by Brad Meltzer
“Sure I did.”
“Minnie… Show me your hands,” Palmiotti challenged.
Minnie half-smiled, pretending not to hear him. “I meant to ask, you still seeing Gabriel for lunch today?” she said, referring to the President’s scheduler.
“Please don’t do that,” he begged.
“Do what?”
“What’s it now? Reception in the Oval? Having the President speak at your annual convention?”
“It’s a Caregivers’ Conference—for the top scientists who study brain injuries,” she explained, referring to the cause that she now spent so much time pushing for. “My brother already said he’d come, but when I spoke to Gabriel—”
“Listen, you know that if Gabriel tells you no, it’s no,” he said. But as he reached for the best way to track down the President—the earpiece and Secret Service radio that sat on his desk—there was a sudden burst of voices behind him. Over his shoulder, out in the Ground Floor Corridor, he saw a phalanx of staffers—the President’s personal aide, his chief of staff, the press secretary, and an older black speechwriter—slowly gathering near the President’s private elevator. Palmiotti had watched it for three years now. Forget the radio. The personal aide always got the call first from the valet who laid out Wallace’s suits.
Sure enough, the red light above the elevator blinked on with a ping. Agent Mitchel whispered something into the microphone at his wrist, and two new Secret Service agents appeared from nowhere. Thirty seconds after that, President Orson Wallace, in fresh suit and tie, stepped out to start the day. For a second, the President glanced around the hallway rather than focusing on the swarm of staff.
The doctor shook his head.
Not every President is a great speaker. Not every President is a great thinker. But in the modern era, every single President is a master of one thing: eye contact. Bill Clinton was so good at it, when he was drinking lemonade while you were talking to him, he’d stare at you through the bottom of his glass just to maintain that lock on you. Wallace was no different. So when he stepped off the elevator and glanced around instead of locking on his aides…
… that’s when Palmiotti knew that whatever happened last night, it was worse than he thought.
“Just gimme a minute,” the President mimed as he patted his personal aide on the shoulder and sidestepped through the small crowd—straight toward Palmiotti’s side of the corridor.
Of course, the staffers started to follow.
Yet as the President entered the reception area of the Medical Unit, half the throng—the speechwriter and the press secretary, as well as the Secret Service—stopped at the door and waited in the hallway, well aware that their access didn’t include a private visit to the President’s doctor.
“Dr. Palmiotti…! ” the duty nurse murmured in full panic. The only times the President had come this way were when it was officially on the schedule.
“I see him,” Palmiotti called back from his office.
“Where you hiding him? You know he’s dating again? He tell you he was dating?” the President teased the nurse, flashing his bright whites and still trying to charm. It was good enough to fool the nurse. Good enough to fool the two trailing staffers. But never good enough to fool the friend who used to get suckered trading his Double Stuf Oreos for Wallace’s Nilla Wafers in fifth grade.
As the two men made eye contact, Palmiotti could feel the typhoon coming. He had seen that look on the President’s face only three times before: once when he was President, once when he was governor, and once from the night they didn’t talk about anymore.
The President paused at the threshold of Palmiotti’s private office, which was when Palmiotti spotted the hardcover book the President was carrying.
Palmiotti cocked an eyebrow. We’re not alone, he said with a glance.
Wallace dipped his neck into the office, spotting his sister, who raised her flamingo cane, saluting him with the beak.
Definitely not ideal.
The President didn’t care. He stepped into Palmiotti’s office, which was decorated with the same medical school diplomas that had covered his first office back in Ohio. Back when everything was so much simpler.
“Mr. President…” Wallace’s personal aide said, standing with the chief of staff at the threshold.
In any White House, the smart staffers get invited to walk with the President. But the smartest staffers—and the ones who get the farthest—are the ones who know when to walk away.
“… we’ll be right out here,” the aide announced, thumbing himself back to the reception area.
“Stewie was just examining my hands,” Minnie announced, reaching forward from the couch and extending her open palms to Palmiotti.
“Wonderful,” Wallace muttered, not even looking at his sister as he closed the door to Palmiotti’s office. There were bigger problems to deal with.
“So I take it your back’s still hurting you?” Palmiotti asked.
Orson Wallace studied his friend. The President’s eye contact was spectacular. Better than Clinton’s. Better than W’s. Better than Obama’s. “Like you wouldn’t believe,” the leader of the free world said, carefully pronouncing every syllable. “Think you can help with it?”
“We’ll see,” Palmiotti said. “First I need you to tell me where it hurts.”
18
This is bad, isn’t it?” I ask.
“Relax,” Tot whispers, rolling down his window as a snakebite of cold attacks from outside. He’s trying to keep me calm, but with his right hand he tugs at his pile of newspapers, using them to cover George Washington’s dictionary.
“Sorry, fellas,” the guard says, his breath puffing with each syllable. “IDs, please.”
“C’mon, Morris,” Tot says, pumping his overgrown eyebrows. “You telling me you don’t recognize—”
“Don’t bust my hump, Tot. Those are the rules. ID.”
Tot lowers his eyebrows and reaches for his ID. He’s not amused. Neither is the guard, who leans in a bit too deeply through the open window. His eyes scan the entire car. Like he’s searching for something.
Circling around toward the trunk, he slides a long metal pole with a mirror on the end of it under the car. Bomb search. They haven’t done a bomb search since we hosted the German president nearly a year ago.
“You got what you need?” Tot asks, his hand still on the newspapers. The story on top is the one about Orlando.
“Yeah. All set,” the guard says, glancing back at the guardhouse. Doesn’t take James Bond to see what he’s staring at: the flat, compact security camera that’s pointed right at us. No question, someone’s watching.
There’s a deafening metal shriek as the antiram barrier bites down into the ground, clearing our path. Tot pulls the car forward, his face again mostly turned to me. His blind eye is useless, but I can still read the expression. Don’t say a word.
I follow the request from the parking lot all the way to the elevators. Inside, as we ride up in silence, Tot opens up the folded newspapers, but it’s clear he’s really reading what’s tucked inside—Entick’s Dictionary. I watch him study the swirls and loops of the handwritten inscription. Exitus acta probat.
“See that?” I ask. “That’s George Washing—”
He shoots me another look to keep me quiet. This time, I wait until we reach our offices on the fourth floor.
The sign next to the door reads Room 404, but around here it’s called Old Military because we specialize in records from the Revolutionary and Civil wars.
“Anyone home…?” I call out, opening the door, already knowing the answer. The lights in the long suite are off. On my left, a metal wipe-off board has two columns—one IN, one OUT—and holds a half dozen magnets with our headshot photos attached to each one. Sure, it’s ridiculously kindergarten. But with all of us always running to the stacks for research, it works. And right now, everyone’s in the OUT column. That’s all we need.
Knowing the privacy won’t last, I r
ush toward my cubicle in the very back. Tot does his best to rush toward his in the very front.
“Don’t you wanna see if the book is in our collection?” I call out as I pull out my key to open the lock on the middle drawer of my desk. To my surprise, it’s already open. I think about it a moment, flipping on my computer. With everything going on, I could’ve easily forgotten to lock it last night. But as my mind tumbles back to the front door of my house…
“You do your magic tricks, I’ll do mine,” Tot says as I hear the gnnn of a metal drawer opening. Tot’s cube is a big one, holding a wall of six tall file cabinets, stacks upon stacks of books (mostly about his specialty, Abraham Lincoln), and a wide window that overlooks Pennsylvania Avenue and the Navy Memorial.
My cube is a tiny one, filled with a desk, computer, and a corkboard that’s covered with the best typos we’ve been able to find throughout history, including a 1631 Bible that has the words “Thou shalt commit adultery,” plus the first edition of a Washington Post gossip column from 1915 that was supposed to say President Woodrow Wilson “spent the evening entertaining Mrs. Galt,” a widow who he was courting, but instead said, “the President spent the evening entering Mrs. Galt.” You don’t get this job without having some pack rat in you. But with ten billion pages in our collection, you also don’t get it without being part scavenger.
As my computer boots up, I grab the keyboard, all set to dig. In my pocket, my cell phone starts to ring. I know who it is. Right on time.
“Hey, Mom,” I answer without even having to look. Ever since her heart surgery, I’ve asked my mother to call me every morning—just so I know she’s okay. But as I put the phone to my ear, instead of my mom, I get…
“She’s fine,” my sister Sharon tells me. “Just tired.”
I have two sisters. Sharon’s the older one—and the one who, even when she went to the local community college, never stopped living with my mom. We used to call it Sharon’s weakness. Now it’s our whole family’s strength. She looks like my mom. She sounds like my mom. And these days, she spends most of her life dealing with all the health issues of my mom.
Every two weeks, I send part of my check home. But Sharon’s the one who gives her time.
“Ask her if she’s going to Jumbo’s,” I say, using my mom’s preferred lunch spot as my favorite code. If my mom’s eating lunch there, I know she’s feeling well.
“She is,” Sharon answers. “And she wants to know where you’re going Friday night,” she adds, throwing my mom’s favorite code right back. She doesn’t care where I’m going, or even if I’m going. She wants to know: Do I have a date? and more important, Will I ever get over Iris?
“Will you please tell her I’m fine?” I plead.
“Beecher, how’s your seventy-year-old friend?”
“And you’re the one to talk? Besides, you’ve never even met Tot.”
“I’m sure he’s lovely—but I’m telling you, from experience: If you don’t change the way you’re living, that’s gonna be you one day. Old and lovely and all by yourself. Listen to me on this. Don’t hide in those Archives, Beecher. Live that life.”
“Is this me arguing with you, or arguing with Mom?”
Before she can answer, I glance to my right. There’s a solid red light on my desk phone. Voicemail message.
“I think I got you something, old boy,” Tot calls out from his cubicle.
“Shar, I gotta go. Kiss Mom for me.” As I hang up my cell, I’m already dialing into voicemail, putting in my PIN code.
While waiting for the message to play, I dial up caller ID on the keypad, study the little screen of my phone, and scroll down until I see the name of the person who left the last message.
Williams, Orlando.
My heart stops.
I read it again. Orlando.
My computer blinks awake. Tot yells something in the distance.
“Message one was received at… 4:58 p.m.… yesterday.”
And in my ear, through the phone, I hear a familiar baritone voice—Orlando’s voice—and the final words of a dead man.
19
On a scale of one to ten,” Dr. Palmiotti asked, “would you say the pain is…?”
“It’s a four,” the President said.
“Just a four?”
“It used to be a four. Now it’s an eight,” Wallace said, pacing along the far left side of the doctor’s office and glancing out the wide window with the stunning view of the White House Rose Garden. “Approaching a nine.”
“A nine for what?” his sister Minnie asked, already concerned. The doctor was talking to the President, but it was Minnie, as she stood across from Palmiotti, who was being examined.
She held her right palm wide open as he poked each of her fingers with a sterilized pin, testing to see her reaction. Whenever she missed therapy for too long, sharp pains would recede and feel simply dull. “What’s wrong with him?” she asked, motioning to her brother.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Palmiotti promised.
“If he’s sick…”
“I’m not sick. Just some stupid back problems,” the President insisted. “And a really crappy night’s sleep.”
“Listen to me, I know they won’t say this on the front page of the paper, but you need to hear it, O: I have faith in you. Stewie has faith in you. Your wife and kids have faith in you. And millions of people out there do too. You know that, right?”
The President turned, looking at his sister, absorbing her words.
Palmiotti knew how much Minnie loved her brother. And how much Wallace loved her back. But that didn’t mean it was always best for him to have her around. By now, most of America had heard the story: How Minnie was born with the genetic disease known as Turner syndrome. How it affected only females, leaving them with a missing X chromosome. How 98 percent of people die from Turner syndrome, but Minnie lived—and she lived without any of the heart or kidney or cognitive problems that go along with it. In fact, the only thing that Minnie Wallace got from Turner syndrome was that she was—like a few of its victims—manly.
Broad chest. Low hairline. Short neck. With one X chromosome, she looked like Moe from the Three Stooges. Perez Hilton said if she were one of the Seven Dwarfs, she’d be Stumpy. Or Fatty. Or Dumpy. When it first got posted, the President tried to let it roll off. He issued a statement saying that the comment made him Grumpy. But Palmiotti knew the truth. Nothing hits harder than when someone hits home. For the President… for Minnie… the last time Palmiotti saw pain like that was the night of the accident that caused her stroke.
The worst part was, he saw the makings of a similar pain right now—and from the strained look on the President’s face, despite the little pep talk from his sister, that pain was just starting to swell.
“Minnie, go do your therapy,” Palmiotti ordered.
“I can do it right here. You have the squeeze balls—”
“Mimo, you’re not listening,” the President interrupted. “I need to see my doctor. By myself.”
Minnie cocked her head. She knew that tone. Grabbing her flamingo cane, she started heading for the door.
“Before I go…” she quickly added, “if you could speak at our Caregivers’ Conference—”
“Minnie…”
“Okay. Fine. Gabriel. I’ll talk to Gabriel,” she said. “But just promise me—all these back problems—you’re sure you’re okay?”
“Look at me,” Wallace said, flashing the insta-smile that won him 54 percent of the popular vote. “Look where I live… look at this life… what could I possibly be upset about?”
With her limp, it took Minnie nearly a minute to leave the office.
The President didn’t start speaking until she was gone.
* * *
20
Beecher, it’s me…” Orlando says in the message, his deep voice showing just a crack of flat Wisconsin accent.
My legs go numb, then my chest.
“Beecher, lookit this!” Tot yells behind me,
though I swear to God, it sounds like he’s talking underwater.
“Tot, gimme one sec,” I call back.
My Lord. How can—? Orlando. That’s… Orlando…
“You need to see this, though,” Tot insists, shuffling toward me with a thick stack of paper held by a binder clip.
Still gripping the phone, I lean forward in my chair, lurching for the keypad and pounding the 3 button. This isn’t… focus!… start over… just focus…
Beep.
“Beecher, it’s me,” Orlando begins again. He pauses a moment.
“Y’ever see this?” Tot interrupts, waving the pages.
“Tot, please… can it wait?”
I hit the 3 button again to buy some time. The phone’s not near my ear, but I still hear Orlando’s opening. “Beecher, it’s me.”
“You want to know if that was George Washington’s dictionary or not?” Tot asks. “Just listen: When George Washington died, Mount Vernon made a list of every single item in his possession—every candlestick, every fork, every piece of art on his walls…”
I hit 3 again. “Beecher, it’s me.”
“… and of course, every one of GW’s books,” Tot says, tossing me the copy of Entick’s Dictionary. It hits my desk with a dead thud.
“Okay… I get it, Tot.”
“The more you rush me, Beecher, the slower I’m gonna talk.”
“Okay, I’m sorry, just… please.” I press 3 again. “Beecher, it’s me.”
“The point is,” Tot continues, “the only way to find out if this is really GW’s book is to first find out if he even owned a copy.”
I hit 3 again. “And?”
“According to this, he had one.” He points to the list. One copy. Entick’s Dictionary. “Though if this is even the same copy, that still doesn’t explain how it found its way here.”
“Or even if it found its way here,” I say. “For all we know, this isn’t even part of our collection.”
“Actually, that’s easy enough to find out.” Stepping toward my computer, Tot shoos me from my seat. “C’mon… Up!… Old man needs to sit,” he says as I hop aside, stretching the phone cord to its limits. He’s already clicking at the keyboard. Perfect. I turn my attention back to the phone…