I can’t contain my amusement completely, but I try to keep my snickering at least somewhat quiet.
Wilks hears me well enough, and it’s not doing his confidence any favors. He’s got to come to some sort of détente with Martin, though; otherwise the old fuck won’t sell to him.
This is one of those baby-bird-out-of-the-nest moments. I’ll step in if Martin starts swinging. Other than that, Wilks is very much on his own.
“That’s not what I meant,” Wilks says.
He’s getting frustrated, but he’s not mad yet. The key is in finding just that right dose of anger. It has to be enough to convince Martin to chill the fuck out, but it can’t be so much that it just escalates the situation.
Let’s watch.
“You come in here and tell me that I call my customer the wrong name and you tell me that you want fresh monkfish when there is no other monkfish that I sell!”
Martin’s screaming now, and I’m laughing my balls off.
Wilks tries to reason with him, but he’s not getting through.
And then, like a miracle, it happens.
“Listen, you ornery old prick,” Wilks starts, “you know very well that I wasn’t saying your fish wasn’t fresh, I was just repeating what Dane told me to get when we came in here! Now, you can put it back in your pants and make a sale or you can keep screaming and lose a solid customer! Now, what’s it going to be?”
He hit all the relevant points and, with the exception of insisting the proper form of my name, he didn’t go overboard.
You can’t teach that.
Martin’s face grows a few shades redder, but in the next moment, he’s got Wilks in a bear hug that’s sure to ruin the latter’s nice, clean shirt.
When Martin finally drops the new executive, he turns to me, exclaiming, “This one’s got the eggs! Ha! Reminds me of when you first started coming in here.”
Now, let me make something clear: we are not the only people in the fish market, not by a long shot. Martin’s been in business this long by being the best and every chef who even thinks of working with sea food in this town knows it.
Wilks is going to be fine, although he’s again becoming aware of just how many people have been watching the scene. I can’t be sure, but I could swear I saw some money change hands between customers when Martin picked the poor bastard off his feet.
Martin gives a decent starting price and, like a trooper, Wilks starts talking him down.
My attention is elsewhere, though.
I could swear that I just saw something on the far corner of the market. It was a flash of red hair ducking behind a display.
When nobody comes out, I tell myself I must be imagining things. Why would Wrigley follow me to a fish market?
“Does that sound about right, Paulson?” Wilks asks, apparently not for the first time.
Pulled back from my ginger hallucination, I turn to look at my new boss.
“It’s your deal,” I tell him. “Does it sound about right to you?”
He turns back to Martin and extends his hand. It’s a rookie mistake.
We leave Martin’s shop and I could swear I see that red hair again before we come to our next stop.
It wouldn’t surprise me in the least to discover that Wrigley’s stalking me. What I don’t understand, though, is why she’d choose to do it here. Why now?
It occurs to me that I’m trying to assign rationality to someone who may or may not be stalking me, and I give up the futile chore.
“How’d you do?” I ask.
“Were you not paying attention?” Wilks beams. “I talked him down a full twenty percent from his original asking price.”
“Well done,” I tell him and cautiously pat him on the back.
“So, any other lessons before our next stop?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I tell him. “Lesson number five: Whatever you do, do not get on the bad side of a fishmonger.”
His confidence is sufficiently elevated to the point where he’s finally willing to ask the question: “Are all your lessons haikus?”
“I knew I liked you Wilks,” I tell him and we finish off the rest of our daily buys with relative ease.
After everything’s taken care of, I walk the new exec back to his building, giving him further lessons and miscellaneous advice on the way.
“Are you on tonight?” he asks as we approach his building.
“I’m on the schedule,” I tell him, “but look, something’s kind of going on and I might need to have someone cover me. Is that all right?”
“Paulson, after everything you’ve done for me, I think you’ve earned another night.”
“Thanks,” I tell him and shake the hand Martin hadn’t touched. “Oh, by the way, Wilks…”
“Yeah?”
“Lesson ten: Never give your sous chef a night off when he asks. He can't be trusted.”
He has no idea how to react, but seems to take the lesson in good humor. Of course, when he tries to weasel out of giving me the night off, I gently remind him that not only did he already authorize it, he shook my hand.
I leave him with, “Lesson six: Handshakes are how you get what you want and make sure you hang onto it.”
“Oh, fuck off,” he says. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I turn around and there she is, leaning against the pole of the stoplight on the corner.
This shit’s got to stop and it’s got to stop now, before it has a chance to escalate.
“Wrigley,” I say as I approach her. “What are the chances that you’d just be standing here at the exact moment I’m walking by?”
“They’re pretty good, I would imagine,” she says, blowing out a puff of smoke. “Have you gotten your head out of your ass yet?”
“Nah,” I tell her. “It’s warm and cozy in there if you don’t mind the smell.”
“Clever,” she says humorlessly. “You know, it is common courtesy not to dump the woman you just started a relationship with, even if she tells you to explore things with someone else.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not a thing,” I tell her.
“Oh yeah?” she asks, blowing her next drag in my face. “What makes you think that?”
“Way too convoluted and, you know, dripping with crazy.”
“Don’t you think it’s a little fucked up how often men call the women in their life crazy?” she asks. “If every woman who was called crazy was actually crazy, I’m pretty sure we’d have a lot more axe murders.”
“What do you want?” I ask.
“Only what’s due me,” she says.
“And what is due you?”
“Do me,” she says. “I get tense as shit if I don’t have a good lay and you, my dear, couldn’t have ducked out at a worse time.”
“Just find someone else,” I tell her. “That’s never been a problem for you before.”
“Oh, don’t tell me you’re casting some kind of weak ass moral judgment on me for enjoying sex,” she scoffs.
“Not at all,” I tell her. “I’d have no room to talk. It’s a serious suggestion.”
“I don’t want to fuck anyone else right now,” she says. “That may change, but as for right now, I want to fuck you.”
The small group of people waiting for the light to change takes a step or two away from us.
“I’m very flattered,” I tell her, “really, I am. But I’m seeing someone else now. You’ve got to move on.”
“That option’s really not on the table at the moment,” she says. “By all means, screw your roommate to your heart’s content, but don’t pretend like you’re the saint in this conversation.”
“I don’t think either one of us is ‘the saint,’” I answer. “You don’t really think you’re going to get me to cheat on Leila with you by stalking me, do you?”
“I’m not stupid, Dane,” she says. “I’m just planting seeds.”
“What does that even mean?”
She flicks her cigarette into the group waiting for the light. “You’ll figure it out,” she says. Without a nod of acknowledgement for her crassness, she starts walking away, turning back just long enough to call out, “Sooner or later, they always figure it out!”
Chapter Nineteen
Exaltation with Just a Pinch of Denial