Deb nods enthusiastically. "Of course," she says in utter sincerity. Absolute privacy, yes. Up until they drag the man out of here in cuffs, and then its gonna be fair game on the eighth floor.
The Suit leads them down the hallway, and with a glance back to make sure he actually has an audience he says, "So naturally I'm curious, but I imagine you'll just tell me it's an ongoing investigation, and all that stuff from TV, right?" He turns down the second right.
"We just need to ask him a couple of questions about a routine investigation, but yeah we can't reveal anything about the nature of the case." Tim tried to sound bored, hoping that the man wouldn't keep up with the questions if the Agents themselves acted like it was just another random set of questions, to a random office worker and all part of another random case. The Special Agent began to wonder if Ed would be their "Eddie" or if the man was a dead end, he hoped for the former since the case was strange enough as it was.
"Of course, of course," the Suit says, and begins to hum as he leads the two down the hallway. He opens a door on the right and heads in to another hall, the checkered floor stretching for what seems like miles. Must be an optical illusion.
Questions continue but the focus shifts ("You boys got a pick for the Super Bowl?" "Hell of a thing happening in Egypt, huh?" "Jerry Brown in the hotseat again--like we stepped into a time machine here, right?"). The man seems to enjoy making conversation but never minds if its rebuffed; he just hums to himself and walks on. Sometimes he'll open a door on the right and keep moving. Always it's another hall.
This goes on for nearly five minutes.
Just as it reaches a point where Tim and Frank are ready to pull their sidearms and whip him into telling them where the damned office is, he opens a door to the right and reveals a hall that is striking in its simplicity. The walls are white, not green, not a single picture or frame marring the surface. The floors are a gleaming white tile, without a speck of dirt, the tiles laid so close that they almost seem one continuous piece of linoleum. After what felt like days of checkerboards and dollar-bill green its almost a refuge.
Suit smiles, and beckons, and leads Tim and Frank. The left side of the hall breaks into an alcove; the alcove has an entryway made of wide panels of glass. Stenciled on the glass is Office of Risk and Insurance Management. There's a glass door, and beyond that a lobby of dark luxurious woods--teak and cherry and maple--making up the paneling and the furniture.
But the Suit keeps walking. And when the two DHS agents pause--surely this must be where they've been meaning to go, this whole time?--he beckons without looking back at them. "Not quite, gents. Almost there." It would be worth shooting him on the spot, except... Except this white hall doesn't go on forever. A bare ten feet beyond the Suit is a plain door.
Tim followed the suit hoping that the insane maze of California red tape was going to end soon and realized along the way that it really wasn't a much of a mystery why the damn state was broke. He makes small talk with the man, mostly to keep up the illusion that every is fine. Seems Special Agent Simmons wants the Packers to win, is hopeful that his Bills will finally pick up somebody to help their D, that the whole mess in Egypt was pretty crazy but it showed that people everywhere wanted democracy, and finally just nodded about Jerry Brown as the first few lines of California Uber Allies played in his head.
He thanked the suit for showing them the way to the office and waited for him to go off on his business. The Special Agent gives Frank a grin as he walks toward the door and gets ready to see "Eddie" again. He had a bone to pick with that guy, that Denny's Coffee had been awful.
Frank simply nods and answers any question put by the Suit in one-liners as he tries to remember every turn and twist they take in this labyrinth. If they can't remember the way out, they're going to need a lot of cooperation with this arrest. But as the path keeps twisting, something begins to bother Frank more and more. "I don't think we caught your name, sir," the old detective finally says to the Suit, looking the man eye to eye, before they cross the threshold of the dizzying white hallway to step through the plain door.
"That's right, Agent," the Suit says. He waves his hand at the wall, and there's a click as the plain door (not quite plain: a small placard says "Authorized Personnel Only") unlocks. He opens it and steps through. "You didn't." He lets the door slowly swing towards closing, rather than shutting it. An invitation? If so, it's one they'll have to take quick. Authorized Personnel, or ORIM?
Frank shoots a suspicious look sideways to his partner at the Suit's enigmatic response and lets Simmons see his hand come to rest on his pistol's handle. Then he nods and follows the man into the Authorized Personnel office. Rizzo didn't like this one bit. Suit had led them through this maze, all the while gabbing along like a washer-woman, but without that nervousness that suspects communicate when they're talking just to fill up the silence a smart detective leaves them. No, this one seemed wholly unconcerned about the federal agents tagging along behind him. "Oh. Ha ha, sir, good one," Rizzo says flatly, clearly not enjoying the Suit's flippant sense of humor. "You have us there. So tell us who you are."
Tim mentally kicked himself for not understanding the situation earlier but now realizes that the guy reminded him of .... well himself. The more the thought about it, the more the guy's behavior screamed government agent. Too much time in the minor leagues might have dulled his senses a bit. He follows Rizzo and the Suit into the office and think's on the guy's sense of humor and his way of deflecting questions, it seemed so much like their original meeting with "Eddie" in that Denny's.
"So what's the deal with this office anyways? It seems like a rather odd counter to the rest of this whole building."
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