Part 14 (1/2)
”Who owns Educational Advantage Media? The Gambler?”
Bobby shook his head. ”No, but he's high up, maybe even the number two guy. The boss is a guy named Gunn, who I've never met. The Gambler talks to him all the time, and he's been out to visit us on the road a few times, but he never bothers to meet with us little people.”
”So is this guy, you know, okay?”
Bobby shrugged. ”Probably. I guess. I'll tell you one thing, though.” He looked around conspiratorially. ”He's got this woman who works for him. She's kind of hot, and she always wears a bikini top, but she's got this nasty scar down her side, like she was in a motorcycle wipe-out or something. It's really pretty ugly, but she loves to show it off. I don't want to judge someone for being unfortunate or anything, but ouch. Don't show the world. You know?”
I said I knew, though I didn't know at all.
”Okay, enough piddling.” Bobby clapped his hands together with cheerful finality. ”Let's go see the boss.”
The Gambler sat at the peeling particleboard desk in his room, looking over some credit apps. He wore greenish-tinted chinos, a white oxford with no tie, and brown loafers. He had perched on his nose a pair of gla.s.ses that made him look like a nineteenth-century accounting clerk, an effect only increased by his hair, straight and thick and just a tad long. All he needed was a high collar and some muttonchops.
”Sit,” the Gambler said. He gestured with his head to a chair by the window.
I walked over and sat. The chair rested on thick wooden legs and was upholstered with a leather worn so thin that it threatened to burst like a soap bubble. My heart thumped violently, and my hands shook. I stared up at my boss, having no idea what to expect. I probably should be trying to think of what sorts of things the Gambler might ask so I could come up with good answers, but I couldn't think clearly. Everything swirled around me in gray eddies.
”You can leave us alone now,” the Gambler said to Bobby.
”Okie.” Bobby bounced on his feet, almost a heel-clicking salute, and then walked out.
The Gambler continued to peer at the paperwork, gazing over his perched gla.s.ses. What were they there for if not for reading?
”How have you been, Lem? Everything all right?”
”Terrific,” I said, though I didn't sound terrific. I sounded like I knew I was in trouble.
”Terrific, huh? I guess we'll see.” He stared at me until I looked away. ”You know, Bobby says you're a born bookman. A real power hitter. You got that grand slam that fell through a while back, didn't you?”
”That was me.”
”Shame about it. I mean, you do good work, you should get your reward, right? A more experienced bookman might have seen those guys for deadbeats, but you can't blame yourself for not knowing what only years on the job can teach you.”
”I guess not.” I hadn't been blaming myself, and I couldn't think of what a more experienced bookman might have picked up on. Sure, Galen had lived in a relatively run-down place, but he'd had a pretty nice truck, his wife had some decent jewelry. His friends all looked okay, too. None of them were going to be extras on Knots Landing, Knots Landing, but nothing suggested that they were off to the welfare office the next day, either. but nothing suggested that they were off to the welfare office the next day, either.
”But I'm more concerned about this,” the Gambler said. He now held up a credit app: Karen's. Not that I could read it from across the room. But I knew what it was. ”Bobby tells me you got all the way through and they balked at the check. Is that right?”
”Yeah.”
”That shouldn't happen.”
”I know.”
”You get that far, you should close. You should have been closing the minute you walked through that door. The check should have been a formality, not a deal breaker. You understand what I'm saying?”
The Gambler's voice remained calm through all of this, but there was an urgency there, too, a kind of growing gravity. And anger, too, maybe.
”I understand what you're saying. The words, the ideas behind the words. The whole thing.” I had the distinct feeling that I was talking too much, but I didn't know what he wanted from me, and my mouth switched into running mode.
”If you understood,” the Gambler answered, ”then we wouldn't be having a talk about this bulls.h.i.+t, would we?” He smiled thinly. ”So I want you to tell me what happened with these people. You had them, they filled out the app, they were ready to go, and then what?”
”They balked.” I sounded a little shrill, so I looked at my hands to hide my embarra.s.sment. And my fear. This Gambler, the Gambler in front of me, had nothing to do with the old-time revival preacher who sermonized to us about selling. This was not the supersalesman Gambler. This was the Gambler who disposed of corpses in the middle of the night.
”They balked. Tell me something I don't know. Why? Why the f.u.c.k did they balk?”
Maybe anger wasn't the right way to go when speaking to an accessory to murder, but there it was. Besides, I was myself an accessory to murder, so I had to figure that leveled the playing field. ”Look, Bobby told you I'm a power hitter, and I am. I sell a lot of books. I've never had people balk at the check before, and there's no reason to think it's going to happen again. It was just one of those things.”
”Just one of those things, huh? Well, how about we don't do anything about it, Lem, and then it becomes two of those things and then three of those things? How about you tell me how many sales you have to blow before I'm supposed to care about it? How many? Tell me.”
I let it hang in the air for a moment before I spoke. ”More than one.” I wanted to look away, but I told myself to keep my eyes steady. This was his problem, not mine.
”More than one? Okay. More than one. But I don't want it to be more than one. I want it to be less than one. It's a little late for that, I know, but I'm thinking-and maybe I'm crazy here-I'm thinking it might be better to stop this in its tracks so you don't sit in someone's house for three f.u.c.king hours, have them fill out the app, and then f.u.c.k up the close. That's what I'm thinking, Lem. So tell me what happened.”
I bit my lip. This wasn't the princ.i.p.al's office. I wasn't in danger of my mother getting a phone call. I was in danger of being executed, like b.a.s.t.a.r.d and Karen. I had seen it. I knew what it meant, and I had to come up with something.
Based on the conversation I'd overheard, I could feel reasonably confident that the Gambler had known b.a.s.t.a.r.d and Karen, knew something of their personalities, so whatever story I came up with would have to sound plausible.
”When the wife was filling out the app, the husband was making trouble. He was kind of a clown, you know, trying to distract her, insult her, insult me. With him carrying on, I could see the wife was having problems. She looked nervous. She started talking about money.”
”What money?” the Gambler demanded. ”How much money?”
I knew I'd hit a nerve. He and the police chief had been looking for money. From what I could tell, a lot of money. I took a deep breath and concentrated on acting as though I had no idea what he was talking about. ”Just money. You know. Then when it came time for the check, she said she didn't want to do it.”
”Yeah?” the Gambler said. He took off his gla.s.ses and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand.
I felt pretty sure I was bombing. ”So I, uh, tried again. I went over all the stuff they'd seen, I told them about how I had asked them to let me know if they weren't interested. I did all the things we've talked about in training, but she still wouldn't budge. I guess the husband got angry, and then I knew it was pretty much lost.”
”This is bulls.h.i.+t,” he said. ”Why the f.u.c.k would they want encyclopedias?”
I stared at him. ”Um, I don't know,” I said. ”Why would anyone want encyclopedias? I mean, they're great books and all-”
”Spare me the bulls.h.i.+t. What did you do then?”
I shrugged. ”I left.”
”You left?” the Gambler repeated. ”You just walked out of there? Did you say, 'h.e.l.l, I don't need two hundred dollars. I made me that already, so I don't need it again.' Is that what you told them?”
”Do you think that would have been helpful?”
His face reddened, but he didn't say anything. It was clear now that the Gambler wanted some other kind of information, information he didn't know how to excavate. So I bit back my irritation. The thing to do, I realized, was to use his confusion, his desperate fis.h.i.+ng. I needed to figure out a way to make all of this work for me.
”I didn't know what else to do. I got the feeling they wanted me to leave, like I was getting on their nerves. I didn't know how to turn it around.” I sighed. ”So, can you tell me what I should have done?”
”What?” the Gambler sneered at me, astonished at the audacity of the question.