RETRIBUTION

FICTION

Sabrina Black

Gloat. Definite and unrepentant gloat. There is no other way to describe the look on Betty Clapper's face as she passed my desk on her way to the elevator that would take her to the fifty-eighth floor. She walked with her desk blotter cradled in her arms and all her desk-top paraphernalia piled on top and clattering joyfully. Betty Clapper was on her way to become an executive private secretary.

I have learned, dear reader, that there are only two ways to succeed on this planet. One, be creative, imaginative, and clever, or two, if you are none of the above, find some jerk who is and steal his work. Watching Betty Calpper leave that airplane hanger full of draf- ting tables called the fourteenth floor I realized just how big a jerk I had been.

I'm a graphic designer, someone who develops trade marks and the like for anyone who feels a deep need for such things. In all modes- ty I must say I'm pretty good at it. I am sort of the star of the graphics department at the advertising agency of Kohlmar, Kohlmar, Saxerby and Smithe. I'd been the star of said department since I joined the firm after finishing college four years earlier, but as of late the wonderlust had me dreaming of that glass-walled Olympus: The executive offices on the fifty-eighth floor. In short, I was itching to become an account executive and show them all just how it should be done.

I was not alone in my desire to elevate myself (pun noted, but not apologetically). There was also one Betty Clapper who felt fate had greater things in store for her. Dear Betty was a slight figured red head with bright, but unquestionably shifty eyes that could take one look at you and estimate your lifetime earnings to within ten dollars. Miss Clapper was an inhabitant of the secretarial pool, a place from which

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