The Fan Read Free Page B

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. Onetwenty-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 theTriple 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.