The Curious Copier Room Incident
Thursday night, 10.15 pm at the Agency. The corridors lay deserted. The lights were dimmed down. Only a handful of agents were still here, those few who manned the nightshift, a necessity due to their many operations going on overseas. If anything important happened, they would immediately inform those who needed to know and in case of emergency the Agency would wake up and bustle with live as during the day within half an hour.
Right now, though, it was fast asleep.
The two persons in the copier room thought themselves alone on their level. The lights were turned out. Only the faint glow from the copiers illuminated the room, which was barely any illumination at all. They were engaged in kissing at that very moment, the woman backed up against one of the copiers, the man pulling her tight against him. His hands slowly slid down her body and started tugging at her blouse, pulling it out of her skirt.
She broke the kiss.
"Effrom, what are you doing?" she asked with a small giggle.
A rhetoric question, most likely, since she was also undoing his tie and starting to unbutton his shirt.
"It's okay", Beaman whispered in her ear, his voice low and husky.
He slid his hands under her blouse, slowly let them wander higher, savoring the feel of her bare skin. She let go of his shirt and reached up to pull him closer and into another kiss. He ran his hands up her back, to the clasp of her bra.
"There's no one here but us", he murmured.
Right on cue the door opened and the lights went on. Beaman jumped away from Roxanne and turned to face the intruder. At first he didn't see anything because the lights were too bright after the relative darkness. And also because the first thing Roxanne had taken off were his glasses. He squinted at the door. And when he recognized the person there he wanted nothing more than to drop dead, right here, right now – please!
Francine. Of all the people working here it was Francine Desmond standing in the door staring at them with an expression on her face he couldn't quite make out without his glasses. Next to him Roxanne stood like a doe caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. Francine said nothing. She just blinked, shook her head, turned off the lights again and closed the door. And gone she was – just as suddenly as she had appeared. Beaman could hear her footsteps outside in the corridor, moving away from the copier room.
Francine tried to understand what she just had seen – and why she felt the urge to laugh. Maybe because this whole situation felt somehow – unreal. Effrom Beaman and – what was her name? That new girl from Accounting, the one who had started here only two months ago.
Roxanne. Roxanne Dawson.
So, Effrom and Roxanne in the copier room. In the dark. Engaged in –
The corners of her mouth twitched again.
Don't laugh. That would be mean.
Francine entered the elevator and pushed the button for the parking garage. It was such a cliché, wasn't it? Two people making out in the copier room. Of all places. She tried to banish the image from her mind. Effrom, without glasses and shoes, his tie gone, his shirt half unbuttoned, with lipstick all over his face, a look of utter mortification on his face that had intensified when he had recognized her. And she herself standing there and all she had been able to think of saying had been "Mind if I join the party?" – as if that whole situation weren't absurd and embarrassing enough already, no need to turn it into something straight out of a Buñuel movie – and so she had said nothing at all.
She almost laughed. Almost.
What the heck? Get a grip on yourself, Desmond.
Better not go there or where a remark like that might have led. Breathe. Relax. Stay calm and serious. Really easy.
The elevator stopped and the doors opened. Francine exited. She was halfway to her car when it occurred to her that Roxanne Dawson basically looked like a carbon copy of her, didn't she?
It was the final straw.
The dark deserted parking garage echoed with Francine's laughter.
Francine was determined not to tell anyone about Effrom, Roxanne and the copier room. Amusing as that episode had been it really was no one's business what those two did together after hours or where. Though, yes, the copier room really was a cliché. So the only effect it had for the following few days was that every time she ran into Effrom – which happened more frequently than usual, the poor guy probably was trying to muster all his courage and talk to her about that incident – she couldn't stop herself from smiling which always made him pale just a little bit and hurry off.
You really have to stop doing that, she scolded herself. He'll think you're going to tell what you saw when it's most embarrassing for him.
She decided to seize the next chance to pull him aside and tell him no one would hear a word from her. Before she could do so, though, she ran into Lee – who very obviously was in a very bad mood. Of course. This whole mess with Amanda and the review board got to him. Amanda was his partner after all. Which also meant that he would run his own investigation, no matter what anyone told him.
She wasn't surprised when he broached that subject.
"You know, I could do with a little help", he said and smiled.
It was the smile that immediately put Francine on her guard. He wanted her to do something for him.
"Help", she repeated. "With what?"
"I want to look at that Statik Aerospace stuff. The answer is somewhere in there – I know it."
The smile disappeared and was replaced with a look of determination.
"Amanda found something and now they're trying to –"
He stopped and shook his head.
"Never mind. I just need to get at those files and I'm sure I can find it, too."
"And why exactly do you need me for that?" Francine asked.
"Well – you know Beaman. The way he sticks to the rules. He won't give me those files. He won't even let me look at them. So I thought –"
"So you thought I could ask him for those files instead."
"Yes."
Francine shook her head.
"No."
"Why not?"
Lee frowned.
"Don't you want Amanda to be reinstated? She's a damn good agent."
"I know but –"
"And besides you owe her", Lee cut her off.
Francine raised her eyebrows.
"I owe her. For what?"
"You really hurt her feelings with your remark, back there in Billy's office."
Lee gave her his best kicked puppy dog look.
Francine shook her head and laughed.
"Oh Lee. If everyone who ever hurt my feelings since I started working here owed me dinner I'd be eating out every single night for the next five years or so. Besides - it's been a long time since any of my stupid remarks could hurt Amanda. Nowadays, they just annoy her. That's not why I'm not going to ask Effrom for those files, though."
"Then why?" Lee asked.
"Well, you might not think much of Effrom Beaman but he's not an idiot. He wouldn't give me the files, either, because he'd know I'd pass them right on to you. So – yes, I could try but it wouldn't work. He'll be wary of anyone who asks for those files right now, except maybe members of the review board."
Lee sighed.
"Yes, you're right. It's just –"
He ran his hand through his hair.
"I want to help Amanda. You know the review board. You know how these things go."
Of course she knew. They would investigate for a while, maybe a little longer and with a little more effort than usual since this was Amanda King they were dealing with. But they wouldn't dig deep enough to come up with anything. She had done a little asking around of her own. If anyone had forged that newspaper then they had gone to a lot of effort to make it look genuine.
"Maybe –"
She hesitated. What she was about to propose wasn't nice and she felt a little bad about it. However, Lee was her friend and Effrom wasn't. And she hadn't said anything to Effrom, yet, so …
"Maybe what?" Lee asked.
"Okay."
Francine pulled Lee aside and looked around to make sure no one was close enough to listen.
"You have to promise me – no, swear on your parents' grave that you won't mention it to anyone else. Just Effrom. If I find out you've been telling anyone else you'll be volunteering to move to our listening post in Siberia before the month is over. Permanently."
Lee frowned but didn't say anything.
"He might give you those files – or let you look at them – if you use a little leverage."
Francine lowered her voice.
"I caught him and Roxanne – you know, the new girl from Accounting – in the copier room last Thursday night. At about a quarter past ten. The lights were out and he had his tie and shoes off."
And been about to get rid of other items of clothing but she wouldn't tell Lee that.
Lee stared at her.
"Seriously?"
"Yes."
"Effrom Beaman and Roxanne? The one who tries to look like you?"
He sounded slightly amused now.
Francine sighed.
"Yes. Now go – before I start regretting I told you. And remember: If I hear you've been telling people other than Effrom you'll be the one with regrets."
Francine only realized that she had been counting down the minutes when Effrom caught up with her in the corridor an hour after she had talked to Lee. She didn't see him coming. Suddenly he was there, falling in step beside her. She didn't look at him. Instead, she stopped, pretending she was looking at something in the folder she was carrying.
Effrom stepped around her and stopped, too.
She couldn't ignore him any longer so she looked up as if she had only noticed him right now.
"Oh. Hi, Effrom."
She smiled.
He didn't.
"You told him", he said.
Francine blinked.
"I told whom what?" she asked.
As if she didn't know.
"Scarecrow. You told Scarecrow about –"
He stopped and looked around and then, stepped closer and lowered his voice.
"- about me and Roxanne."
"Oh. That."
No use denying it. Who else would have told Lee about that?
"Yes, I did."
Effrom nodded.
"I see."
Just that and nothing more but Francine could almost see the little wheels starting to turn in his head as he tried to figure out how long it would take until word of his copier room escapade had spread across the whole Agency.
"Don't worry", Francine told him. "It won't go any further than Lee."
"How do you want to know?"
Finally, his anger did show just a little bit. Good. He had every right to be angry.
"I know because he's my friend and because I asked him not to tell anyone else."
"Hm."
Effrom contemplated this.
"And you're sure he won't tell anyone else?" he asked.
"Absolutely. He'll be in serious trouble with me if he does and he won't risk that."
Francine smiled when he relaxed visibly at that and put his hands in his pockets. He shook his head.
"If I had known that I never would have let him get his hands on those Statik Aerospace files."
"Well, good that you didn't know, then", Francine said.
"What?"
Effrom stared at her. He straightened and took his hands out of his pockets again.
"You, too, then."
He shook his head.
"There are rules at this Agency, Francine, and they're there for good reason."
His tone was somewhere between annoyance and disapproval. Francine thought she detected just a hint of disappointment, too.
"Oh, I know", she said. "And I know it's important to stick to them. But sometimes you just have to forget about the rules if you want to do the right thing. I mean – how long have you known Amanda? Since she started in your classes?"
Effrom nodded.
"Well, I don't claim I know her as well as I could if I had made more of an effort but – Amanda and subversion? That's just ridiculous. That's like saying Smyth is actually working for the Russians!"
"But if it's that ridiculous – why doesn't he just leave it to the review board?" Effrom asked. "Aren't they bound to figure that out, too?"
"No, because they'll only dig so deep and when they don't come up with anything, it'll be case closed and Amanda's career here at the Agency will be over. Lee, on the other hand, will keep digging until he finds out what's going on."
Effrom wanted to say something but Francine raised her hand to stop him.
"And before you can say it – no, he's not just going to so much effort because this is about Amanda. He'd do the exact same thing for me or Billy or even you if I asked him to."
She gave Effrom another smile.
"You're great at teaching the new agents and it's very important they learn about all the Agency rules and the importance of sticking to them. But when you're out in the field, sometimes the rules just don't apply. You'd realize that yourself if you got out more often."
"Hm."
Effrom put his hands back in his pockets – a sign he was thinking about what she had said.
"You know – maybe you're right", he said after a few moments. "Maybe I should get out more often. Just so I understand better what it's like to be out in the field."
"Seriously?" Francine asked.
"Yes, seriously. I just don't know if they'll let me."
"Oh, don't worry about that, if you're really serious then I can ask Billy to put you on a field assignment now and then." She smiled. "For the sake of improving your teaching or something like that."
Billy would most likely agree to have Effrom on some of the easier and less dangerous assignments. They were short on people anyways, in field section. They always were.
"Okay – thanks!"
Effrom smiled at her.
"I –"
He gestured at her and in doing so happened to glance at his watch.
"Oh damn. I have to go – I'll be late for class."
"You – late?"
Francine laughed.
"Inconceivable!"
A slight grin appeared on Effrom's face.
"Are you sure that word means what you think it means?" he asked.
In the time it took Francine to figure out he probably had seen "The Princess Bride", too, and had caught her little reference he had turned around and started to walk away down the corridor, towards the elevator.
"Effrom?"
He stopped and turned to her. She hurried to catch up with him.
"Just some advice", she said in a low voice. "Next time, go for one of the storage closets on level seven. For some odd reason they can be locked from the inside."
She gave him a wink and then hurried on to where she had been heading before he could reply or ask how she knew. Something else for him to think about.