Brad Meltzer - The Zero Game

“You making that up…?”

“Two years ago, at a fundraiser, a lobbyist handed me a check for the Senator — I handed it back and said, ‘ Not enough .’ Right to his face.”

I hear her laugh. That one she likes.

“When I finished college, I was such an idealist, I started and quickly dropped out of a graduate theological program. Even Matthew didn’t know that. I wanted to help people, but the God part kept getting in the way…”

From the silence, I know I’ve got her attention. I just have to bring her in. “I helped redraft the bankruptcy law, but since I’m still paying back my Duke loans, I have five different MasterCards,” I tell her. “My most distinctive memory from childhood is catching my dad crying in the boys’ department of Kmart because he couldn’t afford to buy me a three-pack of white Fruit of the Loom undershirts and had to buy the Kmart label instead…” My voice starts to sag. “I spend too much time worrying what other people think of me…”

“Everyone does,” Viv calls back.

“When I was in college, I worked in an ice-cream store, and when customers would snap their fingers to get my attention, I’d break off the bottom of their cone with a flick of my pinky, so when they were a block or two away, their ice cream would drip all over them…”

“Harris…”

“My real name is Harold , in high school they called me Harry , and when I got to college, I changed it to Harris because I thought it’d make me sound more like a leader… Next month — if I still have a job — even though I’m not supposed to, I’ll probably leak the name of the new Supreme Court nominee to the Washington Post just to prove I’m part of the loop… And for the past week, despite my best efforts to ignore it, I’m really feeling the fact that with Matthew and Pasternak gone, after ten years on Capitol Hill, there’s no one… I don’t have any real friends…”

As I say the words, I’m on my knees, cradling my stomach and curling down toward the floor. My head sinks so low, I feel the tips of the rocks press against my forehead. A sharp one digs in just under my hairline, but there’s no pain. There’s no anything. As the realization hits, I’m completely numb — as hollow as I’ve been since the day they unveiled my mom’s headstone. Right next to my dad’s.

“Harris…” Viv calls out.

“I’m sorry, Viv — that’s all I’ve got,” I reply. “Just follow the sound.”

“I’m trying,” she insists. But unlike before, her voice doesn’t boomerang through the room. It’s coming directly from my right. Picking up my head, I trace the noise just as the darkness cracks. Up ahead, the neck of the tunnel blinks into existence with the faint glow of light — like a lighthouse turning on in the midst of an ocean. I have to squint to adjust.

From the depths of the tunnel, the light turns my way, glowing at me.

I look away just long enough to collect my thoughts. By the time I turn back, I’ve got a smile pressed into place. But the way Viv’s light shines directly at me, I know what she sees.

“Harris, I’m really sorry…”

“I’m fine,” I insist.

“I didn’t ask how you were.” Her tone is soft and reassuring. There’s not an ounce of judgment in it.

I look up at her. The light’s glowing from the top of her head.

“What, you ain’t never seen a guardian angel with an Afro before? There’s like, fourteen of us up in Heaven.”

She turns her head so the light no longer blinds me. It’s the first time we make eye contact. I can’t help but grin. “Sweet Mocha…”

“… to the rescue,” she says, completing my thought. Standing over me, she lifts her arms like a bodybuilder, flexing her muscles. It’s not just the pose. Her shoulders are square. Her feet are planted deep. I couldn’t knock her over with a wrecking ball. Forget reserves — the well’s overflowing. “Now who’s ready to get down to Viv-ness?” she asks.

Extending a hand, she offers to pull me up. I’ve never been averse to accepting someone’s help, but as she wiggles her fingers and waits for me to take her up on it, I’m done worrying about every possible consequence. What do I owe her? What does she need? What’s this gonna cost me ? After ten years in Washington, I’ve gotten to the point where I look suspiciously at the supermarket cashier when she offers paper or plastic . On the Hill, an offer for help is always about something else. I look up at Viv’s open hand. Not anymore.

Without hesitation, I reach upward. Viv grabs my hand in her own and gives me a hard tug to get me back on my feet. It’s exactly what I needed.

“I’ll never tell anyone, Harris.”

“I didn’t think you would.”

She thinks about it for a moment.

“Did you really do that thing with the ice-cream cones?”

“Only to the real jerk-offs.”

“So… uh… hypothetically, if I was working at some unnamed burger place, and some woman with a bad fake tan and some trendy haircut she saw in Cosmo came in and ripped my head off, telling me I’d be working there for the rest of my life — just because her food was taking too long — if I went in the back and theoretically hocked a back-of-the-throat loogie into her Diet Coke, then mixed it in with a bendy straw, would that make me a bad person?”

“Hypothetically? I’d say you get points for the bendy straw, but it’s still pretty darn gross.”

“Yeah,” she says proudly. “It was.” Looking at me, she adds, “Nobody’s perfect, Harris. Even if everyone else thinks you are.”

I nod, continuing to hold her hand. There’s only one light between us, but as long as we stay together, it’s more than enough. “So you ready to see what they’re digging for down here?” I ask.

“Do I have a choice?”

“You always have a choice.”

As she shoves her shoulders back, there’s a new confidence in her silhouette. Not from what she did for me — what she did for herself. She looks out toward the tunnel on my left, her mine light carving through the dark. “Just hurry up before I change my mind.”

I plow forward along the rocks, deeper into the cavern. “Thank you, Viv — I mean it… thanks.”

“Yeah, yeah, and more yeah.”

“I’m serious,” I add. “You won’t regret it.”

Kicking through the gravel of the Homestead mine’s parking lot, Janos counted two motorcycles and a total of seventeen cars, most of them pickup trucks. Chevrolet… Ford… Chevrolet… GMC… All of them American-made. Janos shook his head. He understood the allegiance to a car, but not to a country. If the Germans bought the rights to build the Shelby Series One and moved the factory to Munich, the car would still be the car. A work of art.

Stuffing his hands in the pockets of his jean jacket and taking another hard glance at the trucks in the lot, he slowly sifted through the details: mud-covered wheel wells… dented rear quarter panels… beat-up front clips. Even on the trucks that were in the best shape, stripped wheel nuts betrayed the wear and tear. Out of the whole lot, only two trucks looked like they had ever met a car wash: the Explorer that Janos drove… and the jet black Suburban parked in the far corner.

Janos slowly made his way toward the truck. South Dakota plates like everyone else’s. But from what he could tell, the locals didn’t buy their trucks in black. The beating from the sun was always too much of a paint risk. Executive cars, however, were an entirely different story. The President always rode in black. So did the VP and the Secret Service. And sometimes, if they were big enough names, so did a few Senators. And their staffs.