The Black Kitten, Part 5

The next day I saw two black Ford vans with New York plates pull up in front of the Victorian mansion.  They had no logos or anything on them, but the guys who got out were wearing gray coveralls and carrying toolboxes.  At first I thought they must be electricians–their hands were too clean for them to be any other kind of contractor–but then I saw them pull several small boxes out of the back.  My guess would be surveillance gear, cameras and whatnot.  It pissed me off a little.  If Mr. Rich wanted me to be his security guy, how come I wasn’t in on this?  I was about to go say something to Mr. Rich and maybe get my ass handed to me again when he walked up behind where I was standing on the town green.

“Calvin,” he said.  “I have a small job of sorts for you.”  He handed me one of his cards.  As far as a business card goes, it was weird.  I had some cards that I got from Kinko’s with my name and phone number and the great slogan, “Maintenance, landscaping, plowing.”  I got a thousand of them for ten bucks and I used to leave them posted on the bulletin board outside the yuppie organic food shop down route 41.  Mr. Rich’s were different, though.  His said, simply, Paul W. Rich in a fancy script with his cell phone number below that.  The paper was different, too.  Mine were the cheapest white card stock, but Mr. Rich’s felt rich, a creamy off-white that probably had some stupid faggot fancy name like eskimo vanilla creme or something.  They also had a texture that made them look like they were made out of stiff cloth.

“I want you to take this down to Greenaway’s Tailors down in Greenwich,” he said.  “Your clothing needs to be, shall we say, more appropriate to your position.”  I turned the card over and saw “Take good care of Calvin, per our phone conv.” written on the back.

“What?  A tailor?  I–”

“Yes, Calvin, a tailor.  Tailors make clothes, you know.  I’ll tell you how to get there.”  I decided to give no resistance.  Resistance wouldn’t do me any good, anyhow.

I hate to drive down to Fairfield county, especially the part right along the coast. You might as well be driving in New York fucking City, and I would rather get kicked in the crotch than do that.  But when Mr. Rich says go, I had to go.  I drove down route 7, which isn’t so bad until you hit just north of Danbury, and then it’s stoplights and idiots from New York shopping in Connecticut’s lower sales tax.  It gets worse the closer to Long Island sound you get, and by the time I finally found the stupid place, I was ready to hit someone, anyone in the face.

Greenaway’s Tailors is on a side road just off the main commercial drag, which is just as well.  I felt conspicuous as hell driving my old pickup with the plow attachment on the front and fifteen years’ worth of rust framing the wheels.  There were a few other trucks like mine around, and I noticed that every single one was filled with Guatemalans looking scared and out of place.  I didn’t blame them.  These fuckers wanted their yards looking perfect–a single dead leaf would probably send them to the hospital with heart palpitations–and they wanted the little dark men to keep them perfect and tehn fade out of sight immediately, if not sooner.

Anyway, I parked out front, hoping some asshole would give me grief for uglifying the neighborhood, but the street was quiet.  The tailor shop was in a large stone building with expensive-looking twelve over twelve windows.  I had installed some just like that in a big house, and they are a bitch to put in.  The doorway leading in was likewise, real French doors with brass handles, and I noticed that my hands were sweating as I pulled the door open.

An icy-looking blonde in a tight but severe-looking gray suit, with a short skirt and white stockings imeediately clicked up to me, her cold blue eyes giving me the up and down.  I looked down at myself and saw what she saw: a short, wide, tough looking guy with faded Levi’s, a frayed plaid shirt, and wolverine workboots.  At least I had brushed the dirt off my boots when I put them on this morning.

“Can I help you?” she asked, and I could hear the other, unspoken part of her question: “Or should I call and have someone toss your sorry ass out the door?”

“Uh, yes.  I, uh, that is, I have–”  What did I have?  I had a stupid business card, but I had no fucking idea what I was supposed to do once I got here.  I started to plan ways to hurt Mr. Rich when I saw him again.

“Yes?”  There was an edge in her voice as she reached up and touched the back of her neck.  This must have been a signal, because I saw two guys in the back get up out of the overstuffed chairs they were sitting in and start to move to the front of the store.

“I have this,” I said and handed her Mr. Rich’s card.  She wrinkled her little WASP nose and took it delicately, as if she thought it might be coated with cow shit.  When she saw the name on the card, though, her face lit up.

“Ah, yes!  You must be Calvin.  Please, come back here.  Could we get you some coffee?  A cappucino?”

I figured a cappucino would be the most trouble, so I said yes, I would have one of those.  The blonde led me to a curtained alcove, thrust the curtain aside with a dramatic flair that made her ass wiggle inside that tight gray skirt, and I thought she almost looked pretty, almost as if she wouldn’t give your dick frostbite.  “Mr. Greenaway will be in immediately.  I’ll get you your cappucino.”  She flashed another smile, raising her temperature to something almost human and strode off.

Mr. Greenaway was there immediately, and I wondered just what Mr. Rich had told these people on the phone to make them practically fight each other to be able to kiss my ass.  Mr. Greenaway was tall and slender, and even a jerk like me could see that the suit he was wearing was top notch.  You just wanted to take his jacket and curl up with it and take a nap.  I had never been to a tailor before, and I was a little weirded out by all of the measurements Greenaway took, and I was about to ask if he needed to measure my dick, too, but I remembered that I was representing Mr. Rich here.  He noted down all of the measurements in a little black leather notebook and disappeared into a back room.

Blondie reappeared with my cappucino in a real china cup on a saucer, and I sat down in the chair she pointed me to.  It was good coffee, and I managed to get past my earlier reation to her well enough to thank her for it.  Greenaway came back for a moment and said something like “eighteen and thirty-two” and Blondie jumped and trotted off to another part of the store.  I sat back and savored the cappucino, thinking how much nicer it was to be the waited on rather than the waiter.

Blondie came back with a pile of shirts, folded up and wrapped in cellophane.  “Mr. Rich specified that you would like several white shirts, and he also asked me to choose some colors as well.”  I glanced at them and nearly ruined the top one when I saw a tag that said it cost $250.  It took all my control to keep from spitting coffee and milk foam all over it.

“Um, that will be great.  Good.  Fine.”  How the hell do these people talk?  I felt like everything I said was bordering on the obscene.  I might as well say, “Sure, I’ll take all of these motherfucking shirts, and do you have one in fucking purple, you high-toned bitch?”  I didn’t, though, and I wondered if my short acquaintance with Mr. Rich was rubbing off on me.