Once inside, Ben tightened his tie and looked for Adrian Alcott. Alcott was the hiring partner for Wayne & Portnoy, one of the city’s most established firms, and the place where Ben had worked during the summer after his second year of law school. As a summer associate at Wayne, he was taken by the recruiting committee to baseball games at Camden Yards, concerts at the Kennedy Center, and lunches and dinners at the best eateries on K Street. The summer was capped by a yachting excursion for the entire firm-more than four hundred people sailed away on two magnificent yachts. Knowing that they had attracted the best and the brightest from America’s top law schools, the firm tried to make sure they kept them. For the summer associates who were still choosing between competing firms, the evening at sea was the ultimate hard sell.

All eighteen summer associates had gone on to yearlong judicial clerkships after they graduated from law school. The firm expected its associates to clerk for a year, knowing that they would gain invaluable experience that could be used when they eventually joined the firm. And to make sure the recruits did not forget Wayne & Portnoy during their clerkship year, the firm made bimonthly phone calls to each would-be associate to see how his or her year was going. Eventually, seventeen clerks returned to the firm. Ben went to the Supreme Court. When the firm found out their eighteenth summer associate had been offered a Supreme Court clerkship, the phone calls tripled and the free lunches began. To the city’s most prestigious law firms, Supreme Court clerks were human badges of honor. Of Wayne & Portnoy’s four hundred fifty-seven lawyers, ten were former Supreme Court clerks. Today, Adrian Alcott was hoping to make it eleven.

“Hello, Mr. Addison,” Alcott said with a warm smile as Ben approached the table in one of the back rooms of the restaurant. “Please, join us.” Alcott was tall and slender, and his long frame was capped by thick blond hair. With a smile that he flashed at every opportunity, Alcott was the firm’s best recruiting tool. He loved Wayne & Portnoy, and his gracious and charming nature had convinced more than one quarter of the firm that they loved it, too. “Ben, this is Christopher Nash. He was a clerk for Justice Blake four years ago, and I thought it’d be nice for you to speak to someone who’s been through the process.”

“Nice to meet you,” Ben said, shaking Nash’s hand. Nash looked like the typical Blake clerk: weasely and white, with an Andover or Exeter in his background.

“So, how’s the Big House treating you?” Nash asked. “Everything the way I left it?”

“Absolutely,” Ben said, immediately annoyed by Nash’s attempt at coolness.

“You picked a great year to be at the Court,” Nash said. “This CMI thing has the whole place in an uproar.”

“It’s definitely been exciting,” Ben said.

“So what do you think?” Alcott asked. “Did Maxwell know?”

“I have no idea,” Ben said with a strained smile. “They don’t tell the clerks the important stuff.”

“Right. Of course,” Alcott said, opening up his menu. “So, what shall we have for lunch? The snapper here is wonderful.”

Looking at Ben, Nash said, “I have to tell you, the Court is the world’s most exciting place to work, but there is nothing like a free lunch at an expensive restaurant. When it comes to food, I’m like a kid in a candy store.”

Struggling to pay attention to the conversation, Ben thought about the various possibilities for escaping lunch. I bet if I set fire to the curtains, I could lose them in the confusion, he thought, staring at the menu.

“I’m not sure if you know, but we’re going to be in front of you real soon,” Alcott said. “We’re representing the respondent in the Mirsky case. Our oral arguments are set for January.”

“You have to put in a good word for us,” Nash said, laughing along with Alcott.

Maybe I could start choking on mineral water, Ben thought. That would shut them up real quick.

“So what’s the Court working on now?” Alcott asked.

“Hey, don’t even think it,” Nash jumped in as one of their two waiters placed a tiny appetizer of blackened bass on his plate. “He can’t say anything. Court business is extremely confidential. When your clerkship is over, they even make you shred any documents you still have.”

“Is that right?” Alcott said.

“Definitely. The place is airtight.” Looking at Ben, Nash said, “How’s Justice Blake doing? Still as cranky as ever?”

“That’s him,” Ben said. “The most miserable man on the Court.”

“I spoke to him recently. I’ve been calling every once in a while to give advice to his current clerks, Arthur and Steve. They seem nice.”

“They’re really nice,” Ben said.

“I just try to be helpful,” Nash said, as a waiter refilled his water. “I know how crazy it can get there.”

“Do most clerks call their former chambers?” Ben asked, taking a roll.

“Some do,” Nash said. “It depends. I think all of Blake’s clerks do because a year with Blake can be such a miserable experience.”

“He works them like dogs.”

“That’s Blake. I think all of his former clerks are bonded by knowing that we’ve all lived through a year with him. Have any of Hollis’s old clerks called you?”

“No,” Ben said bluntly. “That’s why I was curious.”

“Wait, let me think. Who was clerking for Hollis when I was there? Oh, I remember, one of them was Stu Bailey. He’s a great guy. He works at Winick and Trudeau now.”

Alcott looked annoyed at the mention of Wayne & Portnoy’s rival firm.

“I’m actually not surprised no one’s called,” Nash added. “Hollis makes you work, but deep down, he’s a big teddy bear.”

“Is that right?” Alcott asked.

“That’s not a bad description,” Ben agreed.

“Have you had any encounters with Osterman’s clerks?”

“Not really,” Ben said. “They’re the only clerks who really keep to themselves.”

“Unbelievable!” Nash said, banging the table. “Nothing changes.” Nash leaned toward Ben and lowered his voice. “When I was there, Osterman’s clerks were the worst, most obnoxious, conservative cranks in the whole Court. And the rumor I heard was that all of Osterman’s clerks were part of this tiny network. They all keep in touch, and they have a secret meeting once a year.”

“I never heard this,” Ben said with a smile.

“I’m not joking,” Nash said. “I heard they used to call themselves The Cabal, and the older clerks would teach the younger clerks how to sway decisions to their own agenda. I’m serious,” he added, noticing Ben’s doubtful expression. “You know how much influence you can have if you want it. When you write a decision, for the most part you can structure it your own way. You can emphasize certain points, or make other points extra ambiguous. It’s a subtle gesture of power, but it’s still power.”

“Yeah, but you really can’t do anything the justice doesn’t want in the first place.”

“That was the scary part. People said Osterman knew about all this and he just turned his back on it-letting his clerks do what they wanted.”

“I think that’s how Hitler trained his militia,” Ben said as a waiter refilled the table’s breadbasket.

“Didn’t I tell you this guy knows what it’s like?” Alcott said to Ben as he pointed at Nash.

“So tell me,” Ben said, “how’s everything at Wayne?”

“Fantastic,” Alcott said, putting both elbows on the table. “We just took on NFI Properties as a client, so if you need any tickets to a Redskins game, you let me know. In fact, any game in the whole country, whenever you want. We also took on Evian, so every water cooler in the firm has sparkling fresh Evian water.”

“That’s great,” Ben said, noticing that Alcott had paused for his reaction.

“And the pro bono department recently started doing work for the Children’s Defense Fund.”

“There are no free benefits from them.” Nash laughed. Shooting Nash a look, Alcott said, “But we do get invited to their annual convention, where the president usually speaks.”