“End of the month?”
“I’m in Chicago till the twelfth. Then we’re taking two weeks in Maui.”
Rule two: take the offensive. Gil tried to think of a line that would do that, and failed.
“Hello?” said the VP. “You still there?”
“Yeah.”
“So what is it? Scratch you for the eighth?”
“No,” Gil said. “I’ll be there.” He thought of a line. “Have that checkbook ready.”
“We’ll see,” said the VP, and hung up.
Rule three: ignore rejection. He called Garrity. “Good news,” he said. “Everest loves the Iwo Jima stuff. Going to build their whole approach around it. Thing is, they’re asking for a few weeks to solidify their plans. Should I give it to them?”
“You mean they’re not going to order this month?”
“They need time to retool, like I said.”
Silence. “Give it to them,” Garrity said at last. “But it better be a whopper, Gil.”
“What?”
“Their order, I’m talking about.”
“Count on it,” Gil said.
“We are,” said Garrity. “See you on the ninth.”
“The ninth?”
“Sales meeting.”
“Right,” said Gil. “Got to go. I’m on a call.” Look and sound successful.
Gil stopped at Cleats for a quick one, then got back in the car, kept plugging. First, the bank. After making the car payment and the interest payments on his cards, he had $693.20 in his checking account and three or four hundred in his pocket. Plus the tickets. Free and clear, big boy, free and clear.
He hit Bluewater Fishing and Tackle. The owner’s son was out front. Gil showed him the Iwo Jima catalogue, got him excited. Then the owner, a fat old guy in a plaid shirt, walked in from the back room. He checked out the catalogue, asked if Gil had any samples. Gil handed him the Survivor.
“Great handle,” said the owner’s son.
The owner turned the Survivor over in his hands a few times, then looked up at Gil. “This is shit, Gil. You know that.”
Gil wanted to say, “Shit sells.” Especially if it’s got a fancy handle. But: don’t argue with a customer. He put the Survivor away. “What about the regular stuff?” His headache, which had shrunk back to the wedge behind his right eye, now expanded again.
“I’ll take three-dozen Clipits,” the owner said. “And a dozen of those folding hunters with big bolsters.”
“Eight-inch?”
“Five and a quarter. A dozen skinners, two boxes of pocketknives-”
“Red?”
“Blue. Dozen fillet knives, and maybe two of those birders.
“And?”
“That’ll do it.”
“That’ll do it?” March was supposed to be a big month. Bluewater had ordered three or four times as much the year before.
“Blame the economy,” the owner said.
Gil wrote up the order. Commission: $187.63. He faxed it in from the car, then stopped at Cleats and checked the box scores over a hamburger and a beer. Rayburn: 0 for 4, 4 Ks.
“Burrows is an asshole,” Gil said.
“Just because he wants them to work for their money?” Leon said, drawing a pint of Harpoon.
“Use your head, Leon. Rayburn’s an investment. Like an oil well. Got to protect your investments.”
“I feel like shit today,” Leon replied, “and I’m in here busting my ass. No one said, ‘You’re our oil well, Leon. Take the day off.’ ”
“You’re replaceable. That’s the difference.”
“And you’re not?” Leon said, before he remembered they stood on opposite sides of the bar, or noticed the expression on Gil’s face. “Hey, no offense.” Leon drew another pint. “On me.”
Gil drank up, went outside. Snow was falling, just as Lenore had forecast. He realized he had to piss, didn’t want to go back inside. He stepped into an alley, pissed a yellow circle in the fresh snow, added crescent seams inside its borders: a baseball. And had plenty left inside him to melt it all away.
North of the city, snow fell harder. It took Gil an hour to reach Great Outdoors, a big well-stocked store with a waterfall and a wall for rock climbing. Gil walked around until a woman with a name tag on her down vest approached and said, “May I help you, sir?”
Look and sound successful. “I’d like to see the owner.”
“The owner?”
“Or the manager.”
“May I ask what it’s about?”
“Business,” Gil said. Tell nothing to underlings. That was another rule.
The woman looked him over, then led him to the manager’s office, went in by herself, came out a moment later. “He’ll see you.”
Gil walked in, pulling out his card. The first thirty seconds were everything on a cold call. Hype, hype. “Gil Renard,” Gil said, laying the card on the desk: R. G. RENARD FINE KNIVES. He smiled a confident smile. The man at the desk didn’t look at the card. He sat behind a computer, fingers poised over the keys.
“You’re a rep?”
“Right. And I couldn’t help noticing that in this big beautiful store devoted to the outdoors, there isn’t a single knife.” He opened his briefcase.
“We’ll have scads of them in a few days,” said the manager.
“Excuse me?”
“The ship docked in San Francisco last night.”
“You’ve got a supplier?”
“Exactly.” The manager named a Japanese company, one of the best.
Gil smiled his confident smile. “If you’ll give me three minutes”-he’d stolen that line from Figgy-“I can prove to you that we’re competitive with them in quality, and better in price. In fact, we’ve got a new-”
“Not possible,” said the manager. “We’ve signed a three-year exclusive.”
There was no line to counter that. “Maybe I could leave our catalogue.”
“Just lay it there.” The manager’s fingers fluttered down to the keys.
Outside the snowflakes had grown fat, moist, silvery; almost rain. Gil walked around the Great Outdoors building and pissed against a packing case. Then he got in the car and drove south.
The phone buzzed.
“I’m looking at the Bluewater order.” Garrity. “What the hell’s going on?”
“He says it’s the economy.”
“I’m not talking about the size of the order, although that stinks too. I’m talking about why aren’t you pushing the goddamn Iwo Jima line?”
“I’m pushing it. The old guy knows his stuff, that’s all.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That it’s shit and he knows it.” Was he yelling? The woman in the next car was watching him.
There was a pause before Garrity spoke again. “You’d better do some thinking, Gil.”
“About what?”
“I don’t have to spell it out, boyo.” Click. Hum.
Gil tried to do some thinking. The first thought he had was about the time Boucicaut knocked himself out against the backstop, chasing a pop foul. Boucicaut. A rock. Odell, for all his strength and skill, wasn’t a rock like Boucicaut.
Gil turned on the radio.
