Chapter 7
A catalog of power fashion packed the lunch-hour sidewalk at Connecticut Avenue and K, the downtown hub of the city’s lobbyists, and blue-chip law and brokerage firms. Armani suits and Louis Vuitton handbags paraded by, sharing the concrete with the homeless and the vendors and the bums, the scent of Opium colliding with the stench of urine.
At one particularly busy avenue storefront, Washington’s working women-secretaries, attorneys, and hookers-buzzed in and out of glass doors. Those exiting the shop carried white plastic bags emblazoned with a luxuriant blue logo depicting one delicate foot resting on a pillow. Mean Feet, D.C.’s premier shoe boutique, had begun to heat up.
Inside, Randolph worked the floor.
“What size, girlfriend?” Randolph said, to the woman in the red skirt. She was standing by the display rack holding a spectator, a black number with a blue vamp, in her hand.
“That depends on what you’re doing tonight,” she said coyly.
“Tonight?” Randolph said, buying time, looking away like he was thinking it over, really looking at the rest of the customers on the floor, making sure none of the other boys took one of his women. Antoine, that skinny boy from Georgia, was edging over to one of his best regulars, a perfect seven and a half, a regular with a full-time paycheck and a government job. And Jorge, the Latin with the thin mustache and all the hair, was sniffing after something in a tight leather skirt, always lookin’ to get next to that Man in the Boat.
“Yes, tonight.”
Randolph looked down impatiently at the woman’s foot. “You an eight and a half, right?”
“That’s right.”
“How’s next Tuesday sound?”
“Tuesday’s good,” said the woman in the red skirt.
Randolph said, “I’ll be right back.”
On the way to the stockroom Randolph stopped at a large woman wearing a colorful dress and a headband to match. She was sitting on the end of the padded bench, and she was holding a sale shoe, some burlap-lookin’ bullshit, some old-ass espadrille-lookin’ shit, in her callused hand.
“You ready now?” Randolph said.
“Nine,” said the woman.
“Be right back.” Randolph paused before entering the stockroom. He turned and shouted across the sales floor, over the seventies funk-Rick James, “Bustin’ Out of L 7”-that was booming out the store speakers, toward his regular, who was now holding a shoe and talking to Antoine. “What size, baby?”
The woman said, “Antoine’s helping me today, Randolph.”
Randolph bugged his eyes and shook his head. “Uh- uh! What you want to talk to that itty-bitty”-Randolph paused, grabbed the top of his thigh, shook what he grabbed-“you want a man with some heft, don’t you, baby?”
The regular looked at Antoine, blinked apologetically, and turned back to Randolph. “Seven and a half,” she said.
Randolph jetted into the stockroom, kicking boxes out of the way. He felt Antoine follow him back.
“What you want to go and disrespect me like that for?” Antoine shouted, as he entered the clutter of stock and stretching tools and empty cartons.
Randolph turned, gave Antoine his godfather stare. “You know better than to talk to my ladies, Spiderman.”
“Don’t call me no Spiderman, man.”
Randolph softened his voice-he didn’t need to throw gasoline on this shit, not during the rush. “Go on, man. There’s plenty of money out there for everyone. Plenty of money and plenty of honey. Right, Antoine?”
Antoine smiled his country smile, said, “That’s a bet. Sure is plenty of honey.” He turned his arachnid’s torso and loped back out the door, all arms and legs.
Randolph headed for the back of the stockroom, thinking that the boy Antoine could be good- if he concentrated more on picking up customers and less on his pride. Now the other one, Jorge, he’d wash out. All he thought about was the nappy, day and night. Randolph knew one thing: the day was for taking those shoes to the hole; the night was for the freaks.
Randolph climbed the wooden shelving to get red skirt’s nine-she’d said eight and a half, but she sure was a nine-and he pulled it from the top. He jumped to the floor, feeling the impact, even on the thin green carpet, thinking that at forty-two maybe it was time to slow down. But he had forgotten that by the time he was looking for his regular’s seven and a half. The name of the shoe was Panis, which he remembered ’cause it rhymed with Janis, the name of the redbone he’d been with the night before. The Panis-a slingback in black, he was sure that was the color she had held in her hand-was at the top of its stack, too, and he leapt up for that, got it on the second try.
On the way back out, Randolph took the biggest burlap shoe he could find for the woman in the colorful dress. She had said nine, but those big-ass, spread-out, Haitian-ass feet had to be elevens. Eleven at least-if they had stocked a twelve in the back, he would’ve brought that, too.
Out of the stockroom, Randolph surveyed the floor. The crowd had begun to thin out, the only new face a man who had entered and was now sitting on the bench. The man wore blue jeans and Timberland boots, and his black hair hung long and clean. A three-day black beard, trimmed and grown high, covered his jaw. His brow was thick and his eyes were blue and deep. Randolph’s first thought: Jesus, just like in the pictures. But what the fuck is he doin’ in my shop?
Randolph dropped the burlap shoes in front of the Haitian without a word, and moved to the woman in the red skirt. He opened the lid of the box, unwrapped the tissue with ceremonious care, and dropped to one knee. He took the right shoe and put it on her foot, and he placed the shoe on the top of his thigh as he tied it. He patted her on the ankle and ran his finger along it after the pat, saying, “Okay, darling,” as he stood and walked toward his regular seven and a half.
“How you been, baby?” Randolph said as he arrived at his regular, a fine light-skinned woman with a spray of freckles across the bridge of her nose. She smiled and moved her eyes shyly away from his. Had he ever taken her out? He couldn’t remember, just then. Randolph pulled the right slingback from the box, put her foot on his knee, and guided the shoe onto her foot.
The Haitian woman walked her shoes up to the register, where the manager, a balding, heavy-set young man, sat ringing up sales. Randolph yelled to the manager, “That’s a twenty-nine”-Randolph’s sales number-“on that one, Mr. Rick.”
Randolph excused himself, content that the Panis was going to fit just fine, and walked around to the freak in the red skirt. “Those spectators gonna do it today, girlfriend?”
She scrunched up her face. “These shoes are too hard, Randolph.”
Randolph countered: “Don’t you like hard things?”
She laughed. “Not my shoes!”
He took the shoe off her foot, patted her ankle once again. “I’ll stretch these out with some magic shit”-it was plain old alcohol, and he kept it in the back-“okay? And, oh yeah, don’t forget about Tuesday night, hear?”
The woman in the red skirt smiled. “I won’t forget. I’ll lay those spectators away today, get them out on Tuesday.”
Randolph grinned. The front door opened, and a man and three women walked in. The man wore a matching shirt and slacks combination and the women wore hot pants and halter tops and tight-assed skirts.
Randolph crossed the sales floor, stepping around Jorge, who was sitting on the bench next to his girlfriend- of-the-week, and walked up to the pimp, a guy by the name of Felix. Randolph shook Felix’s hand, using a handshake that he used only on Felix, a handshake that he had otherwise stopped using with friends since 1975.
“All right, man,” Felix said.
Randolph said, “All right. ”
