[Brackets]

by Sloan, David

  “Hold up, hold up,” Tucker pulled his hand back, his head reeling. “First of all, who are ‘they’, and second, what makes you think that I’m going anywhere? I have school to finish, I’ve got law school to do, I’ve got things to do back in Ashland, I can’t just go with whoever these people are—”

  “You would be with me!” Lena pleaded. “If you stay here, you may meet your goals but you won’t reach your potential, I mean your real potential. I feel like I’m the only person really pushing you to succeed, and if I go—”

  “Wait,” said Tucker, “that’s what you’re worried about? You think as soon as you leave, I’ll drop out of school and start smoking weed or something? Are you my girlfriend or my life coach?”

  “I’m both, sometimes, and you know it. Would you even be where you are without me? Unless I’m on you all the time, you miss opportunities, you waste whole mornings like today—”

  “Oh really? You want to ask Wol Pot if I wasted my morning?” As soon as he said it, he knew that he had slipped up. “I mean, Tonkin had me…”

  “Woah, what?” Lena sat up with interest. “Did you see Wol Pot this morning? I thought he was locking everyone out. How did you get in? How did he look?”

  “No,” he stammered, “I mean, yeah, I saw him, but we didn’t, I just gave him a present. I can’t really talk about it. It was really nothing.”

  “But did he say anything?” Lena pressed. “Do you know what he’s going to do? Is he finally going to endorse Many Hands?”

  Tucker shook his head. He could feel himself starting to sweat. “I don’t, um, forget it. I want to talk about what you said about…”

  “No, no, no, you don’t change the subject now. I need to know this, and you know you can’t lie to me. What is he going to do? You know if he caves to international pressure, if he lets China come in and take over and stop Many Hands, it means starvation and panic and probably war. So you have to tell me, what is he going to do?”

  She stared into his face, her eyes wide, trying to read everything that he was trying to hide. He turned away and mumbled, “I can’t talk about it.”

  “Of course you can’t.” Lena shook her head in disgust and swore under her breath as she stood.

  “Where are you going?” Tucker asked.

  “To finish packing.” She gathered her bag and made a motion to leave, but turned around.

  “Do you want to know why they didn’t offer you a job, Tucker? I asked Carla about it. I explained what I knew about you, and she even said that she knew what I was talking about. But they still didn’t want you. You know why?” She paused a second to let him think. “She said that you weren’t the kind of person who would succeed in their work. They said that you didn’t care enough. And the worst part was that I couldn’t disagree with her.”

  She stopped herself, pausing as if wanting to say good-bye, then pursed her lips tighter and stepped out of the restaurant. Tucker watched her through the window as she took out her phone and dialed. She crossed the street, and only after crossing did she look back, hesitate, then turn and disappear.

  [Midwest Division: Final Four]

  [Saturday, April 4]

  Tucker sat wedged between a messy desk and a water cooler in the Verizon Center security office, nursing his sore knuckles with a bag of ice. He’d been sitting there for nearly twenty minutes—long enough to calm down from the brawl with Neeson, long enough to start a couple of dead-end conversations with the moody Cole Kaman, long enough to look at everything around him three times over. There was an autographed picture of Michael Jordan in a Wizards uniform holding a ball aloft over some poor rookie. There was another picture of the 2003 George Mason Men’s basketball team, exultant after their win against top-seeded UConn. Among the papers on the desk, Tucker noticed a police sketch of a big man in a grey hoodie with a goatee and glasses, and he thought about asking Cole if that was really what the Wall Street arsonist looked like. But seeing Cole slumped forward in his chair, hands covering his face, Tucker thought better of it.

  There was a commotion outside the door, and after a minute, the arena’s chief of security, a gruff, balding red-head, shoved in two staggering teenage boys.

  “Do not move from these chairs,” the security chief barked. “We’ll call your parents shortly.” The door slammed shut and one of the teenagers, alcohol heavy on his breath, leaned forward toward Tucker.

  “Hey! You’re the Bracketeers, right? You’re that guy that punched that guy! Awesome.” Tucker smiled briefly. That was the substance of fifteen out of the eighteen text messages he’d received in the past half-hour: “Dude, nice hit!” The other three were from his mom, who was not happy with what she’d seen. It was Regina who had, after a long conversation with her son about the way his life was going, strongly suggested that he go to be alone as a kind of retreat to help clear his head. It would be good for him, she said, to have some time just to himself away from everything. Now she felt guilty about her advice and openly wondered in fragments of digital text if he would be better off with his father or brothers or some friend next to him. Henry, for his part, sent a congratulatory message praising his right hook.

  One of the teenagers slurred, “So like, how did it start? Was it a money thing?” Tucker shook his head.

  “Nah, he was just mad that he lost.”

  “That’s not cool,” said the boy with a righteous sigh. “They aren’t throwing you out, are they? I mean, for fighting?”

  Tucker shrugged. He had been wondering that same thing since they’d arrived at the office. The other boy shook his head in sympathy.

  “Oh dude, they’re gonna throw you out. I have a buddy that got into a fight during a hockey game last year and he was banned from the arena for a month. For fighting at a hockey game! Where they fight, like, right there! Isn’t that the craziest?”

  “So what was the final score?” Tucker asked the boy.

  “At the hockey game?”

  His friend punched him in the arm. “No, you idiot, at the basketball game just now.”

  “Oh yeah, you didn’t really see the end. It was sweet—UCLA made one more three-pointer at the buzzer and that put them up 78-73. Other Williams had a towel over his head for like ten minutes and wouldn’t move until somebody made him. He was totally crying, we could tell. It was awesome.”

  The security chief came in, and Tucker was relieved when he spoke to the teenagers first. They each got fines and phone calls to their parents. Then, amongst many loud complaints against the injustice of it all, they were gone. The chief turned to Tucker and Cole.

  “You boys are giving me ulcers,” he groused. “Here’s the deal. We’ve reviewed the tapes we have, and we spoke with the eyewitnesses around the scene. They all back up your claim that Mr. Faulkner initiated the incident without being provoked, and that you, Mr. Barnes, stepped in to help. In most cases we would dismiss any party that was involved in a fight in the stands and ban them for the remainder of the season. But it seems that, under the circumstances, there is some interest in making sure you come back for the Championship. I’m not very happy about it, personally, but you will get to come back on Monday—”

  “Thank you,” Tucker exhaled.

  “—under certain conditions,” the chief continued, glaring at Tucker. “During the game on Monday, you two will be sitting on opposite sides of the court. We will be watching both sections carefully to make sure that we don’t have a repeat of what happened today.”

  He looked at both of them and shook his head like a disappointed parent. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you people, but if you two don’t control yourselves on Monday, if you step out of line even a little, we won’t just kick you out, there will be significant legal action. You understand me?” They both nodded.

  “So can we go?” Cole asked, his voice exhausted.

  The man sighed. “No, there’s one more thing. I’ve been kept apprised of the search for your stalker, Ichabod, in case he was to try something in the arena. I
got word tonight that they’ve found his apartment in Connecticut. He wasn’t there, but, based on some evidence they found, it looks like he may be headed south. So he might be around. I don’t think I have to tell you that you should inform the police if either of you sees or hears anything.” The chief waved to the door. “Now, please get out of here.”

  They happily complied.

  Outside, they had to pass through a cadre of reporters and cameras who wanted the inside story on this most bizarre side plot to the tournament. Tucker was so caught up in getting through that he didn’t notice who was driving their car until they were underway. The man in the driver’s seat turned and said in an awful New York accent, “Where to, Mac?”

  “Are you kidding me?” Tucker yelled.

  “We kid you not!” beamed Rick O’Shea beneath a chauffer’s cap. “Nice hit, by the way. We’re going to remember you in case we ever need to sneak a secret message to an amateur boxer.”

  “Ummmm…?” asked Cole.

  “We haven’t met yet,” said Abby, extending her hand. “We’re old friends of Tucker’s. I’m Abby, this is Rick. We’re happy to finally meet you.” Cole shook her hand and immediately sat back as far as he could in the seat.

  “Unbelievable. Is there a job that you guys don’t have?” Tucker asked.

  “Ah, the real question is, is there a job that you don’t have,” Rick replied. “We say yes. But that can be fixed. We’ll wait till we get back to the hotel to talk about it more. Cole, we don’t really know about you yet. I think we can arrange a more formal meeting for Monday.”

  “What for?” Tucker asked.

  “We’re going to keep that a secret for now.”

  Cole rubbed his temples with his palms. “Well, sorry to disappoint you before I even know what’s going on, but I’m going home. I’m done here.”

  The announcement silenced the car, and Tucker turned to him, almost hurt.

  “Wait, you can’t do that! You can’t get this far and then just leave before the last game.” Tucker looked at Cole’s stony face and realized that he really knew nothing about this person. “You would seriously leave before the championship game? That’s just not right, man.”

  “Oh, that’s not right?” Cole retorted angrily. “My entire life hasn’t been right since I filled out that stupid bracket. I’ve been stalked by a giant psychopath with a sling who wants to kill me because he thinks God told him that my bracket will make the world end. Today I had to explain to reporters how some guy I didn’t even meet until this afternoon went completely crazy and jumped off an escalator, and then two hours later a middle-aged businessman tried to beat me up on national TV. And that’s not even the stuff that matters, y’know? My girlfriend’s mother has cancer, and I haven’t heard from her in…” Cole stopped, swallowed his thoughts, and proceeded much more slowly. “If she ever was my girlfriend. I don’t know why I said that. But listen, I’m tired. I’m going back home, back to my apartment, I’m going to take like five sick days in a row, and I am never touching a bracket again. Ever. So, it was nice meeting all of you, but I am done and gone.”

  Tucker didn’t know what to say. If it were one of his friends back home, he would tell him that quitting was wrong, that he needed somebody to play against in the final game, that Cole had to hang in. But Cole wasn’t his friend, and Tucker couldn’t dispute that the guy had had a rough few weeks. Tucker was still stewing about it when they arrived at the front entrance of the hotel. Cole jumped out immediately. His hand was on the door when he leaned down for a final word to Tucker.

  “Thanks for helping me out back there, by the way. I don’t think I said that yet.” Then he closed the door, hard.

  “I don’t believe him,” Tucker said, shaking his head and about to leave the car himself. “After everything, he’s just going to walk away.”

  “Nah. He’ll be back,” said Rick.

  “You think so?” asked Tucker.

  “Give him a night to sleep it off; he’ll have a new perspective. And he’ll remember the million dollars. In the mean time, hold on a second, stay in your seat.” Rick pulled out. “We have to talk to you about something while we go on a lovely tour of the D.C. night life.”

  Tucker shook his head, irritated that he wasn’t going to bed yet. “I’m not doing any more spy missions for you people.”

  “We won’t ask you to. Would you like to know who we really are?”

  Tucker leaned back in the seat. “Um, are you recruiters for a big company interested in smart political people?”

  The couple looked at each other. “That’s actually quite close,” said Abby. “How did you know we were recruiting?”

  “You aren’t the only ones,” said Tucker. “Another recruiter told me that you guys were in Lincoln to try and get Tonkin. That same person ended up giving my ex-girlfriend a job.”

  The couple looked at each other again, even more surprised. Tucker took a second of pride at finally having the upper hand in a conversation.

  “That’s interesting,” Rick pondered, “and we want to ask you more about our competition later, for sure. But for now, you’re only half right. We weren’t there to recruit Tonkin.”

  “Me?” asked Tucker, bewildered.

  “Nope. We came for Dr. Thaifun.”

  “Oh.” Tucker stopped to reprocess everything that had happened in the last few weeks. It had made sense when he thought that the couple was after his boss. But now it didn’t. “So how come you kept bothering me about Tonkin?” he asked.

  Abby explained. “Well, at first we were just trying to get on the good side of anyone who had access to the Thai delegation. Tonkin was our best shot, and we thought you were just a lackey who might be able to get us into the room with him.”

  “Which you didn’t,” interrupted Rick. “Thanks for nothing.”

  Abby continued. “We wanted to see if the rumors about Mongkut were true. He has apparently been the architect behind Pot’s international outreach since the disaster started a year ago.”

  “In that way,” Rick interrupted again, “he’s kind of the Thai Tucker. Not to be confused with someone who tucks in his ties.”

  “Huh?”

  Abby gave Rick an annoyed sideways glance and went on. “So that’s why we were in Lincoln in the first place, to see if it was worth trying to lure Dr. Thaifun away. But that kind of changed after we met you.”

  Rick started to loudly hum the tune “Till there was yooooouu.” Abby promptly whacked him, and he stopped.

  “After we met you, we looked into you a little bit. The more we looked into you, the more interesting you became. I don’t think you realize how rare it is for someone as young as you are to take such a prominent position in the office of such a high-profile figure as Dr. Tonkin. Has anyone ever mentioned that to you?”

  “A few grad students have,” Tucker said quietly. “My mom seemed to think so, too.”

  “You were, by far, the youngest and least prominent person at that State dinner. You were writing memos and press releases for Tonkin—you probably didn’t even know this—that were making it into some pretty high-level circles under Tonkin’s name. Tonkin, by the way, has everything you’ve ever written in a file that—”

  “He showed you my file?”

  “Uh, no,” Abby confessed sheepishly.

  Tucker was still processing. “Are you saying that you hacked—”

  “More like electronically perused,” said Rick. “It’s kind of my forte, not to brag. The story we told you about getting your memo from the recycling bin was a lie. Sorry. But now we have the complete works of Tucker Barnes in a collectible volume. Very interesting reads. We compared some of your recent work to the stuff that Tonkin had sent up to the ‘powers that be’ in the State Department and elsewhere—”

  “So you hacked into the State Department files, too?”

  “No, no, get over the hacking thing. We got all this off of Tonkin’s computer. It seems that he’s been borrowing your ideas word for word
for at least six months, maybe longer. He should be paying you a lot more than he’s paying you. ”

  Tucker was surprised by the accusation, but it made sense. As he looked out at the brilliant lights of the Kennedy Center, he realized that he wasn’t even upset by Tonkin using his ideas. Tucker was writing them so that they could be used. What he found more disturbing was the increasing number of people around him that seemed to have secrets he was the last to know about.

  “What about the message to Wol Pot?” Tucker asked. “Did you lie about that, too?”

  “Well, yes and no,” Abby said. “The South Koreans really did need to get that message through. We don’t really know all the details of how it happened, but somehow there was a high-up Korean who found out that our boss had people—us—in Lincoln. They asked him to have us get that message to Wol Pot. I honestly can’t tell you why the Koreans couldn’t do this themselves, but we were happy to do them the favor. Anyway, we were going to just do it ourselves, but by this time we were really interested in you, so we decided to test you a little bit, see what you would do if we took you off the sidelines and threw you into the game. And you were brilliant.”

  Tucker raised his eyebrows. “How did you know I would go through with it?”

  “Ah,” Abby explained as they came to a traffic light. “We knew that you knew that getting the Koreans involved was a good idea. And you didn’t just know it. You could see it, couldn’t you? You see, we think you have this talent. You seem to be able to take in a lot of information about complex social systems, and then you can make really accurate predictions about outcomes.”

  “It’s the reason your brackets are so good,” Rick cut in excitedly. “It’s because you have a sixth sense about teams.”

  “And it’s the reason that you can intuit what will happen between conflicting countries when you’re given a lot of information. You are a prodigy at group behavior prediction.”