by Brad Meltzer
“Which one?”
“You know, the one you needed the microphones and cameras for. Nathan said you guys were trying to catch your roommate doing the deed.”
“Oh, yeah,” Ben said, quickly remembering how Nathan had swindled the high-tech equipment out of the State Department. “It went fantastic. I’ll have to remind Nathan to bring you some of the pictures. They were a bit blurry, but they’re pretty funny.”
“Well, if the pictures suck, tell him to bring in the audio. I’m sure the briefcase mikes picked up every moan and groan.”
Ben paused. Briefcase mikes? “How do those mikes work again, Andrew?”
“The same as the cordless ones. The only difference is that they’re built into a briefcase. They’re used when someone is concerned that the regular microphones might get exposed. Pound for pound, I’d say they’re about as close as we get to a James Bond movie. They’re still only at the prototype stage, but Nathan thought you’d get a real kick out of them.”
“Oh, they sure were awesome,” Ben said as a cold sweat covered his brow. “We got to hear everything we wanted to hear.”
“Well, let me transfer you to Nathan,” Andrew said.
“I’ll tell you what,” Ben said. “I’m running late, so I’ll just give him a call later.”
“Do you want me to tell him you called?”
“No, no,” Ben said. “I’m going to be busy all day. I’ll see him at home.”
Ben hung up the phone and leaned his head against the phone booth. Shutting his eyes, his mind searched for a reasonable explanation. When he couldn’t come up with one, his breathing quickened. With his eyes still shut, he slammed his head against the metal booth. “I don’t believe this!” he screamed. He picked up the receiver and searched his pockets for more loose change. As he was about to deposit the money, he paused. “Damn!” he screamed, slamming the receiver back in its cradle. Rubbing his forehead, he mentally replayed his conversations with Rick and Andrew. Struggling to make sense of both exchanges, he stood silent.
Ten minutes later, Ben stepped out of the shadow of the phone booth and returned to the Court. When Lisa heard the door of the office slam shut, she quickly turned her head. After throwing his coat into the closet, Ben stood directly in front of Lisa’s desk.
“What?” she asked. “What’d I do now?”
“Listen, I’m going to tell you this, but I’m only telling you because I need your help,” Ben explained. “A week ago, Rick contacted me—”
“I knew it,” Lisa interrupted. “I knew he—”
“Lisa, please give me a chance to explain,” Ben pleaded. “When I spoke with Rick, he asked me for the Grinnell decision. In exchange, he was going to give me three million dollars. Obviously, I would never give him the decision, but I was hoping that when we met for the exchange, I’d be able to finally I.D. him. Our meeting was supposed to be at the airport this Saturday, probably in one of the executive lounges.”
“And now you need my help to make a plan?”
“I already had a plan,” Ben said. “I had called all the airport lounges to see which ones were reserved for this Saturday. When I got that list, I started doing background checks on any names I didn’t recognize—that’s why I was reading a week-old newspaper. I figured if I could anticipate which room Rick and I were supposed to meet in, I’d be able to wire the room, or bug it, or do something to it in advance. Anyway, just as I start feeling confident that this’ll be the time I nail Rick, I get a surprising phone call from our favorite scumbag.”
“That was Rick who called before?”
“Yep. And he told me that I can go scratch myself because our meeting is canceled. He said he didn’t need my help and then he hung up on me. Obviously, he got the Grinnell decision from someone else.”
“If you think he got it from me, you’re on crack.”
“To be honest, I did think it was you,” Ben admitted. “I figured you were the only other person who had access to the decision.”
“Ben, I swear—”
“Let me finish. After I got Rick’s call, I went to a pay phone to call Nathan. I ended up talking to one of his coworkers, who asked me how the briefcase microphone worked.”
“What briefcase mike?”
“Exactly,” Ben said.
“And now, just because Nathan withheld a piece of equipment, you think he’s the one talking to Rick?”
“What else can I think? This wasn’t just any piece of equipment—if I had the briefcase mike, I would’ve been able to get Rick on tape when we met at the restaurant. I’d have everything documented by now: Rick’s offer, his explanation of the original CMI scam—everything I needed to get me off the hook. But Nathan somehow managed to not include it in his little bag of tricks. You don’t think that’s suspicious?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ve tried to come up with a reasonable explanation. But I can’t for the life of me explain why Nathan wouldn’t say word one about it. Especially when it’s such a cool thing to talk about.”
“But if Nathan was working with Rick, Rick would’ve known about the briefcase mike, so it wouldn’t have posed any real threat.”
“I thought about that,” Ben said as he walked toward the file cabinet. “But I keep coming back to the idea that Rick couldn’t have kept the briefcase out of the limo. If he hadn’t let me bring it in, I wouldn’t have gotten in myself. I’d have said that I couldn’t abandon the briefcase in an alley since there were vital Court documents inside. And at that point, Rick had to get me in the car.”
“That’s not a bad theory,” Lisa agreed.
“So now I have to figure out if it’s really Nathan,” Ben said, leaning on the cabinet.
“Ben, let me ask you one question. Fifteen minutes ago, you thought I was selling your soul to the devil, and now you walk in here and pour your guts out to me. Why the change of heart?”
“Lisa, the God’s honest truth is that I have absolutely nothing to lose by telling you. Rick’s cut me loose; he presumably has the Grinnell decision; I don’t have any more meetings with him, and therefore I have no hope of catching him. Even if you are working with Rick, there’s nothing to tell him. I’m lost. I have no suspect, no clues, and a lie detector test in two days. More importantly, I have no one else I can trust.”
“What about Ober?”
“Believe me, he was the first person I thought about. But I realized he really wouldn’t be able to help. Ober’s great, and I love him like a brother, but he couldn’t find his ass with a map and a pickax. I need an extra brain to figure out what to do from here.”
“So if Nathan is in on it, how’d he get the decision?”
“For all I know, he could’ve used some State Department super-computer to break into our computers here. Or he could’ve just as easily gotten it from my briefcase—all he had to do was take it out in the middle of the night, photocopy it, and return it before I got up.”
“Don’t you have a lock on your briefcase? Especially after what happened with Eric?”
“Of course I have a lock. But Nathan knows the combination—he used it for his interview at the State Department.”
“Well, no offense, but your choice of friends is worse than Julius Caesar’s.”
“Thanks for the advice,” Ben said, returning to his desk. “Now, will you help me?”
“That depends,” Lisa said. “Do you trust me?”
“At this point, I don’t trust my own mother. Last time I was home, she started looking a little shifty.”
“Are you at least sorry for your accusations?”
“More sorry than you’ll ever know,” Ben said, tearing the corners off Osterman’s Grinnell opinion. “Now will you please help me?”
“Of course I’ll help you.” Lisa pulled the Grinnell opinion out of Ben’s hands, put his hands flat on the desk, and covered them with her own. “Regardless of what you may think, I really do care about what happens to you. If you were booted out of here, I’d
have double the amount of work.”
“That’s funny,” Ben said dryly. “You sure do crack me up.”
“You can hide behind all the sarcastic remarks you want, but I know you appreciate my help.”
“Of course I appreciate it. My life is falling apart, my career is approaching meltdown, and my friends are acting like the charter members of the Benedict Arnold Fan Club. At this point, I’d appreciate election tips from George McGovern. What the hell else am I supposed to do?”
“Well, I just hope you realize that you still have some real friends that care about you.”
“Thank you, Lisa Marie. I really do appreciate the help. I mean it.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “But don’t think for a second that I forgive you. You have to get raked over another twenty sets of coals before I forget about the emotional distress you’ve caused me.”
“That’s a deal. And you can pick out the coals personally.”
Taking a few steps backward, Lisa sat on the office sofa. “Now, are we going to catch this motherfucker or not?”
Smiling, Ben pulled a legal pad from the corner of his desk. “I think our only option is to make a list of people Rick might approach at Grinnell and Associates.”
“I can take care of that,” Lisa said. “I’m pretty sure the Clerk’s Office keeps a record of every party’s ownership interests. That should give us a likely list of possible sellers. If we keep an eye on those individuals, we’ll know when Rick makes his move.”
“We don’t even have to keep an eye on them,” Ben said, clearing his computer screen for a new search. “Lexis has its own public records database. All real estate transactions and deed transfers have to be reported to the county clerk’s office. If we have the names of the sellers, we should be able to track them directly from here.”
“Perfect,” Lisa said. “I’ll be back with the names.”
As Lisa left the office, Ben called out, “By the way, I do trust you!”
“I know,” she shouted back.
When the door closed, Ben pulled his chair toward his desk and dialed the number of the phone company. “Hi, I was wondering if you could help me out. By mistake, my wife threw out all of our phone bills. Since we need them for tax purposes, I was hoping we could get copies of them.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem, sir,” the operator said. “I just need your name and phone number.”
“The phone is under my wife’s name: Lisa Schulman.” Ben told the operator Lisa’s phone number and added, “I was also wondering if you could send the bills directly to my accountant, since he needs them as soon as possible.”
“We’re not supposed to—”
“It’s my phone,” Ben said. “It’s just under my wife’s name. If it makes it easier for you, I’d be happy to talk to a supervisor.”
“It should be fine. Let me just make a note of that, and then I’ll need the address.”
After giving the operator Ober’s work address, Ben said, “Thanks for the help. I really appreciate it.”
Late that afternoon, Ben stared intently at his computer screen.
“Y’know, you’ll probably go blind if you keep staring like that,” Lisa said.
“I should be so lucky.”
“Stop worrying. You keyed in every name on the ownership papers. If someone sells, you’ll see it change.”
“We’ll never see it,” Ben said, turning away from his computer. “You saw those documents. Grinnell is owned primarily by four limited partnerships, which are owned by eight more limited partnerships, which are owned by sixteen S corporations…”
“We pulled out every name we could find. And if we couldn’t find them, what do you think the chances are that Rick could find them?”
Ben shot Lisa his you-must-be-joking look.
“Okay,” Lisa said, “so Rick could probably find anything. But that doesn’t mean we’re not on the right track.”
“It’s not that I don’t think we’re on the right track,” Ben said. “I just feel like this is a very passive plan. We’re just sitting here and waiting.”
“Well, that’s all we can do now. If you’re so anxious, why don’t you start looking through the Harvard and Michigan yearbooks?”
“What are you talking about?” Ben asked. “They haven’t arrived yet.”
“Yes, they have. I told you earlier that there were two boxes in reception for you.”
“You never said that,” Ben said, rising from his seat.
“I definitely did. When I got back from getting the ownership documents, I told you there were two boxes waiting for you. You were probably too caught up in your computer screen.”
Ben walked to the closet and pulled out his coat. “Rather than bring the yearbooks home to Nathan, I think I’m going to leave them here. I’ll go through them tomorrow.”
“Where are you going now?” Lisa asked, noticing that it wasn’t even five o’clock yet.
“I want to speak to Ober before Nathan gets home. Can you cover for me in case Hollis calls?”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it.”
When Ben arrived home, the hum of silence revealed that the house was empty. Taking off his coat and throwing it on the sofa, Ben checked the kitchen, peeked into the first-floor bathroom, and opened the door to the basement. “Is anybody here?” he called out. When he got upstairs, he peeked into Eric’s and Ober’s rooms, as well as his own. After looking in the second-floor bathroom and every hall closet, Ben opened the door to Nathan’s room. Without turning on the lights, he slid open Nathan’s closet and poked his head inside. Convinced that he was alone, Ben then approached Nathan’s desk, focusing on the small stack of papers arranged in a neat pile. Not making a sound, Ben flipped through the pile. Grocery list, things-to-do list, birthday list, movies-to-rent list. Nothing of consequence. After returning the papers to their original position, Ben held his breath and cautiously pulled open the center desk drawer. Picking up the organizer that kept all the pens, pencils, and erasers in place, Ben slowly and methodically searched for anything that might lead to Rick’s whereabouts. After closing the drawer, Ben picked up the address book on Nathan’s nightstand. Reading each entry, he struggled to account for every name in the book.
“What the hell are you doing with my address book?”
Startled, Ben dropped the book and looked up, surprised to see Ober laughing in the doorway. “Don’t do that!” Ben yelled, picking up the book and returning it to its place.
“You should’ve seen your face. You were—”
“Is anyone with you?” Ben asked, rushing out of Nathan’s room.
“No. Why? What’s wrong?”
“Listen, I’m going to tell you something, but you have to swear you’ll never say a word.”
“I swear,” Ober said, pulling off his tie.
“I’m not joking,” Ben warned. “Not a word to anyone. Not Nathan, not your parents…”
“I swear,” Ober repeated as they walked down the stairs toward the living room. “Just tell me.”
After explaining the entire story to his roommate, Ben said, “So tell me: What do you think?”
“I can’t believe what you’re saying.” Ober’s eyes were wide with disbelief. “You expect me to believe that Nathan is in on this whole thing?”
“What else am I supposed to believe?”
“No way,” Ober slumped into a chair at the kitchen table. “Now you’re crazy. I mean, if you said Eric, I’d understand. In fact, last week I saw him in your room going through your garbage.”
“Did you ask him what he was doing?”
“He said someone took his classifieds section, so he wanted to see if it was you.”
“Well, it wasn’t,” Ben said. “You should’ve sent him to Nathan—he’s the untrustworthy one around here.”
“There’s no way in hell Nathan would do that,” Ober insisted. “I don’t believe it for a second.”
“Well, I do,” Ben said. “And at
this point, that’s all that really matters. Lisa and I are trying to find—”
“How can you suddenly trust Lisa with everything?” Ober interrupted. “I mean, you always say I’m dense, but you must be a moron to tell her stuff again.”
“Listen, I don’t trust her for a second,” Ben said, walking over to the sink. He turned on the water and splashed some on his face. “As soon as she left the office, I started investigating her as well.”
“Then why tell her anything at all?”
“It’s simple. First, she can’t do me any real harm. Second, and I know you’ll never understand this, but she helps me think better.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I really can’t explain it, but when I brainstorm with her, I wind up with my best ideas.”
“Well, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but this isn’t just some Supreme Court decision you two are working on. This is your life, buddy-boy.”
“It is?” Ben said sarcastically. “And here I thought it was just a big ol’ game of Parcheesi. Dang.”
“I think you’re way off in space with this one,” Ober said, shaking his head.
“Fine. I’ll take your advice into consideration. Now, are you going to help me or not?”
“I’m surprised you trust me. I mean, I may be in on it, too.”
“No offense, but I thought about it.”
“Thanks,” Ober said. “I really appreciate the vote of confidence.”
“Listen, don’t get offended. I’m telling you, aren’t I?”
“I just don’t understand why you’re telling me.”
“Because I need you to do me a favor,” Ben said. “I had all of Lisa’s phone bills sent to your address at work. It was the only address I could think of that Nathan, Rick, and Lisa don’t have access to. When you get the bills, will you let me know so I can go through them?”
“Of course,” Ober said. “One last question, though: If the house is bugged, why are you still telling me all this?”
“There’s nothing Rick’s heard that he can use against me,” Ben explained. “Lisa’s bills are already on their way, and if Nathan’s on his side, he already knows—” Ben heard a key in the lock of the front door and fell silent. “Don’t say a single word,” he warned, whispering over his shoulder as Ober followed him into the living room. “You promised.”