The Thin Man

By: Martin Rose
September 18, 2008

There was cocaine on his lapel.

The office sex kitten stared, her smoky bedroom eyes widening slightly before falling back into their come-hither gaze once more. George Patterson, vice president of sales, master of the stonewall stare, the deal closer, and cocaine fiend. It looked like a cheerful spray of Domino sugar against the sable background of his lapel. It might have been George's personal family crest. She stifled a laugh behind artificially bee stung lips; she had injections yesterday and she wasn't accustomed to their pouty fullness. George had paid for them when he wasn't blowing his cash on coke.

Lila came toward him, trying not to looked hurried, while George stared at her with cobwebbed red eyes and a pink nose, suppressing a sniffle. She looked away as she leaned in close, as if she had found something interesting to occupy her attention in the peace lily behind him.

"Cocaine on you," she hissed. Pouting whether she wanted to or not.

"What?" he said loudly, looking at her. A sea of gray toned cubicles stretched out before them with a variety of nattering drones at their workstations, some on sales calls, some servicing accounts, others pretending to look busy so they could be paid for doing nothing.

"Cocaine on your suit," she hissed again, and his eyes blew open like the twin barrels of a gun; in a second his hand had whipped out and cracked her across the face, and she jerked like a doll, surprised and immediately pissed off.

So much for the injections, she considered as the skin begin to puff.

"I didn't ask for your opinion!" he snapped. All the same, he self-consciously brushed at himself, as if he were merely preparing for a presentation. She held her hand to her burning face as he grabbed her by the crook of her elbow and pulled her into his office. She stumbled into the interior on her designer high heels, thinking perhaps she should have worn her old high school boots; you know, the ones made for walkin'. Turning to face him, she saw the big sign above the door loom into her vision: Danbury Insurance, LLC.

"Never do that, Lila," he said. "I'm sorry to have hit you like that, but it was inappropriate." He was fiddling with his Jerry Garcia tie, his fingers restless and nervous. Perhaps he doesn't know what to with himself when he's not slapping women, she considered, letting her hand fall from her face. Lila Dorsey was born and raised on a farm in the Midwest. She'd birthed cattle and killed some herself, strung barbed wire from wood post to wood post. All that was over and far away now, but a little slap in the face was nothing compared to barbed wire. She could wear it like a miniskirt.

"I need your help, Lila," he said quietly, meandering over to the desk. She crossed her arms and said nothing, and would give him nothing, only a single cold stare. "Human resources just hired this new guy, uh--" he broke off as he glanced at his desk, shuffling a paper or two before finding it. "Franklin. Franklin Green."

This was the part where he expected her to pepper him with a thousand questions, but she remained silent, preferring to watch him sweat inside his expensive suit.

"Well," he continued awkwardly, "I'm just not sure that this guy is, uh, on the level, and I wanted to ask you if you'd keep an eye on him, you know; maybe take him out, know him a little. Just a friendly thing."

Silent, she considered that it might be worthwhile to acquiesce just so she could spurn George for a new toy; she delighted in the thought of him red faced, running into the comfort of cocaine just so he could forget her. Better yet, he would have only himself to blame for leading her into another man's arms. Already, she was building what the mysterious Franklin Green would look like inside her head. A blonde Ken doll? Dark, tall and handsome? Exotic, with chocolate skin? Icily, she smiled at George and left the room. He watched her a moment longer, and then turned to make sure there wasn't more cocaine on his suit.