The Tenth Justice - Brad Meltzer [132]
Ben stared at the receptionist until she picked up her phone. “I have a Mr. Ben Addison to see you, sir. Justice Hollis asked that the message be delivered in person.” The receptionist paused. “Yes, he is quite serious about it.” Listening for another minute, the receptionist hung up the receiver and pushed a small button that unlocked the glass doors to the offices. “You may go in, Mr. Addison. He’s in the far right corner.”
Following the hallway, Ben tried to act as calm as possible. As he reached for the handle to DeRosa’s door, the door flew open. “This better be damned good,” DeRosa said, blocking the entrance to his office. Short and squat, Alex DeRosa was known for both his ruthless intellect and his lack of patience. With his sleeves rolled up to reveal thick, hairy forearms, DeRosa pointed to the single chair that was in front of his desk. “Sit.”
Military awards decorated DeRosa’s office: framed medals, ribbons, commendations, and diplomas from the Naval Academy and Columbia Law School. On the right wall of the office were photographs of DeRosa with two past presidents.
“So tell me this top-secret message,” DeRosa barked, sitting down behind his desk.
“This is a matter of great importance, but it’s not from Justice Hollis—” Ben began.
“Then what the—?” DeRosa asked, rising from his seat. “Get your ass out of here! I’m going to call Hollis personally and make sure that you—”
Ben stood as DeRosa rounded his desk. “No one knows this, but a clerk’s been leaking information from inside the Court!” he blurted. “Charles Maxwell knew about the CMI merger before it came down!”
DeRosa stopped in his tracks and narrowed his eyes. “Sit.” Ben sat. “Now start from the beginning. Who’s the clerk?”
Ben paused. “I am.”
“I’m still listening,” DeRosa said.
“A few weeks into the fall term, a guy named Rick Fagen, who said he was one of Hollis’s former clerks, called the office to help ease us into the position. Lots of old clerks do the same thing. It’s hard getting started there and—”
“I know how it works,” DeRosa interrupted.
“Anyway, thinking Rick was an old clerk, I was talking to him one day, and he asked me the outcome of the CMI case. I told him I couldn’t tell him, but he promised he’d keep it secret. He knew all about the ethics code we signed, and he had helped us for over a month with all our Court stuff.” Sensing DeRosa’s impatience, Ben continued, “So I casually told him the outcome of the CMI case. A few days later, Maxwell bet on a legal victory. When I tried to find Rick, he’d disappeared. His number was disconnected; his apartment was abandoned. When I tried to track him down, I found out that Rick Fagen was never a Supreme Court clerk. And for the past four months, he’s been trying to get another decision out of me.”
Still standing, DeRosa scratched his chin. “Have you given him anything else?”
“Last month, I purposely gave him the wrong outcome to the Grinnell case. But that was just to piss him off.”
DeRosa snickered.
“It got him off my back for a while. But I’m sure he’s going to approach me again.”
Silent as he thought about Ben’s predicament, DeRosa finally said, “So you violated the foremost rule of our highest Court, and now you want me to save your ass? Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t have you taken into custody and charged with judicial interference?”
Ben looked straight at DeRosa. “I can help you get Rick.”
DeRosa walked to his chair and sat down. “Keep talking.”
Two hours later, Ben returned to the Court. “What happened? Did you do it? How’d it go?” Lisa asked before Ben was even through the door.
“I did it. I told them.”
As Ben sat in his chair, Lisa sat on the corner of his desk. “What’d they say? Tell me already!”
“Calm down, I will,” Ben said, his voice sedate.
“Don’t tell me to calm down. Tell me what happened.”
“I think it went okay. He wanted—”
“Who’s ‘he’? DeRosa?