Clancy Martin - How to Sell

“It was his mother’s,” she said. “It is supposed to be worth a lot of money.”

Even before I cleaned it I could see it was a real diamond. But after it soaked in the ultrasonic for a few minutes and then I steamed it off it blazed. I needed to show it to Dennis before I made an offer.

Dennis was at his desk. When I handed it to him he gave me one of his standard lines: “How we lookin’? Are we cookin’?” Then when he slowed down and saw the ring he was quiet. He louped and handled the diamond ring greedily. Now he was all business.

“Where is she?” he said. From his desk you could see the buy counters through the one-way mirror. I pointed.

“Okay. Listen to me. I am going to let you handle this one, Bobby. If you’re goin’ to stay in the flood you got to swim sometime. But don’t you fuck this up. Offer her five grand. You hear me? She hesitates, up to six. Six thousand. Tell her it will be cash money. Cash today. But take it real slow. Do not let her walk. She does not leave the store with this ring.”

I nodded. I was not convinced.

“Hell. Maybe I should handle this one,” he said. “If it’s all the same to you. What’s the hurry? You can grab the next one.”

I started to agree with him. Then Jim was there at my shoulder. He took me by the arm.

“What?” he said. “No. We all have to learn, Dennis,” he said. “Give him a chance. Let me see the ring,” he said.

“Wow,” he said when Dennis handed it to him.

“I know,” Dennis said. “That’s what I have been saying.”

Jim grabbed an ashtray from Dennis’s desk and rubbed the ring around in the ashes. He looked at it, spat on it, and rubbed it around again. Then he cleaned off the shank and handed it back to me.

“Offer her five hundred bucks,” he said.

“What? No,” Dennis said. “No, no, no. No sir. No way, nohow.”

“Look at her, Dennis,” Jim said. “She’s got two little kids with her. She’s a kid herself, for chrissake. She doesn’t know what that ring is worth. She’s selling her wedding ring and her husband’s not with her. What does that tell you? She’ll just figure he lied to her about what it was worth. As usual. That’s what she’ll think. She’ll be so mad at him she’ll sell it for five hundred just to get back at him.”

I did not want to do this buy at all.

Then one of the phone girls ran up and put her arm around Jim’s shoulders. They all liked to fold themselves onto him. It irritated Lisa.

“You’ve got a Rolex call on seven,” she said. “It’s a hot one. I think you better take it.”

“Okay,” he said. He frowned at me. “Go on, Bobby. Show them how it’s done. Show them how the Clarks do it. Five hundred. Five bills. We’ll make seven, eight grand on this deal. We’ll walk it up to Popper’s office together. Watch this, Dennis. Just watch.”

I went back onto the floor and told the woman we could offer her five hundred dollars. Her children were struggling and giving her trouble.

“Five hundred? Oh, no,” she said. “That’s not going to help. We need at least a thousand. I have to get a thousand dollars or I am in real trouble. Can you make it a thousand? It was his mother’s ring. It’s very old. It’s like an antique. It is supposed to be worth thousands and thousands of dollars. Couldn’t you do a thousand?”

“We can’t pay that,” I said. “But listen to me. Across the street from us just a block up Houston is a place called Edelstein’s.” I leaned across the counter. I handed the ring back to her. That was something you were never supposed to do during a buy. I tried to block her out with my back so that they could not see what I was doing from behind the mirror. “This ring is probably worth at least five thousand dollars. But we will only pay five hundred. Take it over to Edelstein’s. They are Jews and they are smart buyers but they are fair. I bet you can get five thousand dollars or more.”

“Wait a second,” she said. She was angry. “What are you saying? You are saying I will get more money somewhere else? Your ads say that you pay the best price in Fort Worth! You mean I came all the way down here with my kids just so you can send me somewhere else? If it’s worth five thousand dollars, then you should buy it for five thousand dollars!” She was getting loud. This was not the reaction I had expected.

“I understand,” I said. “You are going to get me in a lot of trouble. I’m just saying. Believe me. I can’t explain it right now. I am trying to help you. It’s only a block. One city block that way.” I pointed with my thumb. “Take your ring there and say you need seven thousand dollars. Just trust me, okay?”

She looked at me for a second like I was a person rather than some enemy behind a tie and a glass-and-brass counter and she saw I was telling her the truth. The truth went between us, I think you could say.

“Okay,” she said. “I’m not saying thank you.”

“Go,” I said. I tried not to look over my shoulder. “Hurry,” I said. She would not be safe until she was physically out the door. I knew those two. They would run down the street to catch her.

I watched her and her kids walk out into the cold morning. When I started to help another seller — I was so young that I hoped this would be the end of it — Jim caught me by the elbow and dragged me in back. He pulled me into the room where we kept the ring boxes, the same room where Rita and her friends had corralled me.

“What the hell just happened out there?” he said.

“She changed her mind. She said she was going to think about it.”

“You little—” For half a beat he couldn’t say it. Then he did. “You little motherfucker.” He was so angry his eyes were wet. His cheeks were white and his chin and his ears turned red. But the terrible thing was the look on his face. I had never seen him wearing an expression anything like the expression he had on. “I heard the whole thing. This is my job, too, goddammit,” he said. “You are fucking with two jobs here, Bobby. Do you get that? Do you fucking understand that?”

Later that afternoon he caught me in the box room. I was making it very tidy.

“Dad’s in the hospital,” he said. “His roommate called the ambulance. Apparently he was naked in the front yard, pissing on the neighbor’s Mercedes.”

We both had seen him like that before.

“Where? In Palm Beach?”

“Scottsdale. He’s back in Arizona, apparently. Just fucking typical.”

Growing up Jim had lived with our father and his craziness for years. He blamed our father for his physical and mental diseases, in fact. But for me it felt like God was attacking all three of us.

“He acts like he’s some kind of saint. He thinks he can do whatever he wants. So now we have to interrupt our lives. He’s not thinking about us when he does things like this.”

“It’s not like he wants to be in the hospital,” I said.

“Oh, you don’t think so? Don’t be so sure, Bobby. He treats hospitals like they’re goddamn luxury hotels. You know how he does it. He checks in every chance he gets. Welcome to the James Clark Resort and Spa. Clean sheets, fresh drugs, sleep till noon, free food, nurses who love all of your stories. Lay in bed and watch television all goddamn day. Between naps. I am seriously sick of this shit, Bobby. I love Dad. But this is about it for me.”

We couldn’t leave on Friday, so we flew out the following night after closing and had Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday morning off of work. We would go straight from the airport to the store when we returned. In first class we got drunk on free brandy-and-sodas and Jim gave me some Ecstasy.

“It’s not a drug,” he said. “It’s like an herb. But wait until you try it. Doctors use it for therapy. But you buy it at a head shop. Lisa found it. Her friends are all taking it now. She has been taking it before she comes to work in the morning. She says it helps her sell.”