“It’s going to take me a while to tally up the contents of the costumes.”
“Take your time. I’ll look around.” Grady wandered into the front of the store. A round silver rack held double-breasted suits for men and fringed flapper dresses for women. Low bookshelves painted to match the wall held tommy guns, headbands, long strands of pearls, cigarette holders, and fake cigars. We rotated the inventory every few months according to popularity, but the 1930s Mafia section stayed in the front. The old-school mob look remained consistently popular regardless of the season.
Grady disappeared behind the rack of pinstriped suits to the shelves where we kept the colored hair spray and face paint. I wrote up a description of each costume on a receipt pad. The last costume was the classic Sherlock. I added the hat, the pipe, a magnifying glass, and a pair of gloves, zipped it all into a clear garment bag, and set about determining a price for everything.
There was a price list in a binder behind the register. The binder was divided into costumes for men, women, children, and pets. The system wasn’t much more organized than that. Names of costumes had been written on each line, with a price for rental and a price for purchase. In this day and age, it surprised me that my dad still relied on handwritten price lists and a calculator instead of a website and database. I backtracked through the pages until I had a feel for the pricing, kept a running tally on the calculator, and finally named a figure for the whole lot. Grady didn’t blink. I punched it into our credit machine, swiped his card twice before remembering the black Amex had to be keyed by hand, and asked for his signature.
“I think I’ll keep the Sherlock outfit for myself. My fee for handling the small detail of the costumes. That’ll burn up Blitz pretty good, don’t you think?”
“You’re going to wear one of our costumes?”
“Any reason I shouldn’t?”
“I heard your girlfriend worked for Candy Girls. I assumed you’d get something from them.”
“See, this is how rumors get started. Blitz is the one with a girlfriend at Candy Girls, not me.” He grinned. “In fact, I could use a date for the party. You wouldn’t want to be my Watson, would you?”
“That would make it look like I was in on the plan to burn up Blitz.”
“Nothing wrong with playing opposite Blitz’s team. Get him back for the way he acted last night.” Grady flashed a third megawatt smile, and I was starting to feel blindsided.
“You can pick the costumes up tomorrow,” I said, switching the subject.
Again, his face fell. “You’re going to have to deliver them,” he said. He pulled a folded piece of paper from his wallet and held it between his first two fingers. When I reached for it, he pulled his fingers in toward his palm so the paper was out of my reach. I held my hand open and waited for him to give it to me. After a few seconds, he pressed the slip of paper into my palm and folded my fingers over it.
“You will be at the party, won’t you?”
“I’ll probably be there to help Ebony.”
“Good. I’m looking forward to seeing which costume you kept for yourself.”
I put the paper into my pocket and thanked him for his purchase. After he left, I returned to the register and put the signature slip in a clear pouch. The store had been open for twenty minutes and already things were looking good.
I propped the front door open with a concrete block and rolled a rack of discount clown outfits outside. They were bright and colorful and cheap, the trifecta of what makes a perfect sidewalk sale item. After adding a handwritten sign that said TODAY’S SPECIAL: CLOWN COSTUMES, $20, I picked a blue and pink polka-dotted costume off the end of the rack and carried it inside. A little modification and it would make a nice jumpsuit.
It was a good day for sales. By six o’clock I’d sold four clown costumes from the rack out front, a half-dozen fairy wings from our princess section, and ten cowboy hats. I’d stopped only once, to dispose of a mouse that Soot had caught in the stockroom and delivered to the register area. I was hungry and I was pooped.
After pulling the rack of clown costumes inside and locking the door, I cashed out the register and went upstairs. I ate a bowl of Fruity Pebbles for dinner, changed into cotton pj’s, and took a pair of scissors to the clown costume.
*