Read Online Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned (Socrates Fortlow 1) by Walter Mosley - Free Book Online Page B

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    Socrates could see the young assistant manager through the window under the clock. He was saying something to an older white woman sitting there. The woman looked down at Socrates and then swiveled in her chair to a file cabinet. She took out a piece of paper and held it while lecturing Anton. He reached for the paper a couple of times but the woman kept it away from him and continued talking. Finally she said something and Crier nodded. He took the paper from her and left the office, coming down the external stairs at a fast clip. Walking past the checkers he managed not to look at Socrates before he was standing there in front of him.
    “Here,” he said, handing the single-sheet application form to Socrates. Crier never stopped moving. As soon as Socrates had the form between his fingers the younger man was walking away.
    Socrates touched the passing elbow and asked, “You got a pencil?”
    “What?”
    “I need a pencil to fill out this form.”
    “You, you, you can just send it in.”
    “I didn’t come all this way for a piece’a paper, man. I come to apply for a job.”
    Anton Crier stormed over to one of the checkers, demanded her pencil, then rushed back to Socrates.
    “Here,” he said.
    Socrates answered, “Thank you,” but the assistant manager was already on his way back to the elevated office.
    H alf an hour later Socrates was standing at the foot of the stairs leading up to Anton and his boss. He stood there waiting for one of them to come down. They could see him through the window.
    They knew he was there.
    So Socrates waited, holding the application in one hand and the borrowed pencil in the other.
    After twenty minutes he was wondering if a brick could break the wall of windows at the front of the store.
    After thirty minutes he decided that it might take a shotgun blast.
    Thirty-nine minutes had gone by when the woman, who had bottled red hair, came down to meet him. Anton Crier shadowed her. Socrates saw the anger in the boy’s face.
    “Yes? Can I help you?” Halley Grimes asked. She had a jail-house smile—insincere and crooked.
    “I wanted to ask a couple of things about my application.”
    “All the information is right there at the top of the sheet.”
    “But I had some questions.”
    “We’re very busy, sir.” Ms. Grimes broadened her smile to show that she had a heart, even for the aged and confused. “What do you need to know?”
    “It asks here if I got a car or a regular ride to work.”
    “Yes,” beamed Ms. Grimes. “What is it exactly that you don’t understand?”
    “I understand what it says but I just don’t get what it means.”
    The look of confusion came into Halley Grimes’s face. Socrates welcomed a real emotion.
    He answered her unasked question. “What I mean is that I don’t have a car or a ride but I can take a bus to work.”
    The store manager took his application form and fingered the address.
    “Where is this street?” she asked.
    “Down Watts.”
    “That’s pretty far to go by bus, isn’t it? There are stores closer than this one, you know.”
    “But I could get here.” Socrates noticed that his head wanted to move as if to the rhythm of a song. Then he heard it: “Baby Love,” by Diana Ross and the Supremes. It was being played softly over the loudspeaker. “I could get here.”
    “Well.” Ms. Grimes seemed to brighten. “We’ll send this in to the main office and, if it’s clear with them, we’ll put it in our files. When there’s an opening we’ll give you a call.”
    “A what?”
    “A call. We’ll call you if you’re qualified and if a job opens up.”
    “Uh, well, we got to figure somethin’ else than that out. You see, I don’t have no phone.”
    “Oh, well then.” Ms. Grimes held up her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “I don’t see that there’s anything we can do. The main office demands a phone number. That’s how they check on your address. They call.”
    “How do they know that they got my