The Chamber of Five

by Michael Harmon

  Carter Logan had said those words when we’d talked in this room, and now, as I looked around, my mind reeled. How had he known? I took a breath, then sat in one of the chairs surrounding the table, thinking about everything that had happened in there.

  Elvis. The vodka and shot glass. The lead pipe. The twisted words of Carter. Steven Lotus and his fear. Kennedy and his genetic subhuman dysfunction. Woodsie and his strategies. Brooke.

  Brooke. Oh God.

  I groaned. You enjoyed the show? When Singletary had said that, it hadn’t registered with me. The show. With Brooke and her blouse. He’d known about it, just like he’d known what Carter said to me. He didn’t need warnings from anybody, because he knew.

  I exhaled, leaning my head back, closing my eyes, and remembering Singletary’s file. He’s a hacker. A computer whiz. Electronics. Technology. He was brilliant. A brilliant, self-made criminal. I’d thought he was immune to fear, some kind of psychotic wrong-side-of-the-tracks mutant, but he wasn’t. You can’t fear the unknown if you know the unknown, I thought. And that’s why I was here. He wasn’t magic or psychotic, he was smart.

  I opened my eyes, staring at the shadows on the ceiling, then I got up, looking around. The secret was in this room, and I’d find it. I searched then, under the table and chairs, in the lamp shades, between the books on the shelves.

  From one corner of the room to the next, I made my way around, and then I saw it. Above the heavy drapes on the far side of the wall. Right at the joint where the ceiling began. A small black dot, no bigger than a dime. Pay dirt.

  I dragged a chair over and stood on it, studying the thing. Noting its tiny glass screen, I knew it was a camera, and I swallowed. He’d seen everything, and my mind flashed to Brooke, shame coursing through me. I hopped down, leaving it be, and in another five minutes I’d found the microphone, hidden on the inside edge of a picture frame holding a painting of Thomas Jefferson.

  Both were wireless, and I knew enough about wireless to know there had to be a control unit somewhere. I sat down, putting the microphone on the table and thinking. Singletary knew about the order to break his arm. I leaned back. Singletary was the one who’d left the pipe with the rose taped to it, because Singletary was the one who attacked Carter. He’d known everything, and the pieces all fell together. All except one question. The big question. Why?

  Why would Singletary spy on the Chamber in the first place? He said he didn’t care about it, didn’t care about anything at Lambert, but he did. He cared a lot. Enough to do this. Enough to…

  “Out late, huh?”

  I jumped, spinning around as my heart pistoned out of control. Singletary stood in the doorway. “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  He shrugged, carefully closing the door. “I figured you’d figure it out.” He pointed to the microphone on the table. “Looks like you might not be a complete idiot.”

  I studied him as he walked across the rug and took a seat across the table from me. In the deep cushioned chair, he looked like a twelve-year-old kid, but unlike any twelve-year-old I’d ever met. “You knew the whole time. About the file. Your file. And me.”

  He nodded. “And by the way, you have no idea how much Carter hates you.”

  I bristled. “And now you’re playing these games, and it doesn’t bother you that Carter thinks I’m the one doing it.”

  “Doesn’t bother me at all.” He smiled. “Actually, I think it’s sort of funny.”

  “I’ve been the one protecting you, asshole.”

  “You’re pretty crappy at it.”

  “Tell me what this is about. All of it.”

  He smirked. “Entertainment.”

  “Busting an arm is entertainment?”

  “Gets boring around here.”

  “You’re full of shit.”

  “He was going to bust mine, so I figured I’d give him my version of pay it forward.” He stared at me, cocking his head, his voice dripping sarcasm. “Is that wrong, Jason? Aren’t you doing the same?”

  “No, I’m not. You broke his arm. I just want to win an election.”

  He slouched in the chair, waiting for me to go on, but nothing came. He pointed at my face. “Have you ever hit your dad back?”

  “This isn’t about my dad.”

  “Come on, Jase, we’re like bros now, right? We can talk.”

  I clenched my jaw.

  He laughed. “Of course you haven’t hit the bastard back. But …,” he said, eyeing me, “I want to know why you haven’t.”

  “Because.”

  “Because you’re afraid, right? Because hitting your father is wrong, and little Jason here is afraid of doing the wrong thing.”

  I squirmed.

  He leaned forward. His voice, sinister and smooth, whispered across the table. “Want to know what happens when you’re not afraid anymore, Jason? Want to know what happens when the fear is gone?”

  I looked away, rolling my eyes. “Sure. Fire away.”

  He sat back, and just for a split second, he reminded me of Carter. “When you aren’t afraid anymore, you realize that a whole lot of shit that is wrong isn’t really wrong. You realize that beating the shit out of your father so badly that he’d never lay another finger on you isn’t wrong. It’s justice.”

  I smirked. “Yeah. Justice that would land me in juvie.”

  “What if you weren’t afraid of juvie? What if what was right was the only thing that mattered?”

  I shrugged. “Listen, if people just did what they felt like, everybody would be killing everybody and we’d be living in chaos. That’s why we have laws, and you broke the law when you broke his arm.” I frowned. “We’re civilized. That’s what separates us from the animals.”

  He chuckled. “Dude, you are really messed up in the head, you know that? We’re not civilized, we just pretend to be. The predators still kill, man, and it ain’t the meth-dealing banger on the corner packing a gun or some middle-class crybaby storming a school with an AK-47. It’s the people sitting behind big desks making decisions who kill. They just do it slowly.” He stared at me. “Guys like your dad can ruin lives a thousand times easier than guys like me, so don’t give me your moral guilt trip about what’s civilized and what’s not.”

  “Maybe you’re right, but I’m trying to change that. At least here, I am.”

  “You’re not changing anything.”

  I set my chin. “Yes I am.”

  “Carter was right.…” He paused. “Remember his little speech the first day you were chosen? About the lines of power? About the real purpose behind life being power and control?” He smiled. “He’s right, and you can’t change it. You can shift it or move it around, but it remains the same in the end. One person controlling another.” He grunted. “The little man will always get the shaft, and that’s just it. Nada. Nothing more. Your dork friend Elvis is one of them, and you don’t like that, so you think you’re doing the right thing.”

  “And you’re not one of them?”

  He nodded. “I know exactly what I am, but the only difference is that I know the rules are rigged, man, and I reject them. I don’t throw the dice anymore. Got my own.”

  “That’s not all true.”

  He studied me. “You know why I’m poor, Jason?”

  I looked away, reminded of my father’s private tirades about keeping the poor in their places. The social order.

  “Because they need poor people, and they’ve built a system around it. They need their garbage picked up and their burgers cooked and their lawns mowed and their shit shoveled, and they need to keep us where we are, and you can move things around all you want, but you’re never going to change the fact that Carter is right. People love controlling other people.”

  I flushed, angry because he was so right and so wrong at the same time. “Bullshit. Look at you. You’re brilliant. You could get out of it. That’s what America is about, right? It’s why you’re at Lambert.” I grunted. “Besides, half the poor people in this country are poo
r because they like getting free shit from people who work their asses off. Ever heard of welfare?” I sneered.

  He laughed, and for the first time, I saw real emotion on his face. Deep, intense, and angry. “Dude, you’re so fucking stupid you just buy into it. They made it so we need it. They made it to keep people on it!” His face went dark then, and his eyes narrowed. “The government has spent seventy years pulling off the biggest lie ever told.” He smirked, the hatred in his expression palpable. “You don’t make people independent by keeping them dependent, and they know it. Your dad and every other politician keep people dependent for one thing. To own them and their votes. Lives don’t matter, man, power does.”

  I had nothing to say.

  He grinned. “That’s what I thought. You know how he thinks, huh?”

  I looked away. “So you want to change it by breaking Carter’s arm. Great. That’s retarded.”

  “I don’t want to change anything.”

  “Then why go after the Chamber?”

  “I’m not.”

  A quiet came over the room as I thought about what he’d just said. “I don’t understand you.”

  He took a breath, exhaling. “I play my own game.”

  “Against what? Who?” I shook my head. “Carter?”

  Silence. After a moment, he rose. “Jason, the only reason I’m helping you with this election deal is because it makes my life easier right now. Other than that, it’d be best if you stayed away from me.”

  “Why are you at Lambert?”

  He nodded at the microphone. “Put that back where you found it, huh?” Then he moved for the door.

  “Why’d you tell me this?” I said.

  He turned, and in the dim of the lamplit room, his eyes were deep and empty pits. “I don’t know.” Then he was gone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  DAD’S ARREST MADE IT ONTO The Late Late Show as the butt of a few jokes. It must have been a slow news day. As I lay in bed, the clock reading 3:30, I was torn.

  My dad wasn’t a monster. Singletary might think so, but I knew the decisions he made weren’t intended to hurt people. People got hurt in the process, but in the end, I knew more people were helped. The collective good, I’d heard my uncle say once. And as my father told me, it took a strong man to make decisions other people were unwilling to make, but just because there was always a loser didn’t mean the decision was to be ignored. The weak ignored things.

  I groaned, staring at the ceiling. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. I’d heard it a million times, remembering my father’s tirades during dinner. Raise taxes and hurt the businessman, lower taxes and hurt the poor. Hit your kid in the face to get him to straighten up, hit him and get arrested. There was always the one who got screwed, no matter what. But Singletary made me think that maybe down beneath it all, the game was rigged, and maybe no one person could change a system built to protect itself. My father was a part of that system and, I knew, I was, too. We all were.

  Which made me think of my face. I sat up, rubbing my eyes. I knew Dad cared about me, but I also knew that life hadn’t turned out the way he’d wanted. I hadn’t turned out the way he’d wanted, and I never would, either. He was screwed up, sure, and his dad hit him when he was growing up, but I understood. He wanted the all-star son and he got the all-star reject.

  I also knew that thousands of husbands and fathers were arrested each day for abuse in this country, but they weren’t plastered all over the news. There was no circus for them and no media hype, but for my dad, there was, and it was as wrong as his hitting me in the first place. Maybe Singletary knew something about justice that I didn’t, but I couldn’t bring myself to hate because of it. I loved my dad, and there was no right or wrong in that. It just was.

  I got out of bed and padded downstairs. Dad had posted bail and was staying at a hotel somewhere, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was here, lurking over my shoulder, waiting to unload on me.

  I opened the fridge, taking the milk out and swigging when I heard footsteps across the hardwood of the dining room. I froze for an instant before my mom came around the corner. In the dimness of the kitchen, she looked tired. Worn. She sat on a stool at the island, arranging her robe. “I couldn’t sleep, either.”

  I put the cap on the milk. “Yeah.”

  “I’m sorry about this, Jason.”

  “Why?”

  “Because this is my fault.”

  “You didn’t hit me.”

  “I know, but you were right the other morning. I should have never allowed it to happen the first time. I never should have been silent.”

  I swallowed milk phlegm, clearing my throat. “What’s going to happen?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course. Anything.”

  “Do you think he’s bad? I mean, what he does? All the decisions he makes and people he affects?”

  She took a breath. “Are you talking about what you’re doing at Lambert?”

  “Sort of. I’m just screwed up right now.” I studied the calendar on the fridge. “You think the world is like Lambert? That it’s all just a setup? All power and money and control?”

  She smiled. “So what you’re really asking is if you are turning into your father.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  She stood, walking over and hugging my shoulders from behind. “The only thing I know for sure is that I think you are doing the right thing, Jason.”

  “Why can’t Dad be proud of me?” I looked to the floor. “I screw up all the time, Mom. Nothing ever works with him. I can even run for a stinking position just like him and he doesn’t like it.”

  She patted my shoulder. “In a way, I think your father may feel as if you are attacking him by trying to change Lambert, but that’s his issue to deal with.” She walked around me, raising my chin with her finger. “I’m proud of you for this, Jason. It takes courage, and in that way, you are just like your father.”

  “Do you love him?”

  She paused. “Yes, I do. He’s a good man, and I know you don’t really think so at this time, but he’s tried to help a lot of people in his life, and he’s been a good husband and father.” She looked away, smiling. “His first term in office, Jason, you should have known him. He was so … excited to do good. To make a difference. And he has. But he’s lost track of things as the years have gone by.” She looked up. “Do you understand that?”

  “I understand I’ll never be what he wants.”

  She nodded. “You should be who you are, not what other people want. And that includes your father.”

  I thought about it, and I realized that what I wanted was for all of this to never have happened. I wished it would just go away. I wished my dad would be like my mom said he used to be. Like the dad I remembered when I was little. “I want him to love me.”

  She stood. “He does.”

  “Maybe deep down, but …” I held back, my eyes burning.

  “But nothing. He loves you, Jason, but he needs to come to terms with you.”

  “Yeah, because I’m a screwup.”

  “No. Because you’re a different person. You think differently, and your father is used to battling those who think differently.”

  “Politics as usual.”

  “Yes, it is. And it’s his nature.”

  “Winners and losers and suckers.”

  She hugged me again. “You’re a winner.”

  I laughed. “Thanks.”

  She ruffled my hair. “Everything will turn out. You’ll see.”

  “Are you divorcing him?”

  “No, I’m not. I love him and I’m willing to help him if he wants help. It will be up to him, because I’ve set my terms.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “WE’RE AT AN IMPASSE here, Jason.”

  I glanced again at the cast on his arm. When I’d broken my arm two years ago, within days I’d had a dozen signatures on it from friends. Carter�
�s was white. Pristine, blank, and as empty as the obsidian pools looking at me. “An impasse?”

  He closed my gym-locker door. The place was empty. Silent but for the dripping echo of a leaky showerhead. He took a breath. “Do you really want to see this situation escalate?”

  “I didn’t break your arm, and no, I don’t want to see it escalate.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think you did. I’m talking about the Leadership Group. The Chamber. This idiotic plan of yours to overthrow it.”

  “It’s wrong.”

  He smiled. “So there we are. You want something, and I want something.”

  “You’re scared I’ll win, aren’t you?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Listen, Jason, it’s no secret I can’t stand you. I hate your guts, actually. I hate who you are and what you are and why I had to put you in the Chamber. But we both need something the other can give.”

  “I don’t need anything from you.”

  He took his phone from his pocket. “Yes, you do.”

  I studied him. “Why do you care so much about this, Carter? You’re gone at the end of the year. Lambert will be history.”

  He smiled again. “I care because you think you’re better than me, but you’re not.”

  “This is about the school, Carter. Not you.”

  He shrugged. “I’m offering a compromise.”

  “And the terms?”

  He shrugged again. “Make him stop, and I won’t stand in your way.”

  I stared. “Who?”

  He held his cast up. “Singletary.” He paused. “Talk to him, make him stop, get rid of him—out of this school, gone wherever—and you can have your little election and do whatever you want with the Chamber. Complete and total control.”

  “You think Singletary is the one hassling you?”

  “Yes, I do. And you are helping him.”

  I thought about it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m not an idiot. I looked at the roster of candidates. Singletary pulled into the race.”

  “So?”

  “So the only logical conclusion is that he’s in with you. You told him about the file, and he’s paying me back.”