Dan Abnett - Border Princes

‘Oh. Right.’

‘It’s cool,’ said Jack.

‘Why have we stopped?’ asked James. ‘We’re not going to have some kind of formal talk are we?’

‘Get over yourself,’ said Jack. He pointed down the street. ‘Look what I see.’

Dean Simms was nineteen years old, but reckoned he passed for early twenties in his Top Man suit. He was always particular about his presentation: mouthwash, a haircut once a week, always cleanly shaven, and a nice splash of smelly, though nothing too strong.

His old man had once told him that the real secret to selling was clean fingernails. ‘They always look at your hands, son,’ he’d said, ‘always at the hands. What you’re pointing to, your gestures. And nothing kills a deal quicker than closing with grubby hands. If you get the papers out to run through them, and you’ve got dirt under your nails, forget it. Client’s looking right at your hands at that stage, looking at the dotted line you’re pointing to. Oh, yeah, and have a nice pen. Not a biro.’

Dean’s old man had spent twenty-three years on the road in Monmouthshire and Herefordshire, flogging steam-cleaning systems door-to-door, so he knew the up and down of selling. Or ‘non-desk-based retail’ as he had preferred to call it. Dean had grown up paying close attention to his dad’s pearls of wisdom. His old man had always brought in decent money.

When Dean left school, his old man had tried to get him a job with the steam-cleaner company, but the Internet had been murdering face-sales by then, and there had been no openings, not even for ‘a lad with good selling potential’. A year later, his old man had been given his cards. That had killed him. Without a job at fifty-eight, he’d just withered away and died.

Determined to prove something, Dean had got himself a commission-only job with LuxGlaze Windows, but it had been a slog, and the product hadn’t been all that, and LuxGlaze always sent him to areas where the homeowners had been pre-pissed off by LuxGlaze’s carpet-bomb approach to telephone pitching. Twice, Dean had been chased off a plot by dogs, once by a man with a rake.

He’d switched to VariBlinds, then to Welshview EcoGlass, then back to LuxGlaze again for one awful, thankless, six-week effort to get himself a proper patch and actual customers.

There had come a time when Dean had started to think that maybe he wasn’t ‘a lad with good selling potential’ after all.

Then he’d got his break, and found his feet, and these days he was in business for himself. He stuck to his old man’s basic rules of salesmanship: presentation, clean nails and a nice pen. He’d always had the patter too, the charm factor that his dad had set plenty of store by. But Dean had something else, something his dad had never had. Dean knew the real secret of selling, and it turned out it wasn’t clean fingernails.

Dean Simms had the real secret of selling in his briefcase.

He checked himself in his rear-view mirror, checked his teeth for specks of food, checked his nails, checked his tie and got out of his vehicle. Game on.

The street was quiet. His vehicle would be all right where it was for an hour or so. He crossed the road.

His old man had always talked about ‘his patch’ with a genuine measure of proprietorial pride. Dean knew what his dad had meant. These streets were Dean’s patch, and he worked them hard. In return, they paid him well. Another few months, he reckoned, and he’d have to move area. Just to freshen things. You could go back to the well once too often, as his old man used to say.

He walked down the path, opening his zip-seamed briefcase, and looked at his list. It was easy to forget faces from one visit to the next. Early on, he’d hit the same house twice in a fortnight. Of course, the woman hadn’t recognised him, but he had no wish to repeat the mistake. He had a list of addresses printed off the electoral roll, and he ticked them off.

Number eight. Mr and Mrs Menzies. He consulted his watch. Two oh five. Just after lunch. Perfect.

He walked up the pathway of number eight and pressed the bell, hearing it ring deep inside the house. He waited, whistling softly.

The door opened. Ignite smile.

‘Good afternoon, Mrs Menzies?’

‘Yes?’

‘Good afternoon, sorry to bother you. My name is Dean Simms of Glazed Over, and I’m in your area this afternoon to introduce a remarkable domestic opportunity. Now, it’s available for a limited period only, and exclusively, to a few, specially selected households.’

‘Are you selling?’ the woman asked. ‘Are you windows?’

‘I’m just here to talk about a remarkable domestic opportunity.’

‘I don’t want sodding windows,’ scowled the woman, and started to shut the door again. ‘Are you blind? We’ve got replacement windows back and front.’

‘Let me just leave you with a leaflet,’ Dean said, smiling. He reached into his unzipped case and squeezed the soft lump inside. ‘Just a leaflet, Mrs Menzies?’ He loved this bit.

‘A leaflet?’ she asked, slightly blank.

Dean’s grin broadened. He made a gentle sweep with his hand. ‘These aren’t the droids you’re looking for,’ he said.

‘Come in,’ she replied.

‘Oh, that’s so got to be our man,’ said Jack. He and James were walking briskly, side by side, along the pavement from the space where they’d left the SUV. Over a box hedge, they could see a young, suited man chatting to a homeowner in a front doorway.

‘What do we do?’ asked James.

‘Ruin his day and queer his pitch,’ replied Jack. They arrived at the gate. ‘Excuse me,’ Jack called pleasantly.

The woman in the doorway squinted at them from her doorway. The young man in the suit who had been talking to her turned slowly. He eyed Jack and James warily.

‘I don’t want to cause a scene,’ said Jack, ‘but could we have a quiet word?’

‘A quiet word?’ asked the woman.

‘With your friend here?’ Jack indicated.

The young man looked from James to Jack quickly, weighed his options, and then bolted. He vaulted the front garden wall and began to run away down the street.

‘Oi!’ cried the woman.

‘Sorry to trouble you!’ Jack called back to her as he and James gave chase. The young man in the suit was really moving. Head back, arms pumping, sprinting like a maniac.

James was leading Jack by three or four yards. ‘Go left!’ he yelled as they passed the turning to some backyard garages.

Coat flying, Jack broke left up the unmade track. James kept on, flying after their quarry. Left at the next corner , James willed, just turn left and you’ll run smack into Jack .

The young man in the suit turned right and took off across the road.

‘Damn!’ James barked, and continued to pound after him, crossing the street diagonally behind a slow-moving car. He was force to halt sharply in the middle of the road to let another car go by the other way. By the time James had reached the far side and begun to pick up speed again, the young man in the suit was leaving him behind. James tried to up his pace, but the young man was putting increasing distance between them.

Jack ran out of the garage standing and back onto the street at the top. No sign of their quarry. Still running, he turned right and, in a moment or two, caught sight of James up head of him, running flat out away from him down the tree-lined avenue.

‘James!’

James didn’t appear to hear him. Much further away, with a good thirty-yard lead on James already, Jack could see the young man in the suit, leaning as he turned left again.

Jack crossed the road, edging between the cars parked under the trees, his feet slipping on wet leaves, and set off down a left-hand street running parallel to their target’s flight path. If the young man in the suit doubled back, Jack would nab him around the next corner.