There wasn’t any dope in my pockets, but there was enough change for a couple of shots, and soon enough, the refuge of a darkened pub offered a place to regroup. One of those phony British establishments with prints of bulldogs and fox hunts. A stern portrait of Queen Victoria stared over the bar. The clock on the wall was stuck at a perpetual 8:15, though by my count it was just after four.
I settled at the bar behind a shot of whisky and a glass of draft beer. The one ignited the other until the world returned to focus.
Manly laughter at the deep end of the bar revealed three business guys at a pool table. They drank beers from bottles and told stories. Off-the-rack striped suits. Clipped hair. No chins. One had a big watch. One was a black guy who kept wiping his mouth between shots. The third had an overbite and brayed as he told his friends some wild story. From their laughter, it all seemed hilarious. Dorks.
Dorks who at least had each other. On the other hand, I was all alone. Unemployed, in a bar in the middle of the afternoon. I did the mind squeeze. Forced out self-pity. Conjured the mists. Offered up Oban. Looked for a sign. The TV above the bar blared baseball and truck commercials. The Jays were up on Detroit. Bottom of the seventh. The commentators tried to sound excited as they propped up the stories of a bunch of millionaires tossing a ball about in the hot sun. God, with his clown nose, laughed. Careful what you wish for, boyo.
After a couple of rounds, a woman materialized out of the back. She made her way to a glass with a chewed-up straw and a lemon rind in melted ice. She might have been in her late twenties. Tall, thin, birdlike. She wore a loose shirt and tight jeans with a silver-studded belt. Her black hair was cropped in a pixie cut. Elegant until she tripped over her heel and stumbled into a table. The pool shooters stopped to ogle. The Watch Guy pointed at her and laughed.
“I’d hit that,” he said.
The black guy sucked his beer and nudged his companions. “Fuck, yeah.”
The Overbite pretended to unzip his pants. They all laughed some more and pumped their pool sticks with enthusiasm.
At first, she couldn’t locate her hecklers in the dim light. She wavered about and tried to focus. It would’ve been better if she’d sat down. Instead, once she’d pegged them by the pool table, she turned to the bartender.
“Since when you let these cocksuckers in here?” She slurred loud enough for the men to hear. She smiled and waited for the inevitable reaction.
“What the fuck did you say?” one of the drunks said with predictable self-righteous zeal.
She pointed at Big Watch. “He’s probably a lousy fuck,” she said.
The barkeep held up his palms. A phlegmatic noise gurgled from his throat. “We don’t want any trouble here.”
“Daddy’s going to teach you some manners,” Big Watch said as he struggled to get his jacket off over the watch.
The other two cleared a path through the tables and chairs, pool cues in hand. She held her ground.
“You fat fucks think you’re hilarious? Making rape jokes? Fucking pigs. All worked up now? Dish it but can’t take it? Fucking a-holes. What you want to do about it?”
She kicked over a chair. Fists balled, ready to clobber someone. The dorks didn’t seem concerned; three of them against a foul-mouthed drunk pixie seemed pretty good odds to them. They waved their pool cues and jostled each other to surround her.
My default was always to ignore what wasn’t my business. But, fresh from my resurrection and fuelled on whisky, the power of the universe throbbed through my veins. They were everything that pissed me off. Confident. Entitled. Co-opted. Soulless. Dorks.
I slipped off my bar stool and landed next to her.
I said, “This isn’t right.”
“Who the fuck are you?” she said.
The dorks turned on me, too.
“Yeah, who the fuck are you?” said one.
He gave me a shove. Hard. I almost went over.
“Mind your own business, asshole,” he said.
With the dorks distracted, she took advantage of the situation to kick one on the shin. He howled in pain. Startled, the others pulled back. In a flash, she had her high heel in her hand and bashed him in the temple hard enough to draw blood. One dork down. Big Watch was the first to react — pool cue raised and ready to strike. I flipped the table for a barrier between us. Glass shattered on the floor. I pushed her toward the door.
“We got to go,” I said.
“I don’t need rescuing,” she said. “I’m just getting warmed up.”
“Got to go,” I said again. A blow from Big Watch’s cue landed on the overturned table. The other dork started to climb over the barricade. She punched him in the eye. He caught her arm anyway.
“Let go,” she said. She struggled to twist free.
I grabbed one of his fingers. Peeled it back until something cracked. He let out a terrific gasp. His grip released. His mangled finger stuck up like a little broken wing. Without pause, she tried to claw at his eyes. She fought like she was in an elevator, close and mean. I wasn’t wired for this sort of action and began to regret my attempted chivalry. By now she was wielding a chair like a lion tamer. I went behind and pulled her toward the door.
“Let’s go, let’s go,” I said. This time she didn’t resist.
We burst onto the street. It was almost dark, the sidewalk crowded with people headed home after work or out for the evening. People dodged our path as we lurched onward for a block until the Dorks gave up the chase. Winded, I rested against a street light. She paced around me, still jacked.
“Where’d you learn to fight like that?” I said once I could breathe again.
“I’m a rock ’n’ roller,” she said. “I spend a lot of time in bars.” She grinned. “I wasn’t going to hurt them. I was just looking for a reaction.”
“It worked, I’d say.”
“Thanks. I’ve had a shitty day till now.” Then, with her nails dug into the back of my head, she gave me a gentle peck on the cheek. She smelled like gin and cigarettes. “I’m starving. Want to get something to eat?”
We went into a McDonald’s, where we loaded up on coffees and Big Macs. She said she was a singer in a band called The Raging Socket. While we ate, she produced pink earbuds and plugged them into her phone.
“Listen,” she said.
Throbbing guitars and heavy drums filled my head. A human voice screamed incomprehensible lyrics. Cancer Bats meets Korn. After what felt like too long, I pulled the buds out.
“That’s you?” I said.
“Yeah, with The Raging Socket. We just got a record deal with some indie label in LA.”
“Wow. LA, huh?” I didn’t know what else to say. It was hard to imagine anyone wanting to hear them for more than a few moments.
“Except my manager just blew all our money on a new car. Some vintage hot rod thingy. I swear, someday I’ll have a hit song and that jerk’ll be gone. What do you do?”
“I’m a writer, I guess,” I said. “Greeting cards, for now. I also write my own stuff. Not published, though. Besides the greeting cards, that is.”
“A writer? Cool.” She bit into her burger and talked with her mouth full. A thread of brown juice tickled down her chin. “I write my own stuff, too. Poems. For myself. Songs, too. Not only songs for the band — they’re a whole other deal. I write stuff for me. To keep a record of my feelings. Right?”
“Well, I’d like to see your stuff someday,” I said.
“Huh, maybe you will someday,” she said.
She wiped her mouth. Then she pulled an eyeliner pencil from her jeans, scribbled a number across the soiled napkin, and looked right at me. I noticed her green eyes were slightly crossed.
“This is my number. Call me sometime. My name’s Marla. What’s yours?”
I almost lied. Call it a knee-jerk reaction. However, she was so serious, I told her.
Rent was due, so a few days into my new found freedom, it was time to track down Hornsmith. See if the job offer held. The addres
s on his card led to a pizza joint on Yonge Street. Not the successful, shiny franchise kind, but the grimy independent kind. Red and yellow hand-painted letters on the frosted window boasted The Best Piece in Town! To one side was a battered steel door designated as a sub-address by the letter A next to the street number. A bent-over junkie propped in the door frame scurried off as I approached to ring the bell. After a short wait under the scrutiny of a tiny security camera, the door buzzed open, and a narrow stairway beckoned.
In contrast to the shabby exterior, upstairs was clean and contemporary with stark white walls and blue carpeting as sterile as one of those medical labs where you go for blood tests and sperm samples. Signs on the doors suggested several businesses occupied the floor. YourTrip.Com. All Bride Films. Dr. Sure Print. Findlay & Sharpe LLB. NL Brokers Inc. At the end of the hallway, a final open door beckoned.
“Just a bit farther,” I heard Hornsmith say. “Come, come in.”
Beyond a waiting area with an antique free-standing closet and another room with a kitchen to the side, was his office decorated with an expansive leather couch. A Bang & Olufsen sound system hung over a huge wall-mounted TV muted on CNN. Persian carpets lay on the maple floor. Floor-to-ceiling filing cabinets covered one entire wall.
Hornsmith sat on a rolling black chair made of metal tubes. His desk was a vast leather-topped writing table trimmed in gold ormolu. He waved to a commodious armchair across from him.
“Latour, have a seat,” he said. “I’m so glad you decided to join the enterprise.”
I started to correct him, but he silenced me with an upheld hand.
“No, no. Latour will be fine for now. Most of our clients have Anglo family names like Blake and Hardman. Someone exotic in the shop will intrigue them. Give them the sense they’re dealing with a sophisticated firm.”
Amongst the framed awards and degrees on the walls was a photo of Hornsmith dressed as an angler, waist deep in a raging river. He held a salmon by the gills in one hand, his other arm around the mayor. In another picture, he wore a military helmet and a bulletproof vest and stood on an armoured personnel carrier. Next to him was a famous Thai general who had been on the news recently.
“Friends?”
“Clients,” said Hornsmith.
“What do you do for them?”
Hornsmith folded his hands on the desk, his gaze focused on my forehead.
“Here’s my proposition: you work for us under some title or another. Let’s say, Senior Account Director, or if you don’t like that, pick one that suits you. It doesn’t matter as long as you do exactly as I say. And do exactly as I do. At first, you won’t speak. Speaking will come in time as your skills are honed.”
My skills? Ghostwriting didn’t seem to be at the top of the agenda anymore. This was some other business, and with all those certificates on the wall, he had to know what he was doing. A plan would be revealed in time. I was almost sure.
“We’ll pay you a thousand dollars a month plus expenses. If you’re smart, you’ll have plenty of expenses. After twelve months, you’ll be kicked out unless this arrangement is working, in which case I’ll turn over the Business to you. Should that transpire, the purchase price shall be fifty percent of your gross earnings for the next twenty years, or until my death, whichever happens first. If you’re good, you’ll make a decent living for yourself. After twenty years, it’s all yours. Unless, like I said, I should die first. This, Latour, is a great opportunity for you.”
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” I said, swept up by his pitch, yet no clearer on what he meant. “Besides, my experience is different.”
“Experience we can teach you. Talent is something else. I saw you with Courtney the other day. You have talent. You can do it. As long as you want it. Wanting, in our business, is harder than doing.”
He sensed my hesitation and went for the kill. His open hands extended across the embossed gold and leather expanse between us. He smiled like a crocodile in the sun, its mouth open, welcoming.
“Don’t you want to be part of a meaningful operation?” he said. “Don’t you want something better? Something more? Come into the tent. Isn’t that why you’re here, Latour?”
I wanted, all right. Wanted to belong. To be part of a meaningful operation. That sounded good. No one had ever seen talent in me before. No one had ever picked me for the team or invited me into the tent. Besides, I’d quit my old job and had rent to pay. I leaned forward, a primed sucker, greedy for success.
“Why not?”
He produced a pen and a typewritten sheet of paper from the drawer of his writing table.
“Let’s sign our new agreement,” he said.
His confidence was contagious. Overcome by the moment, nothing held me back. He put the pen in my right hand and it was as if the damn thing signed itself. He studied the signature for a moment. He grunted.
“You’ll have to come up with something better than that. But never mind for now.”
Next, he started to scribble on a notepad. The phone rang. After a while, it stopped.
“Answering service.” He nodded at the phone. “The old-fashioned kind with a real person answering. It keeps everyone guessing. Here’s your first lesson: be careful with the telephone. It’s best to let it ring. If you feel you must answer, act as if you don’t have a clue. You’re a busy executive who’s absently picked up the wrong line. Say you don’t know how to transfer the call to reception. Tell them to call back and leave a message.”
He paused to make sure this sank in. Then he continued, his finger in the air like a ready weapon to stress the point.
“The same applies if, God forbid, a client ever visits the offices while you’re here alone. If that should happen, you say that Mr. Hornsmith and the rest of the senior management team are at an international business convention in London or Barcelona. Don’t let them ask a lot of questions. Smile and take a message. Stay aloof. Play up the convention. Business. Suggest that in future they telephone ahead.”
“It’s a lot to take in,” I said. “Contracts. Clients. Conventions in Europe …”
Hornsmith seemed unconcerned. “Yes, yes,” he said, “it’s going to take a little time. But you’ll get the hang of it. Soon you’ll be farting through silk underwear, as they say. Tomorrow we start in earnest.” He passed over the sheet he’d been writing on.
“You’re going to need some new clothes,” he said. “We have an account with this man, Mr. Gupta.” I looked over the paper. Handwriting like drunken spider tracks. A Yorkville address. “He’s a good tailor. Go see him. These are business expenses. And you’ll need to do something about that hair.”
I ran a hand over my head. I guess I was due.
“One more thing,” Hornsmith said. “Do you have a briefcase?”
“I have a knapsack.”
“No. You’re going to need a briefcase. Not one of those mean hard-shell jobs with the combination locks. Get something expensive in soft leather that says you’re artistic and successful. It gives them a subtle feeling of confidence to see details like that. You’ll need it for documents. In meetings, a client will hand me something he thinks we should have, and I’ll pass it to you. You’ll delicately put it into the briefcase as if this document is the most important piece of paper you’ve ever handled. Occasionally, as you get the feel for this, you’ll say something like, ‘Yes, yes, interesting.’ Later, you’ll file those documents in the filing cabinets here in the office.”
He stood up and walked around his table to the wall of filing cabinets. He rolled open one of the drawers and pulled out a handful of glossy issues of what looked like a business magazine. The International Business Review. I flipped through a few. They featured articles about business enterprises, new industrial machinery, fast-food franchises, independent car dealerships, private schools, and things like that. Every issue looked identical except for the names of the companies and the colours of the monthly covers. The copy was full of stock phrases. Everything wa
s “modern,” using “the latest procedures.” All the businesses were built on “long-standing traditions” or “cutting-edge innovations.” Tired expressions like “out of the box,” “sound business smarts,” and “a bold entrepreneurial spirit” jumped out. Sometimes there was a photo of some suited CEO or a little sidebar graph to illustrate a finer point of the company’s unique position in the world.
“It’s corporate vanity press,” Hornsmith said. “Each article is specifically tailored to the nature of the client’s business. We also have an online edition which we charge a premium membership fee to access. Sometimes we even place stories in the mainstream media. That’s a premium service, too. We also offer other, more discreet services. You’ll see.”
I handed back the stack of magazines.
“I’m sure there’s lots to learn here.”
“Latour, the Business is simple. We serve a niche in the industry for those who need to enhance their standing. Improve their public image. We create the semblance of success for our clients in exchange for money. And we’re not cheap.”
He placed a hand on my shoulder as if aware of my bewilderment.
“I’ve said a lot, and you have questions. But that’s enough for now. Go get yourself cleaned up. Do something about those shoes.”
With that, a wedge of cash in a gold money clip came from his pocket. He peeled off ten hundred-dollar bills gangster style and pressed them into my hands.
“Everyone wants to be number one, Latour. Or at least be passed off as number two and climbing. Everyone wants to stake a claim. Hang out a sign. Get that feeling everything’s coming up roses. So, we give them what they want. It’s expected. Make them number one, even if it’s only for the afternoon. That’s how we do business.”
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