Ben opened his top drawer and pulled out a small stack of papers. Searching through the stack and trying to avoid bumping into Lisa, Ben quickly found what he was looking for. Reading verbatim from the sheet titled “Response to Press,” he said, “I appreciate your concern on this matter, but as a clerk of the Supreme Court of the United States, I am not permitted to reveal any information to the press.”
“So are you saying that there is an investigation taking place, but that you just can’t talk about it?”
“Ms. Martin, I have nothing further to say,” Ben said, throwing aside the sheet. “Thanks for your time.” As Ben hung up the phone, Lisa finished soaking up the coffee. “Thanks for the help,” he said, wiping the remaining liquid from under his pencil sharpener.
“No problem,” Lisa said. She walked back to her desk. “Was that really the press?”
“I don’t believe it,” Ben said. “It was The Washington Post.”
“What’d they say?”
“They asked me about the story. I almost shit in my pants.”
“It sounded like you were fine,” Lisa said. “You did the right thing. That’s what the press sheet was designed for.”
“When I got this in August, I never thought I’d have to use it,” Ben said, putting the sheet back in his top drawer. “Do you think they know?”
“No. They probably called everyone. I’m sure they know that the clerks are the easiest ones to get information from.”
“I really think they know. They have to know.”
“They don’t know a thing,” she said. “In fact, I’m surprised we haven’t gotten more calls from the press. I’d heard that we’d be called before every big decision.”
“They haven’t called you,” Ben said. “Explain that, Miss Optimis-” Lisa’s phone rang.
Lisa smiled. “Hello, Justice Hollis’s chambers.” As Ben listened, she said, “Yeah, I really can’t talk now. Can I call you back later? Yeah, now’s a bad time.”
“Who was that?” Ben asked as Lisa hung up the phone.
“Just an old friend from law school.” Walking over to Ben’s desk, she said, “Listen, don’t let this get you down. I’m sure they’re just going through their list. I’ll get called.”
“Whatever,” Ben said. “It’s no big deal. I mean, they’re the press. They’re supposed to find these things out. It’s their job to wreck my life.”
“Ben, your life is far from wrecked.”
“Listen, I don’t need the pep talk. I know what I got into, and I’ll figure a way out of it.”
“It’s not a matter of figuring a way out of it. You’re not in trouble. No one knows it’s you. Besides, worse comes to worst, you can always wait tables.”
“That’s very funny,” Ben said, heading for the door.
“Where are you going?”
“I have a stupid lunch meeting with the firm I worked at two summers ago.”
“A recruitment lunch?”
“I imagine.”
“Why are you going?” Lisa asked. “If you want to be a prosecutor, you don’t have to go to a firm. You should just go to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”
“I wish. But the U.S. Attorney’s Office won’t help me pay off all the debt I have from law school.”
“You still have law school debt? I thought your parents were wealthy executives?”
“My mom’s an executive, but my family doesn’t have that kind of money. Anyway, I wanted to pay my own way.”
“You did?”
“It’s my responsibility. I’m the one who went to law school, I’m the one who gets the benefit. Why should they pay the bill?”
“So how much debt do you have?”
“From law school, about ninety-two thousand dollars.” Lisa’s mouth fell open. “And that’s not including the eight thousand that I paid off in the past two years.”
“Haven’t you ever heard of financial aid?”
“Absolutely,” Ben said. “That’s how I got the loans.”
“I still don’t understand why you didn’t let your parents-”
“It’s a long story,” Ben said. “In the end, they couldn’t afford to do much, and I wanted to make it easier on them. That’s it.” Looking down at his watch, he said, “I really have to go. I’m late.”
Ben jumped into a cab outside the courthouse and headed to Gray’s, home of Washington’s premier power lunches. Although many of the city’s most important meetings were still held in dimly lit restaurants that smelled of cigar smoke, brandy, and barely cooked steak, Gray’s attracted executives and congressional leaders who actually wanted to be seen at lunch. Of course, it still had four private rooms in the back for patrons who wanted to be more discreet. With oversized glass tables balanced on geometrical steel bases, and chairs draped with white slipcovers, the main dining room was arranged in a large circle, to facilitate celebrity spotting. The restaurant was decorated in stark black and white, giving it a minimalist look that was almost too ultramodern for downtown D.C.
Once inside, Ben tightened his tie and looked for Adrian Alcott. Alcott was the hiring partner for Wayne & Portnoy, one of the city’s most established firms, and the place where Ben had worked during the summer after his second year of law school. As a summer associate at Wayne, he was taken by the recruiting committee to baseball games at Camden Yards, concerts at the Kennedy Center, and lunches and dinners at the best eateries on K Street. The summer was capped by a yachting excursion for the entire firm-more than four hundred people sailed away on two magnificent yachts. Knowing that they had attracted the best and the brightest from America’s top law schools, the firm tried to make sure they kept them. For the summer associates who were still choosing between competing firms, the evening at sea was the ultimate hard sell.
All eighteen summer associates had gone on to yearlong judicial clerkships after they graduated from law school. The firm expected its associates to clerk for a year, knowing that they would gain invaluable experience that could be used when they eventually joined the firm. And to make sure the recruits did not forget Wayne & Portnoy during their clerkship year, the firm made bimonthly phone calls to each would-be associate to see how his or her year was going. Eventually, seventeen clerks returned to the firm. Ben went to the Supreme Court. When the firm found out their eighteenth summer associate had been offered a Supreme Court clerkship, the phone calls tripled and the free lunches began. To the city’s most prestigious law firms, Supreme Court clerks were human badges of honor. Of Wayne & Portnoy’s four hundred fifty-seven lawyers, ten were former Supreme Court clerks. Today, Adrian Alcott was hoping to make it eleven.
“Hello, Mr. Addison,” Alcott said with a warm smile as Ben approached the table in one of the back rooms of the restaurant. “Please, join us.” Alcott was tall and slender, and his long frame was capped by thick blond hair. With a smile that he flashed at every opportunity, Alcott was the firm’s best recruiting tool. He loved Wayne & Portnoy, and his gracious and charming nature had convinced more than one quarter of the firm that they loved it, too. “Ben, this is Christopher Nash. He was a clerk for Justice Blake four years ago, and I thought it’d be nice for you to speak to someone who’s been through the process.”
“Nice to meet you,” Ben said, shaking Nash’s hand. Nash looked like the typical Blake clerk: weasely and white, with an Andover or Exeter in his background.
“So, how’s the Big House treating you?” Nash asked. “Everything the way I left it?”
“Absolutely,” Ben said, immediately annoyed by Nash’s attempt at coolness.
“You picked a great year to be at the Court,” Nash said. “This CMI thing has the whole place in an uproar.”