Brad Meltzer - The Zero Game

“Taxi!” Viv and I shout simultaneously as one slows down.

We both slide inside, locking our respective doors. Back by the Capitol, Janos is nowhere in sight. For now. “I think we’re okay,” I say, ducking down in my seat and searching the crowds.

Next to me, Viv doesn’t bother to look outside. She’s too busy glaring directly at me. Her brown eyes burn — part of it’s fear, but now… part of it’s anger.

“You lied…” she finally says.

“Viv, before you-”

“I’m not a moron, y’know,” she adds, still catching her breath. “Now what the hell is going on?”

Riding the escalator down to the lower floors of the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History, I keep my eyes on the crowds and my hands on Viv’s shoulders. It’s still the best way to keep her calm. She’s one step down but twice as nervous. After what happened in the Capitol, she doesn’t trust anyone — including me — which is why she jerks her shoulder and shoos me away.

Without a doubt, the museum’s not the ideal place to change her mind, but it is enough of a public place to make it an unlikely spot for Janos to start hunting. As we continue our descent, Viv’s gaze flits around the room, searching the face of every person she can find. I’m guessing it’s nothing new. She said she was one of two black girls in an otherwise white school. In the Senate, she’s the only black page they’ve got. No doubt, she’s an outsider on a daily basis. But never like this. Unfolding the museum map I got from the info desk, I block us from the crowd. If we want to blend in as tourists, we have to play the part.

“Want some ice cream?” I ask as we step off the escalator and spot the old-fashioned ice-cream parlor along the wall.

Viv hammers me with a look I usually see only on the press corps. “Do I look thirteen to you?”

She’s got every right to be pissed. She signed up to do a simple favor. Instead, she spent the past half hour running for her life. For that reason alone, she needs to know what’s really going on.

“I never meant for it to happen like this,” I begin.

“Really?” she asks. She presses her lips together and pierces me with a scowl.

“Viv, when you said you would help…”

“You shouldn’t have let me! I had no idea what I was getting into!”

There’s no arguing with that. “I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I never thought they’d-”

“I don’t want your apologies, Harris. Just tell me why Matthew was killed.”

I wasn’t sure she knew what it was about. It’s not the first time I underestimated her.

As we walk through an exhibit labeled A Material World , we’re surrounded by glass cases that track America’s manufacturing process. The first case is filled with timber, bricks, slate, and cowhide; the last case features the bright colored plastic of a Rubik’s Cube and a PacMan machine. “This is progress,” a nearby tour guide announces. I look at Viv. Time to make some progress here, too.

It takes me almost fifteen minutes to tell her the truth. About Matthew… and Pasternak… and even about my attempt to go to the Deputy Attorney General. Amazingly, she doesn’t show a hint of reaction — that is, until I tell her what set all the dominos tumbling. The game… and the bet.

Her mouth drops open, and she puts both hands on her head. She’s primed to explode.

“You were betting?” she asks.

“I know it sounds nuts…”

“That’s what you were doing? Gambling on Congress?”

“I swear, it was just a stupid game.”

“ Candyland ’s a stupid game! Mad Libs is a stupid game! This was real!”

“It was just on the small issues — nothing that ever mattered…”

“It all matters!”

“Viv, please…” I beg, looking around as a few tourists stop and stare.

She lowers her voice, but the anger’s still there. “How could you do that? You told us we should-” She cuts herself off as her voice cracks. “That entire speech you gave… Everything you said was crap.”

Right there, I realize I’ve been reading her wrong. It’s not anger in her voice. It’s disappointment — and as her shoulders sag even lower than usual, it’s already bleeding into sadness. I’ve been on the Hill for a decade, but Viv’s barely been here a month. It took me three years of getting backstabbed to get the look she’s wearing right now. Her eyes sag with a brand new weight. No matter when it happens, idealism always dies hard.

“That’s it — I’m out,” she announces, shoving me aside and rushing past me.

“Where’re you going?”

“To deliver some Senator’s mail… and gossip with friends… and check on our running tally of Senators with bad hair and no rear end — there’re more than you think.”

“Viv, wait,” I call out, chasing after her. I put a hand on her shoulder, and she tries to yank herself free. I hold tight, but unlike before, it doesn’t calm her down.

“Get. Off !” she shouts. With one final shove, she slaps me away. She’s not a small girl. I forget how strong she is.

“Viv, don’t be stupid…” I call out as she storms through the exhibit.

“I’ve already been stupid — you’re my quota for the month!”

“Just wait…”

She doesn’t slow down. Marching through the main section of the exhibit hall, she cuts in front of a couple trying to get their photo taken with Archie Bunker’s chair.

“Viv, please…” I beg, quickly racing after her. “You can’t do this.”

She stops at the ultimatum. “What’d you say?”

“You’re not listening-”

“Don’t you ever tell me what to do.”

“But I-”

“Didn’t you hear what I said?!”

“Viv, they’ll kill you.”

Her finger’s frozen in midair. “What?”

“They’ll kill you. They’ll snap your neck and make it look like you tripped down some stairs. Just like they did with Matthew.” She’s silent as I say the words. “You know I’m right. Now that Janos knows who you are — you saw what he’s like; he doesn’t care if you’re seventeen or seventy. You think he’s just gonna let you go back to refilling Senators’ water glasses?”

She tries to respond, but nothing comes out. Her brow unfurrows, and her hands start to shake. Like before, she starts to pick anxiously at the back of her ID. “I–I need to make a call,” she insists, rushing for the pay phone in the ice cream parlor. I’m a step behind her. She won’t say it, but I see the way she’s clutching her ID. She wants Mom.

“Viv, don’t call her…”

“This isn’t about you, Harris.”

She thinks I’m only looking out for myself. She’s wrong. The guilt’s been swirling through my gut since the moment I first asked her for that one little favor. I was terrified it’d come to this.

“I wish I could take it back… I really do,” I tell her. “But if you’re not careful-”

“I was careful! Remember, I’m not the one who caused this!”

“Please, just stop for a minute,” I beg as she once again takes off. “Janos is probably drilling through your life right now.”

“Maybe he’s not. Ever think of that?”

She’s getting too riled. It breaks my heart to do this, but it’s the only way to keep her safe. As she’s about the enter the ice-cream store, I cut in front of her. “Viv, you make that call and you’re putting your whole family at risk.”

“You don’t know that!”

“I don’t? Out of thirty pages, you’re the only five-foot-ten black girl. He’ll find your name in two seconds. That’s what he does. Now, I know you hate me right now — and you should — but please… just listen… If you go in there and call your parents, that’s two more people Janos has to clean up to make this mess go away.”