about the payoff

The knowing tone he artfully employed signaled to me what a wise guy he was. He always had this tone. His emails practically winked at me from the screen. And, in person, well, he winked sometimes. When I discovered his scheme--a discovery made completely by chance--I was unsettled. But when next I went into his office the knowing tone artfully employed was heard in my voice. "I was finishing my edit on the contract addendum and had to verify the effective dates against that budget report you processed."

"Oh?" he said (with a most interrogative inflection).

"Yes!" And I told him about how the contract award announcement date, the comment by the guest technology company executive on Charlie Rose, and our work on drafting the requirements all played out in such a curious little drama. And about how if a body didn't know better, he might get curious about it all.

"How much?" he asked. (This question lacked the exaggerated inflection of his last.)

I winked and pulled the door shut.