Breach of Trust

21

The next day, at the state office, I was looking over the Department of Corrections contract Charlie Cimino had mentioned when Patrick Lemke jumped through my doorway.

“You’re looking at the DOC sanitation contract,” he said. “The top two bidders.” He dropped a couple of big files on my desk. “This is the background information. Looks like each of them has had some problems on jobs in the past. It probably won’t be hard to find them not responsible.”

Another term of art in this world. All bidders who won contracts had to be found “responsible.” Otherwise, anyone could put in a lowball bid and win a lucrative contract, and then have no idea how to perform it.

I looked up at Lemke, though he was staring at the wall, that eye-contact problem he had. “Who said I was going to find them not responsible?”

“Well. .” Patrick shifted his feet, stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I mean, why else would Mr. Cimino want you to-”

“So let me see if I have this right,” I said. “Cimino wants to eighty-six the two lowest bidders. I take it, then, that Cimino has some reason that he wants the third lowest bidder to get the contract?” I flipped through some papers. “Higgins Sanitation is the third lowest. So Charlie wants to fix it so that Higgins gets the contract, and he wants me to make it happen?”

Patrick didn’t seem to like my framing matters so on-the-nose. But it was clear that my summary was accurate.

“Patrick, what’s with this guy, Cimino? I mean, how’s he in charge of this?”

Patrick stood still and said, “He’s an adviser to the governor. Unofficially. He offers guidance. Our direction is to follow it.”

It felt like he’d said this before, like it came right after name, rank, and serial number.

Patrick pranced to the door again but put on the brakes so abruptly that I thought he might pull a muscle. “Jason?” he said to the wall, though I think he was talking to me.

“Yes, Patrick?”

“You should do what Mr. Cimino says,” he advised me, before disappearing.