The following is the first installment of the book, Bankers Hours, by Amanda Biers-Melcher, which we will be serializing every Friday on BankersBall, probably cutting it off in the most suspenseful part. To write Bankers Hours, Amanda took a part-time job at a major New York investment bank. Where she spied on you. Just kidding about that last part. Actually, I’m not, maybe you’ll recognize your asshole self in the book. Who knows.

More about Amanda: Amanda Biers-Melcher earned a B.A. in Classics from Brown University and a masters degree in journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. She has worked as a journalist, a public relations executive and a writer for film and television. Today she lives in Los Angeles with her husband Steve, a television writer/producer, and their two children, ages 8 and 3. She is president of Lululinc Productions, a production company that creates and develops programming for broadband and TV.

Enjoy.

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We’re sharpening stones
Walking on coals
To improve your business acumen
– R.E.M

CHAPTER ONE

Monroe put the last stack of mail into the last folder on the cart (Zelter, Mike) and got ready to start the last run of the day. 4:30. Still an hour to go. He shook his head and turned the cart towards the door. What was it that fat lady — Roberta, that was her name — what was it she wanted again? Right. 4″x1″ sticky labels. Shit. What the fuck did it matter what size labels she used? Long as it fit the name and address of whoever it was going to.

Monroe sighed. Pain in his ass. He walked past his desk into the storage room behind it, pushed open the door, and stood in the doorway. He scanned the shelves for the Avery mailing labels. The whole place was organized, not because Monroe gave a shit about bullshit like that, but because the last guy, Carl — a borderline retard, that guy was, but everyone loved him because boy, did, that guy know how to kiss ass — he had this system. Everything had its own space on the shelf. Paper here. File folders there, stacked according to size. Doled out fucking pens one at a time like they were the king’s gold or some shit.

Now that Carl was upstairs in Investment Banking, Monroe was just as glad to be by himself, even if it meant he had to do all the mail runs, not alternate like before. He could just stick stuff where he wanted. Long as it was neat, no one gave a shit. Not like anyone but him came back here much anyway.

Now where did Carl keep those labels at? They weren’t on these shelves. Monroe turned around and looked up and down the shelves next to the door. Nope. He spun around slowly. That’s right. Kept them locked up in here with the binder clips and those computer disks. Said they were too expensive to be out with the paper for any secretary to just take whenever she pleased.

Monroe stepped toward the metal cabinet in the corner. He stopped, shook his head and automatically took a step back. “Whew. Man.” There was some kind of stink coming from that cabinet. No lie. Smelled like something rotten. Something really rotten.

He took another step backwards and let himself inhale again. He grimaced. The whole storage room stunk. Monroe felt his stomach heave. Something caught in his throat. Shit. He steeled himself to step forward again and turn the handle on the metal cabinet, but it wouldn’t turn. Must be locked, he figured.

Monroe exhaled noisily. Had that fucking Carl left some food or something locked up in that cabinet? Afraid someone was gonna eat his bologna sandwich or some shit like that? That stupid mother. Why was he always pulling some dumb-assed shit like that?

Monroe backed out of the storage room and went to his desk for the key to the cabinet. And guess who was going to have to clean that shit up? he thought to himself.

He yanked open his top drawer and felt around for the key ring. It was labeled “C” for cabinet — all typed on a white label cut down to size. Fucking Carl. He turned reluctantly to face the storage room. He looked at his watch. Almost twenty of. Soon they’d be all over his ass about the 4:30 mail run. “Better make this quick,” he sighed out loud.

“Hey Monroe, my man.” He looked up. Kevin strolled into the mailroom carrying his electronic clipboard and smiling like his life was a fucking Saturday afternoon picnic. “You got boxes for me, brother?”

“Yeah, I got fucking boxes for you. I had boxes for you at ten o’clock this morning. Which is why I called you. What’s this, you showing up at four-fucking-thirty?” Monroe smiled so Kevin wouldn’t take it wrong. He was just busting on his ass.

“Busy day, my man. Places to go, people to see. What about you? You chillin?”

“Bustin my ass as usual,” he said pointing to the three boxes next to the copier. “They’re right there. And don’t you be taking my copy paper boxes by mistake.”

Kevin laughed “All right brother. Let me just take a look at the paperwork here and I’ll be on my way.”

“Take it easy.” Monroe turned and went back into the storage room, making sure not to breathe through his nose.

He stuck the key in the lock and pulled the handle up again. It should come right open, he thought, but it seemed to be sticking. He gave the handle a good yank and the door on the right side flew open and then the left one swung open too. Monroe saw a flash of color — green, flesh tones, a swish of brown — and felt a weight fall against his chest. He pushed it off reflexively. It took him a second to process the fact that a body had just fallen on top of him.

He took a quick step back. What the. . .? What was this shit?

Monroe swallowed hard and looked down at the twisted body on the carpet in front of him. He forgot about the smell and took a couple of quick breaths. He felt his heart beat and was suddenly aware of a metallic taste in his mouth. Oh, man. This was for real.

He looked away from the body and studied the cabinet calmly. His brain worked desperately to make some kind of sense out of things. Someone had unscrewed the shelves. That was the only way those shelves would fall down to the bottom of the cabinet like that. The supplies were all messed up there at the bottom too. The labels and the disks, the paper clips — all that shit Carl kept in there.

A box of medium-sized binder clips had spilled out and landed right next to where the girl’s long hair was spread out on the carpet. Monroe stared at it. This was for fucking real.

He must have screamed because he heard Kevin run in and stop behind him. He felt Kevin breathing on the back of his neck.

“Holy. . . “

The girl was wearing a business suit like all of them did. It was green and so were her shoes. They were high heels, but not too high, and suede. She only had on a little jewelry from what Monroe could see. A little gold ring on one pinkie and a watch which he guessed was expensive but it didn’t look like anything fancy. She was well dressed, you would say. She looked classy.

Her skirt was pulled up too high on her legs in a way that Monroe sensed probably would have made her uncomfortable. She still had her pantyhose on, light-colored hose, not white exactly, but pale, like very white skin. It was paler than her own white skin, which showed through the run in the nylon on one of the legs. The run was wide — a couple of inches across — and it went all the way up from her ankle, widening as it got closer to the hem of her skirt. Monroe knew this girl wouldn’t have walked around with a run like that in her stockings.

He recognized her, though he didn’t know her name. She was one of the young ones, a research associate is what they called them. Most of them were right out of college, acting like they were big deals all of a sudden. This one had seemed okay though, Monroe recalled. Not too stuck up. Fixed the copier herself when it jammed. Always said thank you when she asked him for something.

“We better call someone, man.” Kevin’s voice sounded different. Pinched. Like he couldn’t breathe either.

Monroe nodded. Shit. This was too much.

Kevin waited for him to turn around and walked out of the storage room behind him. Monroe felt like he was in a dream or something. He reached for the phone on his desk and was surprised to hear his own voice when some guy in Security answered.

“Yeah, this is Monroe in Equity Research on twenty-eight. You better send someone quick. We got a dead body up here in the mail room.” He heard the guy pause a split second.

“Excuse me?”

“I said, we’ve got a dead body on 28.”