Crown's Law (21 page)

Chance turned to Bobby D’Orr and said, “Hey,
Bobby, put Screen 22 on the big screen so I can get a better look
at the broads.”

“OK. There you are. Do you want me to zoom in
on that redhead? I think you can see down her blouse!” laughed
Bobby.

“No. She’s got a face that would stop a
clock. Zoom in on the other two—one at a time,” replied Chase.

Bobby zoomed in on a tall, black-haired
girl.

Chance groaned, “Shit! Itty-bitty titties!
Who screens these people? Don’t they know what I want? Try the
blonde.”

Becky filled the large screen and the two men
liked what they saw.

“That’s more like it!” growled Chance. “Great
tits! Pretty, too. If she comes close to passing the damned test,
she’s hired. If she’s smart, she can screw her way into a top job
in no time!”

Bobby laughed. “You’ve got to stop doing
this, Phil! That last woman you screwed cried rape!”

“She didn’t know a good thing when she had
it! Stupid bitch! What’d you do with her?”

“Smuggled her out to a brothel in Hong Kong.
She’s gettin’ plenty of sex there!” shrugged Bobby. “But that
shit’s dangerous, Phil. You can’t force ’em. If too many of our
female employees disappear, we’re gonna invite a lot of trouble.
The boss won’t like that.”

“OK, OK. I’ll try and sweet-talk ’em a little
longer. If they don’t put out, I’ll fire ’em. Get replacements!
What’s that blonde’s name?”

Bobby looked at a paper in front of him and
answered, “Rebecca Rogers, aged 22. Straight A student.”

“Yeah. If she loses the glasses, lets down
her hair, she’d make a fine piece of ass. So . . . I’ll hire her. I
can’t wait to partake of her delights! Now for number two. Maybe I
should hire one of the men just to make it look good. What do you
think?”

Saturday, May 26, 2001

Irvine, CA

Chance and D’Orr were watching when Becky
retrieved the bug from her coat pocket, but their eyes were focused
on other parts of her body, not her hand. Once she had the bug in
her hand, she began to sweat even more.

Calm down! This is easy!
Even if someone is watching, this should work. Just like I
practiced
.

As she lowered her hand to her lap and began
the tricky process of removing the plastic membrane, the bug fell
from her slippery hands to the rug, near her right foot.

Oh, shit! What now? I’ll have to bend down
and get it without raising suspicion!

Suddenly, she had an idea. She squirmed in
her chair, and in the process, her hand knocked her pencil off the
table. She forced herself to put a look of consternation on her
face and acted flustered. She leaned down to pick it up. The top of
her blouse fell away from her body and the two men in the security
booth zoomed in and looked into the opening created. They never saw
her hand flick under the table and stick the bug to the underside
of the conference room table.

“Yeah, that blonde has great cleavage!”
smiled Chance. “She could have a great future here!”

Becky straightened up, laid her pencil on the
table, and wiped her sweaty hands again. Then she finished off her
test and checked the wall clock again. She had 30 minutes left to
kill. Two of the men had finished the first nine problems of their
tests also, but were still struggling with the last page: Problem
10. Becky let her mind wander. If this was the executive conference
room, there must be executive offices on this floor—probably just
down the hall. She still had one bug left—not counting the one in
she’d stuffed into her bra.

You can probably hear all
sorts of secrets from an executive office!
she mused,
a wicked smile on her lips.

***

Sam had gone to his van to wait and had
exchanged his earplug for a more comfortable set of padded
earphones. For the last hour and a half he had played with the
volume knob, but had picked up only breathing, pencils scratching,
paper rustling, and an occasional cough. At 11:33 A.M., he heard a
voice for the first time. It was Becky’s.

“Excuse me, miss. I need to use the ladies’
room. Could you direct me to one, please?”

“Certainly, Ms. Rogers. Leave your test
booklet on the table. Go out that door and turn right. The
facilities are at the end of the hall, next to the elevators.”

“Thank you. I’ll be right back,” said
Becky.

Sam heard a door open and close, then
silence. He turned the gain up and heard a thumping sound. He
adjusted the knob again, then it hit him. He was listening to
Becky’s heartbeat—and it was way too fast! What was going on? Why
was she so excited?
Say something,
Becky!

***

When Becky closed the conference room door,
she looked to the right and spotted the ladies’ room. She glanced
to the left and saw doors along both sides. If there were any
executive offices, they would be down that way—probably on the
outside wall so they would have windows for the big wheels. She was
so nervous now that she thought her heart was going to jump right
out of her chest! At the moment, there was no one in the hallway.
After all, it was Saturday. Most likely, none of the top management
was at work today. She had to hurry if she was going to do
something. The guard would become suspicious if she was gone too
long.

She turned left and walked rapidly down the
hall, reading the nameplates on the office doors. When she got to
an office whose nameplate read William Bryce, CEO, she stopped and
checked the hallway again.

Bingo! The CEO’s office!

Then she froze!
They’re bound to have security cameras in the halls, so
they’ll see me going in here! Shit! What should I do? What would
Sam do? Maybe I shouldn’t do this!

***

A few minutes earlier in the security control
room, Chase observed, “Look, the cute blonde is leaving the room.
Probably going to take a pee. If I hurry, I can get up to four in
time to bump into her coming out of the john. See her up close and
personal. Be right back!”

He jumped up and left the room, heading for
the elevators.

***

Becky was so nervous by now that she really
did need to pee! She looked back down the hall toward the ladies’
room and decided she would never make it that far before she wet
her pants.

A CEO’s office must have a bathroom, right?
I’ll just go check it out. If it doesn’t, I’ll have to use a
wastebasket!

She opened the door, went in, then closed the
door behind her.

***

In the control room, when Chase left, D’Orr
started watching the monitor that showed the hallway so he could
witness the encounter between Chase and the blonde. He saw the
blonde woman go the opposite way from the restrooms.

Stupid blonde’s going the
wrong way! Uh oh, she just went into Bryce’s office! I’d better
call Chase and let him know. He should check that
out
.

D’Orr saw Chase get off the elevator and
sidle over to the restrooms as he dialed Chase’s cell phone number.
There were no cameras in Bryce’s office (Bryce didn’t allow them),
so he had no idea what was going on in there.

***

Becky’s bladder was about to let loose. She
opened a door, but it was filled with filing cabinets and computer
equipment. She dashed to the other door and found the restroom. In
addition to the usual amenities, it had a glassed-in shower. At the
moment, she was only interested in the toilet.

After she was through, she washed her hands
and checked herself in the mirror, then realized that she had left
her glasses on the conference room table. No problem. She only
needed them for reading.

Now, to find a place to plant the bug and get
back to the conference room. Hmm. There’re probably no cameras in
here in the restroom—they wouldn’t dare, would they? With the door
closed though, the bug wouldn’t work too well for conversations in
the office proper. I’ll have to plant it in there, or not at
all.

She flushed the toilet and turned to leave
the bathroom when she heard a man’s voice call out, “Who’s in here?
Anybody here?”

***

Sam was becoming more nervous by the second,
then he finally heard the toilet flush, followed by a man’s
voice.

What the hell? What’s a man’s voice doing in
the ladies’ room? Where the hell is she? Say something, Becky! Let
me know what’s going on! Dammit!

***

Becky froze when she heard the man’s
voice.

Who’s that? What do I do
now?
she thought in a panic.
I can’t stay in here! He undoubtedly heard the toilet flush.
I’ll just have to bluff my way out somehow! Shit! Why did I do
this?

She opened the bathroom door and stepped out
into the CEO’s office area, smoothing her skirt as if she belonged
there. A man in a gray suit and maroon tie was standing in the
office. He had a narrow, bird-like face with a thin, brown
mustache—hair thin on top, but not gray. Becky thought his brown
eyes were beady.

“What are you doing in here?” he asked
gruffly as he gave her body the once over. She looked even more
luscious to him up close and in the flesh.

Becky trembled a bit, but managed to say,
“I’m sorry, Mr. Bryce, but I had to use the bathroom real bad and I
left my glasses in the conference room so I couldn’t find the
ladies’ room so I hoped that I’d find one in here.” She ran all of
her words together without punctuation. “Lucky for me, I did.”

Chase said, “The ladies’ room is down the
hall the other way. How could you have missed it?”

“I told you. I left my glasses in the testing
room—I’m here taking a test—and I guess I got confused.”

She squinted to indicate how blind she
was.

“Well,” he said, “I suppose things happen.
I’m not Mr. Bryce, though. I’m Mr. Chase. I’m Director of the
Testing Division, and I’m the one doing the hiring.”

He gave her a wicked, toothy grin.

Dirty old man!
she thought.
You remind me of my
stepfather. His beady little eyes are like lasers! He’s trying to
X-ray me! Asshole!

He continued, “If you do well on the test,
you could be working for me. Opportunity for advancement here is
quite good, if you have career aspirations in this field. You could
be working right under me in no time!”

Yeah, I bet! I understand
that double entendre!
thought Becky.

“How interesting. I do want to find the right
company. I have applications in at several other places. But I
think there’s room for women at the top, don’t you? Someday, I
intend to break the glass ceiling!”

Becky walked behind the huge, mahogany
executive desk and plopped down in the plush leather swivel chair.
She leaned back in the chair and her skirt hiked up a few inches,
showing Chase a lot of leg. He ogled her legs shamelessly, just
what Becky wanted.

“I’ll be in a chair and office like this
someday,” she said with conviction.

She suddenly sat up, and as she did, he
failed to see her slap the bug under the kneehole of the desk and
plant it firmly on the underside of the desk.

Becky stood and said, “Well, thank you, Mr.
Chase. I’d better get back to the conference room and finish my
test.”

“Ah, yes. I suppose you should.”

He walked Becky back to the conference room,
and she left him standing in the hall as she went back to her chair
and opened her test booklet. She had not decided what to do about
Problem Number 10 yet, but she finally just put a question mark on
it. She didn’t want them to know how much she really knew about
those equations. Then, even though it wounded her ego to do so, she
flipped to Problem Number 9 and changed her answer, making it
wrong. She did the same with Problem 3. Even though she had never
intended to take a job here, she wanted her test results to be so
bad that they would have a hard time justifying calling her in for
an interview. She wanted nothing more to do with the horny Mr.
Chase!

At twelve noon, everyone’s test
booklets were collected, and the group was escorted down to the
lobby. They were all offered a free lunch in the
Dynology
cafeteria, but Becky
declined, saying she had another appointment. She dashed down the
front steps to her white VW, and before she could unlock the door,
her cell phone rang.

She fished it out of her shoulder bag and put
it to her ear and heard Sam’s voice say, “What happened in there,
Becky?”

“I’ll tell you at lunch. Where do you want to
meet?” Becky answered.

“How about the Italian place in Lake Forest?
Just past the El Toro Y.”

“Right.”

“See you there.”

Sam saw Becky’s bug zoom out of the parking
lot before he could get his van started.

Saturday, May 26, 2001

Lake Forest, CA

As Sam drove into
D’Angelo’s
parking lot, he spotted Becky’s VW.
He parked next to her car and walked quickly into the restaurant,
spotting her in a back booth by a window that had a view of the
patio. Out on the patio, Italian-style red and green umbrellas
shaded several tables. He strode over and sat down opposite her.
Becky had a pad of quad paper in front of her and was furiously
writing equations. She looked up and smiled, her jitters long
gone.

“Now, young lady, I . . .”

“Just a minute, Sam. Let me finish putting
this stuff on paper before you start yelling at me,” interrupted
Becky.

She was writing down the equations from
Problem 10 while they were still fresh in her memory, not that they
were likely to fade.