The cuffs were rolled up past his elbows and a tuft of the dense hair on his chest peeked over the top button. He wore khaki slacks with a pair of dark brown loafers. His long, black hair was pulled tightly into a ponytail behind the base of his skull, his green eyes leering from beneath his thick unibrow. A scruffy goatee wrapped an “o” around his thin lips, more than accentuating the look of surprise on his sun burnt face. A tattoo of a dragon was carved into his right forearm.
“What can I do for you,” he asked, looking Scott up and down.
“I’m looking for Shane Corso.”
“Who can I tell him is here?”
“Scott Ramsey,” he said, gnawing the corner of his lip.
“Have a seat over there and I’ll tell him you’re here.”
Scott turned to see a pair of folding chairs leaning against the wall. Pulling one down, he opened it and sat down, staring around the darkened room. There was a small door to the right side of the room without a knob, just a little circular hole where there had once been one. A peeled sticker on the door stated that at least once it had been a “Restroo.”
The door opened to the left again as Shane burst into the room. With the exception of the thick sideburns, he looked just as he had a decade ago. He was wearing an expensive looking suit with a bright red and black patterned tie. His highly polished black shoes reflected the dim light that seeped from beneath the door he had just exited. And while his light brown hair was somewhat thinner, it was still in the same style he had worn it back in high school.
“Scott Ramsey,” he said, a wide, white toothed smile appearing. He looked like a salesman. “Long time no see, my brother. What’s it been twelve years?”
He offered his hand.
“Something like that,” Scott said, clasping the hand which more than firmly squeezed it.
“What brings you down here on a night like this?”
“I was hoping you might have a few minutes to talk.”
Shane glanced down at the watch beneath his ornate gold cufflinks.
“I’ve always got time for an old friend. Why don’t we go to my office.”
Turning, he opened the wooden door and held it wide, allowing Scott to pass through the doorway first.
It was an enormous room, with desks as far as the eye could see. There were people sitting in those desks, all of them with a phone held to their ear. Their voices clamored into a loud din, with none of them standing out. A handful of nicely dressed men and women walked the floor with clipboards leaning over the shoulders of the people on the phones. Every ten desks or so, there was a large chalkboard on wheels. Written on the green surface was a line of names along the left side, each of them with a varying amount of white markings to the right.
Shane slipped in front of Scott and walked straight down the thin walkway between the desk towards a closed door at the back of the room.
“But ma’am, surely you knew that it was Al Capone who originally started the better business bureau,” a man on the phone to his right said as he passed.
“Now ma’am,” another said from a different desk. “I’m a business man and a Christian…”
“I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts that you’re not only going to appreciate the quality of those pens, but I’ve got a hunch you may be the big winner,” a tall, burly looking fellow said into the old style receiver.
Shane opened the door and stepped to the side to allow Scott to walk through, closing it behind him. The roar from the room outside was nearly sealed off from them; barely the hum of the clamor crept from the crack beneath the door.
Shane walked around the desk and sat in the leather chair behind the desk. There was a brass nameplate affixed to a wooden placard at the front of the barren desk.
“Mr. Corso,” Scott read with a nod.
“That’s me,” Shane said, lacing his fingers behind his head and leaning back in the chair.
“Well, Mr. Corso,” Scott said, lowering his voice and leaning forward. “I’ve got to ask. What is it that you do here?”
“We sell pens.”
“Pens?”
“Not just the ball pens that you’ll find in every store in the world, but nice pens. You’ve seen Cross pens, right?”
“I got a pair for graduation.”
“Just like that.”
“Just like that?”
“Well, truthfully, they’re not quite as nice. We get them in volume from Taiwan, but in addition to those pens, our customers have the chance to win five thousand dollars.”
“Hence, International Awards.”
“Bingo,” Shane said, pointing at Scott.
“How much do you charge for these pens?”
“19.95 for a set of four, but they always receive one of our four fantastic awards.”
“Fantastic?”
“Sorry, man, I’m in work mode.”
Scott chuckled, “And what would that award be?”
“Ninety- nine percent of the time they get a nice feaux opal broach, but one in every twenty thousand wins the big one.”
“Five thousand bucks.”
“Right.”
“So these people are lured into buying the pens by the hope of winning five thousand dollars.”
“We call them ‘mooks’.”
“Classy.”
“Did you come down here to insult me, or what? Not everyone inherits their daddy’s business, tough guy. I make ten percent of every sale. That’s close to five thousand bucks a week. I barely work forty hours and I’m driving a brand new 3000 GT. If you can top that, please do. Otherwise, get to the point.”
His smile had faded to a scowl, his hands falling to the desk in front of him where he leaned forward, somewhat menacingly towards Scott.
“Relax,” Scott said, shaking his head. “I just came down here to see what you were up to these days. I ran into your mom earlier today and she said that I could find you here.”
“Well, okay then,” he said, his smile returning.
“We’re all just about to knock off for the night. Can I buy you a drink or something?”
“Sounds good.”
“Can I offer you another form of recreation?” Shane asked with a curious glimmer in his eye as he opened the top drawer of the desk and pulled out a small mirror and a glass vial.
“Thanks anyway,” Scott said, watching as Shane tapped the contents of the vial onto the mirror in two straight lines of white powder. Capping the vial, he slipped it back into the desk and pulled a one hundred- dollar bill from the desk.
“We use these as incentives,” he said, holding up the bill momentarily before rolling it tightly into a small straw.
Placing it into his right nostril, he lowered it to the glass and deeply inhaled the first of the two lines. Sniffing back the run off, he tilted his head back as his eyes began to water furiously. Swallowing hard, he licked his teeth and switched nostrils, inhaling the final line. The welling tears forced his eyes shut as he brought both fists to his face to rub them.
Finally opening his red rimmed eyes, he licked his finger and rubbed it across the mirror, picking up the remnants of the dust that marred his image as he stared intently down at it. Contented, he rubbed his finger beneath his upper lip across his gums and slid the mirror back into the desk.
“I prefer my sugar in my coffee,” Scott said somewhat uneasily.
Shane burst into a laughing fit that boomed and echoed throughout the hollow office.
