He doesn’t smoke. Not really. Not unless he’s had a few drinks. But the only way he can legitimately find a way to leave the office for ten minutes every hour on the hour is to insist upon a nicotine break. “Them’s the rules, pal,” he likes to gloat to those nonsmokers as he’s casually heading out of the office. “I identify myself as a smoker, and I have my rights.”
Patting his jacket pocket for the same pack of cigarettes he’s been carrying around now for a month (Marlboro Lights—the brand he’s been smoking since he was a business student at Siena College not far from here), he grabs his smartphone off the desk, heads out of the office, through the metal Emergency Exit door, down the two flights of concrete steps, and out onto the concrete landing.
Here, at the back of the office build
