Beckett arrived at work energized the following morning. He’d come up with several ideas during his commute home the prior evening, and he was excited to discuss them with Corbin. But every time he tried, one of their coworkers appeared at the door. They had just seen off the most recent visitor and now Beckett rose to close the door.
“Why are we so popular today?” Beckett asked rhetorically.
Corbin shrugged his shoulders without putting down his magazine. “Our advertising must be working.”
Beckett peered both ways down the hallway and then closed the door. “I’ve been thinking. If this thing works, and it should, then I can go back to my old job because I don’t have to worry about the salary. Whatever we get out of doing this would easily make up financially for the lack of a promotion.”
“Ok,” Corbin said cautiously. He put down the magazine, pursed his lips, and scratched his neck.
“If I give Kak my notice so I can quit and take back my old job, and we do this on my last day here, no one would ever think I wasn’t here. As long as I’m back in time for the goodbye party, everybody’ll swear I was here all day.”
Corbin winced. “That adds a level of difficulty. . we wouldn’t have any flexibility about the timing for one thing. Plus, it’ll be hard to do your out processing without you here.”
“True, but I think it would be worth it. We should do it!”
Corbin bit his lip. “It’s an interesting idea, but we need to look at all the angles first. You realize we can’t use the money for some time, right?”
“That doesn’t matter. What I save in commuting costsshould more than see me through for a few months. A train ride from New Jersey every morning isn’t cheap.”
Before Corbin could respond, Theresa knocked on their door. She entered without waiting to be invited, closing the door behind her. Nodding at Beckett, who waved politely, she perching herself on the edge of Corbin’s desk, where she always sat when visiting Corbin. Today she wore a black suit, as did Corbin, though his was of a more recent vintage. Moreover, he had removed his jacket, something she never did in the office. After crossing her legs, Theresa smoothed her skirt and pulled it to the top of her knee. She then stuck her right leg out in front of her and pulled imaginary fluff from her black stocking. When she finished, she let her leg hang and her shoe dangle from her foot. The show was intended for Corbin, but he refused to let his eyes be drawn to her legs.
“What’s this I hear about you having a bad date? Why didn’t you tell me?!” Theresa asked, trying to sound jocular, though hints of distress permeated her voice. As she spoke, she tugged at the single strand of pearls hanging around her neck.
“Tell you?! I didn’t tell anyone. They all just seem to know. Our office must be bugged,” Corbin said, raising an accusatory eyebrow at Beckett. “How did you find out, Theresa?”
“Ignore him, Theresa,” Beckett interjected. “He’s just grumpy.”
“I am not,” Corbin shot back.
“Why is he grumpy?” Theresa asked.
“The date didn’t go well,” Beckett said.
Theresa folded her hands in her lap and grinned at Corbin. “Do tell.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“Who’s the girl?”
“There’s nothing to tell,” Corbin repeated.
“She’s a banker, right?” Beckett interjected again.
“Banker, accountant, circus freak, what’s the difference?” Corbin asked.
“Oooh, a banker, that should be right up your alley, with that huge brain of yours,” Theresa said, smiling at Corbin. “What went wrong?”
Corbin looked at Beckett. “You’re doing a good job telling the story, why don’t you continue?”
“Sure. ‘What went wrong,’ you ask? Too normal. Lover boy doesn’t like the straights. He’s into the crazies.”
“I am not into the crazies!” Corbin protested.
“Crazies?!” Theresa laughed sharply. “Don’t let him anywhere near Molly! Heaven help us. The gates of hell would open up and swallow this office whole if the two of them ever got together.”
In an office with little to do, feuding becomes a form of entertainment. Sometimes, these feuds spin out of control. Of all the feuds taking place in the office, the worst was easily the one between Molly and Theresa. No one knew exactly how it began, but what turned the spark of disagreement into an all-out conflagration was Molly’s discovery that Theresa suffered from a great deal of insecurity regarding her attraction to Corbin. This was a big red button that was just too tempting for Molly not to push. And push it she did. Theresa retaliated by sniping at Molly’s physical traits, especially her height, which was a good five inches greater than Theresa’s, and her perceived lack of modesty in her relationships with the male sex. Theresa particularly took these shots when she spoke to Corbin, as she hoped to ensure that Corbin didn’t fall for any charms Molly may have. Corbin tried to stay neutral, but that wasn’t helping.
“I do not like the crazies,” Corbin repeated. “I like normal, thank you very much. And for your information, the date went well. She was just a little. . dull, that’s all.”
“What made her so dull? Did she lecture you on how to deduct your socks on your taxes?”
“She was just dull. She was too. . corporate.”
“‘Corporate’?”
“Yeah, like she’d been processed, like a chicken McNugget. Everything about her was conventional, standard issue. Her past, her plans for the future, all conventional. Her opinions, all thoroughly vetted by the Post. She even ordered bland food.”
“I think, my friend, the problem lies within,” Beckett opined.
“What’s that supposed to mean?!”
“You’re bored with yourself, so you find other people boring.”
“That would explain why he’s drawn to the crazies,” Theresa teased Corbin.
“I think you’ve both lost your minds. And you never answered my question, how did you find out about this non-date?”
“How do you think,” Theresa said.
“Molly.”
“Yep. She told her secretary, who told my secretary, who told me. You know the drill.” Theresa picked up Corbin’s watch off the desk. “Speaking of our girl, I saw you downstairs with her yesterday. So. . what did she tell you?” Theresa asked coyly.
“Nothing.”
Theresa’s happy mood instantly succumbed to irritation, and a scowl crossed her face. “She must have said something. Speak!” She waved her hand at Corbin.
“All she said was she looking for some shoes,” replied Corbin, ignoring Theresa’s irritation. He shifted his attention to his computer and took a sip of his coffee.
“Shoes? Hmm. I didn’t know they made shoes in her size. . at least not women’s shoes.” Theresa flashed an ugly smile, which created wrinkles underneath her eyes.
“Before you start,” Beckett interrupted, “you might want to get back to your office. Kak’s on the prowl today, and he’s already been in here twice.”
Theresa waved off his comment. “I don’t care about Kak.” She shifted slightly so she could see Beckett more easily. “Apparently, our little Molly had a date the other night with a banker, and it didn’t go well.” Theresa often described Molly as “little,” to ironically emphasize Molly’s larger-than-average build.
“There seems to be a lot of that going around lately,” said Beckett, referencing Corbin’s failed date. Corbin shot Beckett a nasty look in return, though Theresa didn’t notice.
“You won’t believe this!” Theresa said, far too happily. “This guy was perfect for her! He’s rich, which we all know is her primary requirement. He’s an up-and-coming junior partner at a local investment bank. He’s older than her, so we avoid a repeat of last summer’s crisis.”
Corbin and Beckett nodded involuntary at the memory of Molly’s behavior the prior summer.
“What’s more, for some reason I’ll never understand, he adores her! He’s apparently completely smitten with her, even though he knows all about her, uh,” Theresa cleared her throat, “unusually experienced past. Can you believe he doesn’t care about that? Incredible!”
Corbin ignored Theresa’s rant and opened his e-mail.
Beckett, however, couldn’t ignore her. “What’s the catch?”
Theresa’s smile broadened to the point that it appeared dangerously close to spreading beyond the confines of her face. “He’s two inches shorter than she is!”
Corbin rolled his eyes, thinking back to Molly’s comments about heels, but he remained silent.
“So what?” Beckett asked. He sounded confused.
“Exactly!” Theresa verged on giddiness. “For normal people like you and me, that wouldn’t be a big deal. But for her, a shorter date is an affront to her dignity! She spent the whole morning complaining to anyone she ran across. Then she called the friend who introduced them, and she yelled at her for setting her up with ‘McShorty.’ Afterwards, she called McShorty himself and told him he was too short for her.”
“She didn’t!” Beckett gasped.
“She did!” Theresa laughed. “This is the fifth guy she’s dumped in the last two months, and always for the shallowest reasons: too young, too cheap, too old, too bald, and now too short. Two more and she becomes some twisted Snow White.” Theresa grabbed a folder from Corbin’s desk and held it before her face. “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the nuttiest fruitcake of them all.”
Corbin took the folder back. “Don’t start handing out any poison apples.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Theresa replied innocently, fluttering her eyes. “Poison’s far too slow,” she purred.
Beckett walked over to his filing cabinet. “I don’t want to know any more.”
Theresa looked at him. The smile on her face faded. She looked at Corbin, but he also seemed unwilling to continue the discussion. Annoyed at their lack of participation, she slid off Corbin’s desk and headed for the door. “I’m sorry to hear your date didn’t go well, Alex.” Her tone did not match her words. “But at least you’re still on the market, that’s all that matters. . you’ll come around.”
When Theresa left, Corbin whispered across the room to Beckett: “See what I mean?!”
“She’s just lonely,” Beckett said, picking up his newspaper. “She’s got nice legs though.”
“Yeah, and she’s got something else too.”
“What?”
“My watch.”
“She did say you’d come around.” They both laughed.
A few minutes later, Kak burst into their office without knocking. He never knocked. It was immediately obvious he was furious. His face had turned bright red and was trending toward purple.
“What. . what do you think you’re doing?!” Kak had difficulty expressing himself when he became nervous or angry, and the angrier he became the worse it got. “If you have problems. . problems with the office, then you. . then you tell me! You don’t. . you don’t do this!” Kak rubbed his palm against his receding hairline as he yelled, and his gray beard shook. As he breathed, the buttons on his dingy, polyester short-sleeve dress shirt strained to contain his stomach. He wore no tie today, and no one even knew if he owned a suit jacket.
“What are you talking about?!” Beckett demanded.
“Th. . this!” Kak waved a piece of paper at Beckett, before tossing it at him.
Beckett caught it out of the air. It was a GSA “pre-inspection” form everyone had filled out. GSA, the General Services Administration, was conducting inspections before renegotiating the office lease, and they wanted to know everything that needed to be fixed. Unlike everyone else, Beckett filled his out accurately.
“What’s wrong with it?” Beckett asked.
“What are you trying to. . to do?!”
“I’m not going to sign off on this office being safe without listing the things I think are unsafe.”
“You’re not a s. . safety. . you’re no expert!”
“No, but I know exposed wires aren’t safe. Sparks aren’t safe. I know mold isn’t safe. I know people around here have a lot of respiratory problems.”
“Y. . you’re not the expert! Let the expert do his job.”
“All I did was fill out the form honestly. The form asks for comments. I made those comments. What do you want me to do differently?”
Kak glared at Beckett. His face was now purple, but his eyes registered trepidation. Beckett followed the form to the letter, and Kak could do nothing about it, but that didn’t stop him from getting very, very angry. Kak moved his mouth, but no sound came out.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that? What did you want me to do differently?” Beckett repeated.
Kak took a deep breath before continuing in a low growl. “If you make these claims, GSA will. . will need to address these with the. . with the landlord. There’s no reason to draw outside attention to this office!”
Beckett didn’t back down. “What do you want me to do?” This wasn’t a question so much as a direct challenge. “Tell me exactly what I should do, and I’ll do it.”
“Small conference!” Kak roared, and he stormed off.
Beckett sighed and shook his head. “I’ll be back.”
No sooner had Beckett left, than Molly appeared at the door, holding a half-eaten cookie in her right hand. Molly’s office abutted Corbin and Beckett’s, and she often overheard what happened in their office, especially when the door was open.
“’Sup? Rumor has it Kak invited your buddy to his lair.”
“What are you doing, loitering in front of our office?” Corbin pointed at the cookie. “Hey, I know that cookie! I see you two came to terms?”
“Yeah, we worked something out.”
“Looks like you got the better end of the deal though.”
“Some you win, some you lose. So what does Kak want with your little friend?”
“Kak wants to make sure all of Evan’s safety concerns are properly addressed.”
Molly wrinkled her nose. “Did you ever notice Kak looks a lot like Santa, only evil?”
Corbin chuckled. “Yeah, that struck me too. Are you going for coffee?”
“Uh, hello! Cookie! Where do you think I got this?” Molly waved the cookie around.
“So you’ve already been?”
“You know, they’re right about you. . you’re smart.”
“All right. Go paint your nails or whatever you do around here,” Corbin responded patronizingly. It was well-known Molly spent most of her day working on her nails or reading the paper. She preferred filing her nails into squares, rather than ovals, and painting them in darker colors rather than light. In newspapers, she preferred The Post, as do most government workers. When it came towork-related activities, she was less particular.
Molly placed her left hand on her hip and stomped her foot, causing cookie crumbs to fall to the floor. At the same time, she used her best exasperated voice to half-shout: “Are you trying to be sexist?!”
Corbin laughed. “No, but that’s all I’ve ever seen you do around here.”
“I’ve done other things.”
“I’m sure.” Corbin chuckled.
Molly moved the cookie from her right hand to her left and shook the crumbs from her right hand onto Corbin’s floor. “Is your buddy going to complain to Wilson about Kak and this safety thing?” Cooper Wilson was Kak’s boss, though he could rarely be found at the office.
“No, no point in that. Wilson’s just a continuation of Kak by other means.”
“Ain’t that the truth. Well, I should get back to my office. I wouldn’t want to interfere with your work,” Molly said, motioning toward the magazine on Corbin’s desk. “Oh, and if you ever feel like painting your nails,” Molly said with a wink, “just drop by.”
A few minutes later, Beckett returned to the office. He was whistling.
“You seem chipper,” Corbin said suspiciously. “How’d it go?”
“He had me sign a new form. He also told me to hide the wires behind a box. He’s paranoid it will reflect poorly on him if GSA learns about these problems.”
“Give me a break! He’s not even responsible for acquiring the building or maintaining it. Why should he care?”
“I think he’s afraid of outsiders snooping around.”
“Figures. So he got you to recant?”
“On the new form, yes.” Beckett smiled. “But, I also swiped the old form.”
“You know. . you might want to let this go.”
“No. I’m not letting him get away with making us work in a dangerous environment when all he has to do is tell GSA what the problems are and they can have them fixed. I’m standing firm on this one.”
“Don’t make waves. We’ve got more important issues to deal with right now.”
“Do you know ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’? That’s my favorite poem from back in grade school. Kak is our albatross.”
“I thought the Mariner shot the albatross. I don’t recall ever shooting Kak.”
“You’re thinking too literally. It’s about salvation.”
Corbin rolled his eyes.
“You should hear this, it could be important?”
“No, thanks. Besides, isn’t it time for you to call your wife?”
Beckett looked at his watch. Every day in the afternoon, Beckett called his wife to make up for not being able to come home for lunch. Even though they’d been married almost twenty years, Beckett still went out of his way to provide little romantic gestures, like bringing flowers or making these calls. “So it is.”
“And while you do that,” Corbin said, pulling tax forms out of his drawer, “I’m gonna do my taxes to see how much Uncle Sam plans to sodomize me this year.”
“You need more deductions. You should have kids.”
“Aren’t they expensive?”
“Not if you don’t feed ’em.”
“I tried that once with fish. . they died.”
“Kids are more resilient.” As he fished his phone card out of his desk, Beckett pointed toward a black guitar case leaning against the wall in the corner of the office. “I meant to ask, what’s that?”
“That’s my guitar.”
“I guessed that part. The shape kind of gave it away. What’s it doing here?”
“I play at a local club sometimes. I usually go home before heading to the club, but today I need to get the oil changed in my car, so I don’t have time to stop at home. I didn’t want to leave the guitar in my car.”
“I didn’t know you played guitar?”
“Yeah. I’ve played for years, but I only started playing publicly about six months ago, when I read an article about local clubs letting people play on open mic nights. I was bored sitting at home, so I found one of those clubs and started playing.”
“What songs do you play?”
“It depends on my mood. When I first started I asked around to see what other people were playing, because I didn’t know what people wanted to hear. I ended up with a pretty long list. Truthfully though, the list is a little dull,” Corbin said with more than a hint of disappointment in his voice. He didn’t tell Beckett he had written several songs, but hadn’t yet worked up the courage to play them.
“Are you any good?”
“The manager seems pretty happy with me. He’s even asked me to fill in on other nights once in a while.”
“Wow! Do you have any fans?”
“Not that I know of, but no one’s thrown any produce at me.”
A few days later, Corbin entered the office holding a calendar of upcoming events. “I think I found the day we need to do this.”
“Why? What gives?”
“On June 14th, they’re having a hearing upstairs on amendments to our rules. At the start of the hearing, the recorder will take the names of everyone in attendance. If I sit in, my name will appear in an official United States government record as being present at the hearing on that date and time. Talk about an unbreakable alibi.”
“Are you still going to have time to do everything else?”
“Yeah. The hearing doesn’t start until ten, and it’s supposed to stop by noon. Plus, after the hearing starts and my name is recorded, I’ll just slip out the back.”
Beckett smiled. “Ok, we have a date.”
“I think so. I’ll clear it with Joe Nobody, but I doubt he’ll object.” Corbin tossed the calendar into his inbox. “By the way, Nobody and I are gonna start scoping out houses this weekend. We should know by Monday which of our high earners will make good candidates.”
“Don’t let anyone see you.”
“Won’t be a problem.”
Corbin picked up his book to read, but he saw Beckett staring out the window. Something clearly bothered him. “What?” Corbin finally asked.
“Why are you doing this?” Beckett asked.
“What do you mean?”
“This whole scheme. You’re a smart guy. You make good money. In a couple years, you’ll make a heck of a lot more money in the private sector. You don’t have any lavish spending habits, and I’ve never known you to be greedy. So I can’t see money as your motivation. So why take this kind of risk for something you don’t seem to want or need?”
Corbin set down his book. “I would have thought my motives were obvious.”
“Not really.”
“You tell me, Dr. Freud. I thought I was doing it for the money.”
Beckett shook his head. “No, money’s definitely not your motive.”
“Well, when you find out, you let me know.”