Zero Game (4 page)

Wedging my thumb under the flap of the envelope, I give it a sharp jab and tear it open. Inside, as usual, the notice is the same: a single sheet of paper with the royal blue letterhead of the CAG, the Coalition Against Gambling. The letterhead’s an obvious joke, but it’s the first reminder that this is purely for fun. Underneath, the letter begins,
Here are some upcoming issues we’d like to focus on . . .
Just below that is a numbered list of fifteen items that range from:

(3) Convince both Kentucky Senators to vote against Hesselbach’s dairy compact bill
to:

(12) Within the next seven days, replace Congressman Edward Berganza’s suit jacket with a tuxedo jacket.

As usual, I go straight to the last item on the list. All the rest are bullshit—a way to throw people off in case a stranger gets his hands on it—but the last one on there . . . that’s the one that actually counts.

As I read the words, my mouth tips open. I don’t believe it.

“Everything alright?” Trish asks.

When I don’t answer, all three of them turn my way. “Matthew, you still breathing over there?” she repeats.

“Y-Yeah . . . no . . . of course,” I say with a laugh. “Just another note from Cordell.”

My three colleagues instantly leap back to their verbal fistfight. I look down at the letter. And for the third time, I reread the words and try to contain my grin.

(15) Insert Congressman Richard Grayson’s land sale project into the Interior House Appropriations bill.

An earmark. A single Interior earmark. I can actually feel the blood rushing to my cheeks. This isn’t just any issue. It’s
my
issue.

For once in my life, I can’t lose.

3

S
O WHAT DO YOU THINK?
” I ask as I rush into Harris’s office on the fourth floor of the Russell Senate Office Building. With its arched windows and tall ceilings, it’s nicer than the best office on the House side. The two branches of government are supposed to be equal. Welcome to the Senate.

“You tell me,” Harris says, looking up from some paperwork. “Think you can really put the land sale into the bill?”

“Harris, it’s what I do every day. We’re talking a tiny ask for a project no one would ever possibly look at. Even Congressman Grayson, who made the original request, couldn’t care less about it.”

“Unless he’s playing the game.”

I roll my eyes. “Will you please stop with that?” Since the day he invited me in, it’s been Harris’s most recurring wet dream: that it’s not just staff playing the game—it’s the Members playing as well.

“It’s possible,” he insists.

“Actually, it’s not. If you’re a Member of Congress, you’re not risking your credibility and entire political career for a few hundred bucks and a chess match.”

“Are you joking? These guys get blow jobs in the bathroom of the Capitol Grille. I mean, when they go out for drinks, they have lobbyists trolling the bar and picking out girls so they can leave the place unescorted. You think a few of them wouldn’t get in on the action? Think for a second, Matthew. Even Pete Rose bet on baseball.”

“I don’t care. Grayson’s project isn’t a four-star priority that reaches the Member level—it’s grunt work. And since it’s in my jurisdiction, it’s not getting in there unless I see it. I promise you, Harris—I already checked it out. We’re talking a teeny piece of land in the middle of South Dakota. Land rights belong to Uncle Sam; mineral rights below used to be owned by some long- defunct mining company.”

“It’s a coal mine?”

“This ain’t Pennsylvania, bro. Out in South Dakota, they dig for gold—or at least they used to. The company had been digging the Homestead mine since 1876—true gold rush days. Over time, they applied for a patent to buy the land, but when they sucked out every last drop, the company went bankrupt and the land stayed with the government, which is still dealing with the environmental problems of shutting one of these suckers down. Anyway, a few years back, a company called Wendell Mining decides it can find more gold using newer technologies, so they buy the old company’s claims out of bankruptcy, contact the Bureau of Land Management, and arrange to buy the land.”

“Since when do we sell government land to private companies?”

“How do you think we settled the West, Kimosabe? Most of the time, we even gave it away for free. The problem here is, even though BLM has approved the sale, the Interior Department has them so buried in red tape, it’ll take years to finalize unless they get a friendly congressional push.”

“So Wendell Mining donated some money to local Congressman Grayson and asked him for a bump to the front of the line,” Harris says.

“That’s how it works.”

“And we’re sure about the land? I mean, we’re not selling some nature preserve to some big company who wants to put a mall and a petting zoo on it, are we?”

“Suddenly you’re back to being an idealist?”

“I never left, Matthew.”

He believes what he’s saying. He’s always believed it. Growing up outside Gibsonia, Pennsylvania, Harris wasn’t just the first in his family to go to college—he was the first in his whole town. As silly as it sounds, he came to Washington to change the world. The problem is, a decade later, the world changed him. As a result, he’s the worst kind of cynic—the kind who doesn’t know he’s a cynic.

“If it makes you feel better, I vetted it last year and revetted it months ago,” I tell him. “The gold mine’s abandoned. This town’s dying for Wendell Mining to take over. The town gets jobs, the company gets gold, and most important, once Wendell steps in, the company’s responsible for the hardest part, which is the environmental cleanup. Win, win, win, all around.”

Harris falls silent, picking up the tennis racket that he usually keeps leaning on the side of his desk. I’ve seen the town where Harris grew up. He’d never call himself poor. But I would. Needless to say, they don’t play tennis in Gibsonia. That’s a rich man’s game—but the day Harris got to D.C., he made it his own. To no one’s surprise, he was a complete natural. It’s the same reason he was able to run the Marine Corps Marathon even though he barely trained. Mind over matter. He’s almost there right now.

“So it all checks out?” he asks.

“Every last detail,” I say as my voice picks up speed. “No lie.”

For the first time since I entered his office, I see the quiet, charismatic grin in Harris’s eyes. He knows we’ve got a winner here. A huge winner if we play it smart.

“Okay . . .” Harris says, bouncing the tennis racket against the palm of his hand. “How much you got in your bank account?”

4

A
T EXACTLY 9:35
the following morning, I’m sitting alone at my desk, wondering why my delivery’s late. On C-SPAN, a rabbi from Aventura, Florida, says a short prayer as everyone on the Speaker’s rostrum bows his head. When he’s done, the gavel bangs and the camera pulls out. On the stenographers’ table, the two water glasses are back. Anyone on the Floor could’ve moved them. They’re out there all day long. On my phone, I’ve got seven messages from lobbyists, fourteen from staff, and two from Members—all dying to know if we’ve funded their project. Everything’s back to normal—or as normal as a day like this gets.

I pick up the phone and dial the five-digit extension for our receptionist out front. “Roxanne, if there’re any packages that come in—”

“I heard you the first thirty-four times,” she moans. “I’ll send ’em right back. What’re you waiting for anyway, pregnancy results?”

I don’t bother to answer. “Just make sure—”

“Thirty-
five!
That’s officially thirty-five times,” she interrupts. “Don’t worry, sweetie—I won’t let you down.”

Ten minutes later, she’s good to her word. The door from reception opens, and a young female page sticks her head in. “I’m looking for—”

“That’s me,” I blurt.

Stepping into the room with her blue blazer and gray slacks, she hands me the sealed manila envelope—and checks out the office.

“That’s not real, is it?” she asks, pointing to the stuffed ferret on a nearby bookcase.

“Thank the NRA lobbyists,” I tell her. “Isn’t it far more practical than sending flowers like everyone else?”

With a laugh, she heads for the door. I look down at the envelope. Yesterday was spent dealing the cards. Today it’s time to ante up.

Ripping open the flap, I turn the envelope upside down and shake. Two dozen squares of paper rain down on my desk.
Taxi Receipt,
it reads in thick black letters across the top of each one. I shuffle the pile into a neat stack and make sure every one of them is blank. So far, so good.

Grabbing a pen, I eye the section marked
Cab Number
and quickly scribble the number
727
into the blank. Cab 727. That’s my ID. After that, I put a single check mark in the top right-hand corner of the receipt. There’s the ante: twenty-five dollars if you want to play. I don’t just want to play, though. I want to win, which is why I start with a serious bet. In the blank marked
Fare,
I write
$10.00.
To the untrained eye, it’s not much. But to those of us playing, well . . . that’s why we add a zero. One dollar is ten dollars; five dollars is actually fifty. That’s why they call it the Zero Game. In this case, ten bucks is a solid Benjamin Franklin—the opening bid in the auction.

Reaching into my top drawer, I pull out a fresh manila envelope, open the flap, and sweep the taxicab receipts inside. Time for some interoffice mail. On the front of the envelope, I write
Harris Sandler—427 Russell Bldg.
Next to the address, I add the word
Private,
just to be safe. Of course, even if Harris’s assistant opens it—even if the Speaker of the House opens it—I’m not dropping a bead of sweat. I see a hundred-dollar bet. Anyone else sees a ten-dollar taxi receipt—nothing to look twice at.

Stepping into our reception area, I toss the envelope into the rusty metal basket we use as an Out box. Roxanne does most of our interoffice stuff herself. “Roxanne, can you make sure to take this out in the next batch?”

She nods as I turn back to my desk. Just another day.

“Is it there yet?” I ask twenty minutes later.

“Already gone,” Harris answers. From the crackle in his voice, he’s got me on speakerphone. I swear, he’s not afraid of anything.

“You left it blank, right?” I ask.

“No, I ignored everything we discussed. Good-bye, Matthew. Call me when you have news.”

As he’s about to hang up, I hear a click in the background. Harris’s door opening. “Courier’s here,” his assistant calls out.

With a slam, Harris is gone. And so are the taxi receipts. From me to my mentor, from Harris to his. Leaning back in my black vinyl rolling chair, I can’t help but wonder who it is. Harris has been on the Hill since the day he graduated. If he’s an expert at anything, it’s making friends and connections. That narrows the list to a tidy few thousand. But if he’s using a courier, he’s going off campus. I stare out the window at a perfect view of the Capitol dome. The playing field expands before my eyes. Former staffers are everywhere in this town. Law firms . . . PR boutiques . . . and most of all . . .

My phone rings, and I check the digital screen for caller ID.

. . . lobbying shops.

“Hi, Barry,” I say as I pick up the receiver.

“You’re still standing?” he asks. “I heard you guys were negotiating till ten last night.”

“It’s that time of year,” I tell him, wondering where he got the info. No one saw us leave last night. But that’s Barry. No sight, but somehow he sees it all. “So what can I help you with?”

“Tickets, tickets, and more tickets. This Sunday—Redskins home opener. Wanna see ’em get trounced from insanely overpriced seats? I got the recording industry’s private box. Me, you, Harris—we’ll have ourselves a little reunion.”

Barry hates football, and he can’t see a single play, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t like the private catering and the butler that come with those seats. Plus, it gives Barry the temporary upper hand in his ongoing race with Harris. Neither will admit it, but it’s the unspoken game they’ve always played. And while Barry may get us the skybox, come game day, Harris will somehow find the best seat in it. It’s classic Capitol Hill—too many student government presidents in one place.

“Actually, that sounds great. Did you tell Harris?”

“Already done.” The answer doesn’t surprise me. Barry’s closer to Harris—he always calls him first. But that doesn’t mean the reverse is true. In fact, when Harris needs a lobbyist, he sidesteps Barry and goes directly to the man on top.

“So how’s Pasternak treating you?” I ask, referring to Barry’s boss.

“How do you think I got the tickets?” Barry teases. It’s not much of a joke. Especially to Barry. As the firm’s hungriest associate, he’s been trying to leap out from the pack for years, which is why he’s always asking Harris to throw him a Milk-Bone. Last year, when Harris’s boss changed his stance on telecom deregulation, Barry even asked if he could be the one to bring the news to the telecom companies. “Nothing personal,” Harris had said, “but Pasternak gets it first.” In politics, like the mob, the best presents have to start up top.

“God bless him, though,” Barry adds about his boss. “The guy’s an old master.” There’s no arguing with that. As the founding partner of Pasternak & Associates, Bud Pasternak is respected, connected, and truly one of the kindest guys on Capitol Hill. He’s also Harris’s first boss—back from the days when Harris was running the pen-signing machine—and the person who gave Harris his first big break: an early draft of a speech for the Senator’s reelection bid. From there, Harris never touched the auto-pen again.

I study the arched windows on the side of the Capitol. Pasternak invited Harris; Harris invited me. It’s gotta be, right?

I chat with Barry for another fifteen minutes to see if I hear a courier arrive in the background. His office is only a few blocks away. The courier never comes.

An hour and a half later, there’s another knock on my door. The instant I see the blue blazer and gray slacks, I’m out of my seat.

“I take it you’re Matthew,” a page with black hair and an awkward underbite says.

“You got it,” I say as he hands me the envelope.

As I rip it open, I take a quick survey of my three office mates, who are sitting at their respective desks. Roy and Connor are on my left. Dinah’s on my right. All three of them are over forty years old—both men have professorship beards; Dinah’s got an unapologetic fanny pack with the Smithsonian logo on it—professional staffers hired for their budget expertise.

Congressmen come and go. So do Democrats and Republicans. But these three stay forever. It’s the same on all the Appropriations subcommittees. With all the different power shifts, no matter which party’s in charge, someone has to know how to run the government. It’s one of the few examples of nonpartisan trust in the entire Capitol. Naturally, my boss hates it. So when he took over the subcommittee, he put me in this position to look out for his best interests and keep an eye on them. But as I open my unmarked envelope, they’re the ones who should be watching me.

Dumping the contents on my desk, I spot the expected pile of taxi receipts. This time, though, while most of the receipts are still blank, one’s filled in. The handwriting’s clearly male: tiny chicken scratch that doesn’t lean left or right. The fare’s listed at fifty bucks. Unreal. One round and we’re already up to five hundred dollars. Fine by me.

Harris calls it the Congressional Pissing Contest. I call it Name That Tune. All across the Capitol, House and Senate pages deliver blank taxicab receipts to people around the Hill. We all put in our bids and pass them up to whoever invited us into the game, who then passes them to their sponsor, and so on. We’ve never figured out how far it goes, but we do know it’s not a single straight line—that’d take too long. Instead, it’s broken up into branches. I start our branch and pass it to Harris. Somewhere else, another player starts his branch. There could be four branches; there could be forty. But at some point, the various bets make their way back to the dungeon-masters, who collect, coalesce, and start the process again.

Last round, I bid one hundred dollars. Right now, the top bid is five hundred. I’m about to increase it. In the end, whoever bids the most “buys” the right to make the issue their own. Highest bidder has to make the proposition happen, whether it’s getting 110 votes on the baseball bill or inserting a tiny land project into Interior Approps. Everyone else who antes in tries to make sure it doesn’t happen. If you pull it off, you get the entire pot, including every dollar that’s been put in (minus a small percentage to the dungeon-masters, of course). If you fail, the money gets split among everyone who was working against you.

I study the cab number on the five-hundred-dollar receipt:
326.
Doesn’t tell me squat. But whoever 326 is, they clearly think they’ve got the inside track. They’re wrong.

Staring down at a blank receipt, I’ve got my pen poised. Next to
Cab Number,
I write the number
727.
Next to
Fare,
I put
$60.00.
Six hundred now, plus the $125.00 I put in before. If the bet gets too high, I can always drop out by leaving the dollar amount blank. But this isn’t the time to fold. It’s time to win. Stuffing all the receipts into a new envelope, I seal it up, address it to Harris, and walk it out front. Interoffice mail won’t take long.

It’s not until one-thirty that the next envelope hits my desk. The receipt I’m looking for has the same chicken scratch as before. Cab number 326. The fare is
$100.00.
One thousand even. That’s what happens when the entire bet is centered on an issue that can be decided with a single well-placed phone call. Everyone in this place thinks they’ve got the jags to get it done. And they may. But for once, we’ve got more.

I close my eyes and work the math in my head. If I go too fast, I’ll scare 326 off. Better to go slow and drag him along. With a flourish, I fill in a fare of
$150.00.
Fifteenhundred. And still counting.

By a quarter after three, my stomach’s rumbling and I’m starting to get cranky—but I still don’t go to lunch. Instead, I gnaw through the last handfuls of Grape-Nuts that Roy keeps hidden in his desk. The cereal doesn’t last long. I still don’t move. We’re too close to gift-wrapping this up. According to Harris, no bet’s ever gone for more than nineteen hundred bucks—and that was only because they got to mess with Teddy Kennedy.

“Matthew Mercer?” a page with cropped blond hair asks from the door. I wave the kid inside.

“You’re popular today,” Dinah says as she hangs up her phone.

“Blame the Senate,” I tell her. “We’re battling over language, and Trish not only doesn’t trust faxes, but she won’t put it on E-mail because she’s worried it’s too easy to forward to the lobbyists.”

“She’s right,” Dinah says. “Smart girl.”

Turning my chair just enough so Dinah can’t see, I open the envelope and peer inside. I swear, I feel my testicles tighten. I don’t believe it. It’s not the amount, which is now up to three thousand dollars. It’s the brand-new cab number: 189. The handwriting is squat and blocky. There’s another player in the game. And he’s clearly not afraid to spend some cash.

My phone screams, and I practically leap from my chair. Caller ID says it’s Harris.

“How we doing?” he asks as soon as I pick up.

“Not bad, though the language still isn’t there yet.”

“You got someone in the room?” he asks.

“Absolutely,” I say, keeping my back to Dinah. “And a new section I’ve never seen before.”

“Another player? What’s the number?”

“One-eighty-nine.”

“That’s the guy who won yesterday—with the baseball bill.”

“You sure?”

It’s a dumb question. Harris lives and breathes this stuff. He doesn’t get it wrong.

“Think we should worry?” I ask.

“Not if you can deliver.”

“Oh, I’ll deliver,” I insist.

“Then don’t stress. If anything, I’m happy,” Harris adds. “With two bidders out there, the pot’s that much bigger. And if he won yesterday, he’s cocky and careless. That’s the perfect time to swipe his pants.”

Nodding to myself, I hang up the phone and stare down at the cab receipt with the block writing.

“Everything okay?” Dinah asks from her desk.

Scribbling as fast as I can, I up the bet to four thousand dollars and slide the receipt into the envelope. “Yeah,” I say as I head for the metal Out box up front. “Just perfect.”

The envelope comes back within an hour, and I ask the page to wait so he can take it directly to Harris. Roxanne’s done enough interoffice delivery service. Better to mix it up so she doesn’t get suspicious. Clawing my way into the envelope, I search for the signal that we’ve got the top bid. Instead, I find another receipt. Cab number 189. Fare of five hundred dollars.
Five grand—plus everything else we already put in.