Pleading guilty

VIII.

A. Archie Was a Cool Operator When I got to the office on Wednesday morning, Lena was waiting for me.

'Is this guy a gambler?' You could see she already knew the answer was yes. 'Show me.' I followed her toward the library.

When I interviewed Lena on campus at the U last year, I noticed there was a hole in her resume – seven years to finish college. I asked if she'd been working.

'Not really.' She had grasped her briefcase, a little redhead with a worldly eye. 'I went through a rough spell.' 'How rough?'

'Rough.' We scrutinized one another in the interview room, a soundproofed spot no bigger than a closet; it would have done well for torture. ‘I thought I was in love with a guy,' she said. 'But I was in love with the dope. I'm NarcAnon. That whole thing. Once a week.' She awaited my reaction. There were a half dozen other good firms in the city and we were interviewing early. If candor didn't work, she could lie to the next bunch, or hope she'd make it through someplace before anybody asked. She'd had A's. Somebody would take a chance. You could read all these calculations in her strong features.

'AA,' I said and shook her hand. She'd done well here. Brilliantly. She had taken control of her life with an athlete's determination, which, whenever I witnessed it, colored me from the same palette of murky feelings – envy, admiration, the everpresent conviction that I am a phony and she the real thing.

In the library she stationed me by a PC and went through the codes to bring Bert's message up on the screen. I stared at it again: Hey Arch- SPRINGFIELD Kam's Special 1.12 – U. five, five Cleveland.