Dating Games Page 6

  “Would offer you something to eat, but this is only gonna take a minute, so …,” Dotson said, still flipping pages through Rafe’s file. “They let you out in three of a five for good behavior. Even though you didn’t test positive for them, you got busted selling drugs, so you’re gonna be tested every month. You get caught using or dealing again, you go back and finish your five. Got that?” Dotson looked up from the file, grabbed his coffee cup, and took a sip.

  “Yeah, I got it,” Rafe said, taking in the beat-up-looking man. He looked at the tired tweed sport jacket he was wearing, the sweater vest and shirt under that. His hair was short, graying, messy. He had wrinkles under his eyes and dirt under his nails. Rafe wanted to see this guy as few times as possible.

  “You got somewhere to stay?” Dotson said, not bothering to look at Rafe this time.

  “Yeah.”

  “Write it down,” the man said, pulling a small pad and pencil from out of his inside breast pocket and pushing them across the table. “Phone number too, if you got one.”

  Rafe wrote down the address. “I don’t know the phone number, yet.”

  “Give it to me next time,” Dotson said. “You got three weeks to find employment. Got any idea of where you’re going to be working?”

  “Un-uh,” Rafe said, giving Dotson back the pad and pencil. “I was hoping that maybe you might know of somebody or something I could do.”

  Dotson sat his cup down, and gave Rafe a long look without saying a word or sacrificing what he was thinking. Then he said, “As a matter of fact, I do know of something. Says in the file that you took some automotive repair courses while inside.”

  “Yeah, I did,” Rafe said, proudly. “I got really good too.”

  “Well, there’s this exotic car dealership. You know, Porsches, Ferraris, things like that, about twenty minutes from here. I happen to know that they’re looking for a mechanic. You think you could work on cars like that?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Rafe tried not to sound too excited. It wasn’t the fact that he’d be working on Porsches that got him going, although that didn’t hurt. It was just the fact that he’d be working.

  Dotson went into his pocket again, pulled out a number of small, folded pieces of paper, and finally found the one he was looking for, passed it to Rafe.

  “You know where that is?”

  “No. But I could find it.”

  “Don’t worry about it. They’re looking for someone immediately, so I’ll just take you over there.” Dotson fingered a few bills out of his wallet and tossed them on the table.

  “When?” Rafe asked.

  “Now,” Dotson said, standing from the table. “That’s what immediately means. C’mon.”

  Dotson’s old Ford LTD pulled up in front of a building with huge storefront windows and shiny, expensive European cars sitting behind them. Rafe looked up at the building. Mirror Motors read the sign that stretched out over the sidewalk.

  “All right, good luck,” Dotson said, the car still running.

  “Aren’t you coming in, or something?” Rafe asked, turning to him.

  “I’m not the one that’s trying to get a job. Now go on in there. You got nothing to worry about. I told you they’re looking to fill the position. Now go, and give me a call by next week.”

  Rafe reluctantly got out of the car, and after it pulled away, he felt helpless, clueless, and questioned if he should even go inside the store. Then he realized he had nothing else. This was his only lead, so he might as well make an attempt, even if they did laugh him right back out onto the street.

  Rafe walked into the dealership and in between all the beautiful cars, saw men in expensive suits, some showing the cars off, others nodding enthusiastically at all the features being shown to them.

  For what seemed a full minute, Rafe stood practically in the middle of the showroom, between a black Lamborghini Diablo and a champagne-colored convertible Jag. He stood there, looking around, not knowing what or whom to ask for, when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

  He jumped, spun around to find a petite, beautiful blonde woman in front of him, with a jacket and matching skirt on.

  “May I help you with something, sir?” she asked, smiling, and to Rafe, she seemed pretty sincere.

  “Yeah, I uh … I uh,” he said, nervously. And when he sensed that he would have continued problems getting the words out, he reached into his pocket and retrieved the little scrap of paper, handed it to the woman. “I was supposed to come here about a job as a mechanic. Mr. Dotson brought me here.”

  She took the paper, didn’t even look at it, and said, “Oh, yes. Here for the repair position. Come this way, sir.”

  Rafe followed her, feeling guilty about glancing down at the woman’s behind, almost feeling as though he was doing something illegal. He pulled his eyes away and quickly stared up at the ceiling. She turned and said, “Right in there, sir. Just have a seat, and the manager will be in with you shortly,” and disappeared without a sound.

  Rafe took the seat opposite the desk in the small, windowless office. His palms were sweating, and rubbing them together in attempt to rub the sweat away only made them sweat more. What the hell was he doing here? he thought. Yeah, he knew how to work on cars, and he was good—he ain’t lied about that—but they were VW Beetles, Chevy Camaros, and Ford Mustangs. Old ones at that. Why did he think he could work on cars that he knew cost up to, and over, a hundred grand?

  He was losing his damn mind if he thought they’d hire him, and now Rafe was starting to get angry with Dotson’s old, worn-out ass for even bringing him here. He wondered if this was some game that was being played on him. Make him look like a fool for the hell of it.

  Rafe needed to be at some warehouse somewhere, interviewing for a job lifting boxes. Something that he knew he could get, because they wouldn’t be asking him a million questions about what makes a million-dollar-car run.

  Yeah, that’s what he would do. He would get real and get out of there. He stood and was turning toward the door, when he was met by a fit older man with slicked back black hair, wearing a suit. He looked a lot like the former LA Lakers coach, Pat Riley.

  “Takin’ off?” the man asked, with a thick Italian accent.

  “Naw, naw,” Rafe slowly sat back down. “I was just about to go to the bathroom, but I don’t have to go no more.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  “Okay.” The man walked behind his desk and took a seat. There was a Car & Driver magazine there, which he removed and slid into a drawer, then rested his folded hands atop the desk.

  “So you’re here for the mechanic’s position?”

  “Yeah.” Rafe didn’t feel right about this whole setup.

  “You know how to fix cars?”

  “Yeah, some of them, but I don’t know about cars like you got out there,” Rafe said, turning to look out the door, toward the showroom.

  “They’re cars, like all cars. They got four wheels, one steering wheel, and an engine that makes them go. Just like women, once you fuck one, you know how to fuck ’em all. Don’t matter that one cost you ten dollars to take her out to dinner and the other cost you a hundred and ten. They all got the same equipment.”

  Rafe didn’t know if he should smile at the remark, but the man wasn’t smiling, so he didn’t.

  “So you want this job, or what?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “But nothin’. What you don’t know, we’ll teach you. Are you a good mechanic?”

  “Yeah,” Rafe confirmed.

  “You on time, don’t play games, don’t bullshit?”

  “I’m on time, and no, I don’t play games.”

  “Okay then.” The man stood up, walked around to the front of the desk, and extended his hand. “You got the job.”

  Rafe couldn’t believe what he was hearing, and now he knew this wasn’t right. “What do you mean, I got the job?”

  “That’s what I mean. You want it or not? Because if you do, y
ou not shakin’ my hand is saying something entirely different.”

  Rafe quickly placed his hand in the man’s and shook. “But I don’t even know your name. You don’t know mine.”

  “My name is Mr. Sillva, and you are Raphiel Collins, otherwise known as Rafe,” Mr. Sillva said, walking toward the door.

  Rafe stood there dumbfounded.

  “Raphiel,” Mr. Sillva said, standing just outside the door. “You were in prison, right?”

  “Yeah,” Rafe said, still not believing any of this.

  “Well, I was too. I know what it was like to be where you are. Somebody gave me a second chance, and now somebody’s giving you one. Stop questioning things. Just take it, and be happy that it’s being extended to you, okay?”

  The man was right.

  “Okay, Mr. Sillva. Thank you.”

  “Good. Brandy will be back in to settle the particulars, and we’ll see you in a couple of days. Good?”

  “Good,” Rafe smiled. Real good.

  NINE

  THE FOLLOWING evening, Livvy and Sharika hooked up as planned.

  “I don’t know about this,” Livvy said, pausing in front of the door to the New Raven Lounge.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know about this?” Sharika mimicked, standing behind her, wearing a shiny gold, silky-looking dress, that hung just above her knees. “You look fine.”

  Livvy looked down at herself. She remembered looking in the mirror for the thousandth time before they left, and there she thought she looked okay, wearing the red dress she’d had on the other night—the dress that was supposed to have seen the town with Carlos, when all it saw was her bedroom floor. But now, looking at herself, at her matching red shoes that all of a sudden felt two sizes too small, and feeling the makeup on her face that felt way too heavy, she didn’t feel attractive enough to walk through those doors.

  “I don’t feel right,” she said to Sharika. “I feel slutty.”

  “Good. That’s the idea,” Sharika laughed, pushing her in. “Get more attention that way.”

  They paid the huge round man at the door the five dollar cover and walked into the dimly lit lounge. The place was carpeted and mirrored from floor to ceiling, in the old seventies style. Even the weight-bear-ing pillars that held the ceiling over their heads had little squared pieces of mirror glued to them.

  There were three bars in this room—two on either side of the lounge and one huge U-shaped bar in the middle. Men and women dressed in nice suits and dresses sat and stood at those bars, and in chairs lining the lounge’s walls, laughing and conversing.

  Livvy walked behind Sharika through the lounge, feeling somewhat overwhelmed, but also slightly intoxicated from the excitement around her.

  “What do you think!” Sharika asked, her mouth right up to Livvy’s ear, because of the loud James Brown song that was playing.

  “Lots of people!” Livvy said, loudly.

  Sharika said something back to her, which Livvy didn’t hear, and then Sharika grabbed her hand and quickly pulled her across the room.

  They ended up at the big bar in the center of the lounge. “Quick, sit there!” Sharika plopped her bottom down on a stool, yanking Livvy down on the one next to her.

  “These are the best seats in the place,” Sharika said. “Now all we have to do is wait.”

  “Why don’t we at least get something to drink?” Livvy raised a hand, trying to get the bartender’s attention. Sharika quickly grabbed her hand and forced it down.

  “You really haven’t been out in a while. We don’t have to do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Give it a minute, would you?”

  Livvy turned her attention to the TVs that hung in the corners of the bar. She saw Jordan in his blue Wizard’s uniform, dunking on his old Chicago team, but before she could see what the score was, the bartender was standing in front of her and Sharika.

  “The gentleman across the bar wants to know what the ladies will be drinking.”

  “See, I told you,” Sharika said out the side of her mouth, nudging Livvy with her elbow.

  “Which gentleman is that?” Livvy asked, speaking sideways back to Sharika.

  “It doesn’t matter, girl. Whoever it is ain’t askin’ you to have his baby. He just trying to buy you a drink. Absolut and cranberry for both of us, thank you,” Sharika ordered.

  Livvy watched which way the bartender walked to get payment for the drinks.

  “Don’t look over there!”

  “Why not?” Livvy said, quickly turning away.

  “Don’t want him to think that this doesn’t happen to you all the time.”

  “Well it doesn’t.”

  “There’s a time to acknowledge him, and now ain’t it.”

  The bartender brought the drinks over to them, set them on napkins, placed two tiny straws in each of them, then walked away. Sharika picked up her glass, took a sip, then looked across the bar. She nudged Livvy again.

  “Now you can look.”

  A man across the bar lifted his glass and smiled at the two women.

  “My goodness,” Sharika said. “He’s hideous, and big as a baby hippo.”

  “Ooh, you’re right,” Livvy said, shielding one side of her face with her hand as she pulled her drink to her lips with the other.

  “But since you took a sip of the drink he bought you already, you know you’re going to have to sleep with him. Rules of the game.”

  “He’s going to have to catch my ass first,” Livvy said.

  TEN

  WADE WILLIAMS was pretty pissed off as he made his way home. He had followed the little old lady and her son up and down that car lot for what seemed like an hour and a half, waiting for her to decide which one she liked.

  “Well, does this one have the antenna that pops up and down when you turn on the car?” the little old lady asked.

  “No ma’am,” Wade explained, walking toward the back of the car. “As you can see, the antenna is always up. It’s a fixed antenna,” he said, smiling, but grinding his teeth at the same time.

  “And this car,” she said, sitting in a Ford Thunderbird. “It doesn’t have a handle over the driver’s side window I can grab onto,” she said, reaching a shaking, arthritic hand up to the place where she wished the handle would’ve been.

  “Well, ma’am, I believe the carmaker expects both your hands to be on the steering wheel at all times. That’s why there isn’t a handle there.”

  “There are handles over all the other windows.”

  Wade looked at her son for help, but the middle-aged, clean-cut man just gave him a look that said, You’re trying to sell her the car, not me.

  “They have handles because they aren’t near the driver’s seat, Ma’am,” Wade explained patiently.

  “Well, I don’t like the no handle thing. What else have you got?”

  The only reason Wade persevered was that he knew this woman had money, could tell by her clothes, by the way those veiny little clawlike hands held onto her bag. The clothes she was wearing were a horribly colored rainbow of sherbet pastels. She looked as though she had been dipped in Easter egg dye, but Wade knew those clothes were expensive. If there was nothing else a used car salesman knew, he knew how to spot a person with money, and she was one.

  The blue-haired lady finally settled on a late model Mercury Marquis. He finally had her sitting in front of his desk. Her body was so little that she was swallowed up by the chair. She looked like she was 12 years old instead of 112, which was how old Wade figured her decrepit butt to be.

  “So, I’ve been back to my manager, and this was the final number he said we could do.” Wade jotted it on a scrap of paper, and pushed it over to her across the desk, looking intently at her. Of course, there was no going back to the manager. The damn manager had left for the night, and even if it was noon, the whole “going back to the manager” thing was nothing more than Wade taking a leak, standing around, whistling “Dixie” in the break room for five minutes, or
just walking around the corner, and hanging out for a bit.

  The little old lady looked down at the price and gasped as though it wasn’t numbers that were written on the page but a threat on her life. She adjusted her glasses as though maybe they were to blame. Then she passed the page to her son.

  “Do you see that, Abner?”

  Poor guy, Wade thought. Fellow’s name is Abner. He has to hate his mother for that.

  “Looks pretty fair to me, Mother,” Abner said.

  “It’s a great price, Ma’am. We’re only making a five hundred dollar profit.”

  “Then maybe you ought to have a talk with Mercury for charging so much for their cars. I can remember when brand-new cars cost only two thousand dollars.”

  “With all due respect, Ma’am, that had to be a long time ago.”

  “I know it was a long time ago!” the lady snapped at Wade. “I was there! But it still doesn’t matter. A car is a car, and to ask a poor little old lady for this much money is robbery. Let’s go, Abner,” she said, standing. Abner stood, and took his mother’s arm. “My house didn’t cost this much,” she said, turning to Wade just long enough to throw back the words and give him a dirty look.

  Wade parked his Lincoln Town Car in front of the house. He’d spent two and a half hours with that woman, and what had come of it? Nothing. Nada. Zip! He’d watched as a black man and woman, obviously married, walked onto the lot, their eyes big, looking at cars. He watched as an older, distinguished white fellow wearing a suit stepped into the showroom and overheard him saying he was looking for a nice midrange sedan. In both situations, they’d gone to other salespeople. The couple to Janet, the guy to Rob, and both of them had made sales while Wade was toiling with the little old lady from hell.

  He jumped out of his car, his pride and joy, and looked it over. There was a smudge on the hood, so he pulled his handkerchief out and wiped it away. That was the first thing that had brought a smile to his face all day. What a shame, he thought.

  Wade skipped up the two stairs that put him on the walkway to the house. He bypassed the stairs to the front door, because he didn’t walk through the front door to enter the house. He took the side, just like the other two boarders.