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.“Let me call my office,” Trish finally says.“There’s a telephone in the meeting room,” I say, pointing her and Georgia next door.As the side door slams behind them, Ezra packs up his own notebooks.“Think they’ll go for it?” he asks.“Depends how bad she wants her sewer, right?”Ezra nods, and I turn back to the black-and-white Yosemite photo on the wall.Following my eyes, Ezra does the same.We stare silently at it for at least thirty seconds.“I don’t get it,” Ezra finally blurts.“Get what?”“Ansel Adams—the whole über-photographer thing.I mean, all the guy did was take some black-and-white photos of the outdoors.Why the big fuss?”“It’s not just the photo,” I explain.“It’s the idea.” With my open palm facing the photo, I circle the entire snowcapped peak.“Just the mere image of a completely wide-open space.There’s only one place that could’ve been taken.It’s America.And the idea of protecting huge swaths of land from development just so people could stare and enjoy it—that’s an American ideal.We invented it.France, England.all of Europe—they took their open spaces and built castles and cities on them.Over here, although we certainly do our share of development, we also set aside huge chunks and called them national parks.I mean, Europeans say the only American art form is jazz.They’re wrong.That purple mountain’s majesty—that’s the John Coltrane of the outdoors.”Ezra cocks his head slightly to take a better look.“I still don’t see it.”Turning my head, I wait for the side door to open.It stays shut.I already feel the drips of sweat trickling from my armpits down my rib cage.Trish has been gone too long.“You doing okay?” Ezra asks, reading my complexion.“Yeah.just hot,” I say, unbuttoning the top of my shirt.If Trish is playing the game, we’re in severe.Before I can finish, the doorknob clicks and the side door swings open.As Trish reenters the room, I try to read the look on her face.I might as well be trying to read Harris.Cradling her three-ring binder like a girl in junior high, she shifts her weight from one leg to another.I bite the inside of my cheek, trying to ignore the numbers floating through my brain.Twelve thousand dollars.Every nickel I’ve saved for the past few years.And the twenty-five-grand reward.It all comes down to this.“I’ll trade you the sewer for the gold mine,” Trish blurts.“Done,” I shoot back.We both nod to consummate the deal.Trish marches off to lunch.I march back to my office.And just like that, we’re standing in the winner’s circle.“That’s it?” Harris asks, his voice squawking through my receiver.“That’s it,” I repeat from my almost empty office.Everyone’s at lunch but Dinah, who, like the phone beast she is, is on a call with someone else.I still watch what I say.“When the Members vote for the bill—which they always do since it’s filled with goodies for themselves—we’re all done.”“And you’re sure you don’t have any uptight Members who’ll read through the bill and take the gold mine out?” Harris asks.“Are you kidding? These people don’t read.Last year, the omnibus bill was over eleven hundred pages long.I barely read it, and that’s my job.More important, once it comes out of Conference, it’s a big stack of paper covered in Post-it notes.They put a few copies on the House side and some more on the Senate.That’s their only chance to examine it—an hour or so before the vote.Trust me, even the Citizens Against Government Waste—y’know, that group that finds the fifty-thousand-dollar study on Aborigine sweat the government funded—even they only find about a quarter of the fat we hide in there.”“You really gave fifty grand to study Aborigine sweat?” Harris asks.“Don’t laugh.Last month, when scientists announced a huge leap in the cure for meningitis, guess where the breakthrough came from?”“Aborigine sweat.”“That’s right—Aborigine sweat.Think about that next time you read about pork in the paper.”“Great—I’m on the lookout,” Harris says.“Now you have everything else?”Reaching into the jacket pocket of my suit, I pull out a white letter-sized envelope.Checking it for the seventh time today, I open the flap and stare at the two cashier’s checks inside.One’s for $4,000.00.The other’s for $8,225.00.One from Harris, the other from me.Both are made out to cash.Completely untraceable.“Right here in front of me,” I say as I seal the letter-sized envelope and slide it into a bigger manila mailer.“They still haven’t picked it up?” Harris asks.“It’s usually promptly at noon.”“Don’t stress yourself—they’ll be here.”There’s a soft, polite cough as the door to our office peeks open.“I’m looking for Matt.?” an African-American page says as he clears his throat and steps inside.“.any second,” I tell Harris.“Gotta run—business calls.”I hang up the phone and wave the page inside.“I’m Matthew.C’mon in.”As the page approaches my desk, it’s the first time I notice he’s wearing a blue suit instead of the standard blazer and gray slacks.This guy isn’t a House page; he’s from the Senate.Even the pages dress nicer over there.“How’s everything going?” I ask.“Pretty good.Just tired of all the walking.”“It’s a real haul from the Senate, huh?”“They tell me where to go—I got no choice,” he laughs.“Now, you got a package for me?”“Right here.” I seal the oversized envelope, jot the word Private across the back, and reach across the desk to put it in his hands.Unlike the other page visits, this isn’t a drop-off.It’s a pickup.The day after the bidding, the dungeon-masters expect you to cover your bet.“So you know where this one’s going?” I ask, always searching for extra info.“Back to the cloakroom,” he says with a shrug.“They take it from there.”As he grabs the envelope, I notice a silver ring on his thumb.And another on his pointer finger.I didn’t think they let pages wear jewelry.“So what’s with the stuffed fox?” he adds, motioning with his chin toward the bookcase.“It’s a ferret.Courtesy of the NRA.”“The what?”“The NRA—y’know, National Rifle—”“Yeah, yeah.no, I thought you said something else,” he interrupts, rubbing his hand over his closely buzzed hair.The ring on his pointer finger catches the light perfectly.He smiles with a big, toothy grin.I smile right back.But it’s not until that moment that I realize I’m about to hand twelve thousand dollars to a complete stranger.“Be safe now,” he sings as he grabs the package and pivots toward reception.He disappears through the door.The bet’s officially on [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]