Hypothetical Consulting

The intercom burbled that Mr. Nobscot’s two o’clock was here. He bid Janice to let him in and stood up, straightening his sweater-vest.

The door opened and Janice led a sullen, overweight man with a heavy brow into Peter Nobscot’s peach and yellow painted office. Janice handed Peter a manila folder and he squinted at it. “Ahhh, mister... Gehrsbach, is it? I hope I’m pronouncing that right.” The overweight man grunted a muzzled yeah. “Excellent, very pleased to meet you.” Mr. Nobscot shook the man’s hand and grinned. His well-groomed combover, mustache, glasses and orange bowtie bespoke a very friendly gentleman. He felt it was important to look your best every day. When you looked your best, you did your best.

Gehrsbach sat, turned around to make sure the door was closed, then leaned in. “So,” he whispered. “I hear...”

“Oh, wait wait wait Mr. Gehrsbach, don’t say anything yet. I’m afraid I must insist that you hear our little company preamble and sign a waiver before we... you know... begin. It’s policy.” Mr. Nobscot twizzled a finger in the air and rolled his eyes with the word “policy,” as if to say that hey, this isn’t my idea, this comes from the highers-up.

He sat on the edge of his desk and threw one leg over the other. “Mr. Gehrsbach, this consultation is for entertainment purposes only. Hypothetical Consulting does not recommend, condone or encourage any illegal activity, and you acknowledge that any illegal actions you take are at your sole discretion.” He handed Gehrsbach a clipboard with a waiver.

Gehrsbach stared at the waiver, then back at Nobscot, whose eyebrows jumped. “Oh! Forgot the pen. Hold on...” Mr. Nobscot leaned back, opened a drawer and found one. “Here you go.”

Gehrsbach’s heavy brows ground together over the legal text on the clipboard. To call him brutish would be going too far but you wouldn’t fault someone for the mistake. He clearly didn’t understand the waiver, but he signed it and handed it back. Mr. Nobscot took it with a smile. “Thaaank you. That’s mostly for our protection. Running this sort of business gets into tricky areas, legally, as I’m sure you understand. We’ve got to protect ourselves while serving our clients.”

“So... this is legal? Am I in the right place?”

Nobscot ticked his head sideways in the practiced expression of hmmm. “I’m sorry, have you not been fully informed about the service we provide?”

“All I was told is that you’re the people to talk to if I want someone...”

Mr. Nobscot interrupted him immediately. “Whoa whoa, ha ha, hey, let’s not say... uhh... that. Okay. I’ll start from the basics.” He took a breath. Wording this next bit was tricky, but he’d done it often enough. “We provide hypothetical murder scenarios. We analyze your situation, consider a number of variables and factors and brainstorm a nearly foolproof way for you to get away with murder, if you were to act on our scenario... which, again, we do not recommend, condone or encourage in any way.” He clasped his hands over his knee to close the point. “In short: we provide, for a fee, an effective... and on our end, legally sound... murder plot. ...For entertainment purposes only.”

Gehrsbach screwed most of his face into a sneer. “Wait. So... I’ve got to do it myself?”

Mr. Nobscot held up his hands and clenched his teeth. “Oh, I’m sure you don’t mean that. No, no. I’m sure you meant ‘if I were to do it, I’d have to do it myself?’”

Gehrsbach nodded and said “Okay, so... if I were to perform the scenario, and if I were to be caught, would you sell me out to the police if questioned?” The light had come on. He was getting it.

Mr. Nobscot relaxed. “In the unlikely event that you follow through on our scenario, which we do not advocate under any circumstance, we are obliged to provide the police with full transparency. ...Pending a warrant, of course.” He smiled again to bring it back around. “Don’t worry about that. Our methodology is rock-solid and in this scenario, if someone were to act it out to the letter, which again we do not advocate, that man or woman should not find himself under suspicion. It would be, more or less, the perfect crime.”

This seemed to satisfy Gehrsbach, and he nodded.

“All right then,” Nobscot said. “Enough with the legal-ese, let’s get down to brass tacks! Tell me about your scenario. Facts only, please.”

By the end of their hour, Ernie Gehrsbach had signed a check for the non-refundable $7,000 consulting fee. They made an appointment for a follow-up in two weeks to discuss the completed scenario, shook hands, and the happy client walked out with a spring in his step.

Archibald Kramer smiled at his employees as he walked down the hall, and they smiled back. His grandfatherly, crinkly-eyed friendliness beamed from him in almost visible arcs and he knew it, and he loved that about himself. He walked into the little company kitchenette and found Peter Nobscot staring glumly at the coffee pot as it filled. “Hey there Pete, how’s it going?”

“Hmm? Oh, hi Mr. Kramer.”

Kramer opened the fridge and fished out a Pepsi. “Don’t tell my wife that I keep a case of these here, she’d become a client.” He winked. Nobscot chuckled halfheartedly. It was a very old joke. “Loaded with sugar. Terrible.” He cracked the top and took a sip. “What’s the matter with you, kid, you look a little down in the dumps.”

Nobscot shrugged. “I don’t know. There was a new client today, and he rattled me a bit.”

“Oh yeah, I heard you closed on that one! Congrats. So what was it, a hard scenario to work out?”

“No, the scenario’s a slam dunk. Open and shut.” Nobscot took his coffee mug and tipped a rounded teaspoon of Coffeemate into it. “It’s just that... this guy, the mark was his own sister. Their parents’ inheritance is coming around, and he thinks she’s going to try to work an angle on him, what with her being a lawyer. He kept going on about her, she’s this, she’s that, what a bee- eye- tee- see- aitch and so forth.”

Kramer shook his head. “Ahh, you hate to see that.”

“And I started to think. I’ve got two kids now, and I spend the weekend watching them play from the hammock. It’s my favorite thing. But as this guy is talking about his own sister, I started thinking about my kids and whether they’re going to love each other when they’re grown-ups. It really got in my head.”

Kramer nodded, once big, then two small, and said “Believe me, I’ve been there. This job can be unforgiving. For me, it was a matricide in 1975. The client wanted a scenario for his own mother, who was just a sweet old lady in a nursing home. She wasn’t even in the way. I’d just lost my own mother at the time and this one really worked me over. Boy did I lose a lot of sleep over it.”

The two stared beyond the cabinets of the kitchenette, holding their drinks. Finally Kramer hitched a breath and said “Well I should get back. Don’t let this eat at you too much. It’s not worth it.” He clapped Nobscot on the back. “If you ever need to talk, you know where I am.”

“Thanks, Mr. Kramer,” Nobscot replied.

“You bet, sport.”

Kramer walked out and Nobscot looked down at the swirls of non-dairy creamer slowly turning in his cup. He thought of Kevin with his bicycle and Millie with her hula hoop on the driveway, singing songs, playing and laughing. He sipped at the coffee, not tasting it.

A week later, the intercom burbled again. His 11 o’clock was here. He stood to greet Janice and the new client as they came through the door. This time it was a dour woman in a smart business suit. He shook her hand warmly.

He took the manila folder and glanced at the name. “Martha? Peter Nobscot. Pleased to meet you.”

“Likewise.” Her face was closed off, cold. He’d seen that face before.

He pointed and tilted his head to the side, smirking at her. “Have we met? I know you from somewhere.”

“I’m a lawyer downtown, you may have seen my billboard.”

Lawyer. Martha DeLaroux. Of course he knew her, he’d billed seven hours examining every aspect of her life. She was Ernie Gehrsbach’s sister. He kept the grin on his face by some feat of will, and not knowing what to do next, gestured to the chair. She sat. He ambled to his place at the lip of his desk and leaned back against it. After a pause, he spoke.

“Mrs. DeLaroux, uh. This consultation is for entertainment purposes only. Hypothetical Consulting does not recommend, condone or encourage any illegal activity, and you acknowledge that any illegal actions you take are at your sole discretion.” He presented her with the waiver. She gave it a quick glance, initialed on the line and handed the clipboard back with a prim efficiency.

She seemed to be waiting for him to say more. Why was she here? If she’d found out about Ernie’s plan she wouldn’t have come. It would be the police with a warrant. “Are you aware of what we do here, Mrs. DeLaroux?”

“Yes. In some sense, at least. I did some looking into a certain problem I want to take care of, and your company came up. I understand that you provide a plan.”

“We prefer to call them tailored scenarios, but yes.”

“It’s my brother. That’s my scenario.”

Nobscot nodded, and a memory of his children floated to the surface of his mind. Millie had just skinned her knee, and Kevin had hugged her tightly. He’d told her her not to cry, it’s going to be all right, let’s go get a bang-aid.

DeLaroux held her hands out, palms up. “I’m not sure how to phrase things. I’m sure you don’t want me coming out and speaking plainly.”

“Right, sorry. Where’s my head today. Okay, here’s how it works...” He ran her through the if statements and she began to lay out the details about her brother.

As she did, he thought about Kevin and Millie giggling on the couch, sharing the popcorn bowl while Disney films played on movie night.

“Well, that’s... that is just something, Peter.” Mr. Kramer shook his head and frowned. “In my forty-five years here, I can’t say I’ve ever heard of two clients marking each other.”

Nobscot nodded. He slumped forward in his chair, his bowtie askew.

“And you say you took her check?”

“I didn’t know what to do. I was almost entirely on autopilot. I kept thinking about the kids. Yeah, I took her check and said I’d see her in two weeks. I’m sorry, Mr. Kramer.”

“No, no... gee whiz, Peter, I’m not going to chew you out. I can see this has affected you, and I sympathize.”

Nobscot puffed a big breath out through clenched teeth. “Well... how should we proceed? This is quite a conflict of interest. I know the check is non-refundable, but certainly an exception can be made in this case.”

“Yes, of course. That shouldn’t be a problem.”

“The things she said. She talked about him like... like a dog that had to be put down. ‘He doesn’t deserve the inheritance, I supported mom through the final stages, legally I don’t have any ground to stand on but he can’t get that money.’ She’s completely emotionally cut off from him. And him... she’s got a little kid, so he wants a scenario for his own nephew’s mother. That kid’s three years old. Do you know how wonderful kids are at three years old?”

Kramer tapped the framed photo of his grandchildren. “You know I do.”

“It’s all just sickening. I’ve consulted for friends, coworkers, countless husbands and wives, but this... he’s her own brother and she feels about him in a way that I don’t feel about anyone.” He raised his hands to his face and dropped them again. “I don’t know that I have it in me to do this anymore.”

Kramer stood and looked out the window, arms folded behind his back. “Peter. If... if you had to choose, which client would you prefer to serve? What I mean is... maybe we can refund whichever of the two most deserves the other’s scenario.”

“Is that ethical, sir?” Kramer cast Nobscot a sideways grin and they both chuckled at the joke. “I don’t know. Honestly, I think they’re both horrible people.”

Kramer shrugged and turned from the window to face Nobscot. “Then let’s serve both.”

“Sir?”

“Think about it. They deserve each other. Let neither of them get what they want by giving both what they’re asking for.”

Nobscot’s mouth fell open in a silent ahh. “Tailor scenarios that overlap... simultaneously.”

“You said before that the scenario for Gehrsbach was a slam dunk. I’ll bet you were thinking of the ol’ frame-the-husband, right? Mr. DeLaroux?”

“Indeed I was. From what I can tell he’s as big a piece of garbage as the rest.”

“Okay. Now follow me here.” Kramer sat back down at his desk, eyes twinkling. “You keep Gehrsbach’s scenario, and tailor DeLaroux’s scenario to go off right when his does. Unbeknownst to DeLaroux, her scenario will also indicate her husband. The motive will seem to be that he was trying to get all that inheritance money for himself. So in the end you have two clients ‘served,’ and one dirtbag locked up. That little kid can go to a foster family...”

“...and get all the inheritance money. Mr. Kramer, that is beautiful.”

Kramer leaned back and beamed, lacing his fingers behind his head. “What can I say, that’s why I was the top consultant around here for so long. I’m an idea man and I can still keep up with you young fellas.”

“It’s going to take some doing, but... wow. I feel so much better about this.”

“And hey. About your kids, thinking about them through all this- how old are they again?”

“Six and four.”

“Great ages. Take the rest of the day off and do something with them. Take them for ice cream. Doctor’s orders.”

Nobscot stood and opened the door. “I will. Thank you, Mr. Kramer.”

“Hey, whoa, forgetting something?”

Nobscot looked back, confused. “I’m sorry?”

“My non-refundable consulting fee.” Kramer maintained the uncomfortable glare for as long as he could stand it, and then they were both laughing.

Peter Nobscot took his wife and children for ice cream. Kevin got bubblegum, and Millie got triple-chocolate-chocolate. They traded licks and laughed. Nobscot watched this and grinned, adoring their messy little faces. They’d be fine. They were being raised on a foundation of principle and love.

He licked at his pistachio waffle cone and went on planning two murders. The sun was shining and life was good.