Brad Meltzer - The Tenth Justice

“That’s impossible,” Ben said, his voice rising in panic.

“I’m telling you,” the woman said, “I checked our entire personnel database. No one named Rick Fagen ever worked at the Supreme Court.”

BEN DARTED UP THE STAIRS, THEN SPRINTED full speed back to his office. He ran toward the farthest file cabinet and pulled it away from the wall. Rick Fagen’s signature wasn’t there. “Damn!” he yelled, punching a huge dent into the cabinet. “How could I be so stupid?” Turning around, Ben noticed the giant bouquet of red, yellow, and purple flowers on his desk. He pulled the card from the oversized wicker basket and opened the miniature envelope. “Thanks for all your help,” he read. “Sincerely, Rick.” Ben’s stomach dropped. He felt like he was going to vomit. When the room started to spin, he put his head down on his desk. I’m in serious trouble, he thought. What the hell am I going to do?

Eventually catching his breath, Ben pushed aside the basket of flowers, picked up his phone, and called Nathan. “It’s me,” he said.

“Are you okay?” Nathan asked. “You sound like you’re out of breath.”

“Can you meet me at home?”

“It’s not even ten o’clock.”

“Nathan, please, can you meet me at home? It’s important.”

“Of course.” Nathan sounded confused. “I’ll leave right now, but what’s going on?”

“I’ll tell you when I see you,” Ben said, and hung up.

Ben wrote a quick note for Lisa, grabbed his briefcase, and headed for the door. As he left the building, he saw Lisa walking up the steps of the Court. “Where’re you going?” she asked.

“I’m having bad stomach cramps,” Ben said. His face was ashen. “Can you tell Hollis I had to go home sick?”

“Of course. Are you okay?”

“I just need to go home.”

When Ben entered the house, he walked straight up to his room, sat on the bed, and tried his best to relax. He slowed his breathing. He imagined a walk in a quiet forest. He thought about the silence of scuba diving. Keep calm, he told himself. It’s okay. Worse things can happen. Cancer. The plague. Death. Unable to sit still, he paced inside the little room. Over and over he repeated the sequence of events. “Damn!” he finally said aloud. “How could I have been so stupid?” Moving back to the bed, he again tried to relax. It was no use. He wondered what he should do. Should he go to Hollis? If he did, he’d be fired on the spot. No, there had to be a better way out. As his mind played through the different alternatives, he kept coming back to the same conclusion: The first step was finding the person who caused this disaster. Ben knew he had to find Rick. His thoughts were interrupted when a car pulled into the driveway.

“Ben!” Nathan yelled from downstairs.

“I’m up here,” Ben called.

Nathan dashed up the stairs two at a time and charged into Ben’s room. “What happened?”

Ben sat on the bed, his head in his hands. “I totally blew it,” he said.

“What? Tell me.”

Ben raced through the story. “And I think this guy Rick might’ve leaked the info to Maxwell.”

Nathan stared out the window. “You don’t know that,” he said. Speaking calmly and slowly, he explained, “There’s no reason to believe the worst.”

Looking up at his friend, Ben recognized Nathan’s consoling-but-lying voice. “Nathan, I know Rick did it. No one risks millions on a guess like that. He even sent me flowers to say thank you. He set me up and I fell for it completely. It was easy for him. All he had to do was some quick research and make a call to the Court once the new clerks started. The justices aren’t there; we’re wet behind the ears. It’s simple.”

“I don’t understand.” Nathan leaned on the windowsill. “You never asked Hollis about Rick?”

“No way,” Ben said. “I didn’t want Hollis knowing I was getting advice from the outside. Lisa and I have to look as smooth as possible.” Ben’s gaze dropped to the floor. “FUCK!” he yelled, pounding the bed. “That was so damn stupid of me!”

“There’s nothing you can do about it,” Nathan said, trying his best to comfort his friend. “Maybe we can try to find Rick. Do you have his phone number?”

“I already checked it. Disconnected. But I do have his address.”

“You really don’t have to come,” Ben said as he opened the door to Nathan’s old maroon Volvo.

“You make me take off work, and then you want to dump me while you go check out this guy’s house?” Nathan asked. “Forget about it.”

“It’s not that I’m trying to leave you out of anything-”

“I know,” Nathan said. “And I’m not here because I’m afraid of being left out. I’m here because I want to help you.”

“I appreciate it,” Ben said as Nathan pulled out of the driveway. “I just didn’t want to get you involved with my problems.”

Nathan drove up Seventeenth Street, and pulled into a parking spot a few blocks from the address. “Let’s walk up.”

Ben looked up at the dark clouds. “Do you have an umbrella? It’s about to pour.”

“There should be one under your seat,” Nathan said.

Located near the city’s business district, 1780 Rhode Island was a building displaced in time. Designed in the late 1970s, it was bilious green, eight stories tall, and had tinted, full-story glass windows. A sore thumb on any architectural hand. After pushing open the heavy glass doors, Ben and Nathan walked into the lobby and approached the doorman, who was sitting at a slightly rusted metal desk in the otherwise renovated surroundings.

“Can I help you?” the doorman asked.

“I’m here to see my brother, Rick Fagen,” Ben said. “He’s in apartment three seventeen.”

The doorman stared at the two friends for a few seconds. Eventually he said, “Follow me.” Ben and Nathan glanced at each other, hesitating for a moment. But when Nathan nodded approval to Ben, they fell into step behind the doorman. Leading them up a small set of steps and past the building’s only elevator, the doorman turned down a long hallway that ran along the right side of the building. He stopped at a room marked PRIVATE and opened the door, leading them inside. “Take a seat,” the doorman said, pointing to two worn leather sofas in the waiting area. Nathan and Ben obliged, and the doorman walked through another door, which looked like it led to an office.

“You think this’ll work?” Nathan asked.

“Can’t hurt to try,” said Ben.

Nathan looked around the empty waiting area, paneled in fake knotty pine. “This place has Mafia written all over it,” Nathan whispered.

“What are you talking about?”

“It does,” Nathan said. “It smells musty like my cousin Lou’s house. We should get out of here.”

“You can go,” Ben whispered. “I’m staying.”

“This was a bad idea,” Nathan said. “For all we know, Rick could be in that room.”

Before Ben could respond, the doorman and a small man with a mustache stepped out of the office. “I’m the manager. Can I help you?”

“Hi, I’m Rick Fagen’s brother,” Ben said, extending a hand to the manager. “He told us to meet him here.”

The manager ignored Ben’s extended hand, and examined Ben and Nathan. Putting his hands in the pockets of his slacks, he smirked. “If you’re his brother, how come you didn’t know he moved out of here two weeks ago? Listen, people like their privacy here. If you think you’re going to fool us, you’ll have to make up a better line of bullshit than saying you’re his brother. Now, unless you’re cops, get the fuck out of here.”

The doorman opened the door, and roughly escorted Ben and Nathan outside. “I think that was pretty successful,” Nathan said as the glass door closed behind them. Standing under the building’s awning, Ben stared out into a furious downpour. Opening his umbrella, Nathan said, “Well, at least we won’t get-”