Pin spot on MCKENZIE.

MCKENZIE:	It was a bet.  A simple bet.  No one was supposed to die.

McKenzie is an attractive woman in her mid to late thirties.  She is
dressed in a plain navy blue business suit with her jacket neatly buttoned.

MCKENZIE:	It began with the firing of the mailroom staff at E.M.N., the
                Entertaining Movie Network, where I’d worked in advertising sales
                as an account executive for the past two years. People who had worked
                there, some for over thirteen years, were suddenly given notice.
                People who had walked past my desk every day for two years were
                relegated to the street for no other reason than to increase the
                price of the stock and save E.M.N. the cost of paying unwanted health 
                benefits.  Or so the rumors went. 

McKenzie looks at her hands.  She then runs them down the front of her jacket as if wiping off invisible blood.

MCKENZIE:	The sudden downsizing around me frightened me more than I could admit
                to those in the office.  So for the first time since I’d lost my job
                five years ago ... I found myself down on my knees again, praying to
                God to keep the job I had now.

A homeless woman enters.  She is the same age as McKenzie.  McKenzie turns looks at the woman (beggar) and turns away.  The lights expand as McKenzie continues.

MCKENZIE:	It was Friday.  The noontime mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  The 
                church was virtually empty, except for the beggars who hung around 
                waiting for handouts and the tourists who posed for pictures outside
                before wandering in to donate money and light a candle. (beat) 
                I hadn’t come for the service but I was there, nonetheless, when the
                priest dressed in his ornate white robes stood in front of the 
                congregation and challenged us to make a bet with God.  Asking us all
                if we could give a dollar a day to the same homeless beggar and say
                to them, “There but for the grace of God go I.”  

Jack Conner and Hugh Wagner enter.  They are in the middle of a conversation.

Wagner is an older man, sixty, trying to look younger.  He is dressed in an old suit. He wears heeled boots to make him taller and a bad toupee, which covers his whole head.

Conner is a sharp young man, early to late twenties, dressed above his means in a very expensive tailored double-breasted suit.  He looks like the cover of GQ and he knows it. 

McKenzie unbuttons her jacket and joins the conversation.  The beggar exits.     

  
WAGNER:		They fired the whole mailroom staff on Friday.

CONNER:		What do you mean, fired?

WAGNER:		Fired!  Fired!  What do you think I mean.

MCKENZIE:	Where were you on Friday, Jack?

CONNER:		Out on calls.  Making a living.  So, what does this mean ... are we
                going to have to deliver our own mail around here too?

MCKENZIE:	They're bringing in some specialty part-time firm.

CONNER:		Nothing was wrong with the old mailroom staff.

WAGNER:		You want to keep your job? ... at your salary?  Somebody had to go.

MCKENZIE:	Downsizing.

WAGNER:		Down-sizing.  Right-sizing.  They don't even talk in English anymore.
                Those poor bastards.  

CONNER:		You don't give a damn about the mailroom.  You just can't blame your
                screw-ups on them anymore.

WAGNER:		The hell with you.  I wish they would can me.  Get my ass
		out of here.  They'd be doing me a favor.

LUGANO enters.  She is the boss, late 40's early 50's.  She is dressed well, in an outfit 
better than either McKenzie's or Wagner's but not as expensive as Conner's.  She is an 
imposing woman and her presence in the "bullpen" always changes the atmosphere 
considerably.

LUGANO:		Don't let me stand in your way, Hugh.

Lugano looks towards the door as if daring the old man to leave.