Without a Hitch (9 page)

With Molly and
Theresa gone, Beckett turned on Corbin.  Beckett was furious.  “What the hell
do you think you’re doing?!”

“You’re gonna
have to be more specific than that,” Corbin responded tartly.

“You told
Theresa you were making fake documents!”

“So what?  She
didn’t believe me.”

“It’s a stupid
risk!”

“She wasn’t even
listening to me,” Corbin said, cavalierly dismissing Beckett’s concerns.

“That’s not the
point.  What if she believed you and turned us in to the cops.  That was
stupid!”

“Do you know how
ridiculous that sounds?”

“It is not
ridiculous!”  Beckett punched Corbin’s desk.  “You accuse me of taking risks,
but you’re the one who’s playing around!  You see this as some kind of game, a
challenge to beat the system.  Well, this is no game, and I’m not in this for
the challenge!  I don’t want fame.  I don’t want satisfaction.  I am not doing
this to prove anything to myself.  I’m in this for the money.  That’s all I
want, the money, and frankly, I’m not even sure that’s worth the price.”

“What price?”

“The moral
price.  We’re stealing and that’s wrong, no matter what we tell ourselves.”

Corbin shrugged
his shoulders.  “Hey, if you want to walk, you can walk.  If you can’t go
through with this, then you’re free to quit.”

“I’m going
through with it,” Beckett insisted, “but you need to get serious!”

“‘Serious’?!  You
think I don’t know how serious this is?!”

“Then stop
playing around!  There’s no reason to toy with Theresa or Molly.  Why tell them
things that can come back to haunt us?”  Beckett continued to yell.

“Stop
overreacting.  This is the first thing I’ve ever said to them that even hints
at what we’re doing, and the only reason you think they can connect the dots is
because you know everything we’ve been up to.  They don’t.  They don’t even
know the dots exist.”

“They can’t
connect them
now
, but what if you end up on trial and they call
Theresa?  Theresa might be a whacko, but she’s not stupid.  What if the
prosecutor shows her the fake documents and asks if you ever said anything
about making fake documents?  Do you think she won’t remember your comment? 
You may know the theory of the law, but you don’t know jack about how things
really happen.”

Corbin threw his
hands up.  “Fine.”  He turned his attention to his computer, but stopped
mid-turn.  A shadow darkened his face.  “I won’t say another word, that’s fine. 
But let me tell you that you better calm down.  I am sick of dealing with your
nerves.  You were a trial attorney.  You’re supposed to be used to dealing with
the unexpected, handling disasters, but you’re panicking every other day.” 
Corbin stood up and pointed directly at Beckett.  “You need to get over your
fear of what could go wrong and just focus on doing what needs to be done. 
You’re acting erratically around here and it needs to stop!  Do you understand
me?  It needs to stop!  I won’t have it anymore!”

Beckett froze. 
Corbin made an imposing figure when he was angry, something Beckett had never
seen before.  Normally, Corbin remained relatively emotionless around work. 
This was something new.  Beckett swallowed hard.  They stared at each other. 
Beckett buckled first.

“Should we throw
a couple punches or would you rather slam the door and one of us runs off down
the hallway?”

Corbin laughed. 
His entire manner changed instantly, and he became the old Corbin again.  “What
does Miss Manners recommend?”

“Mediation.”

“Let’s just
throw the punches.”

“Ok.”

“Or we could
just go to lunch?” Corbin suggested.

“Better yet.”

“You know, the
next time Molly and Theresa end up in here together, we might want to search
them for shivs first.”

“Isn’t that the
truth.”

“You should have
seen the grin on Molly’s face when she walked past me in the hallway to slam
her door.”

“Honestly, I’m
glad I missed it.  Are you going to check on Theresa?”

“Something tells
me that would be a horrible idea.  Let’s go to lunch.”

An eerie silence
settled over the office the following morning.  Theresa didn’t emerge from her
office and didn’t respond to e-mails.  Corbin and Beckett spent the morning
working in silence.  Even Molly kept to herself, at least until Beckett was
called away from his desk.

“Hey,” Molly
said from Corbin’s doorway.  “You look tired.”

“I didn’t get
much sleep last night.”

“What?  Your
co-conspirator do something to keep you awake all night, huddled in the corner.
. . crying?”

“Always playing
the dick aren’t you?”

“Excuse me?!”

“Private
detective.”

“Yeah, you
better
explain that!”  Molly drifted over to Beckett’s desk and scanned the items
Beckett left lying around.  “What kept you awake?”

“An old movie. 
I started watching it and then couldn’t get myself to go to bed.  Then they ran
another one that pretty much kept me up until just before dawn.”

“What was all
the yelling about yesterday?”

“You tell me.  I
was under the impression you two just don’t like each other.”

Molly gave Corbin
a sour look.  “You know what I mean.  The minute I left here, you and your
little friend started yelling at each other.”

“Did we really? 
Somehow I missed that.”

“Fine, I don’t
care.”  Molly crashed down into Beckett’s chair.  “What were you watching last
night?”

“
Night at the
Opera
.”

“I don’t know
it.”

“It’s old.”

“I’m not into
opera.”

“I am, but
that’s not why I watched the movie.”

Molly picked up
Beckett’s stapler and rolled it in her hands.  “I had an ok night.”  Molly
obviously wanted Corbin to ask for further details about her night, but Corbin was
in no mood to make this easy on her.

“Good, glad to
hear it.”

“Of course, it
could have gone better.”

“Usually can. 
Have you heard if it’s going to rain today?”

Molly exhaled
loudly.  “Do I look like the weather channel?”

“You didn’t see
anything in the paper?”

“Stop asking
me!” Molly said in her well-practiced exasperated tone.  “Do you want to hear
what happened last night or not?”

Corbin shrugged
his shoulders.  “I don’t know, do I?”

Molly stood up. 
“I hear my phone,” she said bitterly, and she left.

Corbin laughed. 
“Score one for the home team.”

Chapter 9

Two days later,
Corbin sat in the middle of the main conference room at the Maria de Santo
Hotel in Washington.  Beckett sat on his left, Molly on his right.  By
coincidence, all three wore light-gray suits.  Around them, nearly two hundred
people watched speech after speech with feigned professional interest.

Theresa was
nowhere to be seen.  She secluded herself since the fight with Molly and even
refused Corbin’s offer to help with Wilson’s speech.

Wilson began his
speech with a joke that received only polite laughter and quickly moved on to
outlining the difficulties of running the office.  He spoke in rambling,
complex sentences and used much larger words than were needed.  Though the
speech may have looked erudite on paper, it sounded confused and pretentious
when spoken.  Without a doubt, Corbin knew Theresa had sabotaged it.  He smiled.

“What’s so
funny?” Molly and Beckett asked in unison.

Corbin waved
them off as Wilson droned on, having moved on to the lack of attention the
office received in the media: 
We’re often called the forgotten office
because we rarely end up in the newspapers.  In fact, I can’t think of the last
time we made the papers.

“Too bad the
papers didn’t ignore his last divorce,” Molly whispered in Corbin’s ear.

“It’s hard to
ignore allegations of a naked car chase.”

“What did she
say?” Beckett whispered, nodding toward Molly.  Owing to the ambient noise of
the room, neither Beckett nor Molly could hear the other when they whispered to
Corbin.  Thus, Corbin found himself passing along each comment.

“Wilson’s last
divorce.”

“Oh, right,”
Beckett snickered.

. . . because
our function is so specialized, many people don’t even know precisely what it
is that we do.

“Hell, I don’t
know what we do,” Corbin grumbled.

My goal for
the coming year, a year that may result in consequential changes to the manner
in which we operate, is to introduce a new paradigm to the office that is both
forward looking, pragmatic, and goal oriented, though consistent with our core
mission.

“What the heck
does that mean?” Beckett asked.

Notwithstanding
recent changes in our enacting legislation, I expect we will see significant
alterations to our regulations.  As many of you have recognized in the past,
our regulations are some of the most complex in the world, and are not easily
understood.

“Did he just say
our regulations suck?” Molly asked, as a smile crept across her face.

“That’s how I
took it.  Maybe this is his
mea culpa
?”

“Can’t wait to
see what he confesses next.  My money’s on erectile dysfunction.”

Corbin let out a
surprised laugh, which he immediately covered with a phony cough.

Consequently,
I am normally hesitant to discuss alterations to our regulations with an
audience of this size.  Yet, I am confident that the people in this room are
some of the brightest in our industry.  Thus, I am confident that I can address
these matters without fear of giving an impenetrable speech.

“Bingo!” Molly whispered.

“Bingo?”

“‘Impenetrable’. 
I also would have accepted ‘flaccid’ or ‘impotent’.”

The concerns
many commentators raised in response to our requests for comments
notwithstanding, significant pressure has been building for the issuance of new
regulations.

“This is
boring,” Molly said, as she began kicking the empty seat in front of her.

It has been
said that achieving the right level of regulation is the most difficult
balancing act one can perform because you never know if the regulations are
correct until after they are implemented.  It is like the problem of knowing
when you are in love.  You may think you are in love a dozen times, and each
time you believe with absolute certainty that you are correct.  But it is not
until you truly are in love that you realize that each of the prior times was
not love, but something lesser.

“What the heck
does love have to do with our regulations?” Molly whispered.  She wrinkled her
nose.  “Do you think our regs might be worth reading?”

Corbin shook his
head and mouthed the word “no.”

The process
of regulation is much the same as figuring out whether you’re in love.  You
create regulations that appear to be correct, only to discover later that you
were not correct, although with each passing attempt, you ultimately draw
closer.  This time, with our new proposed regulations, I believe that our
regulations finally truly are correct.

“This is nonsense. 
What an awful speech.  I wonder how much longer this is going to last?” Corbin
asked as he checked his watch.

Finally, let
me address the issue of staffing.

“Here it comes,
get your waders on.”

Our office is
dangerously understaffed.  We are so understaffed that our mission is being
imperiled and a significant backlog of work is developing.  This may cause our
service to suffer.  Unfortunately, we cannot correct that situation alone.  We
need each of you, who recognizes the importance of what we do, to contact your
representatives and demand increased support for our office.

Beckett looked
around the room.  “Do you think anybody’s buying this?”  He no longer bothered
to whisper.

“Who knows, some
people will believe anything.”  Corbin stopped whispering as well.

It is a large
backlog and will require significant man hours to overcome.

Beckett
whispered to Corbin.  “I had another thought about the duffel bag.”

“This isn’t the
best place to discuss that,” Corbin said, nodding his head toward Molly.

“She can’t hear
me.”

“Let’s not test
it.”

Again,
notwithstanding the criticism leveled, our actual experience is quite
different.

Molly rolled her
eyes.  “I wish he’d stop saying ‘notwithstanding!’”  Suddenly the room erupted
in applause, which dissipated almost instantly, as people began streaming
toward the reception area at the back of the room.  “‘bout flippin’ time,”
Molly said, as she grabbed her purse.  “You boys staying for the reception?”

“Not on a bet.”

“Good, who wants
to buy me lunch?”

The following
morning, Kak sent out an e-mail praising Wilson’s speech.  Kak called the
speech “brilliant and visionary,” causing much hilarity in Corbin and Beckett’s
office.  Kak did not acknowledge Theresa’s assistance.  Around noon, Corbin
paid Theresa a visit.

“Nice speech,
very subtle.”

“I figured
you’d
get it.”  Theresa smiled.

“Oh, I think we
all got it, except for Kak and Wilson that is.”

“Do you know
that bastard didn’t even give me credit for writing the thing?” Theresa
complained.

“Did you want
credit?”

“Absolutely
not.”

Corbin leaned
against a large filing cabinet.  “On this thing with Molly. . . I wouldn’t
worry too much about what Molly says.  Nobody really listens to her.”

“I’d rather not
talk about it.”

“All right. 
Beckett and I are going to lunch, if you want to tag along.”

“No.  Thank you,
though.  I’ve got something I need to finish.  Maybe tomorrow?” she said, but
without sincerity.

“Sure.  Catch
you later then.”

Corbin turned to
leave.  However, as he put his hand on the doorknob, Theresa spoke:  “Tell me
you don’t like her?”

“Who?”

“Molly.  Tell me
you aren’t interested in her?”

Corbin didn’t
expect this.  “Come again?”

“I have no
illusion that you and I will ever. . . but as a friend. . . she’s bad news. 
She enjoys tearing people down.  Be careful with her,” Theresa said quietly.  She
rose and looked out her window.  “That’s all I wanted to say.”

“I have no
interest in her,” he responded.