Zero Game - Brad Meltzer [50]
“So which projects are your must-gets?” I ask.
“The sewer system,” he shoots back, barely taking a breath. “If you can do that . . . if we improve drainage . . . that’s the one that wins us the district.”
He’s smarter than I thought. He knows how low his Congressman is on the ladder. If he asks for every toy on the Christmas list, he’ll be lucky if he gets a single one. Better just to focus on the Barbie Dream House.
“Those sewers . . . It really will change the election,” he adds, already pleading.
“So everything else on this list . . .”
“Is all second-tier.”
“What about this gold mine thing?” I ask, teeing up my bluff. “I thought Grayson was really hot for it.”
“Hot for it? He’s never even heard of it. We threw that out for a donor as a pure try-our-best.”
When Matthew told me about the bet, he said exactly the same: Grayson’s office supposedly didn’t care about the mine—which means this guy Perry is either genuinely agreeing or is single-handedly setting the new world record for bullshit.
“Weird . . .” I say, still trying to dig. “I thought Matthew got some calls on it.”
“If he did, it’s only because Wendell Mining lobbied up.”
I write the words Wendell Mining on the sheet of paper. When it comes to the game, I’ve always thought the various votes and different asks were inconsequential—but not if they tell me who else was playing.
“What about the rest of your delegation?” I ask, referring to the South Dakota Senators. “Anyone gonna scream if we kill the mining request?”
He thinks I’m covering my ass before I cut the gold mine loose, but what I really want to know is, who else in Congress has any interest in the project?
“No one,” he says.
“Anyone against it?”
“It’s a dumpy gold mine in a town that’s so small, it doesn’t even have a stoplight. To be honest, I don’t think anyone even knows about it but us.” He tosses me another knee-slapping laugh that curdles in my ear. Three nights ago, someone bid $1,000 for the right to put this gold mine in the bill. Someone else bid five grand. That means there’re at least two people out there who were watching what was going on. But right now, I can’t find a single one of them.
“So how we looking on our sewer system?” Perry asks on the other line.
“I’ll do my best,” I tell him, looking down at my nearly blank sheet of paper. The words Wendell Mining float weightlessly toward the top. But as I grab the paper and reread it for the sixth time, I slowly feel the chessboard expand. Of course. I didn’t even think about it . . .
“You still there?” Perry asks.
“Actually, I gotta run,” I say, already feeling the sharp bite of adrenaline. “I just remembered a call I have to make.”
21
HI, I’M HERE FOR a pickup,” Viv announced as she stepped into room 2406 of the Rayburn Building, home office of Matthew’s former boss, Congressman Nelson Cordell from Arizona.
“Excuse me?” the young man behind the front desk asked with a Native American accent. He wore a denim shirt with a bolo tie that had a silver clasp with the Arizona state seal on it. Viv hadn’t seen it in the offices of the other Arizona Members. Good for Cordell, Viv thought. It was nice to see someone remembering where they were from.
“We got a call for a package pickup,” Viv explained. “This is 2406, right?”
“Yeah,” the young receptionist said, searching his desk for outgoing mail. “But I didn’t call for a page.”
“Well, someone did,” Viv said. “There was a package for the Floor.”
The young man stood up straight, and his bolo tie bounced against his chest. Everyone’s terrified of the boss—just like Harris said.
“You have a phone I can use?” Viv asked.
He pointed to the handset on the wrought-iron southwestern-style end table. “I’ll check in back and see if anyone else called it in.”
“Great . . . thanks,” Viv said as the young man disappeared through a door on the right. The instant he was gone, she picked up the phone and dialed the five-digit extension Harris had given her.
“This is Dinah,” a female voice answered. As Matthew’s office mate and head clerk for the House Appropriations