It’s not until one-thirty that the next envelope hits my desk. The receipt I’m looking for has the same chicken scratch as before. Cab number 326. The fare is $100.00. One thousand even. That’s what happens when the entire bet is centered on an issue that can be decided with a single well-placed phone call. Everyone in this place thinks they’ve got the jags to get it done. And they may. But for once, we’ve got more.

I close my eyes and work the math in my head. If I go too fast, I’ll scare 326 off. Better to go slow and drag him along. With a flourish, I fill in a fare of $150.00. Fifteen hundred. And still counting.

By a quarter after three, my stomach’s rumbling and I’m starting to get cranky – but I still don’t go to lunch. Instead, I gnaw through the last handfuls of Grape-Nuts that Roy keeps hidden in his desk. The cereal doesn’t last long. I still don’t move. We’re too close to gift-wrapping this up. According to Harris, no bet’s ever gone for more than nineteen hundred bucks – and that was only because they got to mess with Teddy Kennedy.

“Matthew Mercer?” a page with cropped blond hair asks from the door. I wave the kid inside.

“You’re popular today,” Dinah says as she hangs up her phone.

“Blame the Senate,” I tell her. “We’re battling over language, and Trish not only doesn’t trust faxes, but she won’t put it on E-mail because she’s worried it’s too easy to forward to the lobbyists.”

“She’s right,” Dinah says. “Smart girl.”

Turning my chair just enough so Dinah can’t see, I open the envelope and peer inside. I swear, I feel my testicles tighten. I don’t believe it. It’s not the amount, which is now up to three thousand dollars. It’s the brand-new cab number: 189. The handwriting is squat and blocky. There’s another player in the game. And he’s clearly not afraid to spend some cash.

My phone screams, and I practically leap from my chair. Caller ID says it’s Harris.

“How we doing?” he asks as soon as I pick up.

“Not bad, though the language still isn’t there yet.”

“You got someone in the room?” he asks.

“Absolutely,” I say, keeping my back to Dinah. “And a new section I’ve never seen before.”

“Another player? What’s the number?”

“One-eighty-nine.”

“That’s the guy who won yesterday – with the baseball bill.”

“You sure?”

It’s a dumb question. Harris lives and breathes this stuff. He doesn’t get it wrong.

“Think we should worry?” I ask.

“Not if you can deliver.”

“Oh, I’ll deliver,” I insist.

“Then don’t stress. If anything, I’m happy,” Harris adds. “With two bidders out there, the pot’s that much bigger. And if he won yesterday, he’s cocky and careless. That’s the perfect time to swipe his pants.”

Nodding to myself, I hang up the phone and stare down at the cab receipt with the block writing.

“Everything okay?” Dinah asks from her desk.

Scribbling as fast as I can, I up the bet to four thousand dollars and slide the receipt into the envelope. “Yeah,” I say as I head for the metal Out box up front. “Just perfect.”

The envelope comes back within an hour, and I ask the page to wait so he can take it directly to Harris. Roxanne’s done enough interoffice delivery service. Better to mix it up so she doesn’t get suspicious. Clawing my way into the envelope, I search for the signal that we’ve got the top bid. Instead, I find another receipt. Cab number 189. Fare of five hundred dollars. Five grand – plus everything else we already put in.

For one picosecond, I hesitate, wondering if it’s time to fold. Then I remind myself we’re holding all the aces. And the jokers. And the wild cards. 189 may have the cash, but we’ve got the whole damn deck. He’s not scaring us off.

I grab a blank receipt from the envelope and write in my cab number. In the blank next to Fare, I jot $600.00. That’s a pretty rich cab ride.

Exactly twelve minutes after the page leaves my office, my phone rings. Harris just got his delivery.

“You sure this is smart?” he asks the instant I pick up. From the echo, I’m back on speakerphone.

“Don’t worry, we’re fine.”

“I’m serious, Matthew. This isn’t Monopoly money we’re playing with. If you add up the separate bets, we’re already in for over six thousand. And now you wanna add another six grand on top of that?”

When we were talking about limits last night, I told Harris I had a little over eight thousand dollars in the bank, including all my down-payment money. He said he had four grand at the most. Maybe less. Unlike me, Harris sends part of his paycheck to an uncle in Pennsylvania. His parents died a few years back, but… family’s still family.

“We can still cover it,” I tell him.

“That doesn’t mean we should put it all on black.”

“What’re you saying?”

“I’m not saying anything,” Harris insists. “I just… maybe it’s time to catch our breath and walk away. No reason to risk all our money. We can just bet the other side, and you’ll make sure the project never gets in the bill.”

That’s how it works – if you don’t have the high bid, you and the rest of the low bidders shift to the other side and try to stop it from taking place. It’s a great way to even the odds: The person with the best chance of making it happen faces off against a group that, once combined, has an amazing amount of muscle. There’s only one problem. “You really want to split the winnings with everyone else?”

He knows I’m right. Why give everyone a free ride?

“If you want to ease the stakes, maybe we can invite someone else in,” I suggest.

Right there, Harris stops. “What’re you saying?”

He thinks I’m trying to find out who’s above him on the list.

“You think it’s Barry, don’t you?” he asks.

“Actually, I think it’s Pasternak.”

Harris doesn’t reply, and I grin to myself. Pasternak may be the closest thing he has to a mentor, but Harris and I go back to my freshman year. You can’t lie to old friends.

“I’m not saying you’re right,” he begins. “But either way, my guy’s not gonna go for it. Especially this late. I mean, even assuming 189 is teaming up with his own mentor, that’s still a tractorful of cash.”

“And it’ll be two tractorfuls when we win. There’s gotta be over twenty-five grand in the pot. Think about the check you’ll send home after that.”

Even Harris can’t argue with that one.

There’s a crackle on the line. He takes me off speakerphone. “Just tell me one thing, Matthew – can you really make this happen?”

I’m silent, working every possibility. He’s just as quiet, counting every consequence. It’s the opposite of our standard dance. For once, I’m confidence; he’s concern.

“So can you pull this off?” Harris repeats.

“I think so,” I tell him.

“No, no, no, no, no… Forget ‘think so.’ I can’t afford ‘think so.’ I’m asking you as a friend – honestly, no bullshit. Can you pull this off?”

It’s the first time I hear the tinge of panic in Harris’s voice. He’s not afraid to leap off the edge of the cliff, but like any smart politician, he needs to know what’s in the river below. The good thing is, in this one case, I’ve got the life preserver.

“This baby’s mine,” I tell him. “The only one closer is Cordell himself.”

The silence tells me he’s unconvinced.

“You’re right,” I add sarcastically. “It’s too risky – we should walk away now.”

The silence is even longer.

“I swear to you, Harris. Cordell doesn’t care about table scraps. This is what I’m hired to do. We won’t lose.”

“You promise?”

As he asks the question, I stare out the window at the dome of the Capitol. “On my life.”

“Don’t get melodramatic on me.”

“Fine, then here’s pragmatic. Know what the golden rule of Appropriations is? He who has the gold makes the rule.”