February 15, 2011

“So I can’t thank you enough for last night,” Pam’s voice rang through the earpiece of Jim’s phone.

“Yeah?” he asked, grinning from ear to ear as he opened up the inbox to his e-mail. He was a little surprised to be hearing from Pam this early in the workday, but he welcomed her interruption – though he probably would have enjoyed it even more if she had actually surprised him in person.

“I think we need to do that more often,” she said in a mischievous voice and Jim chuckled.

“Which part?” he asked clicking on an unread e-mail from Michael. “The dinner alone? Or the sex?”

“I dunno…” she replied quietly. “What do you think?”

“Mrs. Beesly-Halpert, I believe you are being coy,” he said, his eyes quickly scanning the e-mail but he didn’t immediately take in any of the information.

“Well, I would tell you, but I think it would get some interesting glances from Andy,” she said in a low voice. “Or worse, he would feel the desire to elaborate on his sex life with Kelly, and I need to be a bit more…uh…dead before I hear that.”

Jim laughed loudly and shook his head before scanning the e-mail from Michael a second time. He groaned out loud.

“What is it?” Pam asked.

“Michael,” he replied.

“Of course,” she said.

“No, well…he’s holding an emergency meeting this morning,” he said. “With me and…” Jim tried to find the list of other people Michael had sent the e-mail to, but it was marked confidential and private.

“Who?” she asked, though she sounded rather uninterested in anything that he had to say about business matters.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “He marked the e-mail confidential.” He looked through the sentences, trying to find some clues, but the e-mail was perfectly straightforward.

“Interesting,” he continued, “I didn’t even know that Michael knew how to mark an e-mail confidential.”

“Maybe he had help from someone,” she said.

“Like who?” he asked. “I’m his number two. If he has any problems, he always comes to me…huh…”

“Yeah, I don’t know,” she said hurriedly, she sounded like she was trying to sway the topic of the conversation and Jim obliged.

“So is there a reason why I am so lucky to be graced with a phone call from you this morning?” he asked.

“You can read me like a book…even over the phone,” she replied happily.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“Were you serious about a spring break vacation?” she asked.

“When did I say anything about a spring break vacation?” he teased and he chuckled softly when he heard her scoff on the other end of the line. “I know, I know what I said last night and…” his attention was briefly diverted when he caught another new e-mail arrive in his inbox out of the corner of his eye.

“And what?” Pam asked anxiously.

“And I just received another e-mail from Michael saying that he wants me to bring a list of my expenses and spending over the past…” he replied slowly, telling her what he said in his e-mail as he read through it. “That’s weird.”

“Yeah…” she said.

“It’s just…he has a list of all of that information,” he said. “Unless he lost it, but that would be a really foolish move on his behalf.”

“Yeah it would,” she said, trying to change the conversation again. “Anyway, about that vacation…”

He laughed softly and nodded, “I’ll bring it up in the meeting. I’ll see if I can get the time off and maybe we can get some of our expenses paid for.”

“That would be marvelous,” Pam said. “I’ll let you go now though.”

“Okay,” he said, nodding. “Wish me luck in my meeting.”

She giggled, “Like you need it.”

“I love you,” he said quickly.

“You too,” she said. “I’ll see you later.”

“Bye Pam,” he said.

“Bye Jim.”

Jim gathered up the things that Michael requested he bring to the meeting – even if he did find the requests a bit odd. Business expense and spending reports, personal expense and spending reports paid with his company credit cards…Jim was actually kind of surprised that he still had the documents in one of the file folders of his office. Usually the reports went to up to accounting, and Michael had copies of everything.

Maybe Michael lost his copies…he thought. He didn’t even want to think about how bad that could turn out.

He walked to the small meeting room down the hall. At least he was a little relieved that the meeting wouldn’t involve too many people. They were meeting in the smallest room on the floor. Maybe it would just be between him and Michael…

Jim opened the door to the meeting room and was surprised that Michael was not sitting in the room alone. He was joined by Ryan, one of the company lawyers that he had met on a couple of unfortunate occasions and one other mysterious man who Jim had never seen before.

“Wellity, wellity, wellity,” Michael said, drumming his fingers on the table top. “Lookie who decided to show up.”

Jim looked up at the clock hanging above the door and shrugged, “I’m right on time.”

“Likely story,” Michael said, rolling his eyes slightly.

“I…” Jim said softly, looking towards Ryan to share an amused smile, but Ryan’s face remained stoic and he barely gave Jim a second glance.

“What’s going on?” Jim asked, starting to feel a bit apprehensive about the purpose of the meeting.

“Have a seat, Mr. Halpert,” the lawyer said, nodding to the empty seat at the end of the table. “Do you have the expense and spending reports that Mr. Scott asked you to bring along with you?”

“Uh…yeah,” Jim said as he pulled the two file folders out onto the table and pushed them towards the center.

The lawyer took the folders and started to rifle through them. Michael, Ryan, the mysterious man and Jim all stayed silent – Jim continued to hope for an explanation to the purpose of the meeting.

“Mr. Scott, these are the exact same reports that you provided me with,” the lawyer said in a bored tone of voice as he closed the folders and returned them to the center of the table.

“But how else can we explain what’s been going on?” Michael asked.

“Excuse me for asking, but what exactly has been going on?” Jim asked cautiously.

“Let me ask you something,” Michael said, pointing his finger accusingly at Jim.

“Go for it,” Jim said after a pause where Michael didn’t continue.

“Are you happy with what you’re paid? Are you happy with what the company provides for you?” Michael asked.

“Quite happy,” Jim replied. “I’ve never had any problems.”

“Because if you ever want a raise or a little extra money here or there, all you need to do is ask,” Michael explained. “Come to me, go to accounting.”

“Well, I’m happy that you brought that up now,” Jim said, “because I was talking to Pam earlier and we would really like to take a spring break vacation in a month and a half or so…”

“No deal,” Michael said immediately.

Jim’s jaw dropped – he had never been given an immediate ‘no’ before; especially not from Michael.

“Excuse me?” he asked.

“Well, due to recent…activity,” Michael replied, “we really can’t allow it.”

“I…what is going on?” Jim asked.

“There have been some…” Michael’s gaze quickly darted back and forth between the lawyer and the mysterious man, who both inconspicuously shook their heads. Michael immediately stopped speaking and bowed his head down towards his hands folded in front of him on the table top.

“Michael,” Jim said seriously. When Michael didn’t respond, Jim frantically looked over towards Ryan, but he received no sympathy from Ryan or anyone else in the room.

“Michael,” he repeated, “what the hell is going on?”

“Remember that meeting that I wanted to hold about a month ago?” Michael asked in a quiet voice, his gaze still fixated on his hands and the tabletop.

“Amelia’s birthday party,” Jim replied. “You knew where I was and I apologized the next day for not being able to make it. You said it was no big deal…”

“Things have gotten worse…” Michael muttered.

“What things?” Jim asked. “What ‘things’ are you and…” He scanned the faces of the other three men sitting in the room and he continued, “And the rest of you…keeping from me?”

Michael shook his head and the lawyer spoke up again, “Mr. Halpert, we are going to keep a close eye on your spending practices within the company for the next month or two. In the meantime, Mr. Howard is going to work closely with you.”

“Am I getting let go soon?” Jim asked incredulously.

“No!” Michael cried loudly. “We could never fire you…” he lowered his voice and twisted his fingers nervously, “yet.”

Jim’s gaze frantically darted back and forth among every person in the room before he shook his head and his gaze fell to the top of the table.

“I don’t know what to tell you all,” he muttered, “or what to even say…”

“Nothing is certain yet, Jim,” Ryan said, speaking up for the first time since Jim entered the room.

“No,” Jim said, shaking his head even more. “For everything that I’ve done for this company and for everything that I have contributed…I missed the birth of my daughter because of this company. And now…now I’m threatening to be fired for something that you won’t even tell me about?”

“The matter is of utmost confidentiality,” the mysterious man said.

“As are most money matters,” Michael muttered.

“What?” Jim asked, staring directly at Michael.

“Oh,” Michael replied, his gaze traveling to the lawyer again and he shook his head. “Nothing…”

“Money?” Jim asked.

Michael nodded while the lawyer quietly said, “It really isn’t a big deal, Mr. Halpert. We just need to look over…”

“Spending and expense reports,” Jim finished for him, “yeah, I know.” He allowed himself a sigh of resignation and shook his head. They weren’t going to tell him what was going on – much to his chagrin – and quite frankly, he had things that needed to get done.

“Can I get back to work now?” he asked.

The lawyer nodded and Michael remained silent in his seat at the table.

“It is suggested that you remain compliant in the coming months for anything that the company requests of you,” the lawyer said as Jim pushed his seat away from the table and stood up.

“Compliant as usual,” he muttered as he turned around and walked out the door.

Once the door closed behind Jim, and the four people remaining in the meeting room couldn’t hear his footsteps outside in the hallway, Michael stood up.

“Michael, what are you…” Ryan began as he watched Michael walk towards the closed door.

“Shush, Ryan!” Michael chided as he cracked open the door and peered out around the corner. Jim had disappeared out of sight through a door at the end of the hall. Michael sighed and closed the door shut again.

“That was awful,” Michael said, shaking his head. “And for the record, I think that he’s a hundred percent innocent in this matter.”

“Well, the reports he gave me, the ones you gave me, Mr. Scott and the ones that accounting provided are all exactly the same,” the lawyer said, picking up a stack of files and waving them around.

“As I told you they would be,” Michael said firmly, returning to his seat.

“Which means,” the lawyer continued, “either Mr. Halpert is lying and committing a felony or he’s being – quite effectively – sabotaged by someone high up in the company.”

“Not me,” Michael said, holding his hands up.

“We know,” the lawyer said with a slight eye roll. “The only way that we can find out for sure is to suspend his company credit cards and keep close watch on him until we can figure out just what is going on.”