Brad Meltzer - The Inner Circle

“Don’t you wanna see if the book is in our collection?” I call out as I pull out my key to open the lock on the middle drawer of my desk. To my surprise, it’s already open. I think about it a moment, flipping on my computer. With everything going on, I could’ve easily forgotten to lock it last night. But as my mind tumbles back to the front door of my house…

“You do your magic tricks, I’ll do mine,” Tot says as I hear the gnnn of a metal drawer opening. Tot’s cube is a big one, holding a wall of six tall file cabinets, stacks upon stacks of books (mostly about his specialty, Abraham Lincoln), and a wide window that overlooks Pennsylvania Avenue and the Navy Memorial.

My cube is a tiny one, filled with a desk, computer, and a corkboard that’s covered with the best typos we’ve been able to find throughout history, including a 1631 Bible that has the words “Thou shalt commit adultery,” plus the first edition of a Washington Post gossip column from 1915 that was supposed to say President Woodrow Wilson “spent the evening entertaining Mrs. Galt,” a widow who he was courting, but instead said, “the President spent the evening entering Mrs. Galt.” You don’t get this job without having some pack rat in you. But with ten billion pages in our collection, you also don’t get it without being part scavenger.

As my computer boots up, I grab the keyboard, all set to dig. In my pocket, my cell phone starts to ring. I know who it is. Right on time.

“Hey, Mom,” I answer without even having to look. Ever since her heart surgery, I’ve asked my mother to call me every morning-just so I know she’s okay. But as I put the phone to my ear, instead of my mom, I get…

“She’s fine,” my sister Sharon tells me. “Just tired.”

I have two sisters. Sharon’s the older one-and the one who, even when she went to the local community college, never stopped living with my mom. We used to call it Sharon’s weakness. Now it’s our whole family’s strength. She looks like my mom. She sounds like my mom. And these days, she spends most of her life dealing with all the health issues of my mom.

Every two weeks, I send part of my check home. But Sharon’s the one who gives her time.

“Ask her if she’s going to Jumbo’s,” I say, using my mom’s preferred lunch spot as my favorite code. If my mom’s eating lunch there, I know she’s feeling well.

“She is,” Sharon answers. “And she wants to know where you’re going Friday night,” she adds, throwing my mom’s favorite code right back. She doesn’t care where I’m going, or even if I’m going. She wants to know: Do I have a date? and more important, Will I ever get over Iris?

“Will you please tell her I’m fine?” I plead.

“Beecher, how’s your seventy-year-old friend?”

“And you’re the one to talk? Besides, you’ve never even met Tot.”

“I’m sure he’s lovely-but I’m telling you, from experience: If you don’t change the way you’re living, that’s gonna be you one day. Old and lovely and all by yourself. Listen to me on this. Don’t hide in those Archives, Beecher. Live that life.”

“Is this me arguing with you, or arguing with Mom?”

Before she can answer, I glance to my right. There’s a solid red light on my desk phone. Voicemail message.

“I think I got you something, old boy,” Tot calls out from his cubicle.

“Shar, I gotta go. Kiss Mom for me.” As I hang up my cell, I’m already dialing into voicemail, putting in my PIN code.

While waiting for the message to play, I dial up caller ID on the keypad, study the little screen of my phone, and scroll down until I see the name of the person who left the last message.

Williams, Orlando.

My heart stops.

I read it again. Orlando.

My computer blinks awake. Tot yells something in the distance.

“ Message one was received at… 4:58 p.m.… yesterday.”

And in my ear, through the phone, I hear a familiar baritone voice-Orlando’s voice-and the final words of a dead man.

"On a scale of one to ten,” Dr. Palmiotti asked, “would you say the pain is…?”

“It’s a four,” the President said.

“Just a four?”

“It used to be a four. Now it’s an eight,” Wallace said, pacing along the far left side of the doctor’s office and glancing out the wide window with the stunning view of the White House Rose Garden. “Approaching a nine.”

“A nine for what?” his sister Minnie asked, already concerned. The doctor was talking to the President, but it was Minnie, as she stood across from Palmiotti, who was being examined.

She held her right palm wide open as he poked each of her fingers with a sterilized pin, testing to see her reaction. Whenever she missed therapy for too long, sharp pains would recede and feel simply dull. “What’s wrong with him?” she asked, motioning to her brother.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Palmiotti promised.

“If he’s sick…”

“I’m not sick. Just some stupid back problems,” the President insisted. “And a really crappy night’s sleep.”

“Listen to me, I know they won’t say this on the front page of the paper, but you need to hear it, O: I have faith in you. Stewie has faith in you. Your wife and kids have faith in you. And millions of people out there do too. You know that, right?”

The President turned, looking at his sister, absorbing her words.

Palmiotti knew how much Minnie loved her brother. And how much Wallace loved her back. But that didn’t mean it was always best for him to have her around. By now, most of America had heard the story: How Minnie was born with the genetic disease known as Turner syndrome. How it affected only females, leaving them with a missing X chromosome. How 98 percent of people die from Turner syndrome, but Minnie lived-and she lived without any of the heart or kidney or cognitive problems that go along with it. In fact, the only thing that Minnie Wallace got from Turner syndrome was that she was-like a few of its victims-manly.

Broad chest. Low hairline. Short neck. With one X chromosome, she looked like Moe from the Three Stooges. Perez Hilton said if she were one of the Seven Dwarfs, she’d be Stumpy. Or Fatty. Or Dumpy. When it first got posted, the President tried to let it roll off. He issued a statement saying that the comment made him Grumpy. But Palmiotti knew the truth. Nothing hits harder than when someone hits home. For the President… for Minnie… the last time Palmiotti saw pain like that was the night of the accident that caused her stroke.

The worst part was, he saw the makings of a similar pain right now-and from the strained look on the President’s face, despite the little pep talk from his sister, that pain was just starting to swell.

“Minnie, go do your therapy,” Palmiotti ordered.

“I can do it right here. You have the squeeze balls-”

“Mimo, you’re not listening,” the President interrupted. “I need to see my doctor. By myself.”

Minnie cocked her head. She knew that tone. Grabbing her flamingo cane, she started heading for the door.

“Before I go…” she quickly added, “if you could speak at our Caregivers’ Conference-”

“Minnie…”

“Okay. Fine. Gabriel. I’ll talk to Gabriel,” she said. “But just promise me-all these back problems-you’re sure you’re okay?”

“Look at me,” Wallace said, flashing the insta-smile that won him 54 percent of the popular vote. “Look where I live… look at this life… what could I possibly be upset about?”

With her limp, it took Minnie nearly a minute to leave the office.

The President didn’t start speaking until she was gone.