I flew the few remaining steps to Al’s condo and lay on the buzzer.
“Hey, where’s the fire?” Al turned and shuffled back to the living room.
“Have a seat. Lynn Anne’s just finishing up. She's in sales like we are, for Marquee Lovely Beds.”
Lynn Anne, who looked a rough forty-five, was all smiles. “Your friend’s a tough customer.” She took a drag on her cigarette. Al was old school and very tolerant of smokers. “I went out on a limb for him on the price, but he still won't budge.” She tipped a few ashes into the cellophane wrapper around her Virginia Slims. “Just let me call my boss, Mr. Daniels, before I leave and tell him how it went here.”
I waited till Lynn-Anne got someone on the line, and grabbed the phone from her hand. “Hello, Mr. Daniels? It’s Lynn Anne.” I said as sweetly as I could.
“Hey Lynn Anne, it’s Joe, I’m taking the Daniels calls today. What did ya drop to?”
“What did I drop to? Hmmmmm, Let’s see. How about I dropped to a hundred bucks!! Or how about we give this one away?”
“What the hell?”
“What’s the matter Joe, did the sales manager shake you up this morning? Are you afraid you’ll be selling paintings on velvet out of a truck on the side of the road if we don’t close this deal?”
Click. The phone went dead. Joe beat me to the punch.
“Well, I guess my boss wasn’t in.” Lynn Anne said as she hit her knee on the coffee table on her way out the door.
Al didn’t wait for the door to shut behind her before he asked me if I'd lost my mind.
“No Al! I’m telling you! These are bad guys! They’re not salespeople like us. They’re thieves. They play with the prices, put on a lot of pressure, and sometimes after they have your money you don’t even get a bed! Or you get some other bed that doesn’t go up and down!”
“How do you know all this?”
I told him about the meeting I fell into that morning. After I got done talking, all Al said was “Adele.”
“What about her?”
“She told me she bought a bed from them that same morning we went out. She wrote them a check for $3200. I bet she’s waiting for delivery now.”
I felt terrible. “She might be waiting a long time.”
Of course, Al was not going to let this stand. He started rummaging through the pile of TV Guides and Modern Maturity on his coffee table. Then he handed me both the white and yellow pages for Miami.
“Look up some numbers for me, will ya?”
We spent the afternoon on the phone. Or at least Al did. I did a lot of looking up of numbers and calling directory assistance.
I watched Al work the phones. Nothing gets a salesmen’s blood up more than the thought of someone trying to run a scam on them. It’s the ultimate insult.
Al threatened, cajoled, pleaded, or played on peoples’ sympathies. If I’d ever had any doubt that Al really had been the number one paper cup salesman in NYC for four years straight, I was convinced now. The man could talk.
By four o’clock Al was hoarse and I was frazzled. We both agreed we’d done all we could do that day, so I ran out for some wine coolers.
Over the next few days, Al and I touched base every morning at the pool, checking in with each other for any developments. Al heard through the condo grapevine that Adele hadn’t gotten her bed and she was making calls to Marquee Lovely.
There it was, just below the fold, “Attorney General Announces Investigation into Marquee Lovely Beds”
“You did it Al. I only provided an assist. You’re the one who knew who to call and what to say.”
“Now I’ve got to get them to send me Adele’s money!” Al left as abruptly as he entered.
I don’t know exactly what Al said to the good folks at Marquee Lovely, but Al got them to refund Adele’s money, and he got them to send her check to him.
The day Al got Adele’s check he asked her out for a date. I got the impression she may have been hesitant to go out with him at first, but once he told her he’d planned a big surprise for her she was too curious to resist. Al always was a good salesman. This time he swore things would be different.
The night of their date, I sat up past 10 pm watching TV, occasionally stepping out into the warm moist night air to see if I could catch a glimpse of Al and Adele walking back from the bus stop.
“Well, look who's here,” I said. “Nice ride.”
“Adele I’d like you to meet my good friend.”
After I introduced myself, I asked them in for coffee.
That evening I got to know Adele a little. She really was a fine woman, good looking too, and definitely a bit taller than Al. Adele told me she’d been completely surprised by the limo, but the real topic of conversation that evening was the check Al was able to get for her from Marquee Lovely.
“If I were you I’d cash that check, ASAP Adele,” I said.
“Don’t worry,” Al said. I made them send a cashier check.” He tapped the side of his forehead with one finger.
“You’re something else, Al. Isn’t he Adele?”
Adele agreed and insisted Al tell us exactly how he was able to get the attorney general to investigate them and get her money back.
“Yeah Al,” I said. “How’d you think to go after these guys?”
Al said he’d had his eyes on those people for months, and he'd only asked a salesman to his house to get the goods on them. What drove him to drop the net when he did was Adele. He’d heard she’d gotten involved with them, so he had to act. He couldn’t let them run away with her money. Not while he was still breathing.
He told us he started by calling the district attorney’s office in Miami and Broward counties. Then he called our congressman and our senator, the Chamber of Commerce and the Better Business Bureau. Of course, he called the Miami Herald and the local senior advocate group. I was surprised he didn’t tell us he called Crockett and Tubbs on the set of Miami Vice, but maybe he did. He and I made a lot of calls together that afternoon.
After that evening Al started seeing Adele pretty regularly, and they became an item around Château Lorraine. I sometimes drove them both to appointments, and afterward, we’d all go to lunch together. Occasionally the three of us would watch Matlock. Adele liked wine coolers as much as Al and I did.
One morning when Al and I were sitting by the pool, he asked me if it bothered me that he’d never told Adele I was the one who had tipped him off about Marquee Lovely Beds. I told him it didn’t matter. I just set him in the right direction, looked up some phones numbers, and provided a cheering section. In the end, it was all his work and everything turned out fine. Adele got her money back and Miami had one less scammer to contend with. And more important than that, it made a much better story the way he told it.
And as I’m sure you know by now gentle reader, I’m always all for that.
To everyone who has read my stories: Thank you, thank you, so your kind indulgence. Writing these stories was a lot of fun, and I've learned a lot about what it takes to be a writer. But not enough. I'm putting the blog and these stories aside for a while. In January I'm taking a graduate-level course in fiction writing at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT. I wonder what the gang at Wesleyan will think of my folks from Wheeling, Pittsburgh, and Miami! Could be interesting. Best, best to all and thank you again for reading!!
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