(Writer’s group assignment. Three minute story based on image)

Dallavo looked at the man’s trembling fingers then quickly looked away. It could be age — the guy was in his fifities at least — or it might be circumstances. Probably both.

“Mr Macey, could  you open the second drawer of your desk?”

Macey pulled it open with his right hand. His non-trembling hand. The drawer was empty.

“Sheesh!” Dallavo sighed the weight of the whole decade. “What are we supposed to do? We’ve never had a security breach until now. Every fucking code…”

Macey looked struck. Then — maybe the guy was an actor — he leaned back in his tall leather chair like it fit him. But it didn’t. He’d been at Accenturon for a week. The man looked like an executive, he surveyed the skyline like an executive, but he was clueless. Dallavo figured Macey might have just been some homeless guy that, as a prank, the search firm had prettied up, dressed up in a suit, shaved, combed his hair, and ushered into the interview room. Any minute they’d jump up, waving the blue booklet: “Made you sweat!”

Dallavo looked under the desk, then riffled through a stack of papers by the window.

“The security booklet. It’s blue, Mr. Macey.”

“I know.”

“It’s never supposed to leave the second drawer of your desk. Ever. When you read it, you read it over the open drawer.”

“I’m sorry.”

“The treadmill is missing from the ninth floor gym. That’s a heavy piece of shit. And expensive.”

“I can — ”

“What? Replace it?” Dallavo took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. “I’ll tell you one thing you can’t replace. You can’t replace Mrs Badolato’s photo cube.”

Dallavo noticed a hostility in Macey’s look now. The servility was gone. “What, Mr. Macey?”

“It’s a PHOTO cube.”

“The photos were thirty-five years old. They aren’t digital. They’re Mrs Badolato’s family in the seventies when she came to work here, you asshole.”

“Don’t call me an asshole.”

“Why not, Macey. That’s what you are.”

Macey opened his jacket and displayed a tiny voice recorder. Dallavo reached across the desk and gently took it out of Macey’s hand. Then he put it on the black tile floor and stomped it until it shattered.

Now Dallavo’s job was to change all the codes, print out new booklets, then deal with Macey.  He didn’t have the horsepower to fire him himself. That’s going to take some paperwork. And smashing the recorder probably complicated things a bit. But it wouldn’t be any worse than getting rid of that freak, Evans. There was an asshole.