The List

It was a Tuesday, completely ordinary, and Marcus asked me to scan and file a stack of documents from Harlan's secondary office,

the one on the fourth floor that I had only been in twice before.

Most of it was boring, contracts, wire confirmations, property agreements, and I was going through it fast because,

I had other things to do, and then I turned a page and stopped.

What was on it?

It looked like a contact sheet,

names and numbers, maybe thirty entries, and most of them were just initials,

no full names, no titles, nothing that told you who these people were.

But two of them had full names,

and one of them was a federal judge, sitting federal judge, and the other one was someone I recognized from the news,

someone who at the time was being considered for a cabinet position.

On a private contact sheet in Harlan's office.

With a number next to each name that wasn't a phone number,

it was too short for that, and next to the judge's name there was a single word written by hand in the margin.

What did it say?

It said confirmed, and it was underlined,

and the handwriting was Harlan's because I had seen his handwriting every day for two years

and I knew it the way you know something you wish you didn't.

I scanned the page, filed it, and walked back to my desk

and sat down and stared at my screen for a long time without doing anything.

Did you keep a copy?

I kept a copy, and that was either the smartest thing I ever did

or the reason everything that came after happened the way it did.