10 Betrayed
I did quick check around the living room. None of us, not even Carmela, knew Josh had turned down a request for help from the New York Police Commissioner. We were surprised, but not as shocked as moderator West Evans pretended to be.
On the giant screen, we watched West turn to Josh and flash an obviously phony look of surprise. “Is that true? You turned him down?”
“Yes,” said our mentor. “I turned him down. Several times.”
“But why?”
“Because our Residue Class isn’t in the detective business. We’re in the mathematics business. It just happens from time to time that our skills can be helpful to the police. The rest of the time, we stick to our business. We hide out from reporters and anyone else who might take time away from our true mission in life.”
West appealed to his TV audience, shrugging with his palms open. “So you’re more or less a secret society, like the ancient Pythagoreans. Do you kill people who reveal the secret of the right triangle?”
Josh grinned widely at West’s allusion to the history of the Pythagorean Theorem. “A-squared plus B-squared equals C-squared is no longer the secret it was two thousand years ago. We have nothing to hide. It’s just that we’re too busy to entertain all the curious people out there.” Josh gave a small wave to the camera. “Much as we love ‘em.”
“Well,” said West, also looking at the camera and imitating Josh’s wave. “In that case, I have something special for all you curious people. Josh won’t tell us about his latest team member, but we’re reporters, so we have ways of finding out these things for you.” West stood. “Stay with us while we take a small break to offer our sponsors a chance to reveal some of their secrets.”
Once again, everyone rushed to do their commercial-break tasks, but this time, everyone made sure to be back fast enough to satisfy their curiosity about West’s secret. They need not have hurried. The commercials were extra-long.
“Where did he get ‘secrets’ about us?” Cosette asked. “And who does he mean by ‘latest team member’? Not me, for sure. I’m still not a team member.
I looked at Raj for his reaction. All he did was wave away her question. “This is American TV. Get used to it. Promise an elephant, deliver a mouse. A dead one. There won’t be anything to it–unless they’ve inflated some scurrilous gossip.”
I could see Cosette relaxing a bit, then looking as if she;d been kicked in the stomach when I turned to the screen and saw West welcoming her new boyfriend, Desmond! And introducing him as a reporter!
I watched the others, but their only apparent reactions were predictable–curiosity. My mind scanned backwards, realizing with relief that none of them knew Desmond–and certainly knew nothing about Cosette dating him.
My relief lasted about ten seconds, just until Desmond started speaking. “I met, Miss Marie Cosette Ternan, the newest member of the Rosemont group in the Student Union purely by accident.”
Oh, no. He’s starting off with a lie. Not to mention the way he lied to my friend by omitting the fact that he was a reporter.
The screen switched to a full-size photo of Cosette and Desmond engaged in deep conversation across a table at the Union.
“I learned that she’d been brought all the way to the US to exploit her unbelievable mathematic genius. I decided I had to help her understand what was being done to her.”
The whole team was no longer looking at the screen, but at Cosette. If they believed his lies, she was finished–thrown out of the Residue Class like a despicable traitor. She couldn’t look at them, so she concentrated on the screen and Desmond’s story. So did I. He was still talking about her, saying, “She wants more than anything to earn a degree here, but they haven’t even allowed her to matriculate. Instead, they work her every waking hour, then steal her ideas and publish them as their own. And they won’t even vote her a full membership, so once they’ve picked everything out of her brain, they can simply slam the door in her face.”
I dared a peek at Sonia, my best friend and collaborator, for her reaction. To my relief she had wrinkled her nose in disbelief, twisting halfway around so I could see her expression. I released the air in my lungs with an audible sound of relief. Only then did I realize that I’d been holding my breath ever since Desmond first mentioned Cosette’s name.
I held out my hands to Cosette, seeking silent permission to join me for a hug. She responded with the same gesture, which I accepted by bouncing over to her. “He must think his audience is entirely stupid. He says you met by accident, but he just happened to have a photographer along? Did you know there was a photographer?”
“Oh, God.” she said. “I never thought of that. Of course not. A photographer he never introduced to me? Obviously, he already knew who I was when he first approached. I guess he also knew how stupid and naive I was.”
Sonia slipped over to us and joined our hug. “Not stupid, Cosette, but naive, yes. As we all were when we first came to America. And he knew that, and took advantage of it. We should have warned you about American reporters. They’ll do anything to get a scoop.”
Helen didn’t join the group hug. No surprise there. But she came close and reached out to touch Cose on her shoulder. “They twist little facts into big shockers.” She removed her hand and pointed to the screen. “The way he does now.”
One by one, Desmond was doing just what Helen described to my friends, accompanied by photos or secret video clips. He showed Sonia’s bodyguard, Cody Moon. Then told the audience that Cody had been hired by her father to prevent Sonia’s promiscuous behavior. From somewhere, he produced a photo of Sonia talking with four football players–whom she happened to be tutoring, not seducing.
Cosette told us she needed a break. She asked me to come with her. When we were alone, She asked if that was true about Cody’s reason for being here.
“That’s a crazy lie,” I said. “I’d like to wash that Desmond’s mouth out with soap.”
“So, why is Cody here?”
I gave her an abbreviated story about Sonia’s kidnapping and how she was almost raped and murdered. Not only wasn’t she promiscuous, she was, like me–curious, but totally virginal, maybe more than me.
After Desmond was finished slandering Sonia, Helen got a similar treatment based on implications that her success in the market was somehow based on insider trading. This total fabrication was backed up with a snap of Helen speaking with Warren Buffett at a stockholder meeting. Desmond said nothing about Helen joining forces with the world’s most famous investor to rescue a blue-chip corporation from a hostile takeover–an action that earned her the “Outstanding Young Investor” from Money magazine.