Brad Meltzer - The Zero Game

Reaching into the jacket pocket of my suit, I pull out a white letter-sized envelope. Checking it for the seventh time today, I open the flap and stare at the two cashier’s checks inside. One’s for $4,000.00. The other’s for $8,225.00. One from Harris, the other from me. Both are made out to cash. Completely untraceable.

“Right here in front of me,” I say as I seal the letter-sized envelope and slide it into a bigger manila mailer.

“They still haven’t picked it up?” Harris asks. “It’s usually promptly at noon.”

“Don’t stress yourself — they’ll be here…”

There’s a soft, polite cough as the door to our office peeks open. “I’m looking for Matt…?” an African-American page says as he clears his throat and steps inside.

“… any second,” I tell Harris. “Gotta run — business calls.”

I hang up the phone and wave the page inside. “I’m Matthew. C’mon in.”

As the page approaches my desk, it’s the first time I notice he’s wearing a blue suit instead of the standard blazer and gray slacks. This guy isn’t a House page; he’s from the Senate. Even the pages dress nicer over there.

“How’s everything going?” I ask.

“Pretty good. Just tired of all the walking.”

“It’s a real haul from the Senate, huh?”

“They tell me where to go — I got no choice,” he laughs. “Now, you got a package for me?”

“Right here.” I seal the oversized envelope, jot the word Private across the back, and reach across the desk to put it in his hands. Unlike the other page visits, this isn’t a drop-off. It’s a pickup. The day after the bidding, the dungeon-masters expect you to cover your bet.

“So you know where this one’s going?” I ask, always searching for extra info.

“Back to the cloakroom,” he says with a shrug. “They take it from there.”

As he grabs the envelope, I notice a silver ring on his thumb. And another on his pointer finger. I didn’t think they let pages wear jewelry.

“So what’s with the stuffed fox?” he adds, motioning with his chin toward the bookcase.

“It’s a ferret. Courtesy of the NRA.”

“The what ?”

“The NRA — y’know, National Rifle-”

“Yeah, yeah… no, I thought you said something else,” he interrupts, rubbing his hand over his closely buzzed hair. The ring on his pointer finger catches the light perfectly. He smiles with a big, toothy grin.

I smile right back. But it’s not until that moment that I realize I’m about to hand twelve thousand dollars to a complete stranger.

“Be safe now,” he sings as he grabs the package and pivots toward reception.

He disappears through the door. The bet’s officially on. And I’m left staring at the back of someone’s head. It’s not a good feeling, and not just because he’s carrying every dollar I own and all the savings of my best friend. It’s more primal than that — something I feel in the last vertebra of my spine. It’s like closing one eye when you’re looking at a 3-D image in a View-Master viewer — nothing’s necessarily wrong, but it’s also not quite right.

I glance at Dinah, who’s still haggling on the phone. I’ve got another half hour before I have to resume the battle with Trish. Plenty of time for a quick run to the Senate cloakroom to check things out. I hop from my seat and race around my desk. Curiosity was good enough for the cat. Why shouldn’t it be good enough for me?

“Where you going?” Dinah calls out as I rush for the door.

“Lunch. If Trish starts bitching, tell her I won’t be long…”

She gives me the okay sign, and I dart through reception. The page can’t have more than a thirty-second head start.

Darting into the hallway, I turn a quick corner and make a right at the elevators. I spot him about a hundred feet ahead. His arms are swinging at his side. Not a worry in the world. As his shoes tap against the terrazzo floor, I assume he’s headed for the underground tram that’ll take him back to the Capitol. To my surprise, he makes a sharp right and disappears down a short flight of stairs. Keeping my distance, I make the same right and follow the stairs down past a pair of Capitol police officers. On my left, the officers herd arriving staff and visitors through the X-ray and metal detector. Straight ahead, the glass door that leads out to Independence Avenue swings shut. Underground is faster. Why’s he going outside?

But as I shove my way through the door and hop down the outdoor steps, it makes a bit more sense. The sidewalk’s packed with fellow employees who are just now coming back from lunch. The September day is overcast, but the weather’s still warm. If he’s walking the halls all day, maybe he’s just after some fresh air. Besides, there’s more than one way to cut across to the Capitol.

I keep telling myself that as he heads up the block. Five steps later, he reaches into his pants pocket and pulls out a cell phone. Maybe that’s it — reception’s better outside — but as he presses the phone to his ear, he does the oddest thing of all. At the corner of Independence and South Capitol, all he has to do is make a left and cut across the street. Instead, he pauses a moment — and makes a right. Away from the Capitol.

My Adam’s apple swells in my throat. What the hell is going on?

On the corner of Independence and South Capitol, the page turns back to see if anyone’s behind him. I duck behind a group of staffers, once again cursing my height. The page doesn’t even notice. I’m too far back to be seen. By the time I peek up again, he’s long gone. Around the corner.

Racing full speed, I fly up toward the corner, my shoes pounding against the concrete. From here, Independence Avenue rises at a slight incline. It doesn’t even slow me down.

I inch my head around the corner, and the page is halfway down South Capitol. He’s fast. Even though he’s on the phone, he knows where he’s going.

Unsure what to do, I go with my first instinct. Whipping out my own phone, I dial Harris’s number. Nothing but voice mail, which means he’s either on the line or out to lunch. I call back again, hoping his assistant will pick up. He doesn’t.

I try to tell myself it still makes sense. Maybe this is how the dungeon-masters play it — the last transfer gets dropped off campus. There’s gotta be someplace that’s the actual home base. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense. But that doesn’t make the reality pill any easier to swallow. He’s got our money. I want to know where it’s going.

At the end of the block, the page makes a left on C Street and disappears around another corner. I take off after him, carefully angling behind every staffer I can find. Anything to keep myself out of his direct line of sight.

As he turns right on New Jersey Avenue, I’m at least 150 feet behind him. He’s still moving fast, yakking away on his phone. By now, fellow staffers and the congressional office buildings are long gone. We’re in the residential section of Capitol Hill — brick townhouse squeezed next to brick townhouse. I walk on the other side of the pothole-filled street, pretending I’m looking for my parked car. It’s a lame excuse, but if he spins around, at least he won’t see me. The only problem is, the further we go, the more the neighborhood shape-shifts around us.

Within two minutes, the brick townhouses and tree-lined streets give way to chain-link fences and broken bottles scattered across the concrete. An illegally parked car has a yellow metal boot on its front tire. A Jeep across the street has its back window smashed, creating an oval black hole at the center of the shattered glass. It’s the great irony of Capitol Hill — we’re supposed to run the country, but we can’t even keep up the neighborhood.