The Tenth Justice (41 page)

“Hi, I’m looking for an Alvy Singer.”

“This is Alvy,” Ben said hesitantly, remembering the fake name from his P.O. box.

“Hey, Alvy. This is Scott over at Mailboxes and Things. I wanted to let you know that your payment is once again overdue on your second P.O. box, and we need a payment as soon as possible or we’ll have to turn it over to a collection agency.”

Ben realized that Scott was talking about the box that Rick had opened. “I’m real sorry about that,” Ben said. “It just slipped my mind. When do I have to make the payment?”

“All it says here is that they want it by the end of the month,” Scott explained. “And if I can give you a piece of advice, I’d make it as soon as possible. If the owner doesn’t get her payments, she’ll confiscate the mail that comes in for you. It’s not my policy, but that’s the way it works.”

“You know that’s against the law,” Ben said matter-of-factly.

“It doesn’t matter what it is—that’s her policy. In fact, she wanted me to tell you that you’re not getting your package until you pay your bill.”

“What package?”

“Oh, I’m sorry—I thought you knew. We have a package here for you. That’s probably why she had me call.”

“Can you see what the postmark says?” Ben asked nervously. “I want to know if it’s anything important.”

“Sure. Hold on a second.”

Ben turned to Lisa. “You won’t believe this one.”

“Alvy, are you there?” Scott asked.

“I’m here,” Ben said.

“It’s postmarked a few days ago, but it probably came in yesterday.”

“Thanks for the help,” Ben said. “I’ll be in to pay the balance by the afternoon.”

“You got it. We’ll have your package waiting behind the counter.”

Ben hung up the phone and headed straight for the door.

“What’s wrong?” Lisa asked. “Where are you going?”

“There’s a package waiting in my P.O. box.”

“So what? That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Of course it does,” Ben said. “Rick’s the only one who communicates that way.”

“Big deal. The marshals have it covered.”

“I don’t know about that,” Ben said, his hand on the doorknob. “The package has a postmark from a few days ago. The marshals may not’ve put everything in motion until today.”

“I’m sure they—”

“I wouldn’t be sure of anything,” Ben shot back as he opened the door. “If Rick started before we did, we’re in serious trouble.”

Twenty minutes later, Ben returned to the office holding a small manila envelope. Before he could say a word, he noticed the disturbed look on Lisa’s face. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Dennis Fisk from the Marshals Office was just up here. He said he wanted to speak to you as soon as you got back.”

“Did he say anything else?” Ben asked, throwing the envelope on his desk.

“He asked me why Eric was in our office the day
Grinnell
was announced.”

“I don’t believe this,” Ben said as he picked up his phone. “Could more things go wrong today?” Furiously dialing their number, he waited for the receptionist to answer. “Hi, this is Ben Addison. I want to speak to Carl Lungen.”

Moments later, Lungen picked up. “Hi, Ben. Long time no speak. How was your New Year?”

“Let me tell you something,” Ben said, enraged. “If you suspect me of something, I expect you to have the decency to tell it to my face. Don’t send Fisk up here to scare me. I passed your damn lie detector test and answered every one of your questions.”

“First, why don’t you take a deep breath and calm down,” Lungen said.

“I don’t want to calm down. I want to know what this is all about.”

“Fisk wasn’t trying to scare you. He was just passing along a message.”

“I have voice mail. I assume you’ve grasped the function of a phone.”

“Listen, Ben, I think we’ve been more than fair with you since this whole thing started.”

“What
thing
?” Ben interrupted. “You’re always talking about some
thing
, but you can never exactly say what this mysterious
thing
is.”

“Let me put it to you this way,” Lungen said. “Three weeks ago, you swore to us that you and Eric weren’t speaking. A couple days after that, Eric was in the Court and in your office. Not only that, but he also used Nathan’s name to get in here. Now, do you want me to tell you what I think, or do you want to finally tell me the truth?”

“You got me,” Ben said. “You figured it all out. Eric and I are friends again. Alert the local militia.”

“This isn’t a joke.”

“You’re damn right it’s not a joke,” Ben interrupted. “It’s my life you’re playing with. For the past two weeks you’ve obviously been racking your brains trying to come up with my crime. But let me tell you, it’s not against the law to make up with your roommate. So until you can actually prove something, I’d appreciate it if you just stayed the hell away from me.”

“Tell me why Eric was in the Court that day.”

“He’s the reporter who’s assigned to the Court! What do you think he was doing here?”

“Why did he use Nathan’s name?”

“To be honest, because I told him that if you guys found out we’d made up, you’d be all over our asses. What a surprise—I was right.”

“That still doesn’t—”

“Listen, I’m done with this conversation. No matter what I say, you’re still going to suspect me. I’ve done nothing wrong, and I have nothing to hide. If you don’t believe that, I’m sorry. But if you’re committed to interfering with my life, you’d better get proof or go away. Because I swear, if this doesn’t stop, I’ll slap your office with a workplace harassment suit faster than you can say, ‘Forced retirement and bye-bye pension.’ Now if you don’t mind, I have to go do some work. I hope I won’t hear from you soon.” Before Lungen could respond, Ben slammed down the phone. When he noticed Lisa staring at him, Ben asked, “What?”

“Nothing,” she said. “I’m just admiring your ambassadorial abilities—always calm and level-headed; never once losing your temper.”

“What the hell was I supposed to do?”

“Take it easy,” Lisa said. “Forget about the marshals. They don’t have anything on you.”

“Of course they don’t. If they did, I’d be out of here by now.” Ben grabbed the manila envelope from his desk and threw it to Lisa. “Now, back to the original crisis.”

Dumping the envelope’s contents on her desk, Lisa saw a miniature cassette tape and a small stack of photocopies. She picked up the copies and looked at the first page, which resembled the first page of a bankbook. There was a single entry for $150,000, and the words “City of Bern” were in fine print at the bottom of the page.

“As far as I can tell, it’s a Swiss bankbook,” Ben said.

“Is this Rick’s account?”

“In truth, it is,” Ben explained. “But take a look at the last page.”

Lisa reached the final page in the stack, titled “Registration of Account,” and saw that the account holder’s name was Ben Addison.

“I know,” Ben said, noticing Lisa’s distressed reaction. “He took out all the vital information like the bank’s name and the account number, but he made damn sure we saw my name in there.”

“November seventeenth?” Lisa looked at the date of the first and only deposit. “What happened then?”

“I wanted to check that,” Ben said, grabbing his desktop calendar. He flipped back toward November. “It’s what I thought. That’s the day the
CMI
decision came down.”

“Any idea what’s on the cassette?” Lisa asked, putting down the papers.

“None,” Ben said. He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out his Dictaphone. “But I bet it’s not
James Taylor’s Greatest Hits
.” Ben put the tape in the small recorder.

“What’s happening with the CMI merger? Doesn’t that come down next week?”

“Actually, it probably won’t come down for another few weeks. Blake and Osterman asked for more time to write their opinions. You know how it is—merger cases always wind up confusing everyone. It takes forever to sort through all the regulatory nonsense.”

“So who wins?”

“It was actually pretty amazing. When the justices were voting in Conference, it was five to four against CMI. At the last minute—”

“Shit,” Ben said, stopping the tape. “He taped the whole conversation.”

“Was that when you first told him the decision?”

“No, it was when we were exchanging recipes. Of course it was the time.”

“Don’t—”

“Damn!” Ben said, slamming his desk with his fist. “How could I be so stupid?”

“Listen, there’s no way you could’ve known,” Lisa said. “You thought Rick was a friend.”

“But if I never said anything—”

“You probably wouldn’t be in this mess. You’re right—you wouldn’t. We’ve been through this before. The point is, for the first time you’re finally in a position to get out of it.”

“I don’t even know if that’s true anymore. What if the marshals didn’t set everything up in time?”

“I’m sure they did,” Lisa said. “I’m sure they started working on it the moment you left DeRosa’s office.”

“I hope so,” Ben said, staring at the small tape player on his desk. He looked up at Lisa. “You have to admire the way Rick set it up, though. Before today, the only thing at risk was my job. All he could prove was that I broke the Court’s Ethics Code. But by combining the tape with the bankbook, Rick’s created a whole new reality: Now it looks like I was paid for the information. He’s
created proof
that I was paid. That’s more than an ethics violation. Accepting a bribe as a public official is a federal offense.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Lisa said, walking over to Ben’s desk. She opened his Dictaphone and pulled out the tape. “We’ll send this to DeRosa just to be safe.”

“Do you think DeRosa would ever believe it happened that way?” Ben asked. “That he’d see this and think I really took a bribe?”

“Not anymore,” Lisa said, dropping the tape in an envelope. “By going in and being honest about it, you’ve preempted that conclusion. Mailing him this just seals the deal.” As Ben wrote a quick note to DeRosa, Lisa asked, “Do you think DeRosa is listening to us talk right now?”

“No way,” Ben said. “He’d only bug us if he thought I was lying. And if he thought I was lying, there’s no way I’d still be working at the Court. They can’t risk another breach like that. This is the one place we can actually feel safe.”

Lisa went to her desk, picked up the copies of the bankbook pages, and handed them to Ben. He inserted the copies in the envelope. “So what do we do now?” Lisa asked.

“We sit here and hope Rick calls.”

“Oh, he’ll definitely call,” Lisa said. “Mark my words. He’s going to make sure you got his package of incriminating evidence, and then he’s going to blackmail you. My guess is he’ll threaten to distribute the tape and the bankbook unless you give him a new decision.”

“I never thought I’d say this, but I hope he does.”

At six-thirty that evening, Ben returned to the office. “Anyone call for me?”

“Not yet,” Lisa said. “How are you holding up?”

“I’m okay,” Ben said. “Antsy, but okay. By the way, in case you were wondering, I flipped through the U.S. Code and confirmed that accepting a bribe usually carries a sentence of five to fifteen years.”

“Great,” Lisa said wryly. “Any other vital bits of—”

Ben’s phone rang. When he didn’t grab it, she said, “What are you waiting for? Pick it up.”

“Should I—”

“Pick it up!”

Hesitantly, Ben lifted the receiver. “Hello, this is Ben.”

“Hey, Ben. It’s Adrian Alcott calling.” Before Alcott even identified himself, Ben had recognized the voice of Wayne & Portnoy’s most persistent recruiter.

“It’s not Rick, is it?” Lisa asked.

“I should be so lucky,” Ben whispered, covering up the mouthpiece of the phone.

“So how is everything in the ol’ Court?” Alcott asked.

“It’s fine. We’re super-busy.”

“I’m sure you are,” Alcott said. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay there. Last time we spoke, we got cut off abruptly.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Ben said. “We had to get something directly to Hollis, so I had to run.”

“No apology necessary,” Alcott said. “I mean, who’s more important, me or a Supreme Court justice?” When Ben didn’t respond, Alcott added, “By the way, the reason I’m calling is that I wanted to tell you that we’re going to be there in three weeks. We’re arguing for the respondent in
Mirsky
.”

“That’s great,” Ben said, struggling to act surprised even though Alcott had told him the news on three previous occasions.

“It looks like it’s going to be a hard one, too,” Alcott said. “After Osterman’s majority in
Cooper
, no one’s had any luck with Sixth Amendment cases up there.”

“No comment,” Ben said coldly. “You know I can’t talk to you about pending cases.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Alcott said. “I apologize. I didn’t mean to—”

“No apology necessary,” Ben said. “It’s just one of the perks of working here.”

“Well, I hope you’ll let us show you the perks of working here,” Alcott said, sounding proud of his transition. “It’s not the Supreme Court, but we do okay for ourselves. Speaking of which, the other reason I called was to set up another lunch meeting. We haven’t seen you in a while.”

“I’d love to. But can I get back to you in a week or two? I’ve got so much on my plate right now, I’m afraid I’d be a terrible guest.”

“Definitely,” Alcott said. “You take care of whatever you need to. I’ll give you a call in the next few weeks.”

“That’d be much better,” Ben said, doodling a picture of a gun pointed at the head of a man in a suit. “Hopefully, things’ll be calmer by then.”

When Ben hung up the phone, Lisa asked, “Wayne and Portnoy?”

“You got it.”

“Let me guess—they’re hoping to stick their head farther up your butt, and they want to give you another ten grand to do it?”

“They just want to take me to lunch,” Ben said as he added another gun to his doodle.

“Hey, cheer up,” Lisa said. “You should be happy that prestigious firms are still interested in you. There are worse things in life.”

“You mean like having a psychopath dangling your biggest fuckup in front of the whole world?”