A man weighed the duffel bag in his arms like he was cradling a newborn whose value exceeded his capacity to appraise by heft alone, and whose consequences for fumbling it would make a dropped infant look like a minor insurance claim filed by someone who had already been quietly removed from the payroll.
He was not an imposing figure, lean actually in a way that screamed long hours parked behind a mahogany desk rather than long hours doing anything that might inconvenience a cardiovascular system — his profession trafficked in teleprompters and tailored opinions and the particular genus of ambition that accumulated in the midsection as cortisol rather than muscle.
His body that commanded authority in a fitted blazer and would've gotten laughed out of a pickup basketball game at the local Y before the first whistle blew.
