A Firing Offense

by George Pelecanos

  “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, XP5732B 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.

  I brought out the party picture of Jimmy Broda and laid it on Louie’s white blotter. Then I swung his desk lamp over the picure and switched on the light.

  Carefully, I cut the hair off Broda’s head with the Exacto. After that I etched around his body, as I would cut out clip art, and pulled him out of the picture. I shot a Polaroid of the naked wall behind the desk. When it developed, I pasted the bald cutout of Jimmy Broda onto that. It looked a bit as if he were floating in a pale room.

  McGinnes walked out of the radio room, belched, and bent over the desk. He popped the top on a tall Colt 45 and placed the can in front of me.

  “You need to start drinking,” he said. I had a pull. It was cold and had some bite.

  “You just get these?”

  “I’ve got a twelve-pack chilling in a compact in the back. I use it when I close without Louie. You here for the duration?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good.” He bent further over the desk and squinted. “Who’s that?”

  “Pence’s grandson, Jimmy Broda. Or my version of him, the way I think he looks now.”

  “Skinny little fucker. Where you gonna start?”

  “I’m heading down to the Corps after work. You come along?”

  “Sure, why not? But it’s a long time before we close this place up.”

  “So?”

  “So, shit,” he said, pulling the pipe and film canister from his pocket. “Let’s get our heads up.”

  SIX

  LEE RETURNED TO the store somewhere around five and parked her books beneath the counter. When she had straightened up, she waved to me briefly and smiled, then turned her head away in mock embarrassment. Her hair was uncombed, and I imagined it matted and spread out upon a pillow. My blood pressure jumped a bit, and I kept my stare on her until she felt it enough to look once more in my direction.

  When the transfer truck pulled around back, the sales crew typically scattered. McGinnes bolted for the back room, and Lloyd gathered up his things and left for the evening.

  As I went to the back door, I noticed Malone and a younger guy talking in the Sound Explosion. The man was wearing a velvet maroon jogging su
it and a thick, braided gold chain around his neck. They shook hands for an artificially long time, then Malone buried his fist and its contents into his pocket.

  I unloaded the truck with the help of a driver I recognized from the warehouse, a wiry, hard-looking young man who wore his Nathan’s cap backwards and had a cigarette lodged above his ear. We worked without speaking until he departed with a tough nod.

  I managed the merchandise onto the conveyer belt, which ran parallel to the stairs leading down to the stockroom. I walked alongside the crated goods until they hit a flat, rollered surface at the foot of the stairs, then pulled the power lever back from “forward” to the “off” position.

  I heard the crush of an empty can and looked up to see McGinnes stepping out of the shadows of the stockroom’s far corner. A fresh malt liquor filled one hand, his brass pipe the other. He handed me the can while he filled the pipe.

  I drank deeply from the can. He lit the pipe thoroughly and then we traded. The pot was smooth passing my throat but singed my lungs. I made it through half an exhale before coughing out the rest and reaching back for the malt liquor. McGinnes pulled another can out from the inside of his sportjacket, popped the tab, and tapped my can with his. We tipped our heads back and drank.

  We stood in a fairly thick blanket of smoke. McGinnes knocked the ash from the pipe onto his palm and filled another bowl. He lit it evenly with a circular motion of the disposable lighter flame he held above it. We smoked that while downing our Colts. I thought of how good a cigarette would taste, then thought of something else. I looked at McGinnes’ face and laughed. He thought that was funny, and both of us laughed.

  “Evan Walters’ bucket came in,” I said. “You want it?”

  “Yeah,” he said, and a wedge of black hair fell across his forehead. “Give it to me.”

  I found it on the conveyer belt, a green cylinder wrapped in plastic and secured with a twist tie. I took a four-point stance, centered the bucket to myself, stepped back, and passed it to him with a surprising spiral. He caught and ran with it halfway across the stockroom, where he stopped and did some weird end-zone strut.

  Walking back my way, he let out a short, mean burst of laughter. His jaws were tight and his eyes looked directionless, and I realized, in a sudden rush of alcohol and marijuana, that the way I felt just then was the way he felt all the time.

  “Evan Walters,” he said, “deserves a little extra something for all the trouble he’s been through.” Mimicking Walters, he lowered his voice to an effete growl, and said, “I’ve been calling you for months, Mr. McGinnes, and frankly I don’t appreciate…”

  He continued the speech as he unraveled the plastic, removed the top, lowered the bucket beneath his crotch, and unzipped his fly. He looked at me glumly, shut his eyes, found his pecker, and let fly a hard piss-stream into the mouth of the bucket.

  “Come on, man…. ”

  “I’m a lawyer,” he whined, “and I want my ice bucket!” McGinnes washed the urine around with a circular motion, then flung it out and across the room where it crackled as some of it hit a hot, naked bulb. He reaffixed the plastic and secured it onto the bucket using the tie.

  McGinnes handed me a mint, popped one in his own mouth, and raced up the stairs. I followed him up and out into the showroom. He seemed to be skipping down the aisle, swinging the bucket at his side as if it were a picnic basket. At the front counter he handed the bucket to Lee, who gave us both a disapproving look.

  “Give this to a Mr. Walters when he comes in tonight,” he deadpanned, then walked away.

  I had accumulated some dirt on my sleeves while unloading the transfer truck. Lee knocked it off, then brushed a hand across my chest to finish the job. I noticed that brown speck again in her eye.

  “What have you boys been up to?” she asked, her smile twisting to one side.

  “Science experiment in the basement.”

  “Who’s closing tonight?”

  “You, me, and Johnny.” She laughed, rather evilly I thought, and walked back behind the counter.

  Malone stopped to tuck a silk scarf into his jacket before leaving. He patted his breast pocket, felt the deck of Newports, and showed a look of relief.

  “All right, darling,” he said to Lee by way of goodnight, then turned to me. “All right, Country.”

  “What about tonight, Andre? You meet us down at the Corps?”

  He shook his head and pursed his lips in an exaggerated manner. “Uh-uh. I got that redbone freak, uh, young lady, coming over to my joint tonight for dinner, some cognac, you know what I’m saying?”

  “Yeah.”

  McGinnes yelled from across the floor, “You gonna get your face wet tonight, Jim?”

  Malone said, “I don’t eat nuthin’ you can’t buy at Safeway.” He looked at Lee and said, “Pardon me, darling.” Then he turned and left the store.

  THE EVENING PROGRESSED WITH McGinnes and me hammering malt liquors one for one in the back room at an alarming rate. I was through smoking pot for the night, though the damage had been done during our earlier basement sessions. I lost count of our alcohol consumption, but I remember McGinnes racing next door to Mr. Liquor (in my opinion, the classic name for a spirit shoppe) and coming back with a tall brown bag in his arms, his eyebrows wiggling excitedly like the kid with the fake ID returning to the party.

  Lee was reading a textbook up front and pretending to ignore us, though I caught her looking up often. By seven she had cracked a Colt and had begun nursing it in the back.

  We had some traffic that night and initially handled it well. The early customers seemed oblivious to the fact that I was on a tear. I went through a good bit of eyewash and quite a few breathmints.

  McGinnes, as was his fashion, became more aggressive and quicker with customers as his sobriety deteriorated, though this did not affect his closing rate. If anything, the alcohol made his rebuttals more certain, less open for debate.

  I luckily hit upon several open, friendly customers who were intelligent enough to have an idea of what they wanted when they came through the door and not afraid to spend some money on it if it was offered at a fair price. Consequently, the pressure to perform impossible switches in front of McGinnes was taken off me. The confidence gained after my first sale of the evening spilled over into my rap with subsequent customers, and I was suddenly on a roll.

  McGinnes became troubled by my momentum. At one point, when I moved to take an up, he stepped in front of me and threw an elbow into my stomach, keeping a wide smile plastered on his face as he greeted the customers. They turned out to be bait-snatchers who demanded to be sold the plunder, which only served to shake him further.

  After he had written them up, he signaled me to the back. I followed him into the radio room, where he cracked two Colts. He handed me one and we both had long pulls.

  “What’s on your mind?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” he said defensively, and reached into his pocket. He unraveled his fist to reveal two orange hexagonal pills, then jabbed that hand in my direction. “Eat one of these.”

  “What is it?”

  “Like a ’lude, only not as heavy.” He became impatient. “It’s just a painkiller.”

  “Huh?”

  “Eat it, you pussy.”

  I took the pill and washed it down with a healthy dose of malt liquor. He popped his dry with the flat of his palm.

  “So,” I said, wiping something wet off my chin, “what else did you bring me back here for?”

  He finished another swallow. “I just wanted to tell you that you looked good out there tonight. You haven’t lost it, man, you belong on a sales floor. That guy in the red jacket, I saw you step him into that Mitsubishi, that was clean.”

  “He stepped himself.”

  “That’s the point. You saw where he was going, you kept your mouth shut and let him roll right into it.” He paused. “Most of the good ones are dead or selling mattresses, Nick. There aren’t many left like you or me.” He winked and
tapped my can with his.

  “Is this ‘ The Closing of the Sales Frontier’ speech?” I asked.

  “I’m just telling you that you need to be back on the floor.”

  “I don’t think that’s what I need.”

  “You’ll be back,” he said smugly. I could only hope that for once the silly bastard would be wrong.

  OUR SMALL EVENING RUSH came and went without major incident. We did walk most of our customers, however, as our pitches and counter-objections increasingly consisted of alcohol logic.

  At one point McGinnes nudged me and walked up to the backs of a man and, judging from her magnificent, showcase ass, his extremely attractive companion.

  “Fuck your wife for you today, sir?” McGinnes asked cheerfully, running the words together rapidly as if they were one.

  “No thanks,” the man said, turning and smiling. “We’re just looking around.”

  I had hoped that McGinnes would someday be caught in the act of this, his oldest and stupidest trick. It was his contention that people never listened to the salesman’s opening line, so anything could be said, so long as it had the proper speed and inflection. Often he’d pinch the cheek of a toddler and say to his proud parents, “Cute little cocksucker!” or wipe his brow on a summer day and to sympathetic customers tiredly proclaim, “Sure is cock today.” And always get away with it.

  By eight o’clock the down had kicked in and brought to the forefront all the alcohol that had preceded it. McGinnes, who had begun bumping into displays and cackling at me from across the showroom, had fallen off what was for him a very wide ledge. It was plain now that both of us were on a violently twisted binge.

  When it became obvious that a Japanese-American woman who had wandered in was not going to buy, McGinnes began substituting the r’s in his words with l’s, and the outraged woman, who probably had more class in her pinky finger than he had in his entirely moronic body, walked out in disbelief. We’d get a letter on that one in the office, and she’d get an apology, most likely from Louie.

  A little later, an elderly woman came in and asked for McGinnes. I broke away from Lee up front and found him in the basement. He was walking down a row of stock, jamming his forefinger through the cardboard cartons with a scream, before stepping up to the next box and repeating the act. There was blood on the tip of his finger.