Anything For A Sale

Bill Bernico

It was three a.m. and I was tired from the long drive. I'd left Albuquerque seventeen hours earlier and had driven straight through. I had a meeting in half an hour with an executive from MGM. They were interested in my line of wares and I had to strike while the iron was hot.

I'd grabbed a sandwich and a cup of coffee in Kingman, trying to balance the cup in one hand and the sandwich in the other. I'd gotten pretty good at steering with my knee. The sun had set before I'd crossed the California state line and if Hollywood had any chickens, they'd soon be starting to make plans to wake the rest of Tinseltown.

I was hungry as a wolf when I pulled up to the diner on Santa Monica . It was one of those all night diners that looked like someone had parked a railroad car on the curb and decided to sell food out of it. The front of the car had windows all across and there was a small awning over the door in the center of the car. All the lights were on, washing the wet street with a strange hue of colors.

Vern Grayson, the man with the purchasing power at MGM couldn't understand why I insisted on meeting him at this particular place and at this odd hour, but I assured him that if after our meeting he wasn't interested in what I had to sell, I'd pay him triple overtime for the meeting. He agreed.

The place was nearly empty except for a young couple in the corner booth and an old man at the counter. The young couple was sharing a large glass of soda with two straws. The old man swirled his spoon around in his coffee. None of the three bothered to look up at me as I entered. I set my brief case on the floor under the counter.

The guy behind the counter was fat and dirty and looked as though his waist measurement exceeded his I.Q. He wore one of those white paper hats that resembled the green one I wore as a PFC in Tacoma in `64 just three years earlier. His full-length apron may have been white during LBJ's first term but now it was just three yards of grime on a string. He stood holding his spatula, the griddle sizzling with two burgers behind him.

"What can I getcha?" he said, pointing to an empty stool at the end of the counter.

I sat on one of the stools with torn red vinyl covering, removed my hat and set it on the stool next to mine. I grabbed a menu and loosened my tie. I could tell by the mess on the grill in front of me that I didn't want a burger. The two that were already on the grill had been neglected too long and were beginning to smoke. My nostrils filled with the thick fumes and I sneezed twice.

The cook pressed down hard on them with the spatula and they flamed up even more. He flipped them one last time before scooping them up and depositing them on two buns. He slid them onto a platter and carried them over to the corner booth where the young man handed him a couple of coins.

I ordered a coffee and the Chef's Surprise. I was afraid to ask what was in it so I just ordered it and grabbed my brief case and headed for the men's room. It was a cramped four by four room with a toilet and a dingy sink with a small mirror above it. I set my brief case on the sink while I used the facilities.

By the time I emerged my meal was waiting for me at the counter. It consisted of a plate of unrecognizable meat of some sort, a mound of what I assumed to be potatoes with a small pond of gravy that was beginning to form a skin on it and a handful of pale, green beans. I finished it in just a few minutes and washed it all down with my coffee. Now I know why they called it the Chef's Surprise. The chef was surprised that anyone would eat it.

As I sat prodding at the space between my teeth with a toothpick, the front door opened and a man in a three-piece business suit entered. He looked at the other three patrons and decided I had to be his man.

"Philip Duran?" he said, extending his hand. "I'm Vern Grayson from MGM."

I stood, shook his hand and invited him to sit. I moved my hat and he took the stool next to mine. It was three-twenty and a street sweeper was just rolling around the corner in front of the diner. The blanket of rainbow colors on the black background had been washed clean, ready for the morning's automotive artists to splash the canvas again.

Grayson ordered a coffee and I got a refill on mine. "Thanks for meeting with me under such odd circumstances," I said.

The MGM executive swiveled toward me on his stool. "I must admit," he said, "that I'm here out of curiosity more than anything else. That and the hope that what you've got to sell is all you make it out to be."

"It's all that and more," I assured him. "You'll probably move up the ladder when your bosses get a look at what I have." I paused just long enough for effect.

"Well," he said, looking down at my closed briefcase anxiously, "let's see it."

I reached for my brief case and fumbled with the locks, trying to pop them open. As I balanced the case on my knee, the front door opened again and a tall, burly man in a long overcoat and a fedora pulled down low stormed in. His eyes scanned the diner and stopped when he came to me.

"There you are, you cockroach," he said, pulling a long barrel revolver from under his coat. He leveled it at my head and pulled the hammer back. The cylinder clicked into place and Vern Grayson's eyes got as big as saucers. He fell over backwards off his stool and lay there on the black and white checkerboard floor, propped up on one elbow.

"No. Wait a minute," I said, dropping my briefcase and almost crying. "You got the wrong man. I..."

The gun burst in a flash of flame. Vern quickly stepped back, spider fashion, against the wall and looked at me as my head exploded in a spray of red. A patch of hair and skull sailed across the counter and landed on the grill. It sizzled and the smell of burning hair filled the room. I fell over the counter, looking like a man reaching behind it for a spoon.

The man at the door leveled the gun at Grayson's head and pulled the hammer back again. The cylinder turned and positioned itself on the next cartridge "Well, you ready to buy?" he said.

"B-b-buy?" Vern said. "B-b-buy w-w-what?"

I stood back up next to Vern and lifted the wig from my head. Streams of red flowed down my face and onto my white button-down collar. With a slight tug I managed to pull what was left of my invention from the inside of the wig. I squatted down on the floor next to where Vern lay crouched. He'd wet himself and was sitting in a puddle. I held the contraption out in front of him.

"This," I said. "It's my latest line of exploding squibs. Pretty damned realistic if I do say so myself. Whaddya think?"

Grayson looked back at the man in the doorway, who was taking a bow. The man smiled and looked around the room. "Thank you, thank you," he said. "Remember me at the Oscars."

The ‘hit man' and I helped Vern to his feet and he found the stool at the counter again. He sat back down, wiped his forehead and produced a checkbook. I held out my pen and wiped some more of the red from my face. He took the pen from me and shook his head as his shaky hand wrote. "I'll take a hundred gross for starters."

I winked at my accomplice, who was still standing at the door. He smiled back.

Vern Grayson ripped the check from his checkbook and handed it to me. “You're really something,” he said. “You'll do anything for a sale, won't you?”

“Anything,” I said, folding the check once and sliding it into my shirt pocket.