“I got you one month,” Garrity called after him. Gil kept going. Garrity raised his voice. “He had your replacement on the plane with the others. Flew him back this morning. At company expense. Hear what I’m saying to you?”
Gil didn’t answer.
“Make your quota, you son of a bitch.”
Gil rode alone in the elevator. When was the last time he’d made quota? He couldn’t remember. But no one else was making it either. Maybe down in Texas, blade heaven, but not here. The reps saw each other’s numbers every month in The Cutting Edge, the company fact sheet. It never mentioned two facts: the product and the job-they both sucked. Gil slapped at the elevator buttons, as though he were slapping O’Meara’s face, lighting every floor. That got rid of some of what was building inside, made him wonder if he should feel grateful to Garrity. Garrity had saved his job, hell, given it to him in the first place. But that was all because of the old man, and what they’d done to him. He didn’t feel grateful.
Outside the snow was falling harder, hard enough now to accumulate, rounding edges, muffling city sound. Gil brushed off the windshield of the 325i with his bare hand-left hand, not pitching hand, by long habit-got in, drove off. Car time. Was it Figgy who said he got his best ideas on the road? What was Figgy thinking now? Gil knew he should be thinking too, specifically about how to find another job. What were the jobs again?
The amazing thing-like a magic trick-was that he’d stolen home on the very next pitch. No signal from the dugout, no sign from the third-base coach, no forethought at all, not even in his own mind. Just-zoom. Like that. Now he could scarcely believe it.
Someone honked. Gil honked back, checked the time. 10:45. He always made an eleven o’clock call on Everest and Co. after a sales meeting. Everest and Co. was his biggest client: twenty-five outlets, eighty million in sales, excluding the catalogue. “Hit them while you’re still hyped from the meeting,” Garrity had advised long ago.
“I’m hyped,” Gil said aloud. If he was going to make quota, Everest and Co. was where to start. Traffic wasn’t bad and Gil was making good time-he’d grown up driving in snow-so good he decided to swing by the ballpark on his way. The problem was that he’d promised Opening Day to Richie.
Gil stopped in front of the box office, jumped out, left the car running. Only one ticket booth was open. An old man with watery eyes and a runny nose sat in it, staring into space. Gil knocked on the glass.
“Two grandstand seats for the opener,” he said. “Reds if you got ’em.”
The old man grinned savagely. “Reds if I got ’em? Opening Day?”
“Anything in the grandstand, then.”
“Grandstand? I got nuttin’ in the grandstand. Nuttin’ in the bleachers. Nuttin’ in the obstructed views. Nuttin’.” He leaned a little closer. “What’s more, I got nuttin’ in the grandstand till the twenty-first. Of August. And that’s last row.”
“What about the bleachers?”
The old man looked furious. “Opening Day?”
Gil nodded.
“Cripes. What did I just finish tellin’ you? Nuttin’. Can’t know much about baseball think you can just swan in here ’n get seats for Opening Day.”
“I know baseball,” Gil said, maybe louder than he’d intended. The old man yanked down the shade.
Gil turned away. A man in a watch cap was leaning against the brick wall near the GATE B sign.
“Lookin’ for tickets?” he said.
“Opening Day.”
The man came forward. His nose was runny too; a silver drop of phlegm quivered from the tip. “How many?”
“Two.”
He pulled a fistful from his pocket, leafed through them. Snowflakes melted on his fingers. “Got a pair right behind home plate, three rows back.”
“How much?”
“One-fifty.”
Gil thought: about his bank balance, near zero; his plastic, maxed out; his child-support and car payments, due; then realized he probably didn’t even have one-fifty on him. While he was thinking, the man added:
“Each.”
Gil walked away. “Two seventy-five for the pair,” the man called after him. Gil got in his car, but slowly, giving the man time to lower the price again. The man didn’t say another word; he returned to his post near the GATE B sign, wiping his nose on the back of his sleeve.
Gil took out his wallet and counted the money inside. One twenty-three. Problem was he’d promised Richie. He slid down the window. “Take a check?”
“You nuts?”
Traffic thickened, and Gil didn’t arrive at Everest and Co. until 11:25. Took the sample case, the order book, the Iwo Jima catalogue, the Survivor, rode the elevator, said, “Hi, Angie,” to the purchasing VP’s secretary-know the names of the secretaries, that was basic-and handed her his card.
Angie handed it back. “He’s gone.”
“When’ll he be back?”
“For the day.”
“That’s funny. We had an appointment.”
“At eleven.”
Don’t ever fight with a client, Gil told himself. But he couldn’t stop himself from saying, “Looked out the window today?”
“I suggest you call to reschedule.”
Gil sat in the 325i, parked outside Everest and Co. He liked sitting in his car, liked the smell, no longer a new smell, but a nice one of leather and wax. He liked the sound system, the phone, the light that came through the moon roof, now covered in snow. He just sat there, running the engine, staying warm, not thinking about where the next car payment was coming from-he already knew what the answer to that had to be-or about O’Meara, or Richie, or Opening Day. After a while a plow came up behind him, and he slipped the Beamer into gear. He didn’t have another call till three-The Cutler’s Corner, downtown. Only a few blocks from Cleats. He was hungry.
Gil had lunch at Cleats: potato skins and a draft. Leon was behind the bar and Sportswrap on the big screen. The commentator was going over Rayburn’s contract: $2.5 million signing bonus, half this year, half next, $5.05 million the first year, $5.45 million the next, $5.85 million the year after that, with an option year of $6.05 million if he reached five hundred at bats in the last year. There were also incentive bonuses, based on winning the MVP or any parts of the Triple Crown, and a separate $1 million fund to provide deferred payments starting in 2007.
Leon shook his head.
“Why not?” Gil said. “He’s going to take them all the way.”
Leon kept shaking his head. “What’s that oh-five million shit, anyway?”
“Fifty grand.”
Leon laughed. “I don’t even make that. Not close. Not close to his piddly little tacked-on oh-five. And I’m working three jobs, if you count that sanitation scam.”
Gil had another draft, then one more. He walked into The Cutler’s Corner at three on the dot. There was no one inside except the owner, smoking a cigarette at the back. He started to put it out, recognized Gil, kept smoking. Just one more thing Gil hated about his job.
The Cutler’s Corner wasn’t a big client, usually good for a two- or three-hundred-dollar order. Gil took out the sample case, showed the owner everything, including the Iwo Jima catalogue. The owner examined the Survivor. “Not a bad handle.” He ordered one.
“What else can I do for you?”
“Nothing else.”
“That’s it?”
“This time.”
“But what about reorders on our other lines? The Clip-its-you’ve always done well with them.”
“Not lately.” The owner waved at the display cases. “Nothing’s moving except the Jap stuff, and not enough of that.”
Gil wrote the order: one Survivor, gross $37.75, commission $4.72.
Four dollars and seventy-two cents. A day’s work. Less what he’d spent at Cleats, on parking, lottery ticket, Sporting News, gas. But you couldn’t think like that, couldn’t think minus, not in his business. You got in the car. You kept plugging.