Zero Game - Brad Meltzer [97]
I try to smile, but we both know she’s got a long way to go. Back by the cage, there’s still the big industrial light up by the ceiling. Not for long. That light will be out of her sight any—
“Harris . . . !”
“You can do it, Viv! Pretend you’re in a fun-house!”
“I hate fun-houses! They scare the crap outta me!”
“How about the Tilt-A-Whirl? Everyone likes the Tilt-A-Whirl!”
“Harris, it’s too dark!”
The pep talk’s not working.
“I can barely see . . . !”
“Your eyes’ll adjust!”
“The ceiling—!” she screams. Her voice gets cut off.
I give her a second, but nothing comes back.
“Viv, everything okay?”
No response.
“Viv . . . ? Are you there?!”
Dead silence.
“VIV!" I shout at the top of my lungs, just to make sure she hears it.
Still nothing.
My jaw tightens, the silence sinks in, and for the first time since I left, I start wondering if we’re the only ones down here. If Janos caught a different flight—
“Just keep talking, Harris!” her voice finally rings through the air. She must’ve entered the main stretch of tunnel. Her voice is clearer . . . less of an echo.
“Are you—?”
“Just keep talking!” she shouts, stuttering slightly. Something’s definitely wrong. I tell myself it’s just her fear of being trapped underground, but as the silence once again descends, I can’t help but think it’s something worse. “Tell me about work . . . your parents . . . anything . . .” she begs. Whatever else is going on, she needs something to take her mind off it.
“M-My first day in the Senate,” I begin, “I was riding the metro to work, and as I got on board, there was an ad—I forget what it was for—but the ad said, Reach Beyond Yourself. I remember staring at it the entire—”
“Don’t give me locker room speeches—I saw Rudy!” she shouts. “Tell me something real!”
It’s a simple request, but I’m surprised how long it takes me to come up with an answer.
“Harris . . . !”
“I make breakfast for Senator Stevens every morning!” I blurt. “When we’re in session, I have to pick him up at his house at seven A.M., go inside, and make him Cracklin’ Oat Bran with fresh blueberries . . .”
There’s a short pause.
“You serious?” Viv asks. She’s still wavering, but I hear the laughter in the back of her throat.
I smile to myself. “The man’s so insecure, he makes me walk him to every vote on the Floor, just in case he’s cornered by another Member. And he’s so cheap, he doesn’t even go to dinner anymore without bringing a lobbyist. That way, he doesn’t have to pick up the bill . . .”
After the pause, I hear a single word from Viv: “More . . .”
“Last month, Stevens turned sixty-three . . . We threw four different birthday parties for him—each one a thousand-dollar-a-plate fundraiser—and at each one, we told the invitees it was the only party he was having. We spent fifty-nine thousand on salmon and some birthday cake—we raked in over two hundred grand . . .” I sit up on my knees, shouting into the darkness. “In his office, there’s a homerun baseball from when the Atlanta Braves won the World Series a few years back. It’s even signed by Jimmy Carter—but the Senator was never meant to keep it. They asked him to sign it, and he never gave it back.”
“You making that up . . . ?”
“Two years ago, at a fundraiser, a lobbyist handed me a check for the Senator—I handed it back and said, ‘Not enough.’ Right to his face.”
I hear her laugh. That one she likes.
“When I finished college, I was such an idealist, I started and quickly dropped out of a graduate theological program. Even Matthew didn’t know that. I wanted to help people, but the God part kept getting in the way . . .”
From the silence, I know I’ve got her attention. I just have to bring her in. “I helped redraft the bankruptcy law, but since I’m still paying back my Duke loans, I have five different MasterCards,” I tell her. “My most distinctive memory from childhood is catching my dad crying in the boys’ department of Kmart because he couldn’t afford to buy me a three-pack of white Fruit of the Loom undershirts and had to buy the Kmart label instead . . .” My