The Twelfth Floor
The twelfth floor of headquarters was silent. The moment I stepped off the elevator, the carpet swallowed my footsteps. Neither the hum of printers nor the ring of telephones from the office floors below made it up this far. The twelfth floor was nothing more than a single door at the end of the corridor.
Up close, the nameplate on that door bore no name at all—only a title.
I checked my watch. 7:27. Three minutes early. Just right.
No sooner had I stopped in front of the door than a voice sounded from within.
"Come in."
The office was smaller than I'd expected. A broad window. A worn mahogany desk. On the wall hung no portraits of past commissioners—only a framed black-and-white photograph, an office scene that looked straight out of the fifties.
The man seated behind the desk studied me over his glasses. It was the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, Sam Oliver. Sixty, give or take. Hair half gray, tie nowhere in sight.
"Leo Kim."
"Yes, sir."
"Have a seat. Make yourself comfortable."
I did as I was told, and he slid a single document across the desk. My service record.
"Twenty-three cases last year. Nineteen the year before. Number one in results. And... a zero percent rate of appeals granted against you."
Sam set the papers down as though tossing them aside.
"Impressive, hm? It seems if you set your mind to it, you can make any company in this country cough up money."
"Hardly. I simply followed procedure."
"Hah. You make it sound so easy. Well, small talk would waste both our time—shall we get to the point? Any idea why I called you here?"
"...Yes. Roughly."
He leaned back into his chair, and the old thing creaked under him.
"Good. Then this will go quickly. Yesterday morning you filed a case initiation request for Castle Rock, then withdrew it yourself twenty minutes later. Yes?"
"Yes."
"And then, from that afternoon on, you quite brazenly launched a preliminary investigation into Keller Stepping Solutions. You... do realize, don't you?"
"You mean that Keller Stepping is one of Castle Rock's subcontractors?"
Sam nodded.
...It didn't even take a day.
Exactly half a day. That was all it had taken for the rumor to climb to the twelfth floor. Fast—far too fast. Just how many outside eyes were embedded inside this building?
"What's the rush? Your numbers are more than sufficient."
The wording sounded like a scolding, but strangely, the intonation didn't. I answered with calculated vagueness.
"I like my work."
"Dear, dear. Either you can't take a hint, or you're very good at pretending you can't."
"Commissioner. Keller Stepping is a vicious corporate delinquent—behind on tax after tax. A full $1.87 million."
"...Go on."
"They didn't even pay their eighty-four employees their wages properly."
"Hm? That hardly seems tax-related."
"I only wanted to convey just how nasty they are."
Sam regarded me for a long moment. Then he opened a drawer, drew out a folder, and pushed it across the desk.
"Read."
The title printed on the cover read:
I flipped past the cover.
That was the moment.
A soft pop—and a red dot rose from the paper.
I kept my face perfectly still. Of everything I had trained over six years, this was the hardest discipline of all: never letting it show when this light bloomed in front of someone else.
The dot swelled little by little, lengthened into an arrow, and slid sideways. Its starting point was the line marked Adjusted Tax—$12.4 million.
Launching from that figure, the arrow dropped three lines down.
Huh? Nine million just evaporated? A laugh almost escaped me. Haha. Interesting. And here I was thinking the intel I'd been carrying meant something. Turns out it was a drop in the bucket.
I pressed my fingertips against the paper and thought it through. Tax audits do allow back-and-forth negotiation over how the final bill is set. Nothing strange about that. The problem was the ratio. From $12.4 million to $3.4 million—they had shaved off nearly three-quarters and paid up, without a shred of plausible justification. And the funniest part? The list of disputed items ran six lines, and five of those six had been closed out on our side as "taxpayer's claims accepted."
Something is very wrong here...
The arrow didn't stop there. It quivered—then stretched clean off the paper, reaching toward the other folder lying on the left side of the desk, right beside Commissioner Sam Oliver's elbow.
Only now did I notice that the cover of the stack spread before Sam was half open. The arrowhead came to rest on the printed letters there. I flicked my eyes over—and emblazoned across it were the words Harrison Strategy Group.
Wait...?
I'd brushed past the thought before, but now that I dug a little deeper, it was a name I knew. I could have sworn I'd once seen records showing that the man in front of me—the Commissioner himself—had personally taken part in investigating and probing that very group.
So why was the arrow pointing there?
Run the circumstances back through my head, and... Don't tell me. The Commissioner himself?
No. I shelved that thought for later and raised my eyes slowly. Sam Oliver was still watching me.
"Well?"
"...It's clean. Whoever worked the angles did it so skillfully that I can't find a single legal flaw. Someone wiped their ass for them so thoroughly, it's almost impressive."
"Exactly. And even if it reeks, it's a company that's cleared the first round—so don't lay a finger on it. You'll only be manufacturing extra work for everyone."
Instead of answering, I turned the page and laid out every doubt I'd been nursing in private.
"Look here. It says the audit ran four months, and there wasn't a single on-site verification. Auditing a construction firm running eleven sites without visiting one of them. Does that make sense to you?"
"That's no problem either. They cooperated fully with document requests, and site inspections have their own dedicated officer in any case—"
"Commissioner. In cases like this, it's the cooperative delinquent that frightens me most in this world."
My words stopped Sam mid-breath.
"...Why is that?"
"An amateur tax evader hides his documents and gets caught. A professional does the opposite—he dutifully hands over nothing but spotless paperwork. We receive everything we ask for, yet there's nothing worth seizing. And since every legal procedure has already been run to completion, there isn't even a loose thread to pull."
"What exactly are you trying to say?"
I closed the report.
"I'm saying the tax investigation of this company might as well never have happened, Commissioner."
The office went quiet.
After a beat of silence, Sam Oliver leaned forward.
"Leo Kim."
"Yes."
"Do you understand what it means, in this room, to say that about a document bearing my signature?"
The chair creaked. Sam removed his glasses and pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose.
"You have no grasp of what kind of information you've just put your hands on."
"No, sir. I know exactly."
"No, you don't. If you did, you wouldn't have walked in here."
He reached out and picked my service record back up.
"Of all people, why did it have to be you... Fine. I'll be honest. If you touch that company, I will have far more than one or two problems on my plate. So here are the two things I can say to you right now. One: drop this, immediately, and from next month transfer up to the Headquarters Investigation Planning Division. I'll have a position created for you."
For an instant, I could hardly believe my ears. This was practically a confession—he was all but admitting he had helped a corporation evade taxes. And from the mouth of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue of the United States, no less.
I held my tongue and listened to the rest.
"Two: you do exactly as you please. In exchange, three months from now the Inspector General will be taking a long look at your accounts, and four months from now some fresh objection will come down on your head."
"..."
"And if, somewhere in all of that, they happen to find an irregular flow through your accounts... hmm. From that point on, you're on your own."
Listening to this threat-that-wasn't-quite-a-threat, heat welled up in the center of my chest. I barely kept hold of my reason and spoke, slowly.
"Commissioner."
"Speak."
"I'll ask you straight, no hedging. Are you in a collusive relationship with Harrison Strategy Group?"
Sam Oliver's hand stopped.
The hand lowering my service record froze dead in midair, caught in that exact posture.
Half a second. The very length of time it once took Marketti's dealer to lose his smile.
"What is that supposed to mean? Ah... you've made a very large mistake just now."
Only belatedly catching where my eyes had gone, Sam reflexively covered the files spread out beside him.
I watched him do it and deliberately kept my mouth shut for a long while. Because sometimes silence is the heaviest answer there is.
"Commissioner. Every single entity registered as a Castle Rock subcontractor files as a tax-exempt social welfare organization."
"How did you even—"
"A welfare organization's records are public by principle. Anyone can pull them up on the Library of Congress site. You knew that, surely."
I rummaged through the documents I'd brought and pointed to one section. Three names were listed there.
"Carter Northrup. Deputy Director of the IRS's Large Business Investigation Bureau until 2018. Lisa Fang. Examination Policy Officer until 2019. And Donald Myers. Chief of Staff to the Commissioner until 2020."
I rested a finger on the last name.
"It occurs to me just now—all three of the people listed here once served under you, Commissioner. And as of today, all three are on Harrison's payroll."
Sam Oliver said nothing.
"An IRS executive retiring into a lobbying firm is common enough. They call it the revolving door. Strictly speaking, it isn't even illegal."
I drew out one more sheet of paper.
"But when that firm also involves itself in the closing of an audit at a company its old workplace oversaw, the story changes."
"...Hmph. And where is your proof that I was involved?"
"There isn't any. But the timing is far too strange, isn't it?"
I laid the two sheets side by side.
"On September 12th of last year, Castle Rock paid Harrison its second consulting fee—$1.7 million. Then on September 26th, this closing report went up. The one where $12.4 million in adjusted tax shrank to $3.4 million. Both of those events happened while you, Commissioner Sam, were in office. Didn't they?"
"Th-that's coincidence. Nothing more."
"A coincidence? Nine million dollars was massaged away inside two weeks. Who could stage something at that scale without a commissioner-level line of authority? Commissioner. If this is a coincidence, then from now on I'll have to take every word a delinquent ever tells me as a coincidence too."
Sam Oliver slowly put his glasses back on. Then he looked at me for a very long time.
"...You."
He spoke at last.
"How long have you known. That I was tied to them."
...Hold on a moment. His words left me briefly at a loss.
Come to think of it—why does it feel like I'm the one investigating the Commissioner right now? I was only planning to look into one little subcontractor.
When the silence stretched on longer than I'd intended, Sam suddenly let out a deep sigh. Perhaps my habit of rationing my words had finally gotten to him; the look on his face said he'd just taken a direct hit.
"Hah..."
He pushed his chair back, rose, and walked to the window. He stared outside for a long while, then spoke with his back still to me.
"Why do you think I signed off on that closing report?"
"Well. You took money, I'd assume."
"Leo Kim. Watch your mouth."
Sam's face had gone rigid.
"I... never took money or anything of the sort. I swear on heaven."
"Then why did you do it? On the surface it's legal tax avoidance, sure. But between the two of us, we both know exactly what this is. This is a crime that borders on evasion."
"Because the order came from above."
He rose from his seat and braced a hand against the window frame. For one instant, a thought flashed through me: who on earth stands above the Commissioner of Internal Revenue?
"There are people above even me. There's Treasury, and above Treasury sit the ones who hold the entire budget in their fists. Last year, a bill slashing our funding went up before the Senate. If it had passed, five hundred of our people would have been cut. And in the middle of all that, a proposal came down to me in secret."
"We will help you bury that bill. However, there is a condition. From now on, the IRS will not dig deeply into the Castle Rock matter. Likewise, see that the same directive reaches every team-leader-level officer with decision-making authority beneath you—and then impose strict, classified silence."
"So you followed the directive?"
"I did."
Sam looked me dead in the eye.
"I judged that yielding, just this once, to the people above me was the better choice than cutting five hundred people and watching them suffer right in front of my eyes. What would you have done in my place? And I swear—apart from that, I never once dirtied my hands for personal gain."
I rose from my seat. As far as I was concerned, there was nothing left to say. Above all, grinding out a who-beat-whom contest over bygones was utterly pointless.
"And what happens once you walk out that door? You dug a little well and fished up a whale, haven't you. That may be my reason and all—but if you go anywhere and let slip what I've told you, then I am finished. Just like that."
Sam Oliver's expression shifted. It was neither anger nor incredulity.
His gaze drifted, almost absently, to the black-and-white photograph on the wall. Men in shirtsleeves, buried to the shoulders in mountains of paperwork.
"...That photograph was taken in 1954."
"..."
"My father is in the third row there. Like me, he spent his whole life working in this building. And from his first day to his retirement, he never received a single promotion. Do you know why?"
"I don't."
"Because he tripped over too many important people. Much like you."
Sam sighed, low in his throat. Then, with the tip of his finger, he pushed the Castle Rock closing report across the desk toward me.
"Let me say it once more. I took no money. I consented in the name of the greater good. Call it a sin if you like—but I still believe I made the right call."
And then, at that very moment, Commissioner Sam—who had been brooding over something—abruptly shot up from his seat. And slammed the desk. Thud.
"...Right. I've decided. Go on, then—run wild as you please, Leo. From this moment on, don't worry about what's behind you."
I could only stare at him, dumbfounded. My brain couldn't keep pace with how fast the situation was unfolding.
What on earth did I just hear...?
"Try it your way. All of it, exactly as you wish—as an investigator's personal, independent case. Step on Keller first, then slowly dig out everything underneath. If you need my help along the way, say the word. I'll back you as far as I can."
Sam rapped the desk twice with his finger.
"With me watching your back from now on, the work will get a great deal easier. But there is one condition."
"Name it."
Sam studied me in silence for a moment.
"When you strip that company bare, my name will come up at least once in the process. If legal trouble finds me then, you take the stand. You testify that I am innocent. Today's conversation will serve as my evidence of immunity when that day arrives."
He lifted a finger and pointed at the CCTV in the corner of the office ceiling.
...So that was what he actually wanted all along.
I blinked.
This was a development I hadn't foreseen. At the same time, it was the one and only move by which the man could slip out of his crisis.
He does his arithmetic fast, doesn't he...
Now I saw it—he hadn't climbed to the Commissioner's chair for nothing.
Well. From the sound of it, he hadn't engineered all this simply to line his own pockets after all. And his reasoning was convincing enough, in its own way... so I gave a deliberate nod. With a rock-solid backer at the commissioner level, true to the word, a great many things would get easier for me too.
"Commissioner, I have one condition of my own."
"All right. What is it?"
Sam Oliver let out another hollow laugh. He looked like a man thoroughly worn out from dealing with me.
"That arrangement of yours—watching my back. If you're going to do it, do it properly. I absolutely abhor it when vermin come crawling into my work."
"You... really are the genuine article. Fine. Go."
In the elevator descending from the twelfth floor, I leaned my back against the wall and let out a rough breath.
Whew. Whew.
Thought my heart was going to burst.
Frankly, I had just made, in effect, a gamble.
What if Sam Oliver hadn't been in cahoots with anyone? Then I would simply have become a lunatic who'd run his mouth at his boss's boss's boss.
When I returned to the Collections office, Team Leader Margo Chen looked up at me, phone receiver still in hand.
"Leo."
"Yes."
"Word just came down from upstairs. The Keller case is approved. From here on, you proceed on your own—no sign-offs required."
Already? The Commissioner certainly doesn't waste time. Looks like there'll be nothing to chafe against from here on out.
"What on earth did you do up in the Commissioner's office? You may not realize this, Leo, but that is genuinely not something you touch carelessly."
"Nothing special. Talked taxes, like always."
"Leo Kim. Stop joking."
"I'm serious."
Margo seemed about to press further, then shook her head instead.
"Forget it. There's no point asking. But keep one thing in mind. A door opened from above can just as easily be closed from above."
Is that so? To exaggerate just a little—the Commissioner's neck is currently hanging in my hands, no?
I gave a suitably measured answer.
"Yes, ma'am. I'll keep it in mind."
Back at my desk, Sarah greeted me in a flurry.
"Senior! Where did you disappear to all morning? I've been organizing that Keller material you assigned me, all by myself—thought my wrist was about to give out—"
Her words cut off.
Sarah turned to look at her own monitor. A new notification had appeared on the screen.
"Uh..."
"What is it?"
"Senior."
The color drained from Sarah's face.
"Keller Stepping Solutions just filed a bankruptcy petition with the federal bankruptcy court."
"..."
"Yes. Th-then what happens to this? A bankruptcy filing puts an automatic stay on the levy, right? If this goes through, the $1.87 million just goes up in smoke—"
Sarah's voice trailed off.
Because I was smiling.
"Senior?"
"Sarah."
"Yes?"
"You pulled Randall Keller's home address too, didn't you?"
"Yep. Just in case..."
I shrugged my jacket back on.
"A company dies when it goes bankrupt. A person doesn't."
"Sorry?"
"Bring the car keys."
Tucking the folder under my arm, I walked for the door.
"The taxes he skimmed from his employees' wages get charged, bankruptcy or no bankruptcy, first and foremost to the company's owner."
"What does that mean?"
"It means the bastard who'd been paying his taxes with company money is about to start paying them with his own."
© Kim Okji #1v8mj