The Tenth Justice - Brad Meltzer [174]
“What did Osterman say?” Eric asked.
“He was a typical jackass. He gave me a big lecture about the aims and ideals of the Court and how they could never be compromised. I really wanted to reach over and mess up his pathetic comb-over. I don’t know why they brought me to see him. Hollis had already fired me.”
“You should’ve grabbed the comb-over,” Eric said. “What’s the worst thing he could’ve done? Fired you again?”
“I guess,” Ben said, distracted.
“One last question?” Eric said, unable to shake his reporter’s instincts. “How did Burke convince Rick that he was Claremont?”
“After Grinnell, Lisa and I knew that Rick was going to try to get his money back. So we isolated all the cases on the Court’s docket that he could potentially make money on.”
“How many cases were there?” Eric asked, intrigued.
“There were only four involving major dollars.”
“So how’d Burke find Rick?”
“He didn’t,” Ben said. “Rick picks his own partners, so we had to figure out a way to make Rick find Burke. We staked out—”
“You staked out?” Eric asked.
“Actually, the marshals did all of the legwork, but Lisa came up with the idea,” Ben explained. “The Marshals Office watched the top executives at all four corporations—”
“But there are hundreds of executives at each one,” Eric pointed out.
“Not when you’re only looking at the ones with criminal records,” Ben said. “We figured that if Rick was going to look at a hundred executives and pick one, he’d probably go for the one who was most likely to break the law.”
“So they watched every executive until Rick made his move?” Eric asked.
“Better,” Ben said. “The marshals replaced every executive until Rick made his move. Burke stood in for Richard Claremont, American Steel’s executive vice president of marketing, who was previously convicted of tax evasion.”
“How many executives did they replace?”
“They couldn’t afford to do everyone,” Ben explained. “Especially if they wanted to keep it quiet. So we picked the twenty most likely candidates and we waited.”
“Wasn’t the real Claremont’s life disrupted?”
“All they did was take over his phone line. The real Claremont didn’t even change offices. The only difference was that his calls were routed to Burke. If it was a real client, he passed the call back to Claremont. If it was Rick, he kept it.”
“And you weren’t sure any of this was going on?” Eric asked.
“We didn’t know a thing,” Ben said, distracted by the throbbing pain that ran down his arm. “Lisa and I gave DeRosa the plan and the list of corporate suspects, but we never knew if it was implemented. I didn’t know how it played out until the car ride over here.”
“Unreal,” Eric said, leaning back on the couch. Noticing the vacant look on Ben’s face, he asked, “Are you okay?”
“I’m just feeling a little out of it. Between the pain and the medication…”
“You look like hell. Maybe you should get some sleep.”
“I feel like hell,” Ben said, rising from the couch.
“Cheer up. You had a huge victory today.”
Ben slowly made his way to the stairs. “Doesn’t feel like it.”
Eric pulled his notepad from his back pocket. “Ben, can I ask you one last favor? I don’t mean to be inconsiderate or obnoxious, but would you care if I wrote the story on this?” He looked at his watch and added, “I can probably make page one if I hurry.”
“Eric, go fuck yourself,” Ben said, climbing the stairs. “And you can quote me on that.”
Epilogue
TWO WEEKS LATER, ON SATURDAY NIGHT, BEN walked into Lisa’s building. “Nice to see you,” the doorman said enthusiastically.
“You, too,” Ben said, trying not to make eye contact.
“Nice job with that whole thing,” the doorman added. “You’ve become quite the celebrity.”
“Thanks,” Ben said, stepping inside a waiting elevator. Getting out at the fourth floor, Ben