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
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. “
“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.”
Chapter 4
Monday morning began as most Mondays do. Corbin and Beckett arrived and checked their mail. Various coworkers came by to discuss their weekends and to ease their transitions into the workweek. Around ten, Beckett closed the door. Corbin assumed Beckett wanted an update on the weekend’s research. He was in for a shock.
