"..Eddy!!!"
"Brett?"
"Eddy!!! Is that you!?"
Eddy furrowed his brows.
"Yeah Brett, you rang me, of course it's me. Are you alright?"
"..Where are you?"
"What? Seriously are you okay? Where do you think I am? I'm at work, of course."
"Good, I'm coming in. I need to talk to you."
"O..okay?"
"I'm just outside, I.. I'm coming in."
"Wait, what? Oh, I see you. Just tell the security guard that you have an appointment with me. I'll wave you in."
Eddy quickly hung up and got out of his seat and went up to his office glass wall and waved to the security guard who had just turned towards him. Brett stood in front of the guard all flustered. Seeing his partner like that puzzled and concerned Eddy.
Eddy opened his office door for Brett as he formally greeted his partner who had come to visit him at their local bank branch where Eddy worked as a banker.
"Mr Yang, please come in."
Brett rolled his eyes as he walked inside Eddy's office. Once Eddy closed the door behind him, Eddy changed his tone and how he addressed his partner.
"Hey... so what's the matter, Brett? You look... tense."
Brett turned around.
"Tense? You said TENSE!? Yeah I may be a BIT TENSE thank you very much."
"Brett..?"
"Can I sit down?"
This was when Eddy realised he had also become rather agitated by Brett's odd behaviour.
"Oh. Sorry, yeah, of course. Here."
Eddy reached down and opened the small bar fridge he kept in his office. He pulled out a small bottle of water, unscrewed the cap and handed it to Brett.
"Thanks..."
Brett downed the whole bottle in one go.
"Brett..?"
Brett wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as he pleaded.
"Eddy, please tell me the truth. What have you done?"
Eddy furrowed his brows.
"..What?"
"If you don't know about it, then I'm worried on a different level. Someone might come after me. Or worse, you."
"Brett, would you please calm down and tell me everything from the beginning? What's happened?"
"..Maybe I should just show you this..!!"
Eddy's eyes widened as Brett slammed his hand down on Eddy's office desk.
"...Brett..?"
"Eddy... please explain this for me."
Eddy stared at the table where Brett had slammed down what looked like a receipt of an ATM transaction.
"This is..?"
"I was in town running errands. I thought about taking you out for lunch so I just withdrew some money from our joint account cos we were running low on cash.."
"Sure. Of course. That's not a problem at all."
Brett glared at Eddy.
"Are you sure about that Eddy?"
"Brett..? I don't understand. Why are you acting all weird?"
"...Eddy.. check the balance."
Eddy looked at the balance printed on the ATM receipt. His eyes widened.
"...seven hundred and fifty two thousand four hundred and fifty three dollars..??"
"Yes Eddy, it's SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY TWO F*CKING GRAND!!!"
Eddy shushed Brett in panic.
"Shhhhh Brett...!! Please, security will end up in here if you don't keep your voice d.."
Before Eddy could finish his sentence, his office door was opened by the security guard.
"...Mr Chen, is everything okay?"
"Yes. Absolutely, everything is okay"
The guard gave a stern look around Eddy's office then nodded.
"Okay, sorry for interrupting."
The security guard closed the door and left.
Brett hissed.
"Now just how the hell would he know that I'm not threatening you to just say that everything is okay?"
"Brett.. please don't joke about stuff like that in a bank.. we have our ways to communicate that you are legit and that I wasn't threatened."
Brett was somewhat intrigued with what Eddy had said but there were more pressing issues at hand.
"So.. Eddy, you can't explain why we have an extra three quarters of a million dollars in our bank account?"
"No, I cannot. Lemme check."
Eddy quickly sat down at his desk and typed in his password and looked up their account.
"Brett.. it says here our balance is just over a couple of grand in here.. it looks like what it's supposed to look like."
This particular joint account was used for their daily expenses and was not meant to have excessive funds in it.
Brett went pale.
"What..? So... whoever put the money in our account has already taken it out?"
"Hmm.."
"But.. but.. but what if the person who put the money in and the person who took the money out are two different people? And what if the person who took the money out wasn't the person that the person who put the money in expected it to be? Would they then come after us for the money?"
Eddy furrowed his brows.
"Brett.. it's relatively easy to put money into an account but taking it out without our authorisation is very difficult."
"But.. but... look what's happened? Don't you see? It's happened !?!? Eddy, I almost died when I first saw this receipt. I must have looked really suspicious because the security guard came out of the bank branch and stood really close to me, asking if everything was alright. I was actually scared he was disguised as a security guard and was about to take me out. That was when I called you"
"Brett.. have you been getting enough sleep? You're so on edge."
"But Eddy.. doesn't it concern you even a little bit? To be honest, my first reaction was YAY FREE MONEY, then I got scared, really scared. There is no such thing as free money. That money belonged to someone and now it's gone. They might come after me for it. Worse, they might come after you for it.. Eddy.."
Eddy bit his lower lip. It was like a plot of a spy movie. But on a serious note, Eddy wasn't scared of being taken out by some assassin in a gang, he was more concerned about a bank security breach if that money was once genuinely in their account and now gone. He clicked on a part of his screen to further investigate.
"Brett.. there is no evidence of that money ever being in our account."
"What..??"
Eddy turned around. He reached his hand towards the centre of the table and picked up the ATM receipt that Brett had previously slammed down. He then started to rub his fingers together with the ATM receipt held between his fingers.
Brett could not believe his eyes when he saw the receipt duplicate.
Brett stammered.
"W.. what the..."
Eddy peeled off the top ATM receipt and looked at the second one that was revealed underneath.
"Brett.. I recognise the bank account number of this second receipt. This one is ours. The person who used the ATM before you who forgot to take their receipt was the person who had the seven and a half grand balance."