people whose idea of a transgression was charging dinner with friends to the corporate Amex, and he felt such longing to be one of them.
When he passed by Alkaitis’s office, the door was open, but Alkaitis wasn’t there. Two men in dark suits were looking at something on his desk, their coats thrown carelessly over the back of one of the visitors’ chairs. One of the men was on his cell phone, speaking too quietly for Oskar to hear. Simone sat at her desk outside his office door, watching them.
“Who are these guys?” Oskar asked.
She beckoned him close. “Alkaitis was arrested this morning,” she whispered. He smelled the cool mint gum on her breath.
He gripped the edge of her desk. “For what?” he made himself ask.
“They said securities fraud. Did you know,” she said, “he had me shredding documents?”
“What kind of…?” Oskar was having trouble breathing, but she seemed not to have noticed.
“Account statements,” she said. “Memos. Letters. It makes sense now that the cops are here. Hold on,” she said. Her phone was ringing. “Jonathan Alkaitis’s office.” She listened, frowning. “No, of course not, I had no idea.” She drew in her breath sharply and held the phone away from her face. A new call was coming in, then another, the lines lighting up. “He called me a cunt and then hung up,” she said to Oskar, and took the next call, which freed up the first phone line, which immediately began to ring. “Jonathan Alkaitis’s office,” she said, and then, “I know as much as you do. We—I literally just found out. I know. I—” She flinched, and placed the phone softly in the cradle. All six lines were lit up now, a cacophony of overlapping ringtones.
“Don’t answer any more,” Oskar said. “You don’t deserve this.”
“I guess it must be all over the news.” Simone reached behind the phone and pulled out the cord, and they looked at one another in the silence.
“I have to go,” Oskar said. He returned to Seventeen for only long enough to grab his jacket. He was too agitated to stand and wait for the elevator so he opted for the stairs. He was moving quickly, not quite running but a little faster than a walk, and he almost tripped over Joelle, who was sitting on the twelfth-floor landing with her legs extended before her. Joelle’s eyes were closed.
“Are you dead?” Oskar asked.
“Maybe.” Joelle’s voice was leaden.
“Are you okay?”
“Is that a serious question?”
“What I’m asking is did you just sit down for a minute,” Oskar said, “or are you having a heart attack or something.”
“I don’t think I’m having a heart attack.”
“If I leave you here and keep walking, are you going to throw yourself off a bridge?”
“He’s been arrested,” Joelle said.
“Yeah.”
“My husband’s going to see it, if he hasn’t already, and then he’ll say to me, ‘Oh my god, can you believe it?’ and I’ll either have to lie to his face, which isn’t going to be plausible because he isn’t actually a moron, or I’ll have to say ‘Well yes, honey, actually I can.’ ”
Oskar was silent.
“You ever think about why we were chosen?” Joelle asked. “For the seventeenth floor?” She still hadn’t opened her eyes. It occurred to Oskar that perhaps the FBI had already gotten to her, that maybe she was recording this conversation. What wouldn’t a mother with a young family do to avoid prison?
“I mean, here’s the question,” Joelle said, “and I’d be genuinely interested to hear your thoughts: How did he know we’d do it? Would anyone do something like this, given enough money, or is there something special about us? Did he look at me one day and just think, That woman seems conveniently lacking in a moral center, that person seems well suited to participate in a—”
“I should go,” Oskar said. “I’m actually not feeling that well.” He stepped over Joelle’s legs and fled, jogging down flight after flight. There’s something a little nightmarish about tower stairwells, the repetitive downward spiral of doors and landings. When he emerged from a side door into the lobby, Oskar found himself in the midst of a small crowd, at least two dozen people trying to talk their way in. Something twisted in his stomach. These were Alkaitis’s investors. Several of them were openly weeping. Others were arguing with security guards, who had formed a small crowd of their own and looked confused and distressed.
“Look,” a guard was explaining, “I sympathize, but we can’t just let