Chapter 3 - A Plate on the High Table
The dining room of the Buckhead house was designed to make people feel small.
The table was carved from a single slab of black walnut
twenty-four feet long
surrounded by twelve high-backed leather chairs that had once seated governors
mayors
and judges who traded favors for Mason campaign funds.
At eight in the morning
the chandelier above cast a cold
faceted glare across the empty crystal.
Megan sat two chairs away from me
Leo propped up on three thick decorator cushions she had stolen from the sitting room sofa.
Nancy Price stood by the service door
her hands folded across her white apron
her face an impassive mask that hid decades of terror and compliance.
Between Megan and her child sat two plates of poached eggs
sliced avocado
and fresh brioche.
Leo was currently testing the structural integrity of a piece of toast
rubbing butter into the walnut surface with pure
unfiltered delight.
Nancy’s eye twitched.
“Mr. Mason,” Nancy murmured
stepping forward half an inch.
“Should I… bring a protective mat for the wood?”
“Leave it,” I said.
Megan looked at me over her coffee cup.
She didn’t thank me.
She simply wiped Leo’s chin with a napkin
then took a large
unapologetic bite of her breakfast.
“You’re doing this on purpose,” she said between chews.
“Doing what?”
“Torturing your staff.
And Marcus.
He’s standing behind that camera in the corner right now
probably breaking his teeth he’s grinding them so hard.”
I took a sip of black tea.
“Marcus is paid to watch.
What he feels while watching is his own financial liability.”
“He thinks I’m a threat.”
“You are a threat,” I said.
She paused
the fork hovering near her mouth.
“I weigh a hundred and fifteen pounds
Mr. Mason.
My only weapon is a spray bottle of vinegar and water.”
“You don't care who I am,” I replied
looking her in the eyes.
“In my world
that makes you unpredictable.
Men who fear me are easy to manage.
They want to live
they want their salaries
they want their families safe.
Men who want things can be calculated.
You… you told me my house was too quiet
demanded to know how to sort my contracts
and locked my security detail outside while I was unconscious.
You are completely irrational.”
“I’m practical,” she snapped back.
“You were dying of a temperature that could have cooked your brain.
Should I have let you stroke out so Marcus could keep his pride intact?”
“A lot of people in this city would have paid you five million dollars to walk away and let the fever finish the work.”
The fork dropped onto the china plate with a sharp clink.
Megan stared at me
the color draining from her cheeks.
“What did you say?”
“I have enemies
Megan.
Men who sit in the high towers of Midtown
men who wear robes in the appellate court
and men who control the docks down in Savannah.
If any of them knew I was incapacitated for eight hours
this house would have been hit with subpoenas
audits
and three different crews looking for the ledgers in my study.”
She looked at Leo
who was happily babbling to himself
waving a crust of bread like a flag.
The reality of where she was
and what she had touched
finally began to settle into the marrow of her bones.
“I just wanted twenty-two dollars an hour,” she whispered
her voice suddenly small.
“You aren’t getting twenty-two dollars an hour anymore,” I said.
Her head snapped up
defensive shields immediately raising.
“I didn’t do anything wrong!
You can’t dock my pay for staying up all night with you!”
“I am not docking your pay,” I said coldly.
“I am raising it to five hundred dollars a day.”
She froze.
Nancy
by the door
made a quiet
choked noise in her throat.
“Why?” Megan asked
suspicion coating every syllable.
“Because Marcus is going to look into you,” I said
leaning back in my wheelchair
resting my chin on my steepled fingers.
“He is currently running your social security number
your ex-husband’s warrants
your credit history
and the address of the roach-infested studio you rent on Moreland Avenue.
By noon
he will have a file forty pages long detailing every mistake you’ve made since high school.”
Megan’s hands curled into fists on the table.
“Leave my ex-husband out of this.”
“I don’t care about your ex-husband,” I replied.
“Marcus does.
He will look for leverage to remove you from this house because you made him look incompetent in front of the employer he fears.
If you stay here as a maid
he will find a reason to have you arrested for theft or trespass before the week is out.”
“Then fire me,” she said
her voice trembling with pure
unadulterated pride.
“Fire me right now.
I’ll take my kid
I’ll take my bag
and I’ll go.”
“No,” I said.
The word was absolute.
It hung in the dining room like an iron portcullis dropping into stone.
“You are moving into the east guest cottage this afternoon.
You will be listed as my personal administrative assistant.
You will answer only to me.
And if Marcus so much as looks at your boy with a sideways glance
I will strip his clearance and throw him to the Fulton County wolves.”
Megan looked at me as if I were a madman.
“Why would you do that for me?”
“I’m not doing it for you,” I lied
staring past her toward the rainy gardens outside.
“I’m doing it because for twenty years
May you like
nobody in this city has told me the truth to my face.
And I find it… efficient.”
