“So wait a minute. What does this do to Rick?”

Ben put his feet up on his desk. “Let’s put it this way-he just paid a great deal of money for a crappy piece of property.”

“Is the property worthless?”

“It’s not worthless, but the only thing that pushed the price up so high was the possibility that the owners could turn it into a giant, revenue-creating mall. And as you could see from my conversation with Mr. Scumbag, that possibility is totally shot.”

“There’s still one thing I don’t understand,” Ober said. “How did Rick get the wrong decision?”

“Eric took it from my briefcase,” Ben said.

“Eric?”

“The one and only,” Lisa said.

“I don’t believe it,” Ober said. “So since you knew the decision was going to be stolen, you planted the wrong decision in your briefcase.”

“Exactly,” Ben said, as someone knocked on the door. “I just left it in the old dissent form.”

“Come in!” Lisa yelled.

Nancy walked in. “I have someone here who says he has an appointment with you.” Stepping aside, she let Eric enter the room.

Ben rose from his seat. “Yes, I know him,” Ben said to Nancy. “Thanks for bringing him up.”

When Nancy left the room, Eric stared at Ben. “I just heard that Grinnell lost their case.”

“Can you believe it?” Ben asked as he rushed toward his roommate.

“Congratulations!” Eric embraced Ben.

“You, too,” Ben said. “We couldn’t have done it without you.”

Eric hugged Lisa. “Thanks for all the help.”

“Did you have any trouble getting in downstairs?” Ben asked.

“Not at all,” Eric said. “I told them I was Nathan, just like you said.”

“Wait a minute,” Ober said, his eyes darting to everyone in the room. “What the hell is going on here? Yesterday, everyone hated each other, and today you’re having a love-in?”

“Take a seat, Sherlock.” Ben pointed to the sofa. “This is where it gets good.”

Looking at Eric, Ober asked, “So you’ve been-”

“Just listen,” Ben interrupted, sitting on the edge of Lisa’s desk. “If you remember, Rick and I were supposed to meet-so I could give him the Grinnell decision. Apparently, Rick was worried that I’d try to trap him, which I would’ve, so he started looking for other sources that could get him a decision.”

“And since he knew Ben and I were on the outs, he approached me,” Eric said, sitting down next to Ober. “I guess he figured that if I wrote the CMI story so I could get a promotion, I’d definitely steal some documents for one and a half million.”

“He offered you over a million bucks?” Ober asked. “He should’ve come to me.”

“Funny,” Eric said. “So a few days before Thanksgiving, I’m sitting at my desk, and I get a call from Rick. He tells me that he wants to speak to me about our mutual friend Ben, and he asks me to meet him at this hotel. When I get there, he offers me over a million and a half to keep an eye on Ben and to somehow snag the decision.”

“Are you kidding me?” Ober asked. “What’d you say?”

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell him to screw off right there,” Lisa said.

“No way,” Ben said. “Eric’s way too opportunistic to do that.” Turning to Ober, Ben continued, “That night, Eric slipped a note under my door telling me the whole story. He said he was sorry about what happened between us, and he wanted to make it up to me. We were so afraid that the house and all of our phones were bugged, we started communicating through notes, until we eventually worked out this plan.”

“That’s what I was looking for when you caught me rummaging through Ben’s garbage,” Eric said to Ober.

“So you knew all along that you were giving Rick the wrong decision?” Ober asked.

“Yes,” Eric said.

“And Rick believed you since he thought you hated Ben.”

“Exactly.”

“And all of you were in on it?”

“Yep.”

“And now you’ve basically screwed Rick to the wall since he bet on the wrong decision?”

“You got it.”

“THIS IS THE GREATEST PLAN OF ALL TIME!” Ober screamed, throwing his hands in the air. “You guys are geniuses!”

“We try,” Lisa said.

Ober jumped from the sofa. “We have to celebrate! This is the best ever!”

“So you’re not mad we didn’t tell you?” Eric asked, knowing the answer.

“Yeah,” Ober said, calming down. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“We just wanted to keep you safe,” Ben said.

“That’s not it,” Ober said.

“He didn’t tell you because you’re a bonehead who can’t act, and you probably would’ve screwed up the whole plan,” Lisa said.

“Oh, give me a break,” Ober said. “I’m a great actor.”

“I’m sure you are,” Ben said. “But there was too much at stake to fool around. For the past month, Eric and I had to act like we were still at each other’s throats. We couldn’t risk involving everyone.”

“Did Nathan know?” Ober asked.

“No,” Ben said, looking at Lisa.

“You can say it,” Lisa said. She turned to Ober and explained, “That part was my idea. I’m the one who said not to trust Nathan. There, it’s out. Are you happy now?”

Ben looked back at Ober. “Believe me, I was dying to tell him. But in the end, I felt the fewer people who knew, the better. And when we found out about that briefcase mike-well, that sealed it. We were convinced that Rick had contacted Nathan as well.”

“So you really did suspect him,” Ober said.

“Absolutely,” Ben said. “Especially when Eric told me that he never told Rick about the yearbook plan, but Rick somehow knew about it on his own. I was terrified. I thought Rick was using Eric to get the decision and that he was using Nathan to keep a closer eye on me.”

“But why couldn’t Rick get that information from Eric?” Ober asked, sitting in Ben’s desk chair. “Why pay two friends?”

“Because at that point, I wasn’t speaking to Eric anymore,” Ben explained. “And Nathan was the person I was spending the most time with.”

“We still don’t know Nathan’s innocent,” Lisa pointed out.

“Oh, man,” Ober said to Ben. “He is going to be pissed at you for not telling him. And when you combine that with what you said to him last week-you’ll be lucky if he ever forgives you.”

Ben stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Thanks for the reminder.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Eric said, waving his hand. “You can deal with Nathan later. We should be celebrating right now. This was a tremendous victory.”

“I’m telling you,” Ober said, pulling open Ben’s desk drawers, “I’ve got to get a job here. This is the most exciting day of my life. Where can I pick up an application?”

“The brass polishers have their own union,” Lisa said. “My guess is you’ll have to go through them.”

Ignoring the comment, Ober asked Eric, “So what was it like being the inside man? Risking your life, seeing danger around every corner, but forging ahead because you knew that…wait a minute.” He stopped. “What happened to all the money you got?”

“It’s in some bank in Switzerland. It was supposed to be released to me after the decision came down. I called a minute after the decision was announced, and I still couldn’t get access. My guess is we’ll never see that money.”

“Do you know what we could’ve done with a million bucks?” Ober groaned. “We could’ve bought a small nation. We could’ve owned Guam. We could’ve built the world’s biggest hoagie as a monument to the sandwich gods.”

“Darn,” Eric said sarcastically. “I never thought about the hoagie monument. Maybe I can get it back.” Turning toward Ben, he added, “Meanwhile, I’m surprised you haven’t heard from Rick yet. I thought for sure-”

“He already called,” Ben said.

“He did? When?”

“About a minute after we got back here. He was completely dumbfounded.”

“You should’ve heard it,” Ober said. “Ben tore him apart! I just wish we had a videophone so we could’ve seen his expression.”

“I don’t know if you should’ve told him off like that,” Lisa said, taking a seat in her own chair.