“Too broad a category,” Ben said. “Even if we knew what state he’s from, it’d be too many people to search.” While the three friends sat in the motionless car, they rubbed their hands together to keep warm. “I was thinking that if Rick is a lawyer, he had to go to law school. So his picture should be in a law school yearbook from the last ten to fifteen years. Since there are over a hundred law schools nationwide, there’d be too many to search, but I was thinking that we can limit our search to just the top dozen or so schools: Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, and so on. Rick’s a snob-I’ll bet he went to a top law school.”

“That’s still a lot of photos to search through,” Ober said.

“Not really,” Ben explained. “If we take the top dozen schools and look only at the last fifteen years, that’s only one hundred and eighty yearbooks. And there’s an average of about four hundred students per class, so it’s not that bad.”

“That’s seventy-two thousand pictures,” Nathan said, tapping his wrists against the steering wheel.

“Actually, it’s only a little more than half of that,” Ben said. “We don’t have to look at the women.”

“What’s this we crap?” Ober asked. “You’re the only one who can recognize him.”

“So I’ll be looking through a lot of pictures,” Ben said. “Do you have a better plan? If I can spot his picture, we’ll have everything we need.”

“Can you even get all of the old yearbooks?” Nathan asked.

“Of course,” Ben said. “If I call a school and say that a Supreme Court justice would like to get some yearbooks, we’ll have them by the end of the week. In law school, the justices are gods who walk among men.”

“Then that sounds like the best available option.” Leaning forward on the steering wheel, Nathan added, “Now tell me what you think about the Lisa thing.”

Ben stared at the letter in his hands. “I still don’t think you’re right, but at this point, I’m not taking any chances. I trust her, but I can live with leaving her out of the plan.”

“That’s all I ask,” Nathan said. “The fewer people involved, the better.”

Early Monday morning, Ben returned to the Court wearing his favorite blue suit, a freshly starched shirt, and his black wool overcoat. Although not as well rested as he’d hoped to be, he was relieved to be finished with the holiday. As soon as he was able to see a corner of the regal marble building, however, anxiety resurfaced. The Court was always a constant, and lately, so were Ben’s problems. He made his way to his office, but paused before opening the door. Okay, he said to himself. Just play it cool with her. Nothing’s changed; you’re still friends, but you can’t tell her about your plans with Rick. Worried that his face would reveal his distress, he shut his eyes and imagined Lisa naked. Fine, I’m calm, he thought as he opened the door. I’m a rock. I’m unshakable. Walking inside, he was not surprised to see Lisa, who always arrived before he did.

“Why the goofy grin?” Lisa asked as Ben sat down on the office sofa.

“Can’t I just be happy to return to work? Is that so bad?”

“Don’t give me that,” Lisa said. “I’ve seen that look before. You’re still thinking about Thanksgiving, aren’t you?”

“Lisa, although you would like to believe that you are the center of my universe, I am sorry to say you are not. Besides, that look was a quiet-calm look. This look is a it’s-nice-to-be-back look.”

“That’s not a nice-to-be-back look,” she said. “It’s your constipated-medicated-stare look.”

“Constipation. Sex with you. Similar,” Ben deadpanned.

“That was cute,” Lisa said. “Easy, but effective.” She leaned back in her chair. “By the way, since when are you so calm about our whole sex thing? I thought you didn’t want to talk about it.”

“I’m actually fine with it now. As long as it doesn’t get in the way of things, I’ll be fine.”

“I’m fine with it as long as you’re fine with it,” she said. “So tell me what’s going on. Have you thought about what you’re doing with Rick?”

“No. Not really,” Ben said, moving over to his desk. “I’ve been thinking more about writing Grinnell than I have been about that.”

“Good.” Lisa picked up a legal pad and followed Ben to his desk. “Because I’ve been thinking about all the ways to approach the dissent.” Putting the note-filled pad in front of Ben, she explained, “Since Veidt won’t go all the way with the Osterman crowd, I think we can really limit their decision to these facts. They’ll say Grinnell is suffering a disproportionate burden, but we can say this applies only in rare cases involving certain historic monuments-that way we’ll-”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Ben said, trying to calm Lisa. “Relax a second. First I want to know when Hollis wants the decision.”

“I got a note saying he wants our first draft done within the next ten days, and he wants the whole thing done before Christmas. They plan to announce the decision before the New Year.”

“That gives us three weeks to get it done,” Ben said, “assuming that he’ll want his usual week to pass it around to the other justices.”

“Fine,” Lisa said. “Let’s get started.”

“I plan to get started,” Ben said, picking up his own legal pad. “But if you’d like to suddenly be in charge of first drafts, be my guest.”

“Oh, don’t give me that sarcasm. I’m sorry if I crossed your intellectual line in the sand by giving you some suggestions.”

“All I’m saying is that since we’ve been here, I’ve been the one to formulate the attack. Then you get to punch holes in it and patch things up. And at this point, I’m not ready to write the Grinnell attack. Before I put a thing down on paper, I need to spend at least two days in the library researching background information for this case. I’m sorry if you’re all ready to write it off the top of your head, but that’s not how a good decision is written. This isn’t high school debate.”

“Don’t pick a fight with me over this. Now can we talk about the opinion?”

“Hello? Have you been listening?” Ben asked. “I just said I don’t want to do that.”

“Well, I want to,” Lisa said.

“Why? So far, we’ve never done it that way. Why are you suddenly so obsessed with it now? It’s just another opinion.”

“Yeah, but this is the first decision we’re writing where you think the other side is right,” Lisa said.

“So that’s what this is about?” Ben asked, raising an eyebrow. “You actually think I’m going to weaken our dissent so I can have a personal victory?”

“I didn’t say-”

“You don’t have to say it. I can see it on your face. You really think I’d do that, don’t you?”

“You don’t know what I’m thinking,” Lisa said, walking back to her desk. “I just feel very strongly about this decision, so I’d like to take special care with it.”

“Don’t lie to me, because…”

“Ben, don’t threaten me!” She threw her legal pad on her desk. “If you want to be a control freak on this one, go ahead. Be my guest.”

Later in the week, Ben went to Mailboxes & Things to check his P.O. box. He was relieved to see that Rick’s phone bills had finally arrived. When he turned over the envelope to open it, he saw a small note written on the back: “Hope these help. Rick.”

“Damn,” Ben whispered to himself. He tore open the envelope and pulled out the copies of Rick’s bills. After scanning through them, he put the copies back in the envelope and returned to the Court. Relieved that his office was empty, he picked up the phone and dialed Nathan’s number.

“Administrator’s Office,” Nathan answered.

“I just picked up Rick’s phone bills.”

“They took long enough,” Nathan said. “What’d they say? Anything helpful?”

“Of course not,” Ben said, flipping through the small pile of bills. “It’s exactly what we thought. He must’ve had a cell phone for all his personal calls because the only calls on here are to my home number, my work number, and to operator assistance.”