Zero Game (11 page)

18

H
EADING UP THE
fourth-floor hallway as the door slammed behind her, Viv told herself not to look back. However her nametag had gotten there, all she needed was to see the desperate look on Harris’s face to know where this was headed. When she first saw him speak to the pages, he’d glided through the room so smoothly, she was tempted to look at his feet to see if they touched the ground. Even today, she still wasn’t sure of the answer. And it wasn’t just because of his charm. At her church in Michigan, she’d seen plenty of charm. But Harris had something more.

Of the four speakers who welcomed the pages during orientation, two gave warnings, one gave advice . . . and Harris . . . Harris gave them a challenge. Not just as pages, but as people. As he’d said, it was the first rule of politics: Don’t count even the smallest person out. When the words left his lips, the entire room sat up straight. Yet today, what she just saw in that room—today, the man who had the balls to give that speech—that man was long gone. Today, Harris was shaken . . . on edge . . . Without a doubt, his confidence was broken. Whatever had hit him, it’d clearly cracked him in the sternum.

Picking up her pace, Viv rushed toward the elevator. It didn’t take a lifetime in politics to see the hurricane coming, and right now, the last thing she needed was to step inside the whirlwind.
Not your problem,
she told herself.
Just keep going.
But as she pressed the call button for the elevator, she couldn’t help it. With a sharp pivot, she took a fast glance at Harris’s door. Still shut. No surprise. From the ashen look on his face, he wouldn’t be coming out for a bit.

A hushed rumble broke the silence, and the door to the elevator slid open, revealing the elevator operator—a dark-skinned black woman with cobwebs of gray hair at her temples. From her wooden stool in the elevator, she looked up at Viv and lifted an eyebrow at her height.

“Momma fed you the good stuff, huh?” the operator asked.

“Yeah . . . I guess . . .”

Without another word, the operator raised her newspaper in front of her face. Viv was used to it by now. From high school to here, it was never easy fitting in.

“Home base?” the operator asked from behind the paper.

“Sure,” Viv answered with a shrug.

The operator turned away from her paper, studying Viv’s reaction. “Crappy day, huh?”

“More like a weird one.”

“Look at the good side: Today we got taco salad bar at lunch,” the operator said, turning back to her paper as the elevator lurched downward.

Viv nodded a thank-you, but it went unnoticed.

Without looking back, the operator added, “Don’t sulk, sweetie—your face’ll stick and all that.”

“I’m not . . . I—” Viv cut herself off. If she’d learned anything in the past few weeks, it was the benefit of staying quiet. It was the one thing her family always tried to teach—from her dad’s work in the military to her mom’s job in the dental practice, she knew the value of keeping her mouth shut and ears open. Indeed, it was one of the reasons Viv got the job in the first place. A year ago, as her mom was hunched over the dental chair, a patient in a pinstriped suit was having his wisdom teeth taken out ASAP. If she hadn’t been listening to the mumbled small talk, she’d never have heard that the patient was Senator Kalo from Michigan—one of the oldest proponents of the page program. Four impacted teeth later, the Senator walked out with Viv’s name in his suit pocket. That was all it took to change her life: one kind favor from a stranger.

Leaning against the back railing of the elevator, Viv read the newspaper over the elevator operator’s shoulder. Another Supreme Court Justice was stepping down. The President’s daughter was once again in trouble. But none of it seemed important. On the floor, the rest of the newspaper was tucked below the wooden stool. The Metro section was on top. Viv’s eyes went right to the headline:
Hit-and-Run Driver’s Identity Released
. Below the headline was the photo Harris just showed her. The young black man with the soft smile. Toolie Williams. Viv couldn’t take her eyes off him. For some reason, her nametag was found near a dead man. Even the very best reason couldn’t be good.

“Can I borrow this a sec?” she asked as she bent down and grabbed the paper from under the stool. Her eyes narrowed as she pulled it close. The photo blurred into a forest of gray dots. With a blink, it snapped back—and Toolie Williams was once again staring straight at her. Her thoughts rolled back to the Senator. That was all it took to change her life. One kind favor from a stranger.

“Here you go,” the elevator operator announced as the elevator bucked to a halt and the door creaked open. “Second floor . . .”

From the moment Viv lowered her head to duck past the Senator from Illinois and his leering glare, she could hear her mother’s insistent scolding in the back of her brain.
Stand up for yourself. Always stand up for yourself.
That was part of the reason Momma had wanted her to come to Capitol Hill. But right now, as Viv looked down at the grainy photo in the newspaper, she realized Mom only had part of the picture. It’s not just about standing up for yourself—it’s also about standing up for those who need it.

“This your stop or not?” the operator asked.

“Actually, I forgot something upstairs,” Viv replied.

“You’re the boss lady. Fourth floor it is—up, up, and away . . .”

Squeezing outside the elevator the moment the door opened, Viv rushed up the hallway, hoping she wasn’t too late. Her oversized suit jacket fanned out behind her as she ran. If she missed him now . . . No. She didn’t want to think it. Stay positive. Stay positive.

“Sorry . . . coming through . . .” she called out, cutting between two male staffers, each carrying a redwell accordion file.

“Slow down,” the taller of them warned.

Typical, Viv thought. Everyone likes to boss around the pages. Instinctively she slowed her pace to a calm walk—but within two steps, she looked back at the two men. They were just staffers. Sure, she was a page, but . . . they were just staffers. Picking up speed, she started to run. It felt even better than she thought.

At the end of the hall, she stopped short, made sure the hallway was empty, and knocked on the door.

“It’s me!” she called out.

No answer.

“Harris, it’s Viv. You in there?”

Again, no reply. She tried the doorknob. It didn’t budge. Locked.

“Harris, it’s an emergency . . . !”

There was a click. The doorknob turned, and the heavy door flew open. Harris stuck his head out, cautiously checking the hallway.

“You okay?” he finally asked.

Wiping her palm against her pant leg, Viv reasked herself the question. If she wanted to walk away, this was her chance. She could feel her ID dangling from her neck. She never reached for it. Not once. Instead, she stared Harris straight in the eye.

“I . . . uh . . . I just . . . you still need help with that pickup?”

Harris tried to hide his grin, but even he wasn’t good enough to pull it off. “It’s not gonna be as easy as you think. Are you sure you can—?”

“Harris, I’m one of two black girls in an all-white school, and I’m the dark-skinned one. One year, they broke into my locker and wrote
nigger
across the back of my gym shirt. How much harder can it get? Now tell me where to go before I get all skeezed out and change my mind.”

19

S
TARING AT THE
sheet of paper taped to the side of the cloakroom’s stainless steel refrigerator, Viv followed her pointer finger up the alphabetical list of Senators. Ross . . . Reissman . . . Reed. Behind her, out on the Senate Floor, Senator Reed from Florida was delivering yet another speech on the importance of the rent-to-own industry. For Reed, it was the perfect way to get his pro-business ratings up. For Viv, it was the perfect moment to bring the long-winded speaker some water. Whether he wanted it or not.

Scanning the water chart one last time, she read through the three columns:
Ice,
No Ice,
and
Saratoga Seltzer.
Viv still saw it as one of the Senate’s best perks of power. They didn’t just know how you liked your coffee. They knew how you liked your water. According to the chart, Reed was a no-ice guy.
Figures,
Viv thought.

Anxious to get moving, she pulled a bottle of water from the fridge, poured it into a chilled glass, and made her way out to the Senate Floor. Senator Reed hadn’t asked for any water, nor did he raise his hand to summon a page. But Viv was all too aware of how security in the page program worked. Indeed, with so many seventeen-year-olds working alongside grown staffers, the program made sure that every page was always accounted for. If Viv wanted to disappear for an hour or so, the best way was to pretend it was work-related.

As Viv placed the water next to the Senator’s lectern, the Senator, as usual, ignored her. Smiling to herself, she still leaned in close—just long enough to make it look real—as if she were getting directions. Spinning around with newfound purpose, Viv marched back to the cloakroom and headed straight for the head of the page program’s desk.

“Reed just asked me to run an errand,” she announced to Blutter, who was, as usual, dealing with another call. Flipping through the locator sheet on the desk, Viv signed herself out. Under
Destination,
she wrote
Rayburn
—the farthest building in the Capitol complex where Senate page deliveries were still allowed. That alone bought her at least an hour. And an hour was all it would take.

Within five minutes, Viv pushed open the burled-walnut door of the House cloakroom. “Here for a pickup,” she had told the security guard. He buzzed her right in. As she stepped into the cloakroom, she was smacked in the face with the steamy smell of hot dogs. Further up on her left, she followed the smell to the small crush of Members and staff crowded in front of a tiny lunch counter, the source of the hot dog smell. Forget cigars and other backroom clichés—on the House side of the Capitol, this was the real cloakroom whiff. And in that one sniff, Viv saw the subtle but inescapable difference: Senators got catered ice preferences; House Members fought for their own hot dogs. The Millionaire Club versus the House of the People. One nation, under God.

“Can I help you?” a female voice asked as she made her way out to the House Floor.

Turning around, she saw a petite young woman with frizzy blond hair sitting behind a dark wood desk.

“I’m looking for the page supervisor,” Viv explained.

“I prefer the term
sovereign,
” the woman quipped just seriously enough to leave Viv wondering if it was a joke. Before she could comment, the phone on the woman’s desk rang, and she pounced for the receiver. “Cloakroom,” she announced. “Yep . . . room number? . . . I’ll send one right now . . .” Waving a single finger in the air, she signaled the pages who sat on the mahogany benches near her desk. A second later, a seventeen-year-old Hispanic boy in gray slacks and a navy sport coat hopped out of his seat.

“Ready to run, A.J.?” the woman asked as the boy gave Viv the once-over. Seeing her suit, he added an almost unnoticeable sneer. Suit instead of sport coat. Even at the page level, it was House versus Senate. “Pickup in Rayburn B-351-C,” the woman added.

“Again?” the page moaned. “Haven’t these people ever heard of E-mail?”

Ignoring the complaint, the woman turned back to Viv. “Now what can I help you with?” she asked.

“I work over in the Senate—”

“Clearly,” the woman said.

“Yeah, well . . . we . . . uh . . . we were wondering if you guys keep track of your page deliveries. We have a Senator who got a package last week and swears he gave the page another envelope on the way out—but naturally, since he’s a Senator, he has no idea if the page was House or Senate. We all look alike, y’know.”

The woman smiled at the joke, and Viv breathed a sigh of relief. She was finally in.

“All we keep is the current stuff,” the woman said, motioning to the sign-out sheet. “Everything else goes in the trash.”

“So you don’t have anything before . . .”

“Today. That’s it. I trash it every night. To be honest, it’s only there to keep track of you guys. If one of you disappears—well, you know what happens when you let seventeen-year-olds run around with a room-full of Congressmen . . .” Tilting her head back, the woman snorted loudly through her nose.

Viv was dead silent.

“Relax, honey—just some page humor.”

“Yeah,” Viv said, forcing a strained grin. “Listen, uh . . . can I make some copies of these? At least that way we show him something.”

“Help yourself,” the woman with the frizzy hair said. “Whatever makes your life easy . . .”

20

S
TUCK IN THE STORAGE
room and waiting for Viv, I hold the receiver to my ear as I dial the number.

“Congressman Grayson’s office,” a young man with a flat South Dakota accent eventually answers. Gotta give Grayson points for that. Whenever a constituent calls, the receptionist is the first voice they hear. For that reason alone, smart Congressmen make sure their front office people always have the right accent.

Looking past the stack of chairs in the storage room, I grip the receiver and give the receptionist just enough of a pause to make him think I’m busy. “Hi, I’m looking for your Appropriations person,” I finally say. “Somehow, I think I misplaced his info.”

“And who should I say is calling?”

I’m tempted to use Matthew’s name, but the news probably already traveled. Still, I stick to the fear factor. “I’m calling from Interior Approps. I need to—”

Cutting me off, he puts me on hold. A few seconds later, he’s back.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “His assistant says he just stepped out for a moment.”

It’s an obvious lie. At this level, House staffers don’t have assistants. Regardless, I shouldn’t be surprised. If I’m calling through the main line, it’s not a call worth taking.

“Tell him I’m from the Chairman’s office and that this is about Congressman Grayson’s request . . .”

Again I’m on hold. Again he’s back in seconds.

“Hold on one moment, sir. I’m transferring you to Perry . . .”

First rule of politics: Everyone’s afraid.

“This is Perry,” a scratchy but gruff voice answers.

“Hey, Perry, I’m calling from Interior Approps—filling in on Matthew’s issues after what—”

“Yeah, no . . . I heard. Really sorry about that. Matthew was a sweetheart.”

He says the word
was
, and I close my eyes. It still hits like a sock full of quarters.

“So what can I do for you?” Perry asks.

I think back to the original bet. Whatever Matthew saw that day . . . the reason he and Pasternak were killed . . . it started with this. A gold mine sale in South Dakota that needed to be slipped into the bill. Grayson’s office made the initial request. I don’t have much information beyond that. This guy can give me more. “Actually, we’re just reexamining all the different requests,” I explain. “When Matthew—with Matthew gone, we want to make sure we know everyone’s priorities.”

“Of course, of course . . . happy to help.” He’s a staffer for a low-level Member and thinks I can throw him a few projects. Right there, the gruffness in his voice evaporates.

“Okay,” I begin, staring down at my blank sheet of paper. “I’m looking at your original request list, and obviously, I know you’re not shocked to hear you can’t have everything on it . . .”

“Of course, of course . . .” he says for the second time, chuckling. I can practically hear him slapping his knee. I don’t know how Matthew dealt with it.

“So which projects are your must-gets?” I ask.

“The sewer system,” he shoots back, barely taking a breath. “If you can do that . . . if we improve drainage . . . that’s the one that wins us the district.”

He’s smarter than I thought. He knows how low his Congressman is on the ladder. If he asks for every toy on the Christmas list, he’ll be lucky if he gets a single one. Better just to focus on the Barbie Dream House.

“Those sewers . . . It really will change the election,” he adds, already pleading.

“So everything else on this list . . .”

“Is all second-tier.”

“What about this gold mine thing?” I ask, teeing up my bluff. “I thought Grayson was really hot for it.”

“Hot for it? He’s never even heard of it. We threw that out for a donor as a pure try-our-best.”

When Matthew told me about the bet, he said exactly the same: Grayson’s office supposedly didn’t care about the mine—which means this guy Perry is either genuinely agreeing or is single-handedly setting the new world record for bullshit.

“Weird . . .” I say, still trying to dig. “I thought Matthew got some calls on it.”

“If he did, it’s only because Wendell Mining lobbied up.”

I write the words
Wendell Mining
on the sheet of paper. When it comes to the game, I’ve always thought the various votes and different asks were inconsequential—but not if they tell me who else was playing.

“What about the rest of your delegation?” I ask, referring to the South Dakota Senators. “Anyone gonna scream if we kill the mining request?”

He thinks I’m covering my ass before I cut the gold mine loose, but what I really want to know is, who else in Congress has any interest in the project?

“No one,” he says.

“Anyone against it?”

“It’s a dumpy gold mine in a town that’s so small, it doesn’t even have a stoplight. To be honest, I don’t think anyone even knows about it but us.” He tosses me another knee-slapping laugh that curdles in my ear. Three nights ago, someone bid $1,000 for the right to put this gold mine in the bill. Someone else bid five grand. That means there’re at least two people out there who were watching what was going on. But right now, I can’t find a single one of them.

“So how we looking on our sewer system?” Perry asks on the other line.

“I’ll do my best,” I tell him, looking down at my nearly blank sheet of paper. The words
Wendell Mining
float weightlessly toward the top. But as I grab the paper and reread it for the sixth time, I slowly feel the chessboard expand. Of course. I didn’t even think about it . . .

“You still there?” Perry asks.

“Actually, I gotta run,” I say, already feeling the sharp bite of adrenaline. “I just remembered a call I have to make.”