by Brad Meltzer
“Yeah, why?”
“Because you have to drop me off at work,” Ober said, grabbing his jacket and following Eric to the door. “By the way, Ben, thanks for bringing me in today. It wasn’t as exciting as you said, but it was okay.”
“I’ll see you guys later,” Ben said.
When the door closed behind Eric and Ober, Lisa looked at Ben. “So how do you feel? Top o’ the world, Ma?”
“I feel unbelievable,” Ben said, banging his desk. “You should’ve heard Rick on the phone. He was so pissed.”
“I still think you shouldn’t have—”
“Lisa, I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to lose this mood. I feel mighty. I feel authoritative. I feel like I can command a small army of rebel soldiers on a quest for the perfect tetherball court.”
“I have to admit, the ego boost suits you. I haven’t seen you this happy since I let you drag me into bed.”
“That’s funny,” Ben said. “Because the way I remember it, you were the one doing the dragging. Or was it begging?”
“That’s right, I forgot your major in college was revisionist history. I should’ve known better.”
“Trust me, the facts have not changed,” Ben said as he strolled to the sofa. “You were the one who was begging for it. In fact, as I remember it, the quote was, ‘I’ve been waiting to jump your bones since the moment I met you.’ Does that ring any bells?”
“Oh, please,” Lisa said. “I just made that up to make you feel better. It was a lie and you know it.”
“Let me ask you one question,” Ben said. “If you were so reluctant to get into bed with me, how come you were the one who wasn’t wearing any underwear that night?”
Lisa flushed red. “I told you, I forgot to pack extra. I ran out on the first day. That was the only reason.”
“Sure it was,” Ben said, amused. “And if I were a complete moron, I might even believe that.”
“Good thing you’re only a partial moron, then.”
“Ha. And what else did you say that night?” Ben asked. “That whenever I wanted to go again, you’d be ready?” Stretching out on the sofa, he announced, “I’m ready.”
Lisa approached the sofa. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“I am.”
“Are you wearing your lucky underwear?”
“I most certainly am. Today was a big day for me.” As Lisa sat down on the sofa, Ben said, “You know you want to—it’s all over your face.”
“It is?” she asked as her face approached his.
“It definitely is. Besides, you heard what I said before: I’m ready.”
“You’re dreaming, is what you are,” Lisa laughed as she pulled away. “Do you really think that just because you had your macho victory, you can get your hormones worked up and talk me into bed?”
“Pretty much,” Ben said.
“Then you’re on some serious hallucinogens,” Lisa said, heading back to her desk. “You may’ve pulled off one miracle earlier today, but that doesn’t mean you can do two.”
Sitting up, Ben readjusted his tie. “Does this mean we’re not having sex on the sofa?”
“That was unbelievable,” Ober said as he and Eric stepped out of the elevator and into the Great Hall. “I can’t believe you guys pulled it off.”
“It was all Ben,” Eric said. “The moment I told him about Rick, he had the whole plan designed within a few hours.”
“The boy’s no dummy,” Ober said.
“All I can say is, thank God he’s no longer mad at me. He can be a devious bastard when it comes to revenge.”
“Do you think Nathan will forgive him?”
“Not a chance in hell,” Eric said as the two friends walked past the security guard station and out the front entrance of the Court.
“Are you sure that was him?” Lungen asked as Eric and Ober left the building.
“Are you kidding?” Fisk said. “Of course that’s him. I had my friend point him out last time I was at the Herald.”
“And he didn’t sign in under the name Eric Stroman?” Lungen asked the security guard who manned the main entrance.
“Nope,” the guard said, flipping through the pages of his clipboard. When he found what he was looking for, he pointed to the sign-in sheet. “See, he said his name was Nathan.”
“That’s the other roommate,” Fisk said. “Ben’s been blowing smoke since the beginning. I told you he’s a liar.”
“I want you to call our friend at the Herald,” Lungen said. “If Eric and Ben are on speaking terms, I want to know why.”
Returning home from work, Ben dreaded his inevitable confrontation with Nathan. Maybe he won’t be home until later, Ben thought, slowly walking up the never-shoveled, ice-covered front path. As he opened the door, he wondered how he would break the news to Nathan.
“So you set up the whole thing and trusted everyone but me and Ober?” Nathan asked before Ben could pull his key out of the lock.
“I guess you heard the good news,” Ben said.
“I have one question for you,” Nathan said, standing face-to-face with Ben in the middle of the living room. “Why did you trust Lisa over me?”
Ben stepped around Nathan and toward the kitchen, hoping to somehow defuse the situation. “I didn’t trust Lisa over you. In fact, I didn’t tell her about the plan until three days ago, when Rick finally invested his money in Grinnell. When I found out Rick bet on the wrong decision, I knew Lisa was innocent. If she was working with Rick, she would’ve told him that he had the wrong decision.”
“But that didn’t mean you had to tell her everything.”
“Yes, it did,” Ben said. “Otherwise, she wouldn’t have stopped talking about how Rick bet on the wrong decision, which was something I didn’t want anyone saying out loud.”
“Fine. Thank you,” Nathan said, heading for the stairs. “That’s all I wanted to know.”
“Wait,” Ben said, turning back toward the living room. “Where are you going?”
Nathan didn’t answer.
When Nathan was out of sight, Ben looked at Ober. “What did he want me to say?”
“Oh, c’mon,” Ober said. “You’re a grown-up. You know what you did. Did you really expect to hug and make up?”
“Yeah, but please, the silent treatment?”
“It’ll only last a while,” Ober said. “Don’t worry. I’m sure he’ll come around eventually. I mean, he’s still your friend.”
“But that’s such an immature way to—”
“Look at it this way,” Ober said. “At least he’s not asking you to move out and find a new roommate.”
“Ho-ho. That’s very funny,” Ben said sarcastically. “I just hope he comes around in time for New Year’s.”
“Why? Are you actually going to have some time off to enjoy it?”
“Well, we still have piles of cert petitions to go through, but the justices are gone for the next few weeks. We’re basically closed down until the second week of January.”
“Do you still have to go to work every day?”
“Are you kidding? Justice never sleeps. It doesn’t even nap. And if it does doze off, you can bet it never hits the snooze bar.”
“I get the idea,” Ober said, getting up from his seat. “Just tell me when you’re going to be off, so I can figure out where to make plans.”
“I’ll probably take off on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, but that’s it.”
“Then I guess we’ll make plans around here,” Ober said as he walked to the kitchen to make dinner.
“I don’t care where we celebrate,” Ben said, following Ober to the kitchen. “All I want is for next year to be less stressful than this one.”
Striking a match, Ober turned on the gas and lit the stove. “Don’t count on it.”
Chapter 16
TWO WEEKS LATER, AT SEVEN-THIRTY IN THE morning, Ben read through the newspaper at his desk. Wearing jeans and an old wool crewneck, he was thrilled that the absenc
e of the justices also meant casual dress for all Court staff. Reaching the op-ed page, he leaned forward and pored over the opinions of Washington’s top columnists. He looked up when Lisa entered the office.
“Happy New Year,” she said. Lisa had spent the previous week in California, celebrating Christmas and New Year’s with her family. Although she was wearing a stark black sweater and faded jeans, the first thing Ben noticed about his co-clerk was her deep brown tan.
“You look great,” Ben said, kissing her on the cheek.
“Thank you. You look pale.” She opened her briefcase and dumped a six-inch pile of paper on her desk.
“You got through all of those?” Ben asked, amazed.
“What can I say? I’m that good.” As she started to organize the pile of papers, Lisa noticed a memorandum on the corner of her desk. “What’s this about?”
“Clerk lunches,” Ben explained. “Since we’re halfway done with our term, they’re starting to organize private lunches with the justices so we can get to know them better.”
“That’s really nice,” Lisa said.
“It should definitely be interesting,” Ben said. “Besides Hollis, I don’t think I’ve said two words to any of them.”
“So we get to rub elbows and the Court picks up the tab? What a deal.” Leaning on the back of her chair, Lisa stared at Ben. “Speaking of deals, I can’t stop thinking about this whole Grinnell thing.”
“What can I say? It was a great plan.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Lisa said coldly. “It was completely stupid. The more I think about it, the more I realize it was the dumbest thing you could’ve done.”
Ben sat up straight in his chair. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing’s wrong with me,” Lisa said, shuffling papers. “I just think the plan was stupid.”
“How was it stupid?” Ben asked, annoyed.
“It was stupid because all you did was piss off Rick. When everything was said and done, the plan accomplished nothing else.”
“It did more than that.”
“Really?” Lisa challenged. “Tell me what else it did.”
“It got Rick off my back.”
Lisa stopped shuffling the papers on her desk. “Let me ask you a question,” she said. “When you designed the whole Grinnell thing, what was your actual goal?”
“What was my goal?”
“Your goal,” Lisa repeated. “What did you hope to accomplish?”
“There wasn’t a true goal,” Ben explained. “Rick approached Eric, then Eric approached me. From there, I kinda planned it out so Rick wouldn’t win.”
“But what was your number-one concern? What was going through your head?”
“Tons of things were going through my mind,” Ben said. “Excitement, fear, anxiety, anger, revenge—”
“Exactly,” Lisa interrupted, pointing a finger. “Revenge.”
“What’s wrong with revenge? After everything Rick put me through, I was pissed.”
“And you have every right to be pissed,” Lisa said. “But since this thing started, you’ve been so obsessed with revenge, you’ve stopped thinking about how you’ll actually get yourself out of this mess.”
“Don’t give me that,” Ben said. “Getting out of it was my first priority.”
“Then why didn’t you try to get Rick arrested? If you knew where Eric was meeting with him, why didn’t you stake the place out with the authorities?”
“We didn’t know where they were meeting,” Ben explained. “Rick always called Eric moments before they met. Eric would be in the lobby of one hotel, and then he’d get a phone call to go to the lobby of another. It was impossible to track Rick down. Besides, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t go to the authorities—they’d arrest me in a heartbeat.”
“See, there’s the main flaw in your thinking. You can go to the authorities; you just don’t want to.”
“You’re damn right I don’t want to. No offense, but I like my job.”
“Forget about your job. Your life is more important.”
“Lisa, I don’t know why you’re so crazy. The past three weeks have been perfectly calm. I have no worries. Nothing’s hanging over me. Rick is gone—”
“Rick is not gone!” Lisa said, raising her voice. “When are you going to get that through your head? Rick may be pissed off, and he may be broke, and he may be angry, but he is certainly not gone! And if you just screwed me over for a few million dollars, you can bet your ass that I’d be plotting some serious revenge of my own from the moment it happened.”
“What are you getting so nuts about?”
“I just want you to see what’s going on. You’re not safe.”
“So what do you want me to do? Run to Hollis and ask for help?”
“I don’t know if Hollis is the right person, but I think that’s the right idea. Otherwise, you’re never getting out of this mess. I mean, this guy has already slashed your father’s tires—do you really want to wait to see his next move?”
Saying nothing, Ben grabbed a calculator from his desk. Nervously, he started tapping its keys.
“You know I’m right,” Lisa added. “Throughout this whole disaster, you really haven’t been thinking about getting out of this mess—you’ve just been obsessed with the fact that Rick outsmarted you.”
“That’s not true,” Ben said as he continued to tap at the calculator keys.
“It is true,” Lisa insisted, picking up Ben’s calculator and throwing it in the garbage can next to his desk. “You hate the fact he beat you. And you’re obsessing over revenge. But let me tell you, getting revenge is easy. Screwing Rick was cake. The hard part is catching him. To do that, you have to make some sacrifices. So for once in your life, you’ll have to admit you can’t do it alone.”
“Maybe I can’t, but we—”
“No, we can’t,” Lisa said. “We can’t do anything. No offense, but you, me, and all your friends, even with all their little spy toys, do not have the resources to anticipate where Rick’s going to turn up next. No matter how smart we are, we’re not that good. And until you’re willing to admit that, you’re never going to get out of this.”
Ben stared silently at his desk. “You think I should turn myself in?”
“Yes,” Lisa said. “For the past week, I’ve been thinking about every possible outcome of this scenario. No matter what happens, the authorities are going to find out somehow. That’s the one truth you have to accept.”
“Unless we get something on Rick.”
“It doesn’t matter if we get something on Rick. Rick doesn’t care if we tell the police he’s the mastermind. They can’t find him. But they can always find you. And as long as Rick’s out there, you’ll always have that hanging over your head.”
“But what if we catch Rick ourselves?”
“It wouldn’t matter,” Lisa said, impatiently. “Even if we caught Rick on our own, we’d have to turn him over to the police at some point. It’s not like we can lock him in our basement forever. And the moment we turn Rick over, you can be sure he’s going to blame everything on you.”
“Then I’m screwed no matter what.”
“That’s my point,” Lisa said. “So you might as well go to the police and preempt whatever Rick can do to you.”
“Maybe they’ll go easier on me because I’m the one approaching them.”
“Possibly,” Lisa said. “And if we give them a solid enough plan, they might let you walk away so they can catch Rick in the act.”
Pausing as he processed the information, Ben eventually said, “If I go in, I can kiss my job good-bye.”
“Not necessarily,” Lisa said. “For all we know, you may get a medal for your bravery.”
“You know what? Let’s just stop, okay?” Ben said, turning his chair away from her.
“What’s wrong? What’d I say?”
“Nothing,” Ben said, refusing to turn around.
“Are you mad at me?”
“I’m n
ot mad at you. I’m mad at myself. I should’ve ended this weeks ago.”
“That’s easy to say now. Things were different weeks ago.”
“Sure they were,” Ben said sarcastically.
Lisa walked back to her desk. “So what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know yet,” Ben said. “Let me think.”
At a quarter to eight that evening, Ben left the Court and made his way to Union Station. He took the escalator down into the dimly lit, underheated, advertisement-decorated hall and was surrounded by fellow overachieving, business-clad Washingtonians. Ben started counting blue pin-striped suits, brown leather briefcases, and black wing tips in his immediate vicinity. The majority of those with all three were losing their hair, and only one had actually loosened his tie since leaving work. Ben suddenly felt claustrophobic and walked to the far end of the platform. What the hell am I doing to myself? he wondered, staring at his peers. When the silver train hissed into the platform, Ben got on board and found an empty seat. Two minutes into the ride, the train came to an abrupt halt.
“We regret the inconvenience, but we have another train in the station ahead of us,” a grainy voice announced through the public address system. “We’ll be moving again in a few minutes.”
The crowd let out a simultaneous groan, and Ben settled back in his seat.
“Every day,” sighed the passenger sitting next to Ben. “I mean, can’t they ever time it right? It’s not like there’s never been a rush hour before.”
“Yeah,” Ben muttered, glancing an acknowledgment at the young man. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen, even though he was wearing a suit and tie.
“Why is it the same story every night?” the boy asked. “Why can’t they fix it?”
“I have no idea,” Ben said. “And I’m too tired to think about it.”
“Don’t talk to me about tired,” the boy said in a slight Massachusetts accent. “Run from the Senate buildings to the House buildings twenty times a day and then talk to me.”
“So you’re an intern?”
The boy proudly pulled open his coat and showed off the laminated Senate I.D. card that hung around his neck. “I prefer to be called a page. And just so you’re aware, if you need to know the coffee preferences of any senator, I know them all by heart.”
