by Ken Bruen
Max went into his office and closed the door behind him. He had a stiff vodka and grapefruit juice, thinking, This shit is good. At two o’clock, he met with Alan Sorenson, his Senior Networking Manager. There had been an emergency at a client’s Newark office in the morning and Max wanted to make sure the situation was under control and that the company’s network didn’t experience any downtime. At three, Max met with Harold Lipman to discuss a quote Lipman was preparing for a new branch of a Japanese bank that was opening on Park Avenue. Harold had used a graphics program to design a full-color picture of what the bank’s new Local and Wide Area Networks would look like. Max told Harold that the designs for the three-server network looked pretty and all, but it wasn’t going to get him the sale.
The vodka hitting his stomach, Max said, “Take Takahashi to a strip joint or, better yet, call one of the escort agencies in my rolodex and buy him a whore or two. Trust me – that’s the only way you’ll close this thing.”
Harold smiled, like he was embarrassed or thought Max was joking. Harold was thirty-six, tall and pale with thinning, graying hair, and he always seemed to wear the same wrinkled blue suit. Now there was a cheapskate who bought discount even if he could afford better. Before working for Max, Harold had worked as a retail computer salesman. He lived in Hackensack, for Christ’s sake, with his wife and six-year-old daughter.
“I think I’ll just take him out to lunch,” Harold said.
“Guys don’t want lunch, they want tits,” Max said seriously.
Harold started to smile and Max cut him off with, “Hey, I’m not joking. If you want to start closing sales you’ll have to learn this sooner or later. You want to be a big kahuna, get some money to buy yourself some new goddamn suits?” He was going to add, And not at Today’s Man, but it was hard enough to educate the guy about table dances, he wasn’t going to start fashion policing the poor slob.
“I don’t think he’s that kind of guy,” Harold said uncomfortably.
“Is he a fudgepacker? If he is, I know a couple of guys who’d love to screw him.”
“No,” Harold said. “I mean, he wears a wedding ring and he didn’t seem gay.”
“Then I don’t know what the problem is – take him to a strip joint. Believe me, as soon as he has some tits bouncing in his face you’ll close the sale.” Max waited then said, “In this business, it’s make or break, and you gotta go for bust.”
He let the joke linger, waiting to see if the schmuck got it.
Finally, Harold laughed uncomfortably, said, “I’m going to go to his office and present the proposal in person and see what happens.”
Max said, “Is it your wife?”
“Is what my wife?”
“The ball and chain, the guilt trips, because if it is, don’t tell her about it, that’s all. You think I tell my wife every time I go to a strip club? But your wife’ll be happy when you start bringing home the big commission checks. Trust me, I know this stuff and I certainly know women.”
“It’s not my wife.”
“Then what is it, your kid? You?”
Harold, his face turning pink, said, “No.”
“Look, you don’t have to enjoy it, I mean if that’s what you’re worried about. You’re not there to get off, you’re there for the client to get off. He’s Japanese right? Jesus Christ, the Japs love table dances. Trust me on this one. It’s a cultural thing. Maybe it’s because Japanese women, as a whole, have very small breasts. Why’re you smiling? I’m serious. But whatever you do, don’t, do not, buy him a Japanese dancer. Even if she has the big old-style silicone knockers, they don’t like that. It gets them angry because it reminds them of what they don’t have at home.”
Harold stood up, took a few steps back toward the door, said, “Well, thanks for the advice, but I think I’ll just stick to my own sales techniques.”
“Listen, you putz, I don’t want to have to let you go. I mean, I think you’re a smart guy. When you started here you knew more about hardware than you did about networking, but you’re catching up on your technical knowledge and I think in a month or two you’ll be right where you need to be. That said, I hope you understand, I can’t keep paying you your draw if you’re not making any commish. I just can’t run my business that way. Now I’m giving you some good, solid advice here. When I hired you I told you I’d give you all the training you needed, well this is part of your training.”
Max was happy with this speech, his rally-the-troops schpiel. He knew he was great at motivation – that’s why he was the head honcho and everyone else wasn’t.
“I came here to sell networks,” Harold said, “not table dances.”
“Then maybe this is the wrong product for you,” Max said. “Maybe you should sell bibles or something. Now go take Takahashi to a strip joint and close this goddamn sale, or else.”
Toward five o’clock, Angela paid a visit. She locked the door and gave Max a few wet kisses and a neck massage and wished him good luck. Max said, “The funny thing is, I’m not even nervous.”
Max made sure there was no lipstick on his face. He knew he must’ve smelled like Joy, but this was all right because a few months ago he had bought Deirdre some of the same perfume, in the smaller one-ounce size, so she wouldn’t be suspicious when he came home reeking of it. If the police asked, he could just say he picked up the odor from Deirdre. He was covering all the bases.
In the bathroom, Max put a coat of spray-on hair fibers over his bald spot. The fibers could only be detected on very close inspection or by touch. The only problems were when it rained or when he was nervous – sometimes the fibers melted and dark streaks dripped down his neck.
At 5:25, Max left the office, still feeling very relaxed. Janet, the receptionist who was temping this week, and Diane from Payroll were nearby so Max made sure he said “See you tomorrow” to Angela, loud enough so Janet and Diane could hear how casual and professional he was being.
“Good night, Max,” Angela said, not even looking away from her computer monitor. If they’d been alone, she’d have added God bless in that crazy way the Irish did. Psychos blew up half the UK and added, God bless?
Max hailed a cab on Sixth Avenue and instructed the driver to take him to Fifty-fourth and Madison, the building where Jack Haywood worked. Out of habit, Max memorized the driver’s name – Mohammed Siddique – and medallion number – 679445. As he got out, he said, “Thanks, Mohammed. God bless.”
Max told Mohammed to wait double-parked while he went into the building to call Jack from the concierge’s desk. Back on the sidewalk, waiting for Jack to show up, Max couldn’t help thinking about the break-in.
He’d told Deirdre that he wanted to take her out to dinner tonight and to be sure to be home at six. Deirdre was usually good about keeping her appointments, but now Max was worried that something might go wrong. Deirdre had said she would be going shopping this afternoon, but Max wondered what would happen if she came home early or had decided not to go at all.
A car horn honked. The sudden noise jolted Max, made his heart skip a beat. He took deep breaths, trying to relax. If he looked nervous tonight and Jack Haywood or someone else noticed, it could also lead to some big problems later. He had to just trust Popeye. After all, the guy was a pro and a pro would know how to handle any complications that might come up.
A few minutes later, Jack strolled out of the building, wearing the jeans and sports jacket he had changed into for his night on the town. As Director of Operations for Segal, Russell amp; Ross, a big law firm with over two hundred employees, Jack was one of Max’s biggest clients. He was only a few years younger than Max, but he kept in shape so he looked thirty-five. He was married with two kids and he had a house on Long Island, but he liked getting away from his wife and drinking and seeing naked women. Since he had become a NetWorld client, Max bought him as many table and lap dances and trips to the private fantasy rooms as he wanted. Once in a while, Jack asked Max to fix him up with a call girl. Jack would tell his wife he was out of town o
n business for the night and Max would book a room for him at one of the big New York hotels. Jack liked Russian women and Max knew two Russian call girls – sisters with monster-size breasts – who charged two thousand bucks for a menage a trois. It was above the going rate, but the money was well worth it to keep Jack as a client. He had a two-hundred-and-fifty-user network with four file servers and Max had placed three consultants there on a fulltime basis. Including hardware and software sales, Jack was a million-dollar-a-year client. Besides, you had to love a guy who knew how to relax. What was the point of working your ass off and having no fun?
As soon as Jack got into the cab, Max turned on his “business personality.” Usually, he hated small talk and phony conversation, but when there was money involved, man, Max could turn on the bullshit as well as anyone. During the ride across town to Legz Diamond’s, Max managed to hold a conversation on golf, wine, real estate and the upcoming mayoral election, and half the time he didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. But, shit, he knew that he was selling it well.
Legz Diamond’s was on Forty-seventh Street near Eleventh Avenue. It was an upscale strip club – dark and glitzy, like a cheesy, suburban wedding hall. Although it was still early, the place was at least half filled with businessmen trying to keep their male clients happy. That’s how the big city worked. You had a problem with it, get the fuck back to Boise, pal.
The host, a Mafia-looking guy with slicked-back hair, was on stage introducing the girls one by one, holding their hands and kissing them on the lips or cheek after he said their names. Max sometimes wondered whether all the girls screwed around with the host, but he was positive that the ones who kissed him on the lips had. Max was a known regular at the club so he and Jack got the VIP seats, right in front of the stage. Immediately, Max bought Jack a rum and Coke and a table dance with the girl of his choice. Jack picked a Puerto Rican with a big smile and a nice set of 38 or 40 triple-Ds. Perfectomundo. That was the way to get ’em in the mood.
Max was watching Jack enjoy himself when he heard someone call out his name. It was Felicia, a black stripper with 46 triple-Ds whom Max had bought dances from many times before. She was on the stage, leaning forward so that her implants hung down off her bone-thin dancer’s body.
“How are you?” Max said.
“Wait up, baby,” Felicia said. “Let me come down there and talk to you personally.”
She climbed down off the stage and sat on Max’s lap. Max knew that she was just being nice to him because he had tipped her a lot of money in the past, but he couldn’t help but let the special treatment go to his head. He felt like Hugh Hefner, sitting there with a gorgeous girl on his lap. He wondered if Hef listened to Mozart. Guy spent his life in silk pajamas, smoked a pipe, he must listen to real music.
“That’s better,” Felicia said, wiggling her ass as she settled in on his lap. “So how you been?”
“All right,” Max said.
“Yeah? I ain’t seen you around here too much lately.”
“I’ve been busy. You know how it is.”
Max remembered once telling Felicia about his business and how this had impressed her.
“That’s right,” Felicia said, “you got some kind of company – computers or something, right?”
“That’s right,” Max said.
“That’s cool, baby. Hey, anybody ever tell you how cute you are?” That lifted him in every sense. Who needed Viagra?
“Nobody who looked like you,” Max said.
Felicia kissed him on the forehead and Max felt her hard implants pressing against his chest.
“I got an idea,” Felicia said. “Take down my number. You can give me a call some time when I’m not working. We’ll go out and have a good time. Or I can just come over to your place and we’ll party there.”
Max scribbled Felicia’s number on the back of one of his business cards, then leaned back as she gave a nice, slow table dance. First she crouched backwards with her butt high in the air. Then she turned and danced with her breasts in Max’s face. The bags were so big they were stretching the skin around them, and her nipples were sticking out like pencil erasers. In the middle of the dance, Max looked at his watch and saw it was 6:08. If all had gone according to plan, Deirdre had been murdered eight minutes ago. Felicia saw him looking at his watch and said, “You got a date tonight, baby?”
“No, I’m just checking the time. It’s a little after six,” he added so she would remember if anyone asked.
“A little after sex?”
“ Six,” Max said.
“Oh. I musta heard you wrong, baby.”
“Right side,” Max said to Asir Aswad as the cab turned onto East Eightieth Street. In the middle of the block, Max said, “Right here,” and the cab came to a stop.
The meter read $9.70. Max gave Asir a twenty and took back the entire ten dollars and thirty cents change. He never tipped cab drivers and wasn’t going to start now. He didn’t want the police to think he had been acting in any way unusual minutes before discovering his wife’s body.
It was 10:27. Max had dropped Jack off at Penn Station twenty minutes ago. Jack had seen Max writing down Felicia’s phone number and it had impressed him a great deal.
“You gonna call her?” Jack asked.
“When I get around to it,” Max said.
“If I were you I wouldn’t wait on that,” Jack said. “I’m getting a little tired of that Russian coffee cake. I might be in the mood for some chocolate pudding one of these nights. If you don’t use that number, why don’t you hold onto it for me?”
Jack was drunk, but not so drunk that he wouldn’t remember that Max was with him all night while Deirdre was being murdered.
Of course Max had no intention of calling Felicia. Seeing those big gazongas in his face had definitely got him thinking, but before he had sex with a cheap stripper he’d need to see some blood work. He was just egging Jack on, trying to maintain his swinger image since Jack seemed to like it. It was part of the sales technique that he had perfected – never show the client that you are in any way above him. In other words, if the client sleeps with cheap hookers, then you have to come off as a guy who sleeps with cheap hookers. Besides, Max had Angela and he’d probably be spending the rest of his life with her. Although, he had to admit, it would be nice if Angela had knockers as big as Felicia’s.
Max headed up the stoop to his townhouse. Through the lace curtains in the front windows he could see that there were no lights on inside. As he put his key in the first lock, he remembered what Popeye had said to him when they’d met in the pizza place, about how he might kill Max, too, if Max came home while he was still in the house. Max looked at his watch – 10:29. Popeye must have left more than four hours ago. There was no way in hell he could be inside there now.
Seven
“Can’t we go someplace else?” Mickey said. “How about one of those Irish pubs up on Second Avenue?”
“Irish pub?” Chris said. “What do you want to do, fuck an old man?”
JASON STARR, Tough Luck
After Angela’s mother died, her father suddenly started telling Angela she had to find her Greek roots so last summer, partly just to shut her father up, she figured, Why not? and found a package on the Internet and went for a visit.
Bad idea. Real bad.
She thought she’d chill on the beach, work on her tan, but it turned into the trip from hell. All everyone kept asking her was when she was going to get married. She was twenty-eight, for god’s sake, she didn’t even have a serious boyfriend. One of her aunts made her promise that when she got back to New York, she would call Spiros, the cousin of someone on the island who was supposed to be a very nice guy. Just to get her aunt and everyone else off her back, she took Spiros’s number and promised to call him. Jeez, a Greek got on your case, you were going to agree to anything.
A few months later, when she was back in New York and had just broken up with the latest dick she’d met out clubbing, she found th
e piece of paper with the phone number in the bottom of her suitcase and figured, What the hell?
Spiros was weird on the phone. He asked all kinds of questions – who was she, why was she calling, why did she wait so long to call. Angela was about to hang up when he suggested that they go to dinner Friday night. It wasn’t like her social diary was overflowing so Angela went to meet him after work, figuring she’d go for the free meal.
Spiros was short with bad skin, a crooked nose, and a bushy black mustache. He looked sort of like Saddam Hussein. Angela wanted to ditch him right then, but they were at a very expensive Greek restaurant in midtown so she figured he must be loaded. During dinner, he was very polite and kept telling her how pretty her smile was and how her eyes were the color of the Aegean Sea, but Angela was more interested when he started talking about his money. He said he was in “the restaurant business,” but he wouldn’t tell her the name of the restaurant or where it was located.
He tipped big and, like all New Yorkers, Angela watched for that – it was a good sign.
They went out a few more times and he kept spending a lot of money on her and buying her presents. Whenever she brought up his restaurant he’d say, “Don’t worry, I’ll take you there some time,” but he never did. Then, one afternoon, walking along Sixth Avenue, she spotted Spiros working at a souvlaki cart on the corner of Fifty-third Street. When she confronted him, he confessed that his plan was to marry her and put her to work selling souvlaki while he moved back to Xios. Angela’s Irish temper came out in full force as she roared at him, “You fooking bollix!” He’d muttered that was a nice way for a lady to speak and she’d exploded, “I’m not a lady, I’m Irish yah cunt!”
Angela decided that she’d had it with Greek men. A couple of weeks later, she and her friend Laura went to Hogs amp; Heifers, a biker bar in the meatpacking district. They were having a blast, getting ripped on beer and shots of Schnapps, playing old Aerosmith on the jukebox. She’d had a thing for Steven Tyler years ago and still would’ve humped him in a heartbeat. Hell, the mood she was in, she would’ve humped any guy with money and decent breath. A few college girls, egged on by the surly bikers, stood on the bar during “Walk This Way” and started dancing topless. It was an informal ritual at the bar for girls to dance topless and the bikers started chanting for Laura and Angela to get up and join them. So Laura and Angela stood on the bar and did slow stripteases as the guys cheered them on. Laura stopped at her stockings, but Angela went all the way, pulling off her stockings and tossing them into the crowd of cheering men.