Crack Down

Chapter 12

Literary critics punt the theory that private eyes are society’s outsiders. That might have been true in 1940s Los Angeles, but it’s a joke in 1990s Britain. These days, if you want to last more than five minutes as a private investigator, you’ve got to have the instincts of a chameleon. Gumshoes that stand out in a crowd are as much use to the client as a chocolate chip pan. I’ve had to pass as everything from lawyer to temp, including high-class hooker and journalist, sometimes both on the same day. At least tonight I’d already cased the venue, which gave me a pretty substantial clue as to dress code.

I pulled the crumpled flyer out of my pocket and gave it the once-over. Whoever had put it together wasn’t going to win any awards for grammar or graphic design. The one-day sale promised bargains of a lifetime — video recorders for £69.99, camcorders for £99.99, microwaves for £49.99, plus hundreds of other exclusive, unique, etc. Already, and for free, we’d been presented with more exclamation marks than any reasonable person could use in a decade. With all this in mind, I dressed for the occasion. Tight faded Levis, a black Tina Turner Simply the Best sweat shirt (because black always makes me look like I have a major vitamin deficiency), and Richard’s three-sizes-too-big Washington Red Sox jacket. I finished the ensemble with a pair of white stilettos with a two-inch heel, bought, I hasten to add, solely for professional purposes. I gathered my auburn hair into a top knot and held it in place with a gold lurex elasticated band. Never mind a million dollars, I looked about threepence halfpenny. I’d fit in like a flea in a cattery.

I was back in Shelfield for half past five. I dumped the car in a city-centre car park and found a cab to take me out to the council estate. I tipped the cabbie a fiver, which persuaded him to come back for me later. At quarter to six, I joined the queue snaking along the pavement outside the community centre. There were getting on for a hundred punters, and none of them looked like they’d be allowed to carry a donor card, never mind a gold card. I reckoned the youngest were under two, slumped slack-mouthed and sleeping in their pushchairs. The oldest were never going to see seventy again. The rest included harassed-looking women, middle-aged at twenty-five, to lads who looked fifteen till you clocked the eyes. I’d calculated well. Nobody gave me a second glance.

At ten to six, the doors opened and we streamed in. The hall was brightly lit, empty except for a raised dais in front of the Fire Exit sign. On the dais was a high counter, piled higher still with cardboard boxes claiming to be filled with microwaves, camcorders, videos and TVs. Other boxes had garish pictures of pan sets, dinner services, game consoles, canteens of cutlery, radio alarms, toasters, battery chargers and socket sets. It looked like a cut-price Aladdin’s cave. Behind the stack of boxes I could see a burly man with a perm like a 1970s footballer. If his suit had been any sharper he’d have been arrested for possession of an offensive weapon. He fiddled with a mike, clipping it on to a tie so loud I expected a shriek of feedback. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he cajoled, ‘don’t hang back. Come right down to the front where I can see you, and I mean that especially for you lovely ladies. I want to feast my eyes on your charms, because I have to tell you that even though I’m supposed to stand up here being scrupulously fair with you ladies and gentlemen, I’m only human. And I’d have to be more than human to resist some of the lovely ladies I can see in here tonight.’ Unbelievable. Even more unbelievable, they obeyed. Like lemmings.

Sticking with the flow of the crowd, I moved forward, edging out towards the side of the hall. I looked around, searching for Terence. I spotted him after a few moments, one of several men flanking the dais. Their ages varied from late teens to early forties. I wouldn’t have trusted one of them to hold the dog while I went for a pee. I reached the far wall and stopped about ten feet away from the platform. I took a good look round. The punters were eager, many of them patting the pockets that held their money, reassuring themselves it was still there. It wouldn’t be for much longer, I suspected, and not because of pickpockets, either.

Now, most of the men by the platform, including Terence, were fanning out among the crowd, keeping one eye on the auctioneer as he ‘entertained’ the audience with a steady stream of patter consisting of risqué remarks, old jokes and jocular encouragement to the crowd to move forward and prepare to enjoy themselves. I tuned back in. ‘I want you to promise me one thing tonight, ladies and gentlemen. I want you to promise me that you’ll be good to yourselves. You’re going to be offered the bargains of a lifetime here tonight, and I don’t want to see you holding back because you don’t think you deserve them. I am here tonight to treat you, and I want you to promise me you won’t be afraid to treat yourselves. Is that a promise? Will you do that for me?’

‘Yeah,’ they roared back. I couldn’t believe it. The guy looked like they’d minted the word ‘spiv’ just for him, yet the punters lapped it up like free beer.

‘Now, who wants to start the ball rolling with me tonight? Who needs a cigarette lighter?’ A few hands shot in the air. ‘Who could use a pack of five blank cassettes?’ A forest of hands joined them. ‘And is there anyone out there who would like a pack of three brand-new video tapes?’ I was probably the only person in the room not waving wildly. I buried my pride and stuck my hand up. The salesman grinned. ‘Now if it was up to me, I’d be giving these items away, but unfortunately, the law of the land forbids me from exercising my natural generosity. So, you need to give me a token payment for these little tasters of what’s to come.’

He paused for dramatic effect. The crowd hung on his words, rapt as a nineteenth-century congregation in thrall to some lunatic visionary minister. ‘I’m going to be as fair as I can be. My team of lads are keeping a careful eye on you all, to see who qualifies. Now, I’ve got twenty of these disposable lighters here, and the first twenty to stick their hands in the air…’ he paused again, and half a hundred arms flew wildly into the air. ‘The first twenty to stick their hands in the air after I give the word, those lucky people can purchase a lighter for only one penny. Now, I can’t say fairer than that, can I?’

The crowd obviously thought not. The salesman waved a ridiculous gavel in the air. ‘Now, I’m going to bang me little hammer three times, and when I hit the counter the third time, that’s the signal. Then the lucky twenty will be privileged to be allowed to buy a cigarette lighter for only one penny.’ There was a pregnant pause. The hammer descended once, then twice. Half the hands in the room flailed in the air at the moment the hammer should have fallen the third time. Embarrassed, they dropped their hands again. ‘Don’t be greedy now,’ the salesman admonished. ‘I promise you, everybody who wants a bargain here tonight will get one.’ As he ended his sentence, the hammer banged for the third time, and a thicket of hands straggled into the air. The salesman made a pretence of looking around to see who was first, nodding histrionically as he caught the eye of his henchmen scattered round the room. Twenty punters with waving hands were selected for the cigarette-lighter bargain. It looked to me as if they’d been chosen at random. As we progressed through the cassette tapes (fifty pence), the videos (one pound) and non-stick frying pans developed as a by-product of the American space programme (two pounds), the same arbitrary selections were made. The salesman’s assistants only seemed interested in checking out the contents of people’s wallets.

The salesman had them in the palm of his hand now. The initial loss leaders had convinced them that tonight they really were going to get bargains. The salesman tossed back his curls and fastened the top button of his jacket, as if to signal it was time to get down to serious business. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I’m not going to insult your intelligence here tonight. I bet you all watch That’s Life. You know that there are unscrupulous people out there who want to part you and your money. Now, I’m not like that. So here’s what I’ll do. If you put your trust in me now, I will see to it that your trust does not go unrewarded. Ladies, this is something that will change your lives. Gentlemen, this is something that will change your luck. Every now and again, in the perfume laboratories of Paris, men in white coats come up with something that transforms the woman who wears it from the everyday to the absolutely sensational. With the right perfume, any housewife can make the man in her life feel like she’s Liz Taylor, Joan Collins and Michelle Pfeiffer rolled into one. It’s a scientific fact. They did it with Chanel No. 5. They did it with Giorgio. Now, they’ve done it with this!’

He brandished a box in the air. Candyfloss pink and silver stripes. It looked unlike anything I’d ever seen before. ‘Here it is, ladies and gentlemen. My brother is in the import/export business, and he has secured a case of this unique Parisian perfume for my customers before it goes on general sale. This exclusive perfume, Eau d’Ego, will be the subject of a major advertising campaign right through the summer, ladies and gentlemen. It’s going to be the hottest seller this Christmas, I promise you that. And tonight, you can be the very first people in Britain to own a bottle of Eau d’Ego.’

I struggled to keep a straight face. My French might not be up to much, but when Richard and I had spent a romantic weekend in Paris, we’d done a tour of the city sewers. I don’t think you’d find many chic Parisians wearing a perfume whose name sounds suspiciously like eau d’égout — sewage.

The salesman was still in full flow, however. ‘Now, we have a massive selection of bargains here tonight. But inevitably, we don’t have enough of our most popular items to go around. My boss puts limits on me. I mean, how many of you would like to buy a camcorder for under a hundred pounds?’

Nearly half the punters waved frantically at him. He gave a satisfied smirk. ‘Exactly. Now, my boss would sack me if I was to sell more than three of our bargain camcorders in one evening. So I have to ration you. Now, I have fifty bottles of Eau d’Ego here on this platform tonight. If you trust me enough to buy a bottle of this exclusive Parisian fragrance, I will give you first refusal on the lots I’m selling here tonight. I’m not saying you can’t buy a camcorder if you don’t buy the perfume, because that would be illegal, ladies and gentlemen. What I am saying is that the people who trust me enough to become my customers now will be given priority when it comes to buying the lots where we have restricted numbers. Now, I think you’ll agree, I can’t say fairer than that.’ His tone left no space for argument. It wasn’t a particularly clever pitch, and he wasn’t the world’s greatest spieler, but they loved it.

‘I warn you, ladies, if you get a taste for Eau d’Ego, you are never going to be called a cheap date again. When this marvellous perfume goes on sale in the shops, it will have a recommended retail price of forty-nine pounds ninety-five. Now, I’m not expecting you to pay forty-nine pounds ninety-five tonight. After all, you’ve not seen the advertising campaign, you’ve not read all the magazines raving about it, you’ve not seen the effect it has on me. All you’ve got is my word. And if I tell you that the wife helped herself to a bottle and I’ve gone home every night since, that should tell you something!’ He winked. I winced.

‘I’m not even asking you to pay half-price for the privilege of wearing this fragrance. Ten pounds, that’s all. For only a tenner, you can be among the first women to wear a perfume that’s destined to be the scent of the stars. Now, when my hammer falls for the third time, my assistants will have their eagle eyes peeled and the first fifty hands in the air will be given this exclusive opportunity.’ This time, there was no pause. The hammer banged once, twice, three times. The audience proved Pavlov’s theory of stimulus-response, the hands high above their heads as soon as the hammer hit.

All the assistants ran around distributing perfume and grabbing tenners. Terence seemed to be doing exactly the same as everyone else. At least, I couldn’t see any difference. I began to wonder if I was wasting my time.

The salesman had moved on from the perfume.

Now, he was putting together bundles of items. I reckoned I could buy their equivalent down any high street in the land for less than they were asking. But common sense had died somewhere in the salesman’s pitch, and he had stomped the corpse into the dust with his patter. They were fighting to be allowed to pay over the odds for crap that would explode, disintegrate, tarnish, break or all of the above within weeks.

The hysteria rose as he went through the charade of selling serious bargain lots to five handpicked mug punters. I had to admire his style as he relieved them of between a hundred and fifty and three hundred pounds for bundles of goods they thought they’d bought at a huge discount. I wouldn’t mind betting that at the end of the sale, they’d find that they hadn’t been granted the special lots at all. All they’d get would be goods worth rather less than they’d paid, and a wide-eyed assurance that the parcel they’d ‘bought’ had been sold to that (non-existent) man standing right behind them…I was watching carefully, and I’d lost track of what was going on. The mug punters had no chance.

But the most extraordinary was yet to come. ‘Have I been good to you tonight, or have I been good to you tonight?’ the salesman demanded. He was greeted with a reasonably warm murmur. ‘Do you think I’m someone you can trust? You, madam — would you trust me?’ He went through half a dozen members of the audience, pinning them with his stare, demanding their loyalty. Every last one of them bleated a ‘yeah’ like so many sheep.

He smiled, revealing what he’d been doing with some of the profits. ‘I told you about my brother earlier, didn’t I? The one in import and export? Well, he knows how I love to treat you people, so he’s always on the look-out for bargains that I can pass on to my customers. Now, a lot of these things come from outside the EEC, and according to EEC regulations, we can’t display them in the same way. So what we do is we make them up into parcels. Even I don’t know what’s in these parcels, because we make them up at random. But I can guarantee that each of these parcels contains goods to a value well in excess of what I’m asking for them. All I ask of you is that you take the goods home with you before you unwrap them. Not because we want you to buy a pig in a poke but because the contents vary so much. If the person standing next to you sees you’ve got a state-of-the-art food processor for a tenner and he’s only got a toasted-sandwich maker, a set of heated rollers and a clock radio, it can often cause jealousy, and the last thing we want is fights breaking out because some of our bargains are such outrageously good value for money. Now, I’m going to start with ten-pound parcels. Who’s spent money with me here tonight and would like to take advantage of my insane generosity?’

I couldn’t help myself. My mouth fell open. A couple of dozen people were waving their bottles of perfume in the air. Most of them looked like Giro day was the biggest financial event in their lives. Yet they were shelling out hard-hoarded cash on a black bin liner that could have contained a bag of sugar and a half-brick. I wouldn’t have believed it if someone had told me about it. Then, as the salesman moved on to fifty-pound lucky bags, I noticed a change in the pattern. It was hardly noticeable, but it was enough. For the first time that evening, I began to believe I was in the right place at the right time.