview."

Reluctantly, Jacob looks up. "I thought that was next week."

For answer, Elizabeth bends over and taps a manicured fingernail on his desk calendar. And there it is: "Yara Nasir" penciled in neatly at his noon slot in Elizabeth's careful hand. "You don't remember, do you?"

Jacob rubs a hand over his eyes. "No. When did you tell me?"

"Wednesday, in the meeting."

"Right." Wednesday morning seems like years ago now. He looks up at Elizabeth meekly. "I need to ask a favor. Can you tell her something's come up?"

"And what could be more important than Miss Nasir?"

"Nothing. I just can't talk to her today."

Her brows knit. "Why not?"

Jacob gives a desperate little laugh. "Do you really want to know?"

He stares at her as her eyes drift toward the window. "No," she says quietly, "I don't suppose I do."

He stuffs the envelope from Janice into his portfolio, then rises and steps around the desk, pats Elizabeth gently on the shoulder. "I'll owe you one, Elizabeth," he says. He glances across the open hallway to the gla.s.s-paneled door of the dean's office, where he can see a portion of Yara Nasir's beautiful face as she sits in one of the overstuffed chairs talking to Austin Malloy, who looks as flushed as a frat boy when he speaks to her.

"I'm just going to step out for a while," he says to Elizabeth, his eyes never leaving Miss Nasir's face as he sidles toward his office door. He wants to slip away unnoticed.

"Jacob?" Elizabeth says. He turns and sees that she is holding out his suit jacket. "Don't forget this."

She holds it for him as he slips his arms into the sleeves, then pats his back as he steps out the door. He turns to wave to her as he goes down the stairs and sees her shaking her head at him, but not in the usual bantering way. She looks almost sad.

Outside, Jacob breathes the open air gratefully, not certain of his destination but glad to be free of the hush of the administration building. On an impulse, he pulls his cell phone from his pocket and calls Kaye's office, on the off-chance that she might have a rare hour free for lunch. But the phone rings and rings until he hears the line click over from Kaye's direct phone to the firm's receptionist, who tells him that Kaye will be taking a deposition all afternoon. She has left word that she will meet him at the Dean's Mansion tonight for the banquet.

He presses the off b.u.t.ton on the phone and stops for a moment. Ahead of him, where the brick walkways terminate on Gervais Street at the gates of the university, he sees Lorenzo Shanks standing at the corner crosswalk. His broad back is turned to the campus, so Jacob waits until the traffic light shifts to green. But Lorenzo does not move with the others across Gervais. Instead he begins pacing in front of the gates, checking his watch once as he walks in nervous circuits in front of the brick pillars and the palmettos planted before them. On his third pa.s.s he looks back toward the school. When he sees Jacob, he raises a hand.

For a second Jacob thinks of turning on his heel and heading back in the opposite direction. But he resumes his walk, forcing his stride to look normal. He will speak to Lorenzo, he thinks, then go on across Gervais as soon as the light turns again.

"How about it, Jake?" Lorenzo says when he is within earshot.

"Doing all right. You?"

"Making it," he says, and holds out a hand. Jacob takes it with an eye on the traffic signal.

"Thought you were down on East Campus."

"We are," Lorenzo says, nodding. "But I'm meeting somebody."

"Great," Jacob says, looking away.

"Meeting Reverend Greer. He and I are supposed to map out the route for tomorrow."

"Great," Jacob says again, idiotically. To his vast relief, the traffic light has turned yellow. He already has a foot on the pavement.

"But he's late."

Jacob pauses for a moment, even though the signal is now flashing Walk, and Lorenzo takes hold of his arm. His grip is like a vise. "I'm sorry it had to go down like it did, Jake. I really am."

"I'm sorry too."

"It's nothing personal."

"I know what you mean." Because he cannot meet Lorenzo's eyes, he stares at the light. He shuts his eyes for a moment when it shifts again to red.

"Lorenzo, listen," he is beginning to say when a white pickup truck with the seal of the university on its doors slows in front of them and stops a dozen feet beyond. The driver honks the horn and throws on the flashers, and the truck jerks as its transmission is dropped into park. A second later Bowman's head juts out of the pa.s.senger side window, his face red as he glares at Lorenzo. It seems to take him a few seconds to compose himself for speech.

"There you f.u.c.king are, Shanks," he says finally. "Sonny Jesus, boy, you're d.a.m.n near an hour late. What kind of a lunch are you having?"

Jacob can hear Lorenzo's measured breathing beside him. The two of them stare at Bowman until his face reddens another shade.

"I'll tell you what kind of lunch," Bowman yells. "Your last f.u.c.king lunch on my payroll if you don't get your a.s.s in this truck. I ain't running no drop-in business." He throws the door open and wriggles across the bench seat behind the steering wheel. After a moment he gives the horn three more taps.

Lorenzo sighs and walks toward the open door. He looks back once at Jacob, his face inscrutable, before he settles into the truck and shuts the door. The flashers cut off and Bowman puts on his left turn signal and pulls back into Gervais, heading east. Jacob watches the two of them through the rear windshield, the white man and his stoic black pa.s.senger, until the white tailgate disappears in the lunch-hour traffic.

When they are gone he pulls his phone out again and begins dialing the number for the dean's office, to tell Elizabeth that he will not be back in today. He is hoping that a few hours at the gym might go a long way toward soothing his conscience, the dull ache there. As the phone begins to ring, he thinks that but for his obligatory presence at the banquet tonight, he would be spending the weekend as far away from campus as he can.

ROSEDALE JUST AFTER quitting time seems to be breathing a collective sigh of relief. Cars cruise the streets more slowly than usual, with sinewy black arms dangling out of their windows, the front seats pushed back so far the drivers' heads are obscured by the doorframes. While Jacob and Mary wait at the light at Hardin and Devine, an old Oldsmobile painted bright blue rumbles past with a primordial thumping of ba.s.s blasting out its open windows, the booming noise enveloping the vehicle like a sonic cloud.

"Wonder why they ride around with the windows down in this heat?" Jacob asks.

Mary looks at him askance.

"I'm serious. Do they feel obligated to share that music with the community? Why not just roll up the windows and turn on the AC?"

Mary's head is beginning a slow wobble on her shoulders. "They roll them down because they don't have air conditioning. Boy, you have got above your raising."

Jacob glances down at the vents on his dashboard, where the German-cooled air is blowing over their legs before it loses the battle with the summer heat coming in from the open top. It's wasteful, but also the only way he can stand putting the top down before dark in August.

"You want me to turn mine off? Does it make you feel pretentious?"

"Don't make me feel nothing but cool."

The light turns to green and he accelerates through the intersection. Twenty minutes now since he picked her up at his condo, and the conversation has been unusually fitful. He thinks he knows why.

"How's Big Junior?" he asks.

Mary looks away. "Gone north."

"North?"

"Yeah. He got a girlfriend there he stay with sometimes."