Nice Girls Finish Last by Sparkle Hayter

this hour—it wasn’t nine a.m. yet—the twenty-seventh floor was like a ghost town. I was the only person on the floor. As I approached Kanengiser’s door, now crisscrossed with yellow police crime-scene tape, I heard the muffled sound of a phone ringing somewhere, plaintively, unanswered. Kanengiser’s office was between that of Gordon Hurd, Podiatrist, and those of Lewisohn, Murray and Whitehall, Certified Public Accountants. Walking the length of the gold-flecked linoleum hallway, I counted two dentists, a pediatrician, a ladies’ room, a men’s room, a cleaning closet, and a freight elevator. There was an alarmed exit to the stairwell. There were no video cameras on the twenty-seventh floor.
    It was so quiet I could hear the elevator whooshing up in its shaft.
    I checked out the ladies’ and, yes, men’s rooms to see where someone might hide. At first, it looked impossible to hide in either of the bathrooms, but there were ventilation ducts big enough for a skinny person to squeeze into. Other than that, there wasn’t anywhere to hide. Surely the police would have checked the other offices and the cleaning closet after the body was discovered.
    When I was still in the men’s room, I heard people getting off the elevator, their voices echoing through the hallway.
    I heard them approach. I didn’t want to be seen leaving the men’s room—wouldn’t help my reputation at all—so I ducked into a stall. The door opened and two men walked in. I crouched on top of the toilet.
    â€œI didn’t know the guy,” said one of the men, unzipping himself. “But I’m not surprised. My office is right next door, and a couple of times I was working late, and I swear I heard him having sex in there.”
    â€œWe’re getting together a committee of lessees,” said the other man. “We’ve got to have better security than this. Those television people have great security.”
    They zipped back up. Only one of them washed his hands. Eeuw. They left.
    I was about to get down off my perch and sneak out when another man came in. I heard him unzip. He whistled a bit, then said, “Yeah, yeah, that’s it” to himself and whistled some more. When he left, he held the door for another man coming in, who said “Thanks.”
    I heard heavy footsteps approaching on the tile. He tried my stall. The door shook and he went into the next stall. I saw his khakis and scuffed black shoes under the cubicle wall. This was too much. I had to get out of there before he dropped trou.
    But he didn’t drop trou. I heard a match, and smelled smoke as the man lit a cigarette. After taking a few quick puffs, he dropped the butt into the toilet. I heard two quick squirts of breath freshener, a flush.
    I waited until he was safely gone and fled to the street.
    When I got down to the crew car, Mike and Jim were arguing about who was going to drive to the shoot that morning.
    Mike had just rotated back from five years overseas as cameraman for war correspondent Reb “Rambo” Ryan, among others. I wasn’t sure how Special Reports had lucked out and got him, but I figured he was being punished for something, maybe those forty-seven different traffic warrants on four continents still outstanding against him and the company. Mike had the distinction of being the only person to get a speeding ticket in Sarajevo during the height of the fighting there.
    Because of this, Jim was our designated driver.
    â€œYou don’t mind if I drive, do you, Robin?” Mike asked. “I hate being a passenger.”
    â€œRules are rules,” I said.
    â€œThis is the whip lady we’re interviewing, right?” Jim said, shifting into gear and heading into midtown traffic.
    â€œRight,” I replied.
    â€œJeez. Wait until I tell my wife about this one. Have you ever whipped a guy, Robin?”
    â€œOnly in self-defense.”
    â€œHave you