“Morning,” Gabe suddenly interrupted them, placing a package on the desk.

Lou jumped.

Gabe looked at him, amused.

“Gabe, can I have a word with you, please?” Lou said, once he’d gathered himself.

They walked into his office and closed the door behind them. “Can I have those…the container back, please. I was very tired and emotional this morning, and I don’t know what got into me. Of course I believe in the herbal-remedy thingies.”

Gabe didn’t respond. He continued laying out envelopes and packages on Lou’s desk while Lou looked on with hope on his face.

Lou tried again. “I heard this morning that Cliff’s not coming back.” He kept his voice down and tried to hide his excitement. “He’s totally fried.”

“Ah, the poor man who had the breakdown,” Gabe said, still flipping through the mail.

“Yes,” Lou almost squealed with excitement. “Don’t tell anyone I told you.”

“That Cliff’s not coming back?”

“Yes, that and…you know”—he looked around—“other things. Maybe a promotion. A nice big pay raise.” He grinned, then got serious. “Problem is, Mr. Patterson wants to talk to me tomorrow at the party, and it just so happens to be my dad’s birthday.”

“Ah, this is the need for the pills. Well, you can’t have them.”

At that, Gabe left Lou’s office and immediately continued pushing the cart down the hall. Lou quickly followed, yapping at his heels like a Jack Russell after a postman.

“Ah, come on, I’ll pay you whatever you want for them. How much?”

“I don’t want anything.”

“Okay, then you probably want to keep them for yourself, I get it. At least tell me where I can get more?”

“You can’t get them anywhere. I threw them away. You were right about them; they’re not right. Psychologically. And who knows about the physical side effects? Maybe they were a scientific experiment that found their way out of a lab. Besides, they served their purpose: you learned something very valuable from the experience, and that’s that you want to spend more time at home. Shouldn’t you just take that and be done with it?”

“What did you do to them?” Lou panicked, ignoring everything that Gabe had just said. “Where did you put them?”

“In the trash.”

“Well, get them for me. Go and get them back,” Lou said angrily. “Come on, hurry, Gabe.” He prodded Gabe in the back.

“They’re gone, Lou. I opened the container and emptied the pills into the trash bins outside, and considering what you deposited inside it last night, I’d steer clear.”

Lou grabbed him by the arm and led him to the elevators. “Show me.”

ONCE OUTSIDE, GABE POINTED THE yellow bin out to Lou, large and filthy. Lou charged over. Looking inside, he could see the container sitting on top, so close he could touch it. Beside it, the pile of pills lay among a greenish-brown ooze of some sort. The smell was dire; he held his nose and tried not to retch. The pills were embedded in whatever that substance was, and his heart sank. He took off his suit jacket and threw it at Gabe to catch. He rolled up his shirtsleeves and prepared to shove his hands in the foul-smelling ooze. He paused before going in.

“If I can’t get these pills, where can I get more?” he asked again.

“Nowhere,” Gabe responded, standing by the building’s back door and watching him, his arms folded. “They don’t make them anymore.”

“What?” Lou spun around. “Well, who made them? I’ll pay them to make more. Shit. Maybe I can wash these.” He stepped closer and leaned in. The smell made him retch. “What the hell is that?” He gagged again and had to step away from the bin. “Damn it.” Lou kicked the bin and then regretted it when the pain hit.

“Oh, look,” Gabe said in a bored tone. “It looks like I dropped one on the ground.”

“What? Where?” Lou instantly forgot the pain in his toe and raced back to the bin. He examined the ground around it. Between the cracks of the cobbles he saw something white peering up at him. Leaning closer, he noticed it was a pill.

“Aha! Found one!”

“Yeah, I had to throw them away from a distance, the smell was so bad,” Gabe explained. “A few fell on the ground.”

“A few? How many?”

Lou got down on his hands and knees and started searching.

“I thought you only needed one. Lou, you really should just go back inside. You’ve had a good day Why don’t you just leave it at that? Learn from it and move on?”

“I have learned from it,” Lou said, nose close to the cobbles. “I’ve learned that I’m the hero around here with these things. Aha! There’s another one.” Satisfied that those two were all he could salvage, he put them in his handkerchief and slipped them into his pocket, then stood up and wiped his knees.

“Two will do for now,” he said, wiping his forehead. “I can see two more under the Dumpster, but I’ll leave them for the time being.”

When Lou turned around, his knees dirty and his hair disheveled, he found he had more company. Alfred was standing beside Gabe, his arms folded, a smug look on his face.

“Drop something, Lou?”

WHEN LOU ENTERED THE BOARDROOM, a little delayed after washing up in the bathroom, all twelve colleagues around the table stood to applaud him, their big, white-toothed smiles beaming from ear to ear, but not quite meeting their tired morning eyes. This was what everybody he knew was faced with. Not enough hours of sleep and the inability to get away from work or work-related devices like laptops, BlackBerrys, and cell phones: distractions that each of their family members wanted to flush down the toilet. Of course they were all happy for him, in a frazzled kind of way. They were all functioning to stay alive, to pay the mortgages, to do the presentations, to meet the quotas, to please the boss, to get in early enough to beat the traffic, to hang around long enough in the evenings until it had gone. Everyone in that room was putting in all the hours under the sun trying to unload their work before Christmas, and as they all did that, the pile of personal problems in their in-boxes only grew higher. That would all be dealt with over Christmas break. Finally, time for festive family issues that had been sidelined all year. ’Twas the season for family folly.

The applause was led by a beaming Mr. Patterson, and everyone joined in but Alfred, who was exceptionally slow to stand. While the others were on their feet, he was slowly pushing his chair back. When the others were clapping, he was adjusting his tie and fastening his gold buttons. He succeeded in clapping just once before the applause died down, a single clap that sounded more like a burst balloon.

Lou worked his way around the table, shaking hands, slapping backs, kissing cheeks. By the time he reached Alfred, his friend had already seated himself, though he offered Lou a limp, clammy hand.

“Ah, the man of the moment,” Mr. Patterson said happily, taking Lou’s hand warmly and placing his left hand firmly on Lou’s upper arm. He stood back and looked at Lou proudly, as a grandfather would his grandson on Communion Day, beaming with pride and admiration.

Feeling like he was floating, Lou sat down and found it hard to keep up with the rest of the morning’s discussion. From the corner of his eye, Lou could see Alfred staring at him, the shark beginning to circle again.

“You look tired, Lou, were you out celebrating last night?” a colleague asked.

“I was up all night with my little girl. Vomiting bug. My wife had it, too, so it was a busy night.” He smiled, thinking of Lucy tucked in bed, her thick hair hiding half her face.

Alfred laughed, and his wheeze was loud. “You used that excuse just yesterday, Lou.”

So he had. A few people laughed.

The aggression was emanating from Alfred in waves. It seeped from his soul, distorting the air around him, and Lou wondered if everybody could see it. Lou felt for him oddly; he could see how lost and fearful Alfred was.