Firing offence

THIRTEEN

The day after Maureen Shultz left a message on my machine was the last Saturday I worked for Nutty Nathan’s.

I woke that morning after a troubled night of sleep, a night in which I rose several times to wander around my apartment, sitting in different chairs and on my couch for long stretches at a time.

Sometime around dawn I lay awake in bed and watched my room begin to lighten, and the jagged, irregular lines of rainwater slide down my bedroom window. My cat stayed on top of the radiator, staring at the wall and listening to the rain.

At eight I got up, made coffee, and sat on the couch to read the Post. Two more people had been killed, execution style, in Northeast. The mayor denied allegations that he was a drug user, charged his accusers with racism, and said that all of this negative publicity was interfering with his “agenda” for running the city. There was a lengthy feature in Style on the outspoken and rather cartoonish wife of a freshman Southern senator (didn’t they all come to town vowing to turn “buttoned-down” Washington on its ear?), and the main head in Sports dealt with the upcoming Skins-Giants clash, complete with the media-generated quarterback controversy.

When I was finished devouring the last section, I showered, shaved, and dressed. I put on light wool, faintly patterned teal slacks, a cream cotton oxford, a blue and beige Italian silk tie, and my twenty dollar sports jacket. I changed the litter box and filled the food and water dishes. My cat blinked at me from the radiator as I walked out the door.

The deep gray sky heightened the slowly emerging October oranges of Rock Creek Park as I drove west on Military Road. I was listening to Billy Bragg’s “Talking with the Taxman about Poetry” on the box, and I turned the volume up enough to overtake the sound of my fraying wipers as vgg’s they dragged themselves across the windshield.

When I entered the store and knocked the rain off my shoulders, the crew was in and standing around the front counter. They were drinking coffee from 7-Eleven go-cups and picking from a box of doughnuts iced in peculiarly unnatural colors.

McGinnes leaned against the counter with his arms crossed. Malone lounged beside him, coffee in one hand, Newport in the other. Lloyd was holding a doughnut up near his face, examining it as he chewed in slow, exaggerated chomps. Louie was spreading out newspaper ads on the counter.

“Black?” Lee asked, handing me a cup.

“You wish,” I said, and took the coffee.

“All right, everybody,” Louie ordered, “listen up,” and we moved around him in a semicircle. McGinnes nudged me and pointed at the folds of fat at the back of Louie’s head, which seemed to be fused onto his thick shoulders.

“Did you lose your neck, boss?” McGinnes asked.

“Shut up and look here, McGinnes.” Louie pointed to the ads he had torn from the paper and spread on the counter. “Electric Town is running with the top-rated Sharp CD player for one nineteen. You boys know that that model has been discontinued-we don’t have it and we can’t get it. But they have a very sharp price on that Sharp.” Louie looked back at us for recognition of his pun.

“We get it,” Malone said. “You sharp, Louie.”

Louie cleared his throat and turned back to the ads. McGinnes closed his eyes, dropped his chin to his chest, and began softly snoring.

“Anyway,” Louie continued, ignoring McGinnes, “I called them up first thing this morning, and they don’t have but one or two in stock. So now you know what to tell the consumers.”

“Okay, Louie,” McGinnes and Malone said robotically and in unison.

“Now,” Louie said, “this one’s tough,” and he pointed to a Stereo Godfather’s (“Our Competition Sleeps with the Fishes!”) ad. “They’re runnin’ a VT290 for three ninety-nine. That’s damn near cost. We can’t meet the deal at that price. We’ve got to figure some way to get off of it.”

“No problem,” McGinnes said. “Isn’t that the same model that caught fire in the customer’s house last year?”

“Yeah,” Malone said. ”Killed a couple kids, too. Little itty-bitty motherfuckers.”

“And we absolutely refuse to sell that model,” McGinnes said, “until the manufacturer corrects the problem. It’s a matter of principle.”

“You know what the problem with that piece was,” Malone said.

“What’s that?” McGinnes asked.

“Fire in the wire.”

“Really?” McGinnes {”"›said. “I thought it was shrinkage in the linkage.”

“All right, girls,” Louie said. “I don’t care what you tell the customers. Just don’t give the damn thing away. And we need some volume today. I figure we’re about twenty-five grand down in pace for the month. On the for-real side, provided we get some traffic in here, I’d like to make up fifteen of it today.”

“Shit, Louie,” Malone said, “I’ll write fifteen myself.”

“Sellin’ woof tickets, maybe,” Louie said. “There’s a case of beer for the top dog today. And five percent of your volume has to be in service contracts. Any questions?”

“Just one,” I said. “What is the meaning of life?”

Lee laughed charitably but the others ignored me. Louie was already headed for the back room.

Lloyd said, “Did anyone see ‘Mr. Belvedere’ last night?”

“Too busy gyratin’, Lloyd,” Malone said. “How about you? You been doin’ ‘the nasty’?”

Lloyd gave Malone an awkward wink and raised his pipe to his mouth, hitting his teeth with the stem in a botched aristocratic gesture. Splotches of pink began to form on his pasty face.

“Well, Andre,” McGinnes said happily. “I can almost taste that case of beer right now.”

“Go on and taste it,” Malone said, pointing to the front door as the first customer of the day walked in, “while I take this motherfucker to the bridge.”

The morning was evenly paced with customers, mostly young couples with the type of money that affords residence in upper Northwest. Malone and McGinnes handled the floor nicely and closed most of their deals, as did Louie, whose strength on the floor I had forgotten.

The boys had instructed Lee to tell any customers who phoned, inquiring about small appliances, to “please ask for Lloyd” when they came in. This would keep him tied up in the low-commission department, and also keep him from blowing any major deals.

I took the overflow when the floor traffic became heavy and picked up my first customer of the day. She was an attractive woman in the last leg of her thirties, wearing colorful, gauzy clothing that attempted to conceal her shapeliness, but failed.

After my greeting she immediately pulled from her tote bag a copy of Consumer Reports, a legal pad on which she had neatly charted competitive prices, and a pen. She asked for the price of the top-rated VCR. I explained to her that, as is often the case, the top-rated model had been discontinued one week before the article was published; that top-rated models were usually a poor buy anyway, since manufacturers, upon receiving the rating, jacked up the cost of the particular model to their distributors, who passed it on to the retailers, who passed it on to the customers; and that the intelligent model to purchase would be one of the same brand and similar features but with a different model number and hence a lesser retail.

She wanted the model number that was printed in the magazine. Further, she thought Consumer Reports was just great, a protection against sleazy retailers who take advantage of unsuspecting customers. A smug smile appeared on her face. She looked me up and down, and her implication became clear.

I wanted to ask her why any person of even limited intelligence would choose to believe an article in a faceless magazine whose writers had looked at a product for a few days, over professionals who spent years working hands on, learning all the strengths and weaknesses of every model. I wanted to show her, through back issues, how Consumer Reports routinely top-rated a model one year, then turned around and gave the identical model a low rating the next.

I wanted to, but I didn’t. This truly misanthropic breed of salesmenbaiters, who spend entire sunny weekends on retail floors with their magazines and pads, imagining themselves as crusaders in some made-up battle that is significant only to them, truly lie beyond conversion to humanity. And there is nothing more indignant than a salesman who is called a liar on those rare occasions when he is struggling heroically to tell the truth.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “We simply don’t have that model. It’s been discontinued.”

“I hardly have time,” she said, “to bandy about on this matter with a clerk.” Then she walked quickly from the store.

Louie finished up with his customer and swaggered my way. He looked down at his shoes and scraped a fleck of dead skin off the bridge of his nose.

“That was pretty smooth, Nick. You didn’t call her any names before you blew her out the door, did you, just so I know?”

“Nothing like that.”

“Yeah, well. You been off the floor too long. Half the people come in here be actin’ all superior-you can’t let that bust on your groove. It’s part of the job, man, it’s what they payin’ us for.”

I looked at his sagging, tired face, and then at McGinnes and Malone, who were talking to each other in the Sound Explosion. The twelve-hour shifts, the standing on one’s feet all day long on concrete floors and the varicose veins that resulted from that, the constant degradation from customers and management alike, the absence of praise or compliment, the cycle of work and drink and drugs and back again-it was taking its toll on all of them. The money became insignificant; ultimately the only reward was to get the deal, a small victory for its own sake that led inevitably to some suburban funeral parlor, where small groups of old men in stubbornly plaided polyesters stood in circles and said things like, “I remember the time Johnny stepped a customer off a giveaway RCA to a no-name piece of dreck that had a fifty dollar bill on it.”

“I’m going to take a break, Louie.”

“Go ahead,” he said.

Therain was not abating. I crossed the Avenue and jogged south two blocks to an Amoco station, as the wet tires of slow-moving vehicles h {ng ATINissed past. I bought road maps of Virginia and the Carolinas in the office of the station and fitted them in the dry inside pocket of my jacket.

By the time I had run back up the block and entered the Golden Temple, I was heavy with rainwater. The matriarch of the family-owned restaurant seated me at a warm deuce in the rearmost corner. She set down a cup of tea and left the pot.

Her husband came out of the kitchen shortly thereafter, rubbing his hands with a rag. He was wearing a white uniform and had a white paper hat on his head. Straight gray hair shot out from underneath the hat in several directions. He clapped me on the shoulder. I said hello as he pulled the menu from my hands.

“You don’t need,” he said, and walked back to the kitchen after tossing the menu behind the register.

He returned five minutes later with steamed dumplings and some combination noodles that were mixed with thin slices of pork, shrimp, spring onions, and ginger. I ate while I studied the road maps I had spread out on the table.

Mama-san handed me the check when I was finished. I left fourteen on nine and walked to the entranceway, where I dropped a quarter into a payphone and dialed. Pence picked up on the second ring.

“This is Nick Stefanos.”

“Mr. Stefanos,” he said, bringing some phlegm up from his throat. “What’s the word on your progress?”

I told him nearly everything I had learned in the last few days, soft-pedaling the character of Broda’s companions and omitting entirely the theft and drug angles.

“Frankly,” I said, “I think your grandson is just on a long joyride. He’ll be back as soon as the money runs out.”

“And you plan on leaving it at that?”

“Not entirely. But I believe he’s safe right now.” The old man picked up the doubt in my voice.

He sighed, said in a sarcastic manner, “You do what you can,” and hung up.

I replaced the receiver and stood looking through the window at the rain, which was slicing at the road diagonally now, powered by a fierce wind. I pushed open the heavy door of The Golden Temple, stepped out onto the sidewalk, and let the stinging water hit my face.