Brad Meltzer - The Tenth Justice

“I’ll find a new job,” Ober said. “Ben and Nathan said they’d help me look for one.”

“Forget Ben and Nathan. You’re always obsessed with Ben and Nathan. I don’t want to hear about them. For Ben and Nathan, finding a job is simple. Employers love them, their college professors loved them, the high school principal loved them, their kindergarten teachers loved them. For them, finding a job is simple. But you-you’re going to have a harder time.”

“But they said-”

“I don’t care what they said,” she interrupted. “They’re not you. What makes you think they’ll be so eager for a job search?”

“They’re my friends.”

“Big deal, they’re your friends. They don’t know what a job search entails. They’ve never lived in the real world. Looking for a job requires hours and hours of legwork. You remember how hard it was to find the position with Senator Stevens.”

“Yeah, but-”

“But nothing. You said it yourself a few months ago: The three of them are always at work-they don’t have the time to find you a job.”

“Yeah, but Ben helped me find this job. Maybe he can-”

“He can’t do anything for you,” she said. “You have to learn to do things for yourself. They may be your friends, but they’re certainly not your equals. When it comes to finding a job, like everything else in this world, you have to suck it up and do it yourself. Now hang up this phone and think about what I’ve said. I don’t want to hear from you again until you have that job back.”

“I asked you a question,” Nathan said, his breath lingering in the cold air. “Are you going to turn yourself in or not?”

“I’ll get to that,” Ben said. He pointed to the empty spaces on his bench. “How about taking a seat first?”

“I’m fine standing,” Nathan said as Eric sat down.

“Fine. Stand,” Ben said as he glanced over his shoulder.

“What’re you so nervous about?” Nathan asked.

“What do you think?”

“Can you both shut up?” Eric asked. “Stop fighting and relax for a second.” Pointing at Ben, he added, “Talk.”

“Thank you,” Ben said, lowering his voice. “I didn’t want to say this on the phone, but tomorrow morning, I’m turning myself in. Since the decision affects all of us, I wanted to discuss it with you first.”

“I don’t need to discuss it,” Nathan said. “I made my decision the moment I heard about Ober.”

“Good for you,” Ben said. “Eric, any thoughts?”

“It’s your call. I just hope you can handle the consequences.”

“I don’t see what choice I have,” Ben said. “What happened to Ober ripped my heart out. I got him fired; I put the rest of you in jeopardy. I have to end it.”

“That’s real noble of you,” Nathan said. “But I’m warning you, you better end it tomorrow.”

“Or what?” Ben asked defensively. “You’ll do it for me?”

“You’re damn right I will,” Nathan shot back. “And I won’t feel a single bit of guilt doing it. In fact, you’re lucky my boss doesn’t work weekends, or I’d have turned you in today.”

“Why don’t you relax a second?” Eric said.

“Why don’t you shut up?” Nathan said. “No matter how hard you stick up for Ben, he still isn’t going to forgive you completely.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Ben asked.

“What’s wrong with me?” Nathan replied, forcing a laugh. “Let’s see: My friend got fired yesterday; it was all your fault; my job’s on the line; and I don’t trust you or Eric. Other than that, I’m peachy.”

“Listen, you can-”

“No, you listen for once!” Nathan yelled as the wind whistled through the monument. “You have to get over this golden-boy complex. For once in your perfect life, you screwed up. You blew it. You choked. You made a big mistake, and now you have to take responsibility for it. If you were the only one at risk, I’d say do whatever you want. But if you think I’m going to stand around, with my career on the line while you continue your futile hunt for Rick, you’re out of your head. Face facts, Ben-you’re outsmarted. You lost. Give up.”

“Shut the hell up!” Ben flew from the bench and grabbed Nathan by the front of his jacket.

Immediately, Eric pulled the two roommates apart. “Ben, relax a second. Calm down.”

As Eric attempted to keep Ben at bay, Ben yelled at Nathan, “If you’d shut your damn mouth for a second, you’d realize that I didn’t come here to plot against Rick. I came here to talk to my friends.”

Ober walked into the living room and placed a pile of books on the coffee table: four high school yearbooks and one overstuffed scrapbook. Picking up the ninth-grade yearbook first, Ober flipped to his roommates’ class portraits and smiled at the furry block that was Nathan’s hair. When he reached Ben’s picture, he laughed out loud. It had been at least four years since he’d last opened his yearbook and looked at the messy-haired, brace-faced, gawky nerd named Ben Addison. Turning to Eric’s picture, Ober remembered his desire to sleep over at Eric’s house, inspired primarily by the fact that Eric’s brother had the largest collection of pornographic playing cards in the neighborhood.

When he opened the tenth-grade yearbook, Ober again skipped to the class portraits. He remembered the year they got their driver’s licenses. Eric was not only the first to drive, he was also the first to crash-directly into Nathan’s mother’s car as she pulled out of her driveway. Thumbing through the eleventh-grade book, Ober remembered their first college party at Boston University. He laughed as he thought about Ben, who spent the whole night trying to convince the ladies he was “Ben Addison, Professor of Love.”

Opening his personal scrapbook, Ober was proud he had so thoroughly documented his friends’ achievements. He had the articles that appeared in The Boston Globe when Nathan was photographed with the secretary of state and when Ben received his Supreme Court clerkship. He had the first news story Eric wrote for the high school newspaper, as well as his first stories for Washington Life and the Washington Herald. He had the Herald’s first word jumble, as well as Eric’s article about a leak at the Supreme Court. He even had Ben and Lisa’s engagement announcement. Everyone’s famous, he thought, closing the book. They’re all superstars.

“Don’t act like you’re the victim here,” Nathan said, straightening the front of his jacket. “That’s the last thing you should-”

“I never said I was the victim,” Ben retorted, as Eric kept him away from Nathan. “I know I screwed up. I admit it-it’s my fault Ober lost his job. What else can I say?”

“There’s your problem,” Nathan said in a soft and slow voice. “You think you’re only responsible for Ober losing his job. But you have to realize that you’re responsible for much more than that. It’s your fault this whole thing started, Ben. And more important, it’s your fault it’s still going on.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Ben’s voice cracked. “It kills me that I-”

“Oh, so now you feel guilty?”

“I’ve felt guilty since the first day I met with Rick. What else do you want me to say? This thing’s been eating away at me for months.”

“It should be,” Nathan said. “And I hope-”

“We get the picture,” Eric interrupted. “Now can you let up a little?”

“No, I can’t,” Nathan said. “I want to make sure he knows how I feel about this.”

“I know how you feel-” Ben began.

“No, you don’t,” Nathan insisted, his voice growing louder. “If you did, we wouldn’t be fighting right now. Since the day we got those letters from Rick, you knew this might happen. At that moment, you should’ve had the decency to turn yourself in-if not for your own sake, then certainly for ours. The fact that you let it come to this tells me one thing…”