A Firing Offense (6 page)

Louie was moving slowly down the center aisle, his short arms propelling him forward as they swung across his barrel chest. I could hear his labored breathing as he approached.

“Call your girl from the
Post,”
he said.

“You mean Patti?”

“Yeah. She sound nice. She look good too?”

“Too young for you, Louie. You’d stroke out.”

“Never too old to gyrate,” he said, and demonstrated briefly with his hips. “Matter of fact, I’ll be headin’ over to Van Ness in a little while to take care of business. Might take the evening off.”

“Fine with me. Who’s on the schedule tonight?”

“Lloyd just came in. He’s on till six. Malone’s on till six too. Lee takes afternoon classes, but she’ll be back to work on through. That means you, her, and McGinnes will close tonight. That okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, Nick,” Malone said. “Check out our boy Void today. He lookin’ good.”

Lloyd was absently bumping into displays as he attempted to light his pipe while making his way to the front of the store. The pipe was a Holmesian prop, an Anglophilic symbol that he believed suggested intelligence, but Lloyd was a pale, painfully thin man with a frighteningly deathlike grin, whose appearance more accurately reflected the high school outcast who hears voices from beyond as he clutches his hall locker. Today his woodgrain crucifix hung on a rawhide string over a lime green polyester shirt, hooked up with forest green bellbottoms.

The boys used Lloyd to run errands and as the butt of their practical jokes, while Louie kept him around to fill in odd hours on the schedule. As a stockboy I had been continually demeaned by him in the presence of customers, when he wasn’t critiquing my heathen lifestyle or trying to convince me of his close personal relationship with Jesus. His full name was Lloyd Danker, though all of us, Louie included, called him Void Wanker.

Lloyd looked me over in that way of his that always expressed superiority. The corners of his mouth spread into a sickly smile, and he yanked his pipe out to reveal a cockeyed row of yellow teeth.

“I see management’s been good to you, Nick. You’ve come a long way.”

McGinnes’ customer, who was walking, reached the front door, turned his head back, and said, “Thanks.” McGinnes, waving to the customer, said, “Thank
you.”
And then, still waving and in a quickly lowered voice, added, “You piece of shit.”

The customer smiled, waved back, and disappeared down the Avenue.

“Good close, Johnny,” Louie said.

McGinnes shook his head and said, “
Putz.
”

McGinnes, Malone, Louie, Lloyd, and I were standing in a circle near the counter. McGinnes had his arms folded. Louie leaned against a “stack and sell” microwave oven display with his hands in his pockets. Malone had just lit a Newport and was blowing the first heavy drag towards Lloyd, who stood awkwardly in forced casualness with his hip cocked, the pipe hanging from the side of his mouth like some comic-strip hillbilly.

“Yeah,” Malone said slowly, “looks like I might be top dog around here this month.” He gave McGinnes a sidelong glance and held it there rather theatrically.

McGinnes said, “The month ain’t over yet, Jim.”

Lloyd jumped in with, “I’m having a pretty good month myself.”

“Yeah,” McGinnes said, “for a guy who couldn’t sell a lifeboat on the
Titanic,
you’re having a good month.”

Lloyd blinked hard and pulled the crucifix out and away from his chest, holding it gently as if Christ himself were still upon it. “I wouldn’t really expect you guys to understand, but there’s more to life than closing deals and spasmating your genitals.”

Malone ran an open hand across his own crotch and said, “Maybe so, but I plan on spasmatin’ these motherfuckers tonight, Jack.” He and McGinnes gave each other skin and chuckled. Louie snorted but didn’t look up.

Lloyd smiled hopelessly and shook his head. “Anyone want coffee?”

“Yeah, get me some java while you’re out,” Malone said, then fanned away Lloyd’s outstretched hand. “I‘ll get you tomorrow, hear?” Lloyd left the store, looking something like a human scarecrow.

“Thank you, Jeeesus,” McGinnes said.

“Now that Numbnuts is gone,” Louie said, “maybe we can talk a little business. You girls don’t mind, do you?”

McGinnes looked my way and smiled impishly. His eyes were slightly glazed, undoubtedly the result of several more trips to the stockroom.

“I got a call from the office today,” Louie continued. “The Boy Wonder’s been looking at his computer again. ‘Profit margins have eroded, competition’s fierce,’ blah, blah, blah. Bottom line is, we’ve got to start selling more service policies, and I mean now. Anything you guys have to do to get the job done, you do it. If a customer refuses the policy, reduce the product price on our copy of the ticket, then add the service policy back into it to bring the total up to its original amount—
after
they’ve left the store, understand?”

“What if the customer finds out later they ‘bought’ a policy they didn’t want?” McGinnes said.

“I’ll handle the complaints,” Louie said with a hard stare at McGinnes, “like I always do.” He glanced out the window. “Now you all have a nice day, and write some business. In case the office calls, I’m out for the rest of the day, shopping the competition.” Then he was gone, out onto the sidewalk and heading south with his short-man’s swagger.

McGinnes and Malone split up, Malone heading back to the relative darkness of the Sound Explosion. McGinnes had picked up a sales call and was gesturing with his hands as he talked into the phone. I went around the counter and dialed Patti Dawson’s number on another line.

“Pat Dawson’s desk,” her assistant said.

“Is Patti in?”

“She’s away from her desk.”

“When you see her, tell her Nick Stefanos called.”

A pause, then, “She’s back at her desk now. Hold please.”

I held for at least a minute and listened to New Age whale music. Finally Patti picked up.

“Where you at, lover?” she said.

“In hell.”

“Back on the Avenue, huh? What’s going on?”

“Some free-lance work I couldn’t get away with in the main office. I figure I can get the job done from here, with your help.”

“What do you need?”

“You got a pen?”

“Shoot.”

“The ad I mocked up for the weekend,” I said. “Have ad services run the proofs over to me here at the store. For next weekend I want to pick up an old ad.”

“Which one?”

“Take the ad I did the second week of September, I think the head was ‘September Savings.’ Change the head to ‘October Values.’”

“How do you keep coming up with these zingers?” she asked.

“It’s pretty scary, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Have you got any camera-ready art down there of a horn-of-plenty?”

“I’m sure we do,” she said.

“Good. Put that in the head too, and paste down some art of televisions and radios spilling out of the horn. Got all that?”

“Yeah. It’s absolutely brilliant, Nicky. I’m sure it will create a feeding frenzy. Anything else you want, while I’m doing your job for you?”

“That ought to do it.”

“They know in the office that you’re just picking up old ads?”

“Patti, Nathan Plavin comes to work every day to be taken out to lunch. I doubt he’s even cognizant of the advertising. The GM, Jerry Rosen, he spends more time out of the office than in. I can’t even tell you what it is he does. Ric Brandon’s just a boy in a suit. Only Gary Fisher keeps an eye on those things, and I’m tight enough with him.”

“Just want to make sure you know what you’re doing, lover.”

“Thanks, Patti. Talk to you later.” We hung up.

Lloyd was waiting on a small appliance customer from whom the others had hidden when she walked in. McGinnes was going down the row of televisions, writing something on the tags. I dialed the office, got Marsha, and asked for Gary Fisher.

“Fisher,” he said, catching his breath.

“Fish, it’s Nick.”

“Nick! What’s happening?”

“Nothing much. Just wanted to keep you apprised of the ad situation.”

“Apprise me,” he said. “And trim the fat.”

“We’re running the ‘blowout’ ad this weekend. Next week we’re doing an ‘October Values’ ad very similar to the ‘September Savings’ promotion we ran last month.”

“So you’re rerunning the same ad with a different head, right?”

“That’s right.”

“As long as it pulls, I don’t give a shit what you call it. Sometimes I think the public doesn’t read the ads anyway. They see something’s going on, they come in and spend money.” He said this almost sadly.

“Well, if you want to make any changes, let me know. By the way, when did we start buying Korean goods?”

“You talking about that Kotekna
dreck?”

“Yeah.”

“Rosen saw those at the CES show in Vegas and brought in a hundred. One of those ‘show specials.’ Every time I’m in the barn, I see them sitting there, I get a pain in my fucking gut.”

“They’re not going to turn if they’re not out on the floors. They don’t even have one on display here in the store.”

“Whatever. It’s Rosen’s problem. Later, Nick.” He hung up.

Lloyd was still with his customer, an older woman who seemed to be edging away from him in fear. I walked over to McGinnes, who was scribbling seemingly unrelated letters and numbers onto the sales tags.

“You remember the system?” he asked, continuing his markings.

“Refresh my memory.”

“The first two letters in the row are meaningless. The next set of numbers is the commission amount, written backwards. The final letter is the spiff code, if there is a spiff.
A
is five,
B
is ten,
C
is fifteen and so on. So, for example, the figure on this tag,
XP
5732
B
means twenty-three seventy-five commission with a ten dollar spiff. That way, you’re pitching the bait that doesn’t pay dick, you look right beside it on the next model, you see what you get if you make the step, in black and white.” He stepped back to admire his handiwork.

“Just in case one of these customers asks, so we keep our stories straight, what do we tell
them
the numbers mean?”

“Inventory control codes,” he said with a shrug.

“By the way, Johnny. I talked to a buddy of yours today, an Evan Walters. Something about an ice bucket.”

He shook his head and chuckled. “Yeah, I know him. A flaming asshole. I could have had that fifty-nine cent ice bucket over here months ago, but I thought I’d let his droopy ass stew about it for a while.”

“I’ve got it coming over on the truck today. He’ll be in tonight to get it.”

“Thanks, Nick. You always did like to pick up those loose ends around me.”

“There’s an awful lot of them,” I said.

He pinched my cheek, looked at his watch, and smiled. “Time for my medicine,” he said. Then he turned and headed for the back room.

THAT AFTERNOON WE WAITED
on customers and put out some fires. I closed two deals, though one of them was a write-up, an advertised piece that I was unable to get off of. The boys informed me that the next time I sold the plunder, I would follow it out the door.

On one occasion I TO’d to McGinnes, introducing him as my manager. He held the line by throwing in a TV cart, which retailed for thirty bucks but cost Nathan’s nothing.

For another tough customer I excused myself to call the main office for permission to drop a price. I dialed the weather report, listened to the recording, and nodded my head repeatedly, the oldest ruse in a very old book. I returned to the customer with “permission” to cut the price only ten dollars, and wrote the deal.

I observed the other salesmen and noticed that Lloyd was still awful. The boys were obviously feeding him just enough sales to keep his job for him and thereby keep another hotshot off their floor.

Malone’s specialty was audio. His technical knowledge was extensive, though that was also his biggest weakness. He often talked himself out of deals, talked much further than the point at which the customer was giving off buying signals. But his rap was strong and especially impressive to the white clientele. To them he was the ice-cool jazz enthusiast, on a mission to turn the average Joe on to the music via fine audio equipment.

McGinnes, however, worked the floor with the care of an craftsman. He could pick up two or three customers at once, sometimes keeping their attention in groups. All of the tricks were there, and the lies, though these were vague enough to be open-ended in a confrontation. With McGinnes, the customers rarely left the store with what they had intended to buy, but they were satisfied they had made the right decision.

By four o’clock, traffic had heavied up northbound on the Avenue. Most potential customers would be focusing now on maneuvering home through the rush hour. I found the store’s Polaroid up front beneath the register. I took it into the back room, had a seat at Louie’s desk, and opened his junk drawer. In it I located an Exacto knife and glue.