Chapter 2: The Coffee Break
The click of the break room door closing behind her felt like the seal on a tomb. Carol leaned against it, eyes shut, the manila folder damp in her hand. The air here was different—not the leather-and-cologne density of the office, but a greasy, stale atmosphere that clung to the back of the throat. Stale coffee, old cigarettes, the ghost of fried food.
“First day with the big man?”
The voice was flat, stripped of warmth. Carol’s eyes snapped open.
A woman sat at the Formica table in the center of the room, a cigarette smoldering in a glass ashtray. She had a stack of ledgers open before her, numbers crowded in tiny, perfect script. Dark curls framed a face that might have been pretty if it weren’t set in such rigid lines. Cat-eye glasses were pushed up into her hair.
“I… yes,” Carol managed.
“Betty O’Dell. Bookkeeping.” Betty didn’t offer a hand. She tapped ash from her cigarette. “You’re the new one. Carol.”
It wasn’t a question. News traveled fast here, in whispers through cigar smoke.
Carol moved to the counter where a stained coffee percolator bubbled on a hotplate. Her hands trembled as she reached for a chipped mug. The porcelain was warm, almost greasy to the touch.
“He’s a bastard.”
The words hung in the buzzing silence of the flickering neon Restwell sign above the sink. Carol froze, the coffee stream spilling over the rim, scalding her finger.
“But you know that already.” Betty took a long drag, watching her through the smoke. “Took you about what, an hour? Took me two days, back when I started. I was more hopeful then.”
Carol brought the mug to the table, sitting across from Betty. The vinyl seat sighed under her weight, releasing a smell of ancient dust. She didn’t speak. She couldn’t. Her throat was too tight.
Betty’s eyes, a cool hazel behind the memory of her glasses, scanned Carol’s face, her blouse, her perfect, sprayed hair. It was an appraisal, but different from Big Mac’s. This was clinical. “Keep your head down. Do the work. And for Christ’s sake, keep your skirt long. He likes to watch them climb the filing cabinets.”
A hot flush of shame crept up Carol’s neck. She sipped the coffee. It was tar-bitter, overcooked.
“I have no choice,” Carol whispered, the words escaping like a confession.
Betty stubbed her cigarette out with a sharp, grinding twist. “We all say that.” She closed a ledger with a definitive thump. “We all have a kid, or a sick mother, or a husband who can’t hold a job. It’s the company song. He provides the backing track.” She leaned forward, her voice dropping, though the room was empty. “There’s always a choice, honey. The question is whether you’re willing to pay the price the other option demands. This job pays the mortgage. What does your soul cost?”
Before Carol could process the question, the break room door swung inward.
It didn’t open so much as it was displaced by the mass of the man filling the frame. Big Mac stood there, one hand on the doorjamb, his body blocking the fluorescent light from the hall. His shadow fell across the table, swallowing them both.
“Ladies.” His smile was a wide, white gash in his weathered face. It didn’t touch the calculative gleam in his eyes. “Having a little hen party?”
Betty’s posture didn’t change, but her face went as smooth and blank as a closed ledger. She looked down, adjusting her glasses, becoming invisible.
“Carol,” Big Mac said, his tone shifting to a possessive casualness. “We’ve got a mountain of work that ain’t gonna move itself. I need my secretary.” He held out a hand, not to help her up, but as a command. A summoning.
Carol’s legs felt leaden. The warning—never let him get you alone after five—echoed. It was only eleven-thirty. The sun was high. It didn’t matter. The rules here were his, and time bent to his will.
She stood. The chair legs scraped the linoleum with a sound like a scream.
“Betty, those quarterly reports on my desk by end of day,” he said, not looking at her.
“Yes, Mr. McGuire.”
As Carol passed him, he placed a broad hand on the small of her back. It was heavy, warm through the fabric of her blouse. It guided, it pushed, it claimed. The touch burned.
She glanced back once. Betty was already lighting another cigarette, her eyes fixed on the columns of numbers, her jaw set so tight a muscle flickered in her cheek. She did not look up.
The walk back to the office was a silent procession. His hand stayed on her back, steering her past the curious, downcast glances of two men in coveralls rolling a pipe through the warehouse bay.
Back inside the oak-paneled cave, the door clicked shut. He removed his hand, walked to the window, and looked out over the yard, hands on his hips.
“Betty’s a bitter old hag,” he said, his back to her. “Good with numbers, but she’s dried up. No use for anything else. Don’t let her poison you with her misery.”
He turned, leaning against the windowsill. The light from behind him haloed his bulky silhouette, leaving his face in shadow.
“You, though. You’re fresh. You’ve got spark. I saw it when you walked in here.” He pushed off and ambled toward his desk. “I want you to handle something sensitive. A private file. It’s in the bottom drawer of my desk. Locked. Key’s in the pen holder.”
He sat, the leather groaning, and watched her.
Her feet carried her forward. She knelt on the worn Persian rug in front of the massive desk, the rough wool scratching her knees. The bottom drawer had a simple brass lock. The key was cool, small. It turned with a smooth, well-oiled click.
Inside the drawer were not files, not at first. A half-empty bottle of bourbon. A box of cigars. And then, tucked beside them, a slim manila folder, unlabeled. She pulled it out.
“Bring it here,” he said.
She stood, placed it on the desk before him. He didn’t open it. He just looked at her, his gaze a physical pressure.
“That’s trust, Carol. That drawer. What’s in it. You understand? I’m showing you trust.” He leaned back, lacing his fingers over his stomach. “Now, we’re gonna work late tonight. Got a big proposal. Need you sharp. I’ll order in. You like Chinese?”
It wasn’t an invitation. It was a schedule.
She nodded, her voice lost somewhere beneath the pounding in her ribs.
“Good.” He grinned, that same predatory flash. “Now, get back to typing up those meeting notes. And Carol?” He waited until she met his eyes. “Leave the door open. Let the sound of your work fill the hall. I like to hear it.”
She returned to her desk, the unlabeled folder burning a hole in her periphery. The keys of the typewriter were cold, heavy. She fed in a sheet of paper. The first loud clack of the key was a gunshot in the quiet room.
Behind her, she heard the soft scrape of his chair, the quiet glug of liquid into a glass. Then the low, contented hum of a man exactly where he wanted to be, watching the gears of his world turn, exactly as he had arranged them.