Wearing threadbare jeans, a ragged baseball cap, and a shabby hoodie over my thrift store T-shirt, I made my way over to the security desk carrying an enormous basket of orchids in artfully moldy clay pots, surrounded by pounds of moss, several yards of gauzy ribbon, and a couple of helium balloons. The polished dark green marble floor was slippery with wet footprints and dripping umbrellas, and I didn’t have to fake having trouble balancing everything. When I reached the security desk, I leaned into it and trapped the basket with my stomach to take some of the weight.
“Delivery for—er—” I pretended to check the envelope dangling from a miniature shepherd’s crook, “Mr. Bhagatveer Singh Bhambra, front desk receptionist at Roberts and George, on the fourth floor.”
The security guard, her shoulders stretching the limits of her uniform jacket, checked something on her monitor and flicked a few crumbs of moss off the glass counter. “Leave it here. No one’s in the office yet. We’ll get someone to take it up when they get here.”
“The sender is proposing to his boyfriend and wants the orchids there when Mr. Singh Bhambra arrives this morning, and I have directions—”
“Who the hell proposes in the lobby of an accounting firm?”
“So can you take them up for me?” I consulted a list. “The pink ones go by his headset; the yellow ones on his chair, and the white ones are supposed to go in his rubbish bin.” I looked up, wide-eyed. “I know, right? But this is all supposed to mean something to them both. Just tuck the moss around the pots.” I glanced up at the huge clock above their desk. “He’ll be here soon; he’s coming in at, like, eight, with some musicians. God, that’s confusing—I mean Mr. George will be here in half an hour, and Mr. Singh Bhambra will be in later. This sounds really lame, right? But I guess if you’re a partner you can be lame. I’ll have a few minutes to get some java before I have to get back to the shop.” I started to heave the orchids up, dropping more moss and a few leaves onto the pristine glass reception desk.
“Java?” She smirked. “You’re not from around here, huh? Look, kid, I don’t know how this can work; I can’t leave the desk, even for a proposal and I can’t let you into the offices.”
I smiled and waved the white plastic card I’d pilfered from Katrina’s apartment. Luckily, it didn’t contain a specific office or suite number, just the building’s logo and the word “GUEST.” “It’s okay, Mr. George left us a card. He knows my boss real well.”
She took the card, looked it over, and consulted her doughy-looking partner with a look. The partner tipped his head agreeably. “Okay, take off your sunglasses, I’m gonna take your picture and I need to see some ID.”
I handed over a phony ID. It looked like the kind issued by the local legal aid program for the homeless, who sometimes needed to prove who they were and of course didn’t usually have driver’s licenses. It was a risk, but a small one—I’d seen her giving coffee and a few kind words to the rough sleeper in the alley more than once.
“Way to work your way up, kid,” she said gruffly as she returned it, and then I felt guilty and hoped she wouldn’t lose her job.
I frowned at the camera, fairly certain my green wig, nose rings, and ratty baseball cap would give me enough cover. I watched her finger on the camera button and, as it twitched, I moved slightly to coincide with the click of the shutter, just as a bit of added insurance. “Go on over to elevator B. It’ll take you up to the fourth floor.”
“Okay, but don’t spoil the surprise. Mr. George won’t be happy; he’s a real prick. Sorry,” I added, trying to look shamefaced.
“Yeah, that’s pretty common around here,” she said with a wink.
Getting off the elevator on the fourth floor, and ignoring the arrow pointing left toward the accounting firm of Roberts and George, I turned right and followed signs to Katrina’s office suite.
I used Katrina’s entry card on the outer door, and to my relief, the lock made several beeps, showed a perky little green light, and clicked open. I turned the deadbolt inside the door to the suite, leaned back against it, took a deep breath of copy toner, old coffee, and floral air freshener, and gave myself a mental high five. Succeeding in my ruse downstairs and opening the door with my purloined key card gave me much more of a thrill than breaking and entering probably should.
The early hour and the murky weather meant I needed the narrow beam of bright white light from my finger-sized flashlight. The only danger was being seen from the windows of the hotel next door, but the drapes I could see over there were closed. With luck, everyone was still asleep or taking their morning showers, and not planning to fling aside the drapes to enjoy their misty view of North Beach in the rain.
I left my basket of orchids on the reception desk and walked quickly around the suite to check on the layout. It was arranged in a square, with three glass-walled offices and a conference room on the outside, each with a window, and all helpfully labeled with nameplates. A walkway went around the entire suite, separating the offices from the reception area and an inner row of cubicles, presumably inhabited by lesser beings like assistants and clerks. The central core was shared by the copy machine, a supply closet, a small break room, and the file room.
I was carrying my set of lockpicks in a case only a hair larger than a credit card. I’d once seen a friend open a lock with a hairpin, so I thought I should be able to do at least as well with actual lock picks. I wasn’t fast, but I understood the principle, and by the time I’d broken into my own flat a couple of times I was confident I could open a file cabinet lock in two or three minutes. The second time my own front door took me less than a minute, I made a mental note to have a burglar alarm installed.
I pulled on the pair of latex gloves I’d brought with me—CSI was worth watching after all. Katrina’s office door was unlocked, which was explained when a few minutes of careful rifling through her books and desk drawers yielded nothing of any interest. A coffee mug on a coaster and an expensive pen set were the only things on her desk, and the console under the window held an empty crystal vase, a handful of books, and a pair of framed photos of smiling groups of children. The kids, all wearing brightly colored T-shirts, were flanked by a couple of pleasant-looking, middle-aged nuns. The photos seemed out of character for Katrina, who, as far as I knew, had absolutely no interest in children or nuns or in fact anything except her car, her wine collection, and her work. Abandoning the office, I headed for the file room. It was locked, which gave me a chance to practice my new skill, and, as expected, the file cabinets were locked too. I used up valuable time to open them all. They used a system of numbers on the file folders, not just the alphabet, and it took me a few minutes to understand how to navigate it. I was neat, replacing everything in order, and made my way through the “B”s without finding anything. I hunted for Grandfather’s name, with the same lack of results, and then finally, and with a deep sense of foreboding, found the initial of my real last name. And there it was.
I quickly sifted through newspaper clippings from my time in London and several photographs. There was a printout of an e-mail from my cousin Frederick; God knows how she’d come across that. Copies of the incorporation papers for Safe Haven Enterprises, which shielded the ownership of my building and Aromas, included my real signature. A sticker on the front had spaces for the name of the person borrowing the file, along with the date. Some of the other file folders had multiple stickers, all filled in and going back a couple of years. Mine had nothing, so I hoped it meant that no one but Katrina had read the contents. l didn’t bother to read the rest of the file; I folded it in half and stuffed it into the back waistband of my jeans.
I checked my watch. The security guards were going to start wondering where I was. I flicked quickly through the rest of the files in all of the drawers, trying to be both fast and thorough. It looked as if Katrina had put together a dossier on a few of the people living in Fabian Gardens, the ones who had opposed the condo development. I wasn’t sure if that was standard lawyerly procedure or some sort of embryonic blackmail effort. In for a penny—I grabbed that file too. I locked the cabinets and the file room door and went back to where I’d left my orchid extravaganza.
I quickly left the individual orchids on desks around the office with the “Condolences” cards I’d prepared, deflated the balloons with my handy Swiss Army knife, and crumpled them into the break room rubbish bin, then tucked the empty basket next to it. I was approaching the outer door to make what I hoped would be a clean getaway when I heard the tones of the electronic lock and the door started to open.