Vengeance (3 page)

Okay, here’s a challenge. I just told her the company she uses sucks. It’s her son’s company. To her I’ve disrespected her family. I’ve got to talk fast and think faster.

“Let me ask you a question and then I’ll leave. Is that fair?”

She held the door firm. It looked like she was getting ready to slam it in my face. I didn’t wait for her to tell me to go ahead.

“Let’s say you just went to the doctor and he told you that your cholesterol was off the charts. Arteries were clogging and he requires you to be hospitalized. He tells you to go home to pack your things and report back to the hospital by mid-afternoon. He also tells you to eat nothing until your return. Especially don’t eat any fast food like greasy burgers because it could be what kills you.” I use my hands a lot when I talk so I dropped the bottle of Carpet Fresh on her door step and emphasized my next point about hunger. “Now, you haven’t eaten all morning. Your nerves were jangling because you were worried about what your doctor was going to tell you. As you walk out the front doors of his clinic—”

“Are you going anywhere with this? I have to get off my hip. Please hurry.”

“Yes, ma’am, almost done. As you walk out the front doors of his clinic you see a beautiful diner across the street. You step a little forward and can smell whatever it is they’re cooking. The sign out front says,
All you can eat bacon==> FREE!
You know the trick. Buy some eggs and get all the bacon you want. Your stomach turns and winces with the smell. You’re going to be hospitalized that afternoon. This is your last chance to splurge, to dazzle yourself with the second love of your life: bacon.”

“Is there a question in there somewhere?”

I continued as if she hadn’t interrupted. “Even though it’s free and you know it’s not good for you, would you still go and eat that bacon? Even though it could kill you. The parallel is, even though they clean your carpet for basically free, after the damage I show you they’re doing to your home, would you still have them over, son or not?”

I waited. Sometimes direct questions like this get a slammed door in the face. Other times you’ve intrigued them enough to take the bait and let you in to see what you’re made of. This was that case.

The woman stepped back, a smug look on her face. It seemed she liked the fire in my pitch. “Okay, you win. Get your Kirby and let’s see what happens, but I promise you, I won’t be buying one. Just do the carpet and show me the results. We’ll go from there. I’ll leave the door open because I have to go sit down now.”

She limped away from the open door. I turned and ran down Maple Street to my Pontiac, drove to the front of her house and retrieved the boxed vacuum from the trunk. After carrying it to her door I stepped in, closed the door behind me and quietly locked it. I always locked the doors for our protection. You never know what psychos might walk in while I’m doing a presentation.

I took my shoes off and placed them neatly beside a beautiful pair of red Jimmy Choos. They sat up so pretty, with a small heel and a lovely strap with little diamonds on it. Wow, the woman had class. These were also the shoes that got me charged with murder even though I didn’t do it. Mrs. Gavin had less than two hours before she would be bludgeoned to death with a rolling pin and a meat tenderizer.

Although I couldn’t know that at the time.

#

I entered her main living room and got the Kirby out of the box and then went about setting everything up. The display model, or as we call it,
our partner
, has an added piece that the customer’s models don’t have. It’s a little circular window on the right by the air intake. It has small clasps to undo the top. I opened it and placed one of my hundred black cloths in it so we could see what was in her carpet.

“What are you doing? It was just vacuumed yesterday.”

“I have to vacuum the carpet first to make sure there’s no grit or sand in it otherwise when I’m shampooing I could cut the fibers of your carpet. My goal is to clean the carpet, not damage it.” I said this with my best car salesmen smile. “After I’ve gone over it a little and nothing comes up then we can go right to shampooing. How does that sound?”

She nodded and used her right hand to say
carry on
.

What they don’t understand is that I’m a Master Closer. Nobody gets it. No one understands me. I’m not a traditional salesman. I’m a Master Closer. Everything I do is to close the sale. Getting in the door is step one. Show the dirt is step two. Step three and four get convoluted, because in each house it’s different, but eventually I get the shoes. Then I leave.

No one denies me the shoes. Ever.

I began vacuuming. Mrs. Gavin sat in the middle of her couch watching, her eyes brimming with suspicion.

The black cloth filled with dirt immediately. I stopped, unclipped the lid and laid it out flat in the corner of her carpet. I placed a new one in the glass, clipped it in place and started vacuuming again. I repeated this process ten times and then stopped and looked at her.

Mrs. Gavin’s eyes were wide. “That’s a lot of dirt,” was all she could say.

I nodded. “Yeah, sorry about that. When did you say this carpet was vacuumed last?”

“Yesterday.” She was in a daze, stunned.

“And when was it cleaned by your son’s company?”

“A few weeks ago.”

“Let me ask you one more question. What kind of a vacuum do you own?”

She looked at me. This is where the sale turns my way. Crucial moment. Time stopper. Egg popper. Head cracker, kill her and stack her. Here we go.

“Electrolux. I use an Electrolux, why?”

“That’s why you have all this dirt.”

I turned away and flipped the Kirby on. After a moment, I stopped to change the black cloth again.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “What’s wrong with my vacuum?”

I turned to her. “You see this unit. It’s an upright. No suction lost in hoses. The mouth where all the dirt comes in is right beside the powerful engine. The filter is in front of the engine. Not a single micro fiber gets near the Kirby’s engine. In the Electrolux, the engine isn’t filtered properly, so performance is jeopardized, and it’s not an upright. You have a long hose. Think of it like this: a fire will destroy a home better than ten men outside trying to blow it down.”

She frowned.

“The fire is the Kirby. Your Electrolux is just blowing wind. Which brings me to my next point.” I turned and started vacuuming again. “Do you have fire insurance on your home?” I yelled over the sound of the Kirby.

I turned the unit off and unclipped the black cloth, placing it near the others.

“Of course I do. Why do you ask?”

I stopped and turned to her. “Really?” I sounded so surprised. “Well, have you ever collected? I mean, have you ever had a house burn down?”

She looked away obviously having no idea where I was going with this. They never do.

“So you pay a monthly or a yearly charge for insurance against a fire, and yet you’ve never had one. If you added up all the money you’ve spent insuring against fire, I’d be surprised if it wasn’t in the thousands over the years.”

Mrs. Gavin looked back up, biting on her index finger. Something was troubling her and it wasn’t where I was going with this. Maybe it was my right eye twitching. It gets like that when I’m about to steal a pair of shoes. Or perhaps it was my voice. In the moments of closing, I can get like a preacher on a tirade.

“My point is this. You’re spending so much money on something that has never happened, and probably never will happen, but yet dirt happens. It’s right there.” I pointed at the fifteen square black cloths. “And yet you’re not paying for the right equipment. You own an Electrolux and get deals on carpet shampooing.”

I turned away to let her think about it and started my last bit of vacuuming.

“How much does a Kirby cost?” she asked.

And that was the last question out of Mrs. Gavin.

I turned back to her. “I have a question for you,” I said, my finger raised for emphasis. “If you received a check in the mail for three dollars every day, would you be rich? Could you go out and buy a Benz or a new Porsche?”

She shook her head, biting away at her middle finger now. The sun shone through her living room window at an odd angle casting an ugly light on her wrinkles.

“Let’s flip it. If you got a bill in the mail for three dollars a day, would you be poor? Would you have to declare bankruptcy? Would it all be over?”

She shook her head and started in on the other hand biting at her fingernails like they were enemies worthy of her teeth alone.

“That’s what a Kirby costs. Three dollars a day. On our plan they’re only $90 a month.”

Really, they’re $1899.00, but when you reduce it to the ridiculous, the numbers say that more people buy.

The proof is in the numbers.

She seemed stunned. Something was wrong. I could feel it. Now was the time to deal with the rest of my business.

“Ma’am, with all this dirt, could I go and wash my hands?”

She nodded and I stepped into the kitchen. She was quite the decorator. Everything in this room had colorful items placed on it. The fridge was a mirage of pictures and drawings from her grandchildren, no doubt. Knickknacks littered the top of the microwave and parts of the countertop. I pay close attention to kitchens. They say a lot about the people I vacuum for.

Beside the stove I saw what I was looking for. A pottery like container that held cooking utensils. I found a nice chopping blade, a whisk and two wooden spoons in it along with many other items. Who knew the meat tenderizer would be used in such a horrible manner in such a short time from then?

I turned on the kitchen sink to mask the sound of the drawers I was about to open.

I write this freely in the knowledge that any law enforcement officer reading it could only charge me with theft and snooping.

(
Drop the first degree murder charge, please. I’m innocent
.)

The second drawer down contained baking tools. The rolling pin lay there, innocent and not very threatening by itself.

I pulled it out. Then I touched other things along with the meat tenderizer. (That’s why they have my fingerprints. Is there any law against touching things? Fuck!)

I washed my hands and stepped back into the living room. Mrs. Gavin was compliant. She didn’t ask any more questions. She sat on the couch and stared at me. I finished masturbating and then cleaned up the carpet with the shampoo attachment on the vacuum.

After that I took the Kirby to the door and began packing things away.

“Mrs. Gavin, I wanted to thank you for allowing me to demonstrate the Kirby’s power to you today. It’s been a pleasure to show you its prowess.”

I always talk to the client when I’m in their hallway, so as to judge how far they are from me as I’m slipping their shoes into my Kirby box. The nice pair of Jimmy Choos fit comfortably around the neck of the vacuum. The lid went on and I was ready to leave.

“You have a nice day now, Mrs. Gavin.”

I could smell something was off. Something coming from the living room. Maybe she ate beans yesterday. How could I know?

I opened her front door slowly and peeked out at the street. No one was around. I took a moment to step back and look at Mrs. Gavin before leaving her home. She hadn’t been too talkative during the last part of my demonstration.

She still sat on the couch although she was leaning to the right a lot more now. Must’ve been her bad hip. The sun was higher. It touched her below the knees, showing off her varicose veins nicely. They were so prominent that it almost looked like the blood was on the outside of her body.

I shook my head. Maybe I had a premonition of her death? Maybe I was looking at death?

I turned away not caring for the smell coming from her.

The street remained empty. I stepped out and shut the door behind me. I was clean as I’d washed my hands in the bathroom after masturbating on her carpet in front of her. No one could tell what went on in that house. There were no witnesses whatsoever.

I offered her a carpet shampoo for free. She took it. I gave her a bottle of Carpet Fresh. She allowed me in. I did everything right. I did steal her shoes, but is that a crime worthy of a death sentence?

I put the Kirby in the trunk of my car and drove home.

It was later that night, about 3:15am when someone knocked incessantly on my apartment door. I remember it was exactly 3:15am because that’s when that guy kept waking up in the Amittyville Horror movie.

“What the fuck?” I yelled through the door. “Who the hell’s out there?”

“Police. Open up.”

My heart sank, my stomach dropped. How’s that? Why would they be here? What could I have done?

Realizing I had no choice, I opened the door, even though I was still in my underwear.