SAVAGE
SATURDAY
14) Tuesday, January 28th –
“Who’ll Vouch for Tom?”
Tom Eppert
marched into the crowded Giga-Plex Tuesday after work, looked ‘round for Ray
Wilson after brushing off Lester’s greeting, finally settling on Honey Keissler, giving her his best Ahrnuld
Schwarzenegger impression… howsoever she might be reminded of Jack Nicholson in
“The Shining”…
“I’m ba-ack!”
“Is that supposed to mean
something? I mean…” she frowned, then
glanced slyly up to Big Sonny’s cameras on the ceiling, preserving every word,
every gesture for posterity… or, rather, for Waco. “I mean, welcome to Giga-Plex, can I help
you.”
“Yeah!” he said, sidling
over to a somewhat diminished pyramid of converters – now marked up to
$189.95. “Yeah! Gimme one of those!”
So that there would be no
mistaking his intent, he waved the voucher Lenny had given him – no longer
needed after confirmation of his order of a new set.
“Gotta
voucher?” Honey blinked. She took an
order pad from the pouch in her red vest and began writing Tom’s order up. “Take this ticket to the register when you
pay and they’ll give you a receipt.
When you go out to the loading dock, you get a fresh model in the original
box.”
Tom nodded. “I know the drill…”
Making
for the register, passing the HDTV display and the throng gathered around the
Dominator glued to the back and forth between former Speaker Pelosi (immediately
turned network news commetator), Executive Orderly
installed Senator and President Pro Tem of the Senate, Newt Gingrich, and the
President’s attorney, Stephen Miller as the second most explosive of six major
impeachment processes (that of a hapless Supreme Court Justice following his
sordid and bloody incident in a no-tell motel back in October attaining
primacy) he noted that, while Ray Wilson wasn’t around, a different salesman in
a red vest was pitching the virtues of the Dominator to an elderly couple. Tom shook his head, got in line behind a kid
in a C-Money t-shirt, defying the weather, writhing to whatever steaming nonsense
was streaming through his headset. Vicki
Gordon snapped her finger… the kid gave her his ticket.
“Shaktiar Mongoose Model Four… forty-five inch, that’ll be
hmm…” Vicki scanned, “with tax, comes to eight eighty-six, fifty-four. Are you paying by check, charge card, debit…”
The kid removed his
headphones, answering in a slurred, tentative voice… “Is it OK if I… like… pay money?”
And he wrestled a worn billfold from the hip pocket of his baggy jeans
and started slapping Benjamins down on the counter. Vicki shrugged, picked them out, counting, and
handed one back…”
“You
gave me ten. That’ll be thirteen
forty-six in change…”
The
kid smiled, shaking a cigarette from its pack.
“Keep it. Ahh… like… you wanna hang with me sometime, sweet thang?”
“I’m
sorry, we’re not allowed to accept tips.
And my boyfriend wouldn’t like it if I went out with another man,” Vicky
set him down… easily, on account of the Benjamins… “he’s a football player,
with a terrible temper… and, by the way, there’s no smoking here, not anywhere
in the mall…”
And
she nodded over her shoulder to one of the armed Screaming Eagle security
guards by the door.
“Hey,
gotta try,” the kid told a fuming Tom, fist clenching
his ticket, then lowered his voice with furtive pride. “Least she called me man, man! Them Indian televisions suck, but for under a
thou, dude, what can you do?” He took
his ticket and left before Eppert decided to punch
his lights out so, instead, Tom presented Vicki the ticket and his voucher…
“That
boy is probably a narcotics dealer,” he told the cashier, “or in some way
breaking the law…”
“Might
be. Money looked good enough, though…”
Vicki held up the voucher, “do you have a picture ID, Mr. Witcher?”
“Huh,
oh… the voucher, that’s not me,” Tom demurred, “I’m uh… picking up one of these
converters for a friend. We’re sorta goin’ in on it together,
with a couple other guys, a syndicate, like…”
“Uh,
I don’t know about this… oh… Mr. Tennison!”
And, as she waved, the gold-vested manager turned from a customer at the
end of the line over at the next register… apparently having second thoughts
about the Azeri car television he’d hoisted into a Giga-Plex buggy.
“This
better be good…” Mark warned the cashier.
“This
gentleman,” Vicki pointed, “he’s buying the basic converter, but he’s using
some other guy’s voucher, says it’s
from his friend that they’re buying, like, together…”
Tom
knew a decision-maker when he saw one.
“It’s a syndicate. Lenny an’ I
work the same place, the Fed down thataway…” he
growled, as if the holdup was an imposition on national security. “I destroy the old currency, he prints up the
new, only on a later shift, so I’m picking up for him. We’re goin’ in
together… couple others, quarters, the game, you know…” his voice trailed off…
Despite the booming
business and likelihood of a hefty bonus (that might, even, make up for thin
pickings over the last two Christmases) Mark was in a surly mood… so many
stupid animals to deal with, trying
to pretend as if they knew anything, trying to chisel down the prices Big Sonny
had directed, yesterday, be raised just for
them! So many of their stupid questions! And this pretentious fuck, holding him up
over… over a fuckin’ converter that
he’d most likely return under some pretense or other after the Superbowl…
Time to kick ass!
“Sir,” he cleared his
throat, “Sir, you’re not going to be
able to use that voucher. The Federal
voucher program has very stringent rules, you cannot purchase merchandise on another
person’s voucher. It’s cheating,
stealing, actually… so just give your friend
back his voucher and either use your own, or pay the full price… or, if not,
let him use it and then sell the
device to you!”
“Aww
– give another workin’ guy a break,” Tom
wheedled. “OK, I lost the damn
thing! Satisfied? Whattya think – I
got this ring of mafias goin’ round and illegally
buying converters for all them real fancy televisions that are like, ten years
old n’ worth maybe ten bucks… do I look like some sorta
wise guy…”
“No, that you do not, but
you can’t use Mr. Uh… Witcher, is it… as your alias, and if you don’t want the
merchandise, I’m asking that you leave the premises…”
Tom harrumphed – then held
out his hand. “What?” Tennison sneered.
“My coupon. Norm’s coupon,” he corrected. “Give it back to me, then, I’ll take it over
to WalMart.
They got human beins workin’
there, sometimes, not you fuckin’ Chinese…”
Smiling, Markdown Mark
tore the coupon into little shards and let them fall to the floor with a snarky
smirk. “This is what we do to
scammers. Coupon fraud is an actionable
offense and we do not take kindly to criminals here.”
And he motioned to the
Screaming Eagle with the nametag Lester on his breast… Lester
Capps, whose heavy hand clamped down
on Tom’s shoulder, nerve-pinching his neck.
¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾
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