Free Shoedog by George P. Pelecanos

Timberland boots, and his black hair hung long and clean. A three-day black beard, trimmed and grown high, covered his jaw. His brow was thick and his eyes were blue and deep. Randolph’s first thought: Jesus, just like in the pictures. But what the fuck is he doin’ in my shop?
    Randolph dropped the burlap shoes in front of the Haitian without a word, and moved to the woman in the red skirt. He opened the lid of the box, unwrapped the tissue with ceremonious care, and dropped to one knee. He took the right shoe and put it on her foot, and he placed the shoe on the top of his thigh as he tied it. He patted her on the ankle and ran his finger along it after the pat, saying, “Okay, darling,” as he stood and walked toward his regular seven and a half.
    “How you been, baby?” Randolph said as he arrived at his regular, a fine light-skinned woman with a spray of freckles across the bridge of her nose. She smiled and moved her eyes shyly away from his. Had he ever taken her out? He couldn’t remember, just then. Randolph pulled the right slingback from the box, put her foot on his knee, and guided the shoe onto her foot.
    The Haitian woman walked her shoes up to the register, where the manager, a balding, heavy-set young man, sat ringing up sales. Randolph yelled to the manager, “That’s a twenty-nine”—Randolph’s sales number—“on that one, Mr. Rick.”
    Randolph excused himself, content that the Panis was going to fit just fine, and walked around to the freak in the red skirt. “Those spectators gonna do it today, girlfriend?”
    She scrunched up her face. “These shoes are too
hard,
Randolph.”
    Randolph countered: “Don’t you like hard things?”
    She laughed. “Not my shoes!”
    He took the shoe off her foot, patted her ankle once again. “I’ll stretch these out with some magic shit”—it was plain old alcohol, and he kept it in the back—“okay? And, oh yeah, don’t forget about Tuesday night, hear?”
    The woman in the red skirt smiled. “I won’t forget. I’ll lay those spectators away today, get them out on Tuesday.”
    Randolph grinned. The front door opened, and a man and three women walked in. The man wore a matching shirt and slacks combination and the women wore hot pants and halter tops and tight-assed skirts.
    Randolph crossed the sales floor, stepping around Jorge, who was sitting on the bench next to his girlfriend-of-the-week, and walked up to the pimp, a guy by the name of Felix. Randolph shook Felix’s hand, using a handshake that he used only on Felix, a handshake that he had otherwise stopped using with friends since 1975.
    “All right, man,” Felix said.
    Randolph said, “All
right.
”
    “You gonna hook my ladies up today, hear what I’m sayin’? Some evening shoes, man.”
    “I got just the thing, man.” Randolph could feel Antoine’s envious stare burn into his back. He postured theatrically, spread his palm out in the direction of the ladies. “Sizes?”
    Felix pointed down the line, starting with two pretty fine ones and ending with some West Virginia–lookin’ girl. “Nine, seven and a half, and ten.”
    Ten said, “I be a nine, Felix.”
I be,
shit. Randolph had to check his grin. West Virginia talked blacker than the black freaks.
    Felix nodded as Randolph, looked at her feet. Randolph said, “Have a seat, all o’ y’all. I’ll be right back.”
    He started for the stockroom, noticing the man with the long black hair staring at him, from his seat. What did he want? If he was into pumps, then Randolph didn’t mind, he made plenty over the years, selling high heels to men. But this one didn’t look like a punk, didn’t even look like the type to be buyin’ shoes for his woman. No, this one wanted something with
him.
    But Randolph put it out of his mind. When Felix walked in, twice a year, he dropped five hundred, sometimes a grand. So this was a special day, maybe a three-thousand-dollar day—a triple dot. At ten percent, three hundred