The BOYS

Episode eight

Zweiss Interplanetary wasn't in Temecula proper, but at the crossroads off the Interstate that led, in every direction, to desert outposts of the Native American casino ghettos. It was a second-floor office over a nail parlour and adult bookshop, and in a strip mall that had to date back to the Kennedy administration... there was a Chikin Shak, a bankrupt check-cashing dive that had been converted into a place where you could get legal prescription drugs, cheap, from Canada, Mexico and the Far East, another storefront where you buy and prepay for your own fuckin' coffins. This last enterprise lifted Walt's spirits... it was takin' business away from all the stuck-up morticians like De Clericy, the one who'd given him the bum's rush without even allowing the courtesy of trying to sell himself.

If there weren't going to be any more good jobs for Americans that allowed them to save up for a proper funeral, well, there'd be a lot more do-it-yourself jobs down the road. Of course, when the funeral homes went out business... Walt reckoned as he rolled up the windows, tight, and locked the Town Car (the strip mall was in one of those places that you had to be politically correct enough to say was a "transitional" neighborhood)... there wouldn't be any more funeral home jobs for anyone. But, like the kids used to say, what goes around comes around. Few more years of recession and we’ll be eating the dead, he figured, gathering his briefcase.

The porno joint seemed empty... probably another soon-to-be victim of the Internet… and a Chinese or Korean lady leaning on an empty chair winked at him through the nail parlour glass. He smiled back and pressed the buzzer next to the dingy white door between shops, inspecting his freshly barbered scalp in the glass. It was only a haircut... but, for seven ninety-five and a dollar tip, how could he, or anyone, expect the right to a style?

There was a buzz and he pressed the door open. The staircase ran straight upwards to a grimy window - it was carpeted in something that had, once, been a light blue. There was a dead bug on the third step, another on its back, waving antennae and legs feebly, on the fifth. At the top of this unhappy staircase, corridors ran in both directions... left to a fire exit, right to a corner which Walter chose, because more frontage would seem to insinuate more office space, more offices and, therefore, a greater likelihood of Zweiss being in this direction. Suddenly, a barrel-chested fellow in a greasy suit hurried past, metals clanking and rattling in the cheap suitcase he carried. He had stringy hair and great, bulging eyes that reminded Walt of the dead comedian, Marty Feldman, and, after brushing past, trailing invisible but thick waves of body odor, he skidded to a stop at the top of the stairway, paused, staggered and bellowed to the frowning job applicant...

"Samovars! Samovars!... alright? Is that what you people are after? Get out of my mind!"

He slapped at the greasy strands of his own scalp, as if he'd been espying on Walter, somehow, mimicking his grooming motions (or brushing off uninvited microlivestock). Then he turned and began running downstairs, and Walter began walking cautiously towards the right angle, turned and saw a red placard on a brown door - Zweiss Interplanetary - above a page, probably torn out of National Geographic, or Sky and Telescope, showing the planet Mars, as photographed from a satellite.

He knocked.

"Come in," was the baritone reply.

Walt turned the knob, slapped a tin smile on his face, and strode confidently towards the old desk, behind which a middle-aged black man, bespectacled and rather pudgy (in a sort of Al Roker way, pre-diet) waved a fiercely chewed, unlit cigar, pointing, with it, to a bare, well-used yellow kitchen chair in front of the desk. The window behind Zweiss was half-blinded, affording a view of the parking lot, Chikin Shak and a transmission place across the intersection, there was a heavy, old credenza against one wall, with books and photographs... against the other, two double vinyl rear seats had been pulled out of a car and set up on cinderblocks to make a sort of couch, above which was a framed diploma from an "Interplanetary College". To the right of this was a real estate deed with writing too small to be read, and a letter signed (mechanically, Walt would guess, upon closer inspection) from an American astronaut. On the left of the diploma was a poster from the Star Trek III movie.

Walt sat on the kitchen chair, which groaned, slightly, under his bulk. "Walter? Walter... Fales..." the black man said. "I'm a Walter, too, Walter... Zweiss, Walter Conrad Zweiss. But, if you are hired, I am to be referred to as Mister Z." He stopped to give Fales the fisheye, and Walt finally lowered his head and nodded. "So... you are the mature gentleman Mrs. Jones sent over..."

Walter looked up, attempting a smile that would be deferential, but without seeming too abject or effeminate. "That's me!"

"How is Glyniece looking? You already have one point in your favor, young man - she rarely steers losers my way. She understands my rigour..."

"Sir?... yes, she seemed fine. Fine. Uh... interesting premise, Interplanetary, uh..."

"Does your use of the word 'premise' imply 'pretense'?" Mister Z frowned, pointing his cigar at the wall over the improvised couch. "I am, in my corporate self, the proud owner of forty acres on the planet Mars and, should we be fortunate enough to begin colonization within my lifetime, I fully expect at least one of every Zweiss property to be operational thereupon. A Chickin Shak, Dog Pound, a Fathom..."

"I don't know the latter," Walter admitted.

"It's what people in society refer to as a string of gentlemen's clubs," Mr. Z snorted, returning his cigar to his mouth, wiping away a small trail of drool that had condensed on the wet tobacco. "I have two in Nevada, and another out past Palm Desert on leased Native American property. But I am afraid that those establishments haven't any openings for our gender, at present, heh heh. Sorry so... tell me about yourself. Don't hold anything back, but don't waste my time, or your own, with names and dates. Glyniece sent all of those over to me, with your resume and two credit reports. She's very resourceful - probably knows things about you that you don't know about yourself, yet..."

"Well, then..." Walter began, "...I ought to begin by mentioning that I had absolutely no idea about what Bill Braxton was up to, that came as a complete and total surprise..."

"Doesn't look very good, either way, your being left out in the dark or else having packaged so many of his suspicious securities and... uh... packages."

"Well, they were very good properties... or at least their credentials were, I mean, aside from having been forged. The stockholder brochures, the analyst rating xeroxes from four of those very expensive financial newsletters... made up, of course, but they looked real... it was just Bill who was bent, Mr. Z. I'm a victim, too, as much as were any of the clients. More so... most of them were diversified or even insured. I had everything I owned in a company portfolio."

Mr. Z. removed the cigar from his mouth, put his feet up on his desk, showing the well-traveled soles of his shoes to the applicant. It was rude, but it was his desk, after all, his shoes.

"Unwise," the entrepreneur finally determined.

"Well, it was Bill's way, or the highway, you understand? I have always placed a premium on loyalty, deserved or undeserved. My bad! Less than a month ago, I'm worth a million four, on paper. Now, zero! Less than zero..."

"That is a problem," mused Zweiss. "My management trainees, Mr. Fales, must complete three months' training at my Interplanetary College in Barstow... and that's fifty-eight hundred dollars."

Walter had accepted, as his due and albatross, the C's and D's in higher mathematics courses that his college and business school had felt obliged to inflict upon young persons who would never again be commanded, for the rest of their careers in law, accounting or marketing, to define a co-tangent or recite, from memory, any of the proofs in the "Principia Mathematicae", either of Newton or Bertrand Russell... but he could do simple math in his head. "Well, it ain't Braxton money, sir... Mister Z... but in case Mrs. Jones didn't tell you, or you haven't figured out for yourself, I'm up the creek..."

And he gave himself a mental pat on the back for not having said what he really felt... up shit creek! Language! as Ms. Jones had warned him...

Zweiss set the wet cigar down in a clear ashtray with the name of a casino inscribed in red and gold, sighed and shook his head. "That is not a training wage, Mr. Fales, it would be your tuition. Out-of-pocket... and then you can count on an additional buck seventy-five in rent at the motel... students receive a substantial discount!... there's meals, this and that. Oh no, my boy, I would not count upon completing this program without an investment of at least... oh, if you have learned, by your misfortune, the virtues of frugality... nine thousand..."

Wincing, Walter began to rise. "Then I am sorry that we have wasted each other's time. I was looking for one of those old-fashioned jobs, you know, where I work and somebody pays me, not where I work, and pay them..."

"Twentieth-century thinking," Mister Z chuckled, then sighed again. "Normally, I do not micro-manage my diverse enterprises, but I do believe that there may be an opening at one outlet, whose day manager may be a bit, well, difficult..."

Walter sat down again. "I'm listening," he said.

"Pay's only five twenty-four to start, but there's a raise to five thirty-eight after sixty days."

Walter put his mathematical cap back on. Five twenty four times fifty-two... maybe less holidays and vacations, but with benefits... certainly with benefits, this was America, wasn't it? Still didn't work.

"Comes out to less than a third my base at BCM," he squealed, like the pig who's just been told where bacon comes from. "I realize I have to take what I can get, but I thought I'd be worth at least half... and then we could, you know, set the rest of it up on incentives. I can do incentives, I'm a hard worker..."

"Hard workers I can pick up anywhere," Zweiss said, picking up the filthy, wet cigar, and letting it roll around in his mouth. "Down at the paint store, put an ad in the Voz del Sur, or go see this fellow in Chinatown with plenty of guys, fresh off the boat and ready to work their butts off. Smart workers are something else... but you're not smart, or you'd realize I'm proposing..." and he held up the printout of Walter's resume that Glyniece had transmitted over the Internet, "...five twenty-four an hour. Nice of the government to roll back the minimum wage for the first six months… you make it to spring, you get the six fifteen. No benefits, of course, but overtime after forty hours and on Christmas, no New Years' overtime, no Thanksgiving. No benefits without an Interplanetary diploma, Glyniece should’ve made that clear. Independent contractor status too, meaning you cover your own payroll tax... I know guys like you, something better's going to come along and you jump ship, rip me off. But I can live with that... or Barry will, he'll have to." Mister Z winked. "I'm desperate, and you're desperate, too, so what really matter is how desperate. Time's flyin', boy... take it or leave it."

And, before he could tell Zweiss where to take his proposal (and his five twenty-four an hour), the unbidden wisdom of Sal Duquesne leapt to mind... not just the repetitious counsel to take a job, any job, but the warning that the Feds would probably contact him again, maybe tomorrow. Maybe they would even be waiting for him when he got home.

"Why not five an' a quarter, goin' up to five forty?" he suggested.

Zweiss smiled, queasily. "Nine cents over the six-month training minimum is more than most deserve. Don't want my boys takin' advantage of me..."

"I'll... I guess I'll take it..."

“Damn right you will,” the black man nodded, scribbling something on the edge of a colored advertisement from Safeway that had been in yesterday's paper, next to that story about the makeover of the fifty dollar bill, Walter remembered and that other one about Jack Daniel having diluted its whiskies. Something better had to come along, and when it did, Walter vowed, he'd be ready.

"It's in San Cris... 27162 Gerson, Northwest. You know where that is?"

"I'm good with directions," Walt said peevishly, something tugging at his memory.

"Can't miss it... right on the corner, in front of this strip mall with a health club and some Middle Eastern place... I don't own that property," Mr. Z shrugged, "I just hold leases." He opened the topmost drawer on the right side of his desk. "Cigar?"

Walter caught himself about to reach for it. "This isn't some kind of test, is it? I don't mind an occasional smoke but it's not like I'm an addict. I wouldn't be wasting time on cigarette breaks," he added, despite reality's scream: five twenty-four a fuckin' hour, take all the breaks that you can, and if they can't deal with it, screw 'em. But, instead, he just gave another of those good-dog smiles while Zweiss held the cigar just out of reach, finally handing it over.

He made a show of twirling it in his hands, appreciating it. "Think I'll enjoy this later, if it's all the same to you... I still have appointments, and I'm sure you do, also." Mr. Z. smiled back. "There is something I thought you could tell me... how much does it cost? Forty acres on Mars."

Zweiss smiled more broadly than ever. "Twenty-nine ninety-five, my boy... mule not included. From these people over a website who have connections to NASA in Houston, so the best thing is," he winked, "no sales tax!"

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