“I’ll get it myself, Larry,” he called.
“Okay, Tom,” the attendant called back. “Thanks.”
He moved back under the raised car with his grease gun as Tom climbed from his car and unscrewed the gas cap. Turning to watch the attendant over his shoulder, Tom lifted the nozzle from the high test pump and started to run gas into the tank. He kept his gaze fixed on the attendant, who never once glanced our way, until the pump guages registered ten gallons and $3.60.
He hung up the hose, flipped the lever to send the gauges back to zero, then lifted the nozzle of the regular grade pump and shoved it into the gas tank. No longer bothering to keep his eye on the attendant, he ran in five gallons, hung up the hose, but this time didn’t flip the lever to clear the gauges.
After spraying and wiping the windshield and checking under the hood, Tom called, “Okay, Larry. Want some money?”
The attendant set down his grease gun, wiped his hands on some waste and came over.
Glancing at the pump gauges, Larry said, “A dollar sixty.”
“Plus sixty-five cents,” Tom said. “Last time in I added a quart of oil and forgot to pay for it.”
“Oh. That’ll be two and a quarter then. Thanks for remembering.”
Tom paid the bill and got back into the car. As we pulled away, he seemed to become conscious of me regarding him strangely.
Throwing me a grin, he said, “A penny saved is a penny earned. I trade there because the place is understaffed. About every third time in I have to serve myself. You’d be surprised how it adds up.”
“Still shooting angles, huh?” I said. “Only you used to stay inside the law. That was downright stealing.”
“Fiddle flap. I learned long ago that everybody gets what he can, legally or illegally. The only way to keep from being taken is to take the other guy first. Unless he’s a personal friend, of course. I’ve got a strict code of ethics. I never take advantage of a friend.”
“You seemed pretty friendly with that gas station attendant.”
“Because we call each other by first names? That doesn’t mean anything. I only know him from trading there. We’re just customer and merchant.”
We drove in silence for a block. Then I asked, “Why’d you pay for the oil you took last time? Presumably he didn’t know anything about it.”
He threw me another grin. “Builds confidence. Think he’ll ever suspect me of swiping gas when I’m honest enough to pay a debt he didn’t even know I owed? Every so often I pull something like that just to make sure he keeps trusting me.”
He slowed and drove into the parking lot of a shopping plaza. I said, “Hey, what now? We’re going to be late for the meeting.”
“We can get in late. I usually miss the ritual anyway. Once you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it. My liquor stock at home is low, and the stores will be closed by the time the stag’s over.”
I would have preferred to make the meeting on time, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. He found a parking slot and we both got out. I trailed him into a chain drug store.
There was a liquor department in the drug store. He bought a quart of bourbon. The clerk put it into a paper bag and stapled the cash register receipt to the outside of the bag.
When we got back to the car, Tom said, “Don’t get in. We have another stop.”
I waited while he opened the car trunk, removed the whisky from the bag and stored it in the trunk. Flattening out the bag, he neatly folded it and thrust it into a side pocket of his coat.
I followed him to the opposite side of the parking lot and into a supermarket.
This time he took a shopping cart. Our first stop was the self-service liquor department, where he set another bottle of bourbon in the cart. He pushed the car a few aisles over and added a six-pack of soda. We moved to the next aisle to collect a loaf of bread and a small jar of instant coffee.
Then he pushed the cart from aisle to aisle with seeming aimlessness until we came to one where there were no other customers or store personnel in sight. After glancing both ways, he pulled the paper bag from his pocket, snapped it open and put the quart of whisky in it.
“Let’s go,” he said.
At the checkout counter the girl rang up the soda, bread and coffee. Glancing at the cash register receipt stapled to the bag containing the whisky, she pushed it on to the boy who was bagging the purchase without ringing it up.
“One dollar and sixty-one cents,” she said.
Tom gave her two ones and she handed him change.
After glancing at it, he said, “Hey, you gave me four cents too much.”
Holding out his hand, he displayed a quarter, a dime, a nickel and three pennies.
After gazing at the change for a moment, the girl said, “Gee thanks. There must have been a nickel in the penny compartment.”
She took the nickel and exchanged it for a penny.
As we walked out, I said, “Was that more of your technique? Proving your honesty in a small way, so you wouldn’t be suspected of stealing anything big?”
“Uh-huh,” he admitted cheerily. “I deliberately switched a penny for that nickel.”
I couldn’t quite decide whether to be amused by his chronic larceny or disgusted with him. Like most people, I’m conditioned to believe that stealing is wrong regardless of how you rationalize it, but I had to concede that Tom’s dishonesty at least possessed an imaginative flair. And if his technique was always similar to what he had demonstrated tonight, it was extremely unlikely he would ever be caught.
As he stowed the shopping bag in the trunk, he said, “You’d be surprised how it adds up, Sid. Individually it’s pretty stiff, but it probably adds up to a couple of thousand a year.”
“Doesn’t your conscience ever bother you?” I asked.
“Why should it? The people I take would take me just as fast if they had the chance.”
We both got into the car and Tom backed from the slot.
As we drove off the lot, I said, “Well, then, doesn’t it worry you that you might get caught?”
“I won’t be,” he said with confidence. “I’m never even suspected. You can’t beat the old con trick of building confidence in small ways. That girl knows me. I’ve called attention to undercharges a couple of times, and once before I gave her back money when I got too much change. Last time it actually was her mistake. Think she would ever believe that a customer who’s always so honest would try to pull anything? The secret is to build confidence in the sucker’s mind before you ever make a move.”
I still wasn’t quite sure whether to be amused by his shenanigans or disgusted. I finally decided it was none of my business.
“You do what you want,” I said. “I’ll stick to the old-fashioned way of paying for merchandise.”
It was twenty after eight when we arrived at the Elks. The door to the bar was closed and locked, as the bar always shut down while lodge was in session. There was no one in the lobby.
“You particularly interested in attending the meeting?” Tom asked.
“I thought that’s what we came for.”
“We came for the stag after ward. I happen to know nothing very interesting is coming up tonight. It’s just routine business. Let’s have a game of pool in the basement.”
I really wanted to attend the meeting, but I didn’t particularly care to go in late alone. Despite last week’s instructions during initiation on various ritualistic procedures, I wasn’t quite sure how to request admission from the tyler, or just what I was supposed to do and say after I was let in. I did vaguely recall that the procedure wasn’t very elaborate, but I would be up there going through it all alone in front of the assembled brotherhood. Without Tom’s moral support. I didn’t have much stomach for it. I gave in and followed Tom to the basement poolroom.