Read Online The Book of Fate by Brad Meltzer - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Brad Meltzer
Tags: Adult Trade
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“Late enough,” he says as I pull my ID badge from my pocket. But just as I’m about to swipe it through the card reader, I hear a quiet thunk, and the closed doors unlock.
“Thanks, A.J.!” I call out, pulling the door open.
Inside, I check the left-hand wall for the Secret Service agent who usually stands guard. He’s not there, which means the President’s not in yet. Good. I check the reception desk. The receptionist is gone too. Bad.
Crap. That means they already . . .
Sprinting across the enormous presidential seal that’s woven into the bright blue carpet, I cut to my left, where the hallway is lined with bad paintings and poor sculptures of the President. They’ve arrived every single day since we left office—all from strangers, fans, supporters. They draw, paint, pencil, sketch, bronze, and sculpt him in every possible permutation. The newest ones are a set of Florida toothpicks with his profile carved into each one, and a bright yellow ceramic sculpture of the sun, with his face in the middle. And that’s not even including what the corporations send: every CD, every book, every DVD that’s released, they all want the former President to have it, though all we do is ship it to his Presidential Library. Knocking over a beechwood walking cane with his childhood photos glued to it, I trip down the hall and head for the second-to-last office that’s—
“Nice of you to join us,” a raspy female voice announces as the entire room turns at my arrival. I do a quick head count just to see if I’m last—two, three, four, five . . .
“You’re last,” Claudia Pacheco, our chief of staff, confirms as she leans back in her seat behind her messy mahogany desk. Claudia’s got brown, graying hair that’s pulled back in an almost military-tight bun and smoker’s lips that reveal exactly where the raspy voice comes from. “President with you?” she adds.
I shake my head, forgoing my one excuse for being late.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spot Bev and Oren smirking to themselves. Annoying and annoyinger. They both eye the small gold lapel pin that sits on the corner of Claudia’s desk. Sculpted in the shape of the White House, the gold pin was no bigger than a hotel piece from Monopoly, but what made it memorable were the two gold poorly sculpted heads of the President and First Lady, pressed together and joined by one connecting ear, that dangled like charms just below it. The President bought it for Claudia years ago as a gag gift from a street vendor in China. Today, it’s part of her leftover White House tradition: whoever’s the last to arrive at the Monday morning staff meeting wears the pin for the next week. If you miss the meeting, you wear it for a month. But to my surprise, Claudia doesn’t reach for it.
“What happened with the break-in backstage?” she asks in her barreling Massachusetts accent.
“Break-in?”
“In Malaysia . . . the guy in the President’s holding room . . . the shattered glass table. My speaking Spanish here?”
In high school, Claudia was the girl who organized all the extracurricular events but never had any fun at them. It was the same when she ran Oval Office Operations, easily one of the most thankless jobs in the White House. She’s not in it for the credit or the glory. She’s here because she’s dedicated. And she wants to make sure we are too.
“No . . . of course . . .” I stutter. “But it wasn’t— That wasn’t a break-in.”
“That’s not what the report said.”
“They sent you a report?”
“They send us everything,” Bev says from the two-person love seat perpendicular to Claudia’s desk. She should know. As head of correspondence, she answers all the President’s personal mail and even knows what inside jokes to put at the bottom of his friends’ birthday cards. For a man with a good ten thousand “friends,” it’s tougher than it sounds, and the only reason Bev pulls it off is because she’s been with
“Late enough,” he says as I pull my ID badge from my pocket. But just as I’m about to swipe it through the card reader, I hear a quiet thunk, and the closed doors unlock.
“Thanks, A.J.!” I call out, pulling the door open.
Inside, I check the left-hand wall for the Secret Service agent who usually stands guard. He’s not there, which means the President’s not in yet. Good. I check the reception desk. The receptionist is gone too. Bad.
Crap. That means they already . . .
Sprinting across the enormous presidential seal that’s woven into the bright blue carpet, I cut to my left, where the hallway is lined with bad paintings and poor sculptures of the President. They’ve arrived every single day since we left office—all from strangers, fans, supporters. They draw, paint, pencil, sketch, bronze, and sculpt him in every possible permutation. The newest ones are a set of Florida toothpicks with his profile carved into each one, and a bright yellow ceramic sculpture of the sun, with his face in the middle. And that’s not even including what the corporations send: every CD, every book, every DVD that’s released, they all want the former President to have it, though all we do is ship it to his Presidential Library. Knocking over a beechwood walking cane with his childhood photos glued to it, I trip down the hall and head for the second-to-last office that’s—
“Nice of you to join us,” a raspy female voice announces as the entire room turns at my arrival. I do a quick head count just to see if I’m last—two, three, four, five . . .
“You’re last,” Claudia Pacheco, our chief of staff, confirms as she leans back in her seat behind her messy mahogany desk. Claudia’s got brown, graying hair that’s pulled back in an almost military-tight bun and smoker’s lips that reveal exactly where the raspy voice comes from. “President with you?” she adds.
I shake my head, forgoing my one excuse for being late.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spot Bev and Oren smirking to themselves. Annoying and annoyinger. They both eye the small gold lapel pin that sits on the corner of Claudia’s desk. Sculpted in the shape of the White House, the gold pin was no bigger than a hotel piece from Monopoly, but what made it memorable were the two gold poorly sculpted heads of the President and First Lady, pressed together and joined by one connecting ear, that dangled like charms just below it. The President bought it for Claudia years ago as a gag gift from a street vendor in China. Today, it’s part of her leftover White House tradition: whoever’s the last to arrive at the Monday morning staff meeting wears the pin for the next week. If you miss the meeting, you wear it for a month. But to my surprise, Claudia doesn’t reach for it.
“What happened with the break-in backstage?” she asks in her barreling Massachusetts accent.
“Break-in?”
“In Malaysia . . . the guy in the President’s holding room . . . the shattered glass table. My speaking Spanish here?”
In high school, Claudia was the girl who organized all the extracurricular events but never had any fun at them. It was the same when she ran Oval Office Operations, easily one of the most thankless jobs in the White House. She’s not in it for the credit or the glory. She’s here because she’s dedicated. And she wants to make sure we are too.
“No . . . of course . . .” I stutter. “But it wasn’t— That wasn’t a break-in.”
“That’s not what the report said.”
“They sent you a report?”
“They send us everything,” Bev says from the two-person love seat perpendicular to Claudia’s desk. She should know. As head of correspondence, she answers all the President’s personal mail and even knows what inside jokes to put at the bottom of his friends’ birthday cards. For a man with a good ten thousand “friends,” it’s tougher than it sounds, and the only reason Bev pulls it off is because she’s been with
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