The Inner Circle

18

"This is bad, isn’t it?” I ask.

“Relax,” Tot whispers, rolling down his window as a snakebite of cold attacks from outside. He’s trying to keep me calm, but with his right hand he tugs at his pile of newspapers, using them to cover George Washington’s dictionary.

“Sorry, fellas,” the guard says, his breath puffing with each syllable. “IDs, please.”

“C’mon, Morris,” Tot says, pumping his overgrown eyebrows. “You telling me you don’t recognize-”

“Don’t bust my hump, Tot. Those are the rules. ID.”

Tot lowers his eyebrows and reaches for his ID. He’s not amused. Neither is the guard, who leans in a bit too deeply through the open window. His eyes scan the entire car. Like he’s searching for something.

Circling around toward the trunk, he slides a long metal pole with a mirror on the end of it under the car. Bomb search. They haven’t done a bomb search since we hosted the German president nearly a year ago.

“You got what you need?” Tot asks, his hand still on the newspapers. The story on top is the one about Orlando.

“Yeah. All set,” the guard says, glancing back at the guardhouse. Doesn’t take James Bond to see what he’s staring at: the flat, compact security camera that’s pointed right at us. No question, someone’s watching.

There’s a deafening metal shriek as the antiram barrier bites down into the ground, clearing our path. Tot pulls the car forward, his face again mostly turned to me. His blind eye is useless, but I can still read the expression. Don’t say a word.

I follow the request from the parking lot all the way to the elevators. Inside, as we ride up in silence, Tot opens up the folded newspapers, but it’s clear he’s really reading what’s tucked inside-Entick’s Dictionary. I watch him study the swirls and loops of the handwritten inscription. Exitus acta probat.

“See that?” I ask. “That’s George Washing-”

He shoots me another look to keep me quiet. This time, I wait until we reach our offices on the fourth floor.

The sign next to the door reads Room 404, but around here it’s called Old Military because we specialize in records from the Revolutionary and Civil wars.

“Anyone home…?” I call out, opening the door, already knowing the answer. The lights in the long suite are off. On my left, a metal wipe-off board has two columns-one IN, one OUT-and holds a half dozen magnets with our headshot photos attached to each one. Sure, it’s ridiculously kindergarten. But with all of us always running to the stacks for research, it works. And right now, everyone’s in the OUT column. That’s all we need.

Knowing the privacy won’t last, I rush toward my cubicle in the very back. Tot does his best to rush toward his in the very front.

“Don’t you wanna see if the book is in our collection?” I call out as I pull out my key to open the lock on the middle drawer of my desk. To my surprise, it’s already open. I think about it a moment, flipping on my computer. With everything going on, I could’ve easily forgotten to lock it last night. But as my mind tumbles back to the front door of my house…

“You do your magic tricks, I’ll do mine,” Tot says as I hear the gnnn of a metal drawer opening. Tot’s cube is a big one, holding a wall of six tall file cabinets, stacks upon stacks of books (mostly about his specialty, Abraham Lincoln), and a wide window that overlooks Pennsylvania Avenue and the Navy Memorial.

My cube is a tiny one, filled with a desk, computer, and a corkboard that’s covered with the best typos we’ve been able to find throughout history, including a 1631 Bible that has the words “Thou shalt commit adultery,” plus the first edition of a Washington Post gossip column from 1915 that was supposed to say President Woodrow Wilson “spent the evening entertaining Mrs. Galt,” a widow who he was courting, but instead said, “the President spent the evening entering Mrs. Galt.” You don’t get this job without having some pack rat in you. But with ten billion pages in our collection, you also don’t get it without being part scavenger.

As my computer boots up, I grab the keyboard, all set to dig. In my pocket, my cell phone starts to ring. I know who it is. Right on time.

“Hey, Mom,” I answer without even having to look. Ever since her heart surgery, I’ve asked my mother to call me every morning-just so I know she’s okay. But as I put the phone to my ear, instead of my mom, I get…

“She’s fine,” my sister Sharon tells me. “Just tired.”

I have two sisters. Sharon’s the older one-and the one who, even when she went to the local community college, never stopped living with my mom. We used to call it Sharon’s weakness. Now it’s our whole family’s strength. She looks like my mom. She sounds like my mom. And these days, she spends most of her life dealing with all the health issues of my mom.

Every two weeks, I send part of my check home. But Sharon’s the one who gives her time.

“Ask her if she’s going to Jumbo’s,” I say, using my mom’s preferred lunch spot as my favorite code. If my mom’s eating lunch there, I know she’s feeling well.

“She is,” Sharon answers. “And she wants to know where you’re going Friday night,” she adds, throwing my mom’s favorite code right back. She doesn’t care where I’m going, or even if I’m going. She wants to know: Do I have a date? and more important, Will I ever get over Iris?

“Will you please tell her I’m fine?” I plead.

“Beecher, how’s your seventy-year-old friend?”

“And you’re the one to talk? Besides, you’ve never even met Tot.”

“I’m sure he’s lovely-but I’m telling you, from experience: If you don’t change the way you’re living, that’s gonna be you one day. Old and lovely and all by yourself. Listen to me on this. Don’t hide in those Archives, Beecher. Live that life.”

“Is this me arguing with you, or arguing with Mom?”

Before she can answer, I glance to my right. There’s a solid red light on my desk phone. Voicemail message.

“I think I got you something, old boy,” Tot calls out from his cubicle.

“Shar, I gotta go. Kiss Mom for me.” As I hang up my cell, I’m already dialing into voicemail, putting in my PIN code.

While waiting for the message to play, I dial up caller ID on the keypad, study the little screen of my phone, and scroll down until I see the name of the person who left the last message.

Williams, Orlando.

My heart stops.

I read it again. Orlando.

My computer blinks awake. Tot yells something in the distance.

“Message one was received at… 4:58 p.m.… yesterday.”

And in my ear, through the phone, I hear a familiar baritone voice-Orlando’s voice-and the final words of a dead man.