by Brad Meltzer
Sprinting across the enormous presidential seal that’s woven into the bright blue carpet, I cut to my left, where the hallway is lined with bad paintings and poor sculptures of the President. They’ve arrived every single day since we left office—all from strangers, fans, supporters. They draw, paint, pencil, sketch, bronze, and sculpt him in every possible permutation. The newest ones are a set of Florida toothpicks with his profile carved into each one, and a bright yellow ceramic sculpture of the sun, with his face in the middle. And that’s not even including what the corporations send: every CD, every book, every DVD that’s released, they all want the former President to have it, though all we do is ship it to his Presidential Library. Knocking over a beechwood walking cane with his childhood photos glued to it, I trip down the hall and head for the second-to-last office that’s—
“Nice of you to join us,” a raspy female voice announces as the entire room turns at my arrival. I do a quick head count just to see if I’m last—two, three, four, five . . .
“You’re last,” Claudia Pacheco, our chief of staff, confirms as she leans back in her seat behind her messy mahogany desk. Claudia’s got brown, graying hair that’s pulled back in an almost military-tight bun and smoker’s lips that reveal exactly where the raspy voice comes from. “President with you?” she adds.
I shake my head, forgoing my one excuse for being late.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spot Bev and Oren smirking to themselves. Annoying and annoyinger. They both eye the small gold lapel pin that sits on the corner of Claudia’s desk. Sculpted in the shape of the White House, the gold pin was no bigger than a hotel piece from Monopoly, but what made it memorable were the two gold poorly sculpted heads of the President and First Lady, pressed together and joined by one connecting ear, that dangled like charms just below it. The President bought it for Claudia years ago as a gag gift from a street vendor in China. Today, it’s part of her leftover White House tradition: whoever’s the last to arrive at the Monday morning staff meeting wears the pin for the next week. If you miss the meeting, you wear it for a month. But to my surprise, Claudia doesn’t reach for it.
“What happened with the break-in backstage?” she asks in her barreling Massachusetts accent.
“Break-in?”
“In Malaysia . . . the guy in the President’s holding room . . . the shattered glass table. My speaking Spanish here?”
In high school, Claudia was the girl who organized all the extracurricular events but never had any fun at them. It was the same when she ran Oval Office Operations, easily one of the most thankless jobs in the White House. She’s not in it for the credit or the glory. She’s here because she’s dedicated. And she wants to make sure we are too.
“No . . . of course . . .” I stutter. “But it wasn’t— That wasn’t a break-in.”
“That’s not what the report said.”
“They sent you a report?”
“They send us everything,” Bev says from the two-person love seat perpendicular to Claudia’s desk. She should know. As head of correspondence, she answers all the President’s personal mail and even knows what inside jokes to put at the bottom of his friends’ birthday cards. For a man with a good ten thousand “friends,” it’s tougher than it sounds, and the only reason Bev pulls it off is because she’s been with the President since his first run for Congress almost twenty-five years ago.
“And they called it a break-in?” I ask.
Claudia holds up the report as Bev pulls the lapel pin from the corner of the desk. “Break. In,” Claudia says, pointing to the words.
My eyes stay with the pin as Bev fidgets with it, running her thumb over the President’s and First Lady’s faces.
“Was there anything even worth stealing in the holding room?” Bev asks, brushing her dyed-black hair over her shoulder and revealing a V-neck sweater that shows off decade-old breast implants, which she got, along with the name Busty Bev, the year we won the White House. In high school, Bev was the girl voted Fabulous Face, and even now, at sixty-two, it’s clear that appearances still matter.
“No one stole anyth— Trust me, it wasn’t a break-in,” I say, rolling my eyes to downplay. “The guy was drunk. He thought he was in the bathroom.”
“And the broken glass table?” Claudia asks.
“We’re lucky it was just broken. Imagine if he thought it was a urinal,” Oren interrupts, already laughing at his own joke and scratching at his messy-prep eight a.m. shadow. At 6'1", Oren is the tallest, handsomest, toughest-looking gay man I’ve ever met in my life, and the only one close to my age in the office. From his seat across from Claudia’s desk, it’s clear he was the first one here. No surprise. If Bev was Fabulous Face, Oren was the smart kid who sent the dumb ones to buy beer. A born instigator, as well as our director of travel, he’s also got the softest political touch in the entire office, which is why, with one simple joke, the room quickly forgets its obsession with the table.
I nod him a thank-you and—
“What about the table?” Bev asks, still fidgeting with the pin.
“That was me,” I say way too defensively. “Read the report—I tripped into it as he was running out.”
“Wes, relax,” Claudia offers in her chief of staff monotone. “No one’s accusing you of—”
“I’m just saying . . . if I thought it was serious, I’d still be hunting for the guy myself. Even the Service thought he was just a wanderer.” On my left, Oren playfully taps his own lapel, hoping I don’t notice. Motioning to Bev, he’s trying to get her attention. He’s only worn the pin once—on a day I told him, “Wait in your office, the President wants to see you.” The President wasn’t even in the building. It was an easy trick. This is just fourth-grade payback. He again motions to Bev. Lucky me, she doesn’t notice.
“Listen, I’m sorry to do this, but are we done?” I ask, looking down at my watch and realizing I’m already late. “The President wants me to—”
“Go, go, go,” Claudia says, closing her datebook. “Just do me a favor, Wes. When you’re at tonight’s cystic fibrosis event—I know you’re always careful—but with the break-in . . .”
“It wasn’t a break-in.”
“. . . just keep your eyes open a little bit wider, okay?”
“I always do,” I say, dashing for the door and narrowly escaping the—
“What about the pin?” a rusty voice interrupts from his usual swivel chair in the back corner.
“Aaaaand you’re screwed,” Oren says.
“Red light, red light!” Claudia calls out. It’s the same thing she yells at her kids. I stop right there. “Thanks, B.B.,” she adds.
“Jes’ doin’ mah duty,” B.B. says, the words tumbling out of the side of his mouth in a slow Southern crawl. With a shock of messy white hair and a rumpled button-down shirt with the President’s faded monogrammed initials on the cuffs, B.B. Shaye has been by the President’s side even longer than the First Lady. Some say he’s Manning’s distant cousin . . . others say he’s his senile old sergeant from Vietnam. Either way, he’s been the President’s shadow for almost forty years—and like any shadow, he’ll creep you out if you stare at him too long. “Sorry, kiddo,” he offers with a yellow-toothed grin as Bev hands me the gold White House with the dangling heads.
For authenticity, the sculptor used two flakes of green glitter for the First Lady’s eye color. Since gray glitter is harder to come by, the President’s eyes are blank.
“Just tell people they’re your grandchildren,” Oren says as I open the clasp and slide it into my lapel. Shoving too hard, I feel a sharp bite in my fingertip as the pin punctures my skin. A drop of blood bubbles upward. I’ve taken much worse.
“By the way, Wes,” Claudia adds, “one of the curators from the library said he wants to talk to you about some exhibit he’s working on, so be nice when he calls . . .”
“I’m on my cell if you need me!” I call out with a wave. Rushing to the door, I lick the drop of blood from my finger.
“Careful,” B.B. calls out behind me. “It’s the small cuts that’ll kill ya.”
He’s right about that. Out in the hallway, I blow past an oversize oil painting of President Manning dressed as a circus ringmaster. Dreidel said he had info on Boyle. Time to finally find out what it is.
11
Welcome back, Mr. Holloway,” the valet at the Four Seasons says, knowing my name from countless visits with the President. Unlike most, he stays locked on my eyes. I nod him a thank-you just for that.
As I step inside the hotel, a blast of air-conditioning wraps me in its arms. Out of habit, I look over my shoulder for the President. He’s not here. I’m on my own.
Cutting across the beige marble floor of the lobby, I feel my heart kicking inside my chest. It’s not just Boyle. For better or worse, that’s always been Dreidel’s effect on me.
As Manning’s original buttboy, Gavin “Dreidel” Jeffer isn’t just my predecessor—he’s also the one who put me on the President’s radar and recommended me for the job. When we met a decade ago, I was a nineteen-year-old volunteer in the Florida campaign office, answering phones and putting out yard signs. Dreidel was twenty-two and Manning’s right- and left-hand man. I actually told Dreidel it was an honor to meet him. And I meant it. By then, we’d all heard the story.
Back during primary season, Dreidel was just some unaffiliated local kid setting up folding chairs during the first primary debate. Like any other roadie, when the show was over, he tried to get closer to the action by sneaking backstage. Where he found himself was the heart of the spin room, where the best liars in America were telling tall tales about why their candidate had just won. In a sloppy oxford shirt, he was the one silent kid in a room full of yammering adults. The CBS reporter spotted him instantly, shoving a microphone in his face. “What’d you think, son?” the reporter asked.
Dreidel stared blankly into the red light of the camera, his mouth dangling open. And without even thinking about it, he gave the God’s honest response that would forever change his life: “When it was over, Manning’s the only one who didn’t ask his staff, How’d I do?”
That question became Manning’s mantra for the next year and a half. Every news organization picked up the clip. Every major paper ran with the quote. They even passed out printed-up buttons saying How’d I do?
Three words. When Dreidel retold the story at his wedding a few years back, he said he didn’t even realize what had happened until the reporter asked how to spell his name. It didn’t matter. Three words, and Dreidel—the little Jewish spinner, as the White House press nicknamed him—was born. Within a week, Manning offered him a job as buttboy, and throughout the campaign, hundreds of young volunteers rolled their eyes. It’s not that they were jealous, it’s just . . . Maybe it’s his smug smile, or the ease with which he stumbled into the job, but in the school yard, Dreidel was the kid who used to have the best birthday party, with the best presents, with the best favors for anyone lucky enough to be invited. For a few years, it puts him in the in crowd, but as cockiness sets in, he doesn’t even realize he’s on the outs.
Still, he’s always been Manning’s good luck charm. And today, hopefully mine.
“Good day, Mr. Holloway,” the concierge calls out as I slide past him and head toward the elevators. It’s the second person who knows my name, instantly reminding me of the need to be discreet. Of course, that’s why I called Dreidel in the first place. The President would never admit it, but I know why he and the First Lady attended Dreidel’s wedding and wrote his recommendation for Columbia Law School—and asked me to pick out a gift when Dreidel’s daughter was born: rewards for years of good service. And in White House terms, good service means keeping your mouth shut.
As the elevator doors open on the fourth floor, I follow the directional arrows and start counting room numbers: 405 . . . 407 . . . 409 . . . From the distance between doors, I can tell these’re all suites. Dreidel’s moving up in the world.
The hallway dead-ends at room 415, a suite so big it’s got a doorbell on it. There’s no way I’m giving him the pleasure of ringing it.
“Room service,” I announce, rapping my knuckles against the door.
No one answers.
“Dreidel, you in there?” I add.
Still no response.
“It’s me, Wes!” I yell, finally giving up and ringing the doorbell. “Dreidel, are you—?”
There’s a loud thunk as the lock flicks open. Then a jingling of metal. He’s got the door chain on too.
“Hold on,” he calls out. “I’m coming.”
“What’re you doing? Stealing the wood hangers?”
The door cracks open, but only a few inches. Behind it, Dreidel sticks his head out like an anxious housewife surprised by a salesman. His usually perfectly parted hair is slightly mussed, draping boyish bangs across his forehead. He pushes his circular wire-rim glasses up on his thin sculpted nose. From the little I can see, he’s not wearing a shirt.
“No offense, but I’m not having sex with you,” I say with a laugh.
“I said to call from downstairs,” he shoots back.
“What’re you getting so upset about? I figured you’d like showing off your big room and—”
“I’m serious, Wes. Why’d you come up here?” There’s a new tone in his voice. Not just annoyance. Fear. “Did anyone follow you?” he adds, opening the door a bit more to check the hallway. He’s got a towel around his waist.
“Dreidel, is everything—?”
“I said call from downstairs!” he insists.
I step back, completely confused.
“Honey,” a female voice calls out from within the room, “is everything—” The woman stops midsentence. Dreidel turns, and I spot her over his shoulder, just turning the corner inside the room. She’s dressed in one of the hotel’s white overfluffed bathrobes—a thin African-American woman with gorgeous braids. I have no idea who she is, but the one thing I’m sure of is, she’s not Dreidel’s wife. Or his two-year-old daughter.
Dreidel’s face falls as he reads my reaction. This is the part where he says it’s not how it looks.
“Wes, it’s not what you think.”
I stare at the woman in the bathrobe. And Dreidel in his towel. “Maybe I should . . . I’ll just go downstairs,” I stutter.
“I’ll meet you there in two minutes.”
Stepping back, I study the woman, who’s still frozen in place. Her eyes are wide, silently apologizing.
12
Where’s he now?” O’Shea asked, pressing his palm against the window of the black sedan and feeling the warmth of the Florida sun. It was freezing in France. But somehow, even with the Palm Beach heat and the liquid-blue sky, he wasn’t any warmer.
“He just took the elevator upstairs in the hotel,” Micah replied.
“Elevator? You let him ride alone?”
“Better than me jumping in with him. Relax—there’re only four floors. He’s not getting far.”
O’Shea rolled his tongue inside his cheek. “So what’re you still doing in the lobby?”
“Waiting for one of the—”
Through the phone, O’Shea heard a slight ping followed by a low rumble. Micah’s elevator had finally arrived. “I’ll have him in—”
Micah’s voice went silent. But from the background noise, O’Shea could tell Micah was still on the line.
“Micah, what happened?” he asked.
No response.
“Micah, you okay!?”
There was another low rumble. Elevator doors closing. Then a rough swishing. Like two windbreakers being rubbed together. Micah was moving. The swishing continued. At that pace, he was clearly not in the elevator, O’Shea thought. But if he wasn’t in the elevator, that meant . . .
“Wes just stepped out, didn’t he?” O’Shea asked as his sedan made a sharp left onto a well-manicured drive.
“Not bad, Watson,” Micah whispered. “You should do this professionally.”
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“Anyone with him?”
“Nope. All alone,” Micah said. “Something happened up there, though. Kid’s got his tail between his legs. Like he got dumped.”
“Is he leaving the hotel?”
“Nope again. Headed for the restaurant in back. I’m telling you, he really looks terrible . . . I mean, even more than those Frankenstein marks in his face.”
“That’s a shame,” O’Shea said as his car curved into the horseshoe driveway of the main entrance. “’Cause his day’s about to get a whole lot worse.” On his right, the car door sprang open and a valet with blond hair offered a slight tip of his hat.
“Welcome to the Four Seasons, sir. Are you checking in with us today?”
“No,” O’Shea offered as he stepped out of the car. “Just grabbing a little something for breakfast.”
13
Hunched forward in a big wicker armchair, I stir my coffee with a silver spoon and watch my reflection swirl into oblivion.
“Is it really that bad?” a voice teases behind me.
I turn just in time to see Dreidel enter the hotel’s open-air restaurant. His black hair is gelled and parted. The boyish bangs are long gone. Combined with his monogrammed white shirt and antique wire-rim glasses, it’s clear he’s mastered the art of sending a message without saying a word. Right now he’s selling confidence. Too bad I’m not buying.
Ignoring the foamy waves of the Atlantic Ocean on our left, he puts a hand on my shoulder and crosses around to the oversize wicker seat next to me. As he moves, his hand runs from my shoulder to the back of my neck, always holding tight enough to reassure.
“Don’t use his moves on me,” I warn.
“What’re you—?”
“His moves,” I repeat, pulling away so his hand’s no longer on my neck.
“You think I’m—? You think I’d pull a Manning on you?”
Dreidel was with him for almost four years. I’m going on nine. I don’t even bother to argue. I just stare back down at my overpriced, still-swirling coffee and let the silence sink in. This is why the in crowd turns on him.