Without A Hitch

that why you dropped by?”

“Oh, as if.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I’m glad you asked. I came to use the dictionary.” Molly flipped open the dictionary to a page she marked with her finger. “Oh, here’s the word I wanted. Noun,” Molly read to Corbin and Beckett as if they were third graders. “‘Something exceptionally desirable’. Hmm.” Molly put a finger to her lips. “Or maybe you prefer, ‘something taken by force, stratagem, or threat’?”

“What is?” Corbin looked puzzled.

“A prize, of course. How do you define prize?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Corbin said without missing a beat.

Molly winked at Corbin and sauntered from the room. “Carry on, boys.” She closed the door behind her.

Corbin signaled Beckett to remain silent as he peered beneath the door. Molly’s feet were nowhere to be seen. “It’s ok, she’s gone,” he whispered to Beckett.

“What do you think she knows?” Beckett whispered back.

“Nothing, she just overheard the word ‘prize.’ Otherwise, she would have pounded us with specific questions. Trust me, it’s killing her to think something is going on she knows nothing about. If she knew anything, she would relentlessly throw it in our faces, hoping we either let her in on it or panic and give her more clues. She’s bluffing.”

“I hope you’re right.” Beckett fiddled with a pen. “You handled that well. You didn’t sound surprised at all.” It wasn’t clear if Beckett meant this as a compliment to Corbin or an indictment of himself.

“We can’t afford to be surprised. Whatever happens, just keep the emotion out of it. If we don’t, we’ll give ourselves away. We can’t allow that.”

Beckett nodded. For a few moments, the only sound in the room was the ever-present buzzing of the fluorescent lights.

“Do you think she’s right? Do you think everybody heard?” Beckett stopped whispering.

“Everyone on the hallway, that’s for sure. The rest’ll get blow-by-blow transcripts within the hour. But it doesn’t matter, what’s done is done. You just need to stand there and take it. Don’t flinch, don’t panic, don’t cause a scene. Remember, you’re out of here in a month. Stay cool and this’ll pass. Get upset and you’ll give Molly or Kak exactly what they need to rip you apart.”

Beckett grunted. “I’m not normally this bad with stress. It’s just. . this is a big thing. . with my family and all. If we don’t get this right.”

“You heard the plan. You know the safeguards, and how we have layer upon layer of protection. Every risk has been considered and countered.”

“I know. I understand,” Beckett’s voice contained a tinge of irritation, but also a hint of fear. Beckett ground something into the carpet with his shoe. “It’s just this waiting. I keep thinking, ‘why can’t it be June 14 already?’ ‘Why can’t I be on the train already?’ I feel like I should be doing something.”

“Find something to fill your time.”

“Like what? There’s not really much to keep us busy here, is there?”

“Then think of something else to do. Write the great American novel, study French or FORTRAN or some other dead language, just channel your stress into something productive.”

Becket smiled. “French isn’t a dead language.”

“Give it time.”

Corbin sat at the bar at the Bluetone swirling the beer in his glass. A neon sign above the bar gave his beer a reddish tint. The bar was dark and smelled of french fries. Burnt, aging high-intensity lights on the stage cast a brownish glow over everything, though a series of recessed lights added bright spots throughout the room. Whenever people smoked, the light from these bright spots lit up the smoke and formed snakelike cones of yellowish light amidst the darkness.

The bar owner, Ronnie “Blue” Beltran, wiped the bar clean. He and Corbin became friends after Corbin started playing regularly at Blue’s bar.

“Did I ever tell you I don’t love my job?”

Blue let out a belly laugh. “Let me think.”

“I should have been a musician, Blue.” Corbin picked at a tray of peanuts.

“What stopped cha?” Blue asked in a voice made raspy by years of smoking.

“I don’t know. I do not know. I guess, everyone always told me to stay on the track, go to a good school, get a good job, be a success. I never questioned that.”

“Can’t blame other people for the choices you make in life.” Blue pulled a cigarette from the pocket of his Cuban guayabera shirt.

“I suppose that’s true.”

“And it sure ain’t bad advice to get education or to strive to be a success.”

“That’s true too.”

“Maybe you just picked the wrong job. You any good at what cha do?”

“Honestly? I have no idea. I don’t do anything. So I have no way to know if I’m any good at it.”

“You’re one heck of a musician. I can tell you that. Just got to loosen up a bit, and you’d be serious, man.” Blue stuck the cigarette between his lips and searched the bar for a match.

“Well, I’m just talkin’. I’ve made my choice. I’m stuck being a lawyer. Besides, I only play for fun, as evidenced by what you don’t pay me to play.”

Blue laughed again. “I’ll pay you any time you wanna come play full time.”

“I appreciate that.”

“Hey, I’m a businessman, and you a good investment. Might not hire you to get my dog out of jail, but you can play in my bar anytime.”

“Then let’s hope your dog stays on the path of righteousness.” Corbin lifted his glass. “To your dog.”

Blue raised his own glass. “To making righteous decisions.”

Chapter 6

“Have you seen this?!” Theresa tossed a pamphlet onto Corbin’s lap and slid onto the end of his desk. She crossed her legs and smoothed her maroon skirt.

Corbin recognized the pamphlet as the invitation to the office’s summer conference. This was usually held at a ritzy hotel downtown, and it was attended by hordes of industry people, all looking for some advantage to be gained by meeting the office’s senior staff. Cooper Wilson used these conferences to encourage the industry to lobby Congress for more funds for the office.

“Turn to the back,” Theresa said, “you’ll laugh yourself silly.”

Corbin flipped the pamphlet over. “Humma humma humma ‘office continues to struggle in an understaffed capacity’? ‘Imperils the mission’?” Corbin furrowed his brow. “Who wrote this crap?”

“Kak, who do you think?”

“What a lying sack of-”

“Do you think we’ll have to go to this one?” Theresa asked, cutting Corbin off.

“Don’t we always?”

“What’s the date?” Beckett asked. “Maybe I’ll be gone before it happens?”

“No such luck, partner, June 2nd,” Corbin said.

“Shoot.”

Theresa shook her head. “I thought there was some sort of mercy rule: once you’ve been to enough of these, they let you stop attending?”

“You should suggest that to Kak,” Corbin offered.

“Sure, next time we have dinner I’ll mention it right after the dessert course.” Theresa rolled her eyes. She