Customer Service

Sales were steady, though I noticed many men walking away disappointed. I made a note to track down some masculine-oriented stock for their benefit. While I would not say I was making money like I owned the mint, I was doing better than the other vendors I could see. Can't complain about that!

The day was winding down towards closing when a new customer walked in. She caught my eye and piqued my interest, for she was a stunner, what the dating sites call an amazon, meaning a tall, well-built woman. This bint was certainly that!

Five feet ten if she was an inch, she had legs like a fashion model, with well turned calves and slender thighs that led up to flaring hips with good, tight buttocks. She had an hourglass figure - those flaring hips, a waist at least twelve inches smaller than the hips and the torso, and a pair of boobs that were D or DD cups, close-set. Her arms, like her legs, were shapely and toned. She had an oval face with the look of the Punjab about it; a straight nose, thin lips, and almond eyes. Her hair was jet black and I guessed it would fall to the middle of her back if she ever let it down. At the moment, it was braided and wound around her head. She was wearing a skintight leotard with a short skirt over it, and checkered boat shoe type sneakers. Altogether, a vision. But the remarkable thing was her skin. It was gloss black in color. Not the various shades of brown you see in Africa, the Middle East, and the Indian Subcontinent, nor yet the sooty black you sometimes see in southern India; her complexion put me in mind of a spit-shined shoe. The effect was stunning, as in jaw-hits-the-floor stunning. What a shame she was at least a decade too young for me.

"I often stop by the Bazaar after I get off the morning shift at the health club," she said with a smile as I reeled my eyes back in, apparently used to her impact on men. "But I've never seen this place before. You new here?"

"My first time out," I admitted.

"Well, you've caught my eye," she twinkled with a smile. "I simply adore sterling silver, and especially sterling jewelry. I know there are people who slam it, calling it one step removed from costume jewelry, but I look great in it, I love the way it feels on my skin, and the cost isn't so high as to give me a heart attack. What do you have today?"

"Chains of various widths, lengths, thicknesses and patterns in the cases to your left, brooches, bracelets, arm cuffs, and the elaborate necklaces on the long back wall, as it were, and rings and earrings to your right. If you find something you'd like to try on, I'll unfasten it for you and you can take a seat at the table and see what it looks like on you in the mirror. If you'd like to try on earrings, I have alcohol to sterilize the studs and hooks."

She was impressed. "Most sellers here aren't as considerate as you ... I'm sorry, but I don't know your name?"

"Max. And you are?"

"Jenefer, with three E's and one F, not the English spelling."

"A pleasure to meet you, Jenefer. Heidi always said that a woman can't tell how jewelry in general, but especially earrings, looks on her unless she tries them on. But at a flea market or in a jewelry store for that matter, women are leery about trying on earrings unless they can sterilize them first. I thought about topical antiseptics like they use in operating rooms, but alcohol is easier to get and won't stain anything."

"Rubbing alcohol?"

I snorted with disdain. "No, pure grain alcohol. Or nearly pure; it's 195 proof."

Jenefer laughed, like bells tinkling. " 'Genuine American moonshine. Don't smoke right after you drink it!' " she quoted.

"Near enough, although you can buy this stuff at the liquor store. So, do you want to try on some earrings?"

"I think I'll start with the chains, and work my way around."

And so she did, taking her time about it while I dealt with a couple of other customers. Eventually she settled at the velvet-draped table with a wide herringbone necklace, a matching bracelet, and three pairs of earrings. She commented on the mirror there.

"That's a real antique. A Victorian shaving mirror, no?"

"Yes, a beveled glass mahogany swiveling mirror from the age of muttonchop whiskers and handlebar mustaches, with a drawer under it to hold razors, scissors, mustache combs, and other tonsorial items for the well-groomed man about town." I opened the drawer and pulled out a small glass jar of alcohol and a little ceramic tray. "There you go, for the earrings."

She tried on the necklace first, smiling with satisfaction at the way it draped across her chest above her bust, accenting and calling attention to her tits, but in a classy way. The bracelet fitted above her wrist with just enough slack she could turn it around like a fidget-spinner. Then she started on the earrings. She had pierced ears, a single piercing in the lobe rather than the fashion of some college and working-age women, with so many holes running from the lobe to the top of the ear that they looked like you could use their ears for a colander.

"You mentioned a wife named Heidi. Are these hers?"

"No." I hesitated before going on. "She died several years ago, and somehow I never got out of the habit of buying jewelry for her on my business trips - I'm a mechanical engineer whose specialty is installation and repair of heavy industrial machinery, and I get sent everywhere and anywhere. I have so much of it that I need to thin the herd, as it were. So here I am, selling silver jewelry from around the world to discerning women."

Jenefer looked stricken. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to call up sad memories."

"No worries, mate, as the Aussies say. All of this is post-Heidi. The only memories attached are the bargaining in the bazaars to buy it, and I find that kind of fun!"

She smiled and gave a little laugh of the sort people make when they've gotten past a potentially awkward social situation. Putting a pair of liquid silver earrings on after dipping them in the grain alcohol, she looked in the mirror, turning her head, and then looked at me.

"What do you think, Max?"

"They complement your face and make a composition, as good jewelry should. I'd only wear them when you have your hair up, though. The long strands would tangle in that glorious hair of yours and that would be painful."

"Just what I was thinking." She removed them, dipped them again, and set them on the little tray before trying on the next pair, and then the third. Those two pairs were returned to the case and replaced by the long liquid silver earrings before she sat back down with an expression I knew well from my time in bazaars from the Ivory Coast to Indonesia: bargaining time.

"Is there any wiggle room on the pricing?" She leaned forward to create a more intimate atmosphere, coincidentally and not by chance giving me a good look into her impressive cleavage. Hey, you use whatever weapons come to hand when you're bargaining.

"There's ... some," I allowed, looking up from ogling her boobs to meet her black eyes, their shining darkness as alluring as bright blue Scandinavian or the saqr eyes of falcons Middle Eastern women sometimes have. "What did you have in mind?"

She named a price. I shook my head. "There's some wiggle room, but not enough room to belly-dance!" I made a counter-offer a little less than full ticket. She winced as if in pain and came up from her starting price, and I came down from the sum of all three pieces. After a moment, she made a raise on her last offer, and reached out to run her fingertips down my arm. As I said, you use whatever weapons come to hand. It was clear to her I liked what I saw, so why not? I made what I decided would be my bottom line offer.

"That's for all three pieces, mind you."

She bit her lip, opened her shoulder bag and took out her wallet. "Done. I hope I don't have to go to the ATM over by the gate."

"I do take credit cards," I said, pointing out the sign on the corner of one of the display tables. She shook her head as she counted out bills.

"I don't like using credit cards," she explained. "I got myself into a financial hole after I got out of college and was just starting out that it took me a couple of years to climb out of. Ever since, I've used debit cards and cash, keeping my credit cards only for emergencies. Paying cash is one way to be sure you can afford what you're buying!"

"Good financial thinking. I use credit cards when I'm traveling, usually the company card, but for my own purchases overseas and here at home I'm like you, cash or debit cards. I like being debt-free."

"Yes, it's a great feeling," she agreed, handing over the money for the purchases she continued to wear. We stood and she took my hand, a pleasant warmth radiating up my arm. From the widening of her eyes I realized the feeling was mutual. "You can be sure I'll be back again, Max, and I'll mention you to my friends. Do you live near here or are you one of the sellers who comes from far, far away?"

"Thirty, forty minutes away, maybe. Just warn your friends I may not be here every weekend. I've taken this slot for the rest of the season, but if I'm away on business some other vendor will be in it. You'll have to be patient with me."

"I'm willing to be patient," she said with an enigmatic smile that put me in mind of the Mona Lisa. "I'll see you soon, I hope." Jenefer glided out of the booth and down the way like a big cat on the hunt, causing males who saw her to stumble and bump into things including their girls, who on seeing why their guys had suddenly come down with the clumsies gave them dirty looks, stomped toes, and elbowed ribs.

It reminded me of an interview Marilyn Monroe had given a young New York reporter, in which she had explained how it was she'd been able to walk down the street unnoticed by anyone as they walked together. "I'm not being Marilyn right now," she'd explained. When the reporter had expressed skepticism, she had paused, gathered her powers, and transformed herself into Marilyn Monroe, sex goddess and film star. She had then undulated down the street at the same pace they'd been walking before, only this time the reporter saw men's eyes bug out as they realized who it was they were seeing, and watched one businessman walk into a street sign, he was so bemused.

Jenefer clearly had that same gift. I found myself looking forward to our next meeting in a way I had not felt in years.

4.

Jenefer was as good as her word. The next weekend, a lot of women in degrees of fitness ranging from somewhat overweight to lean, mean fighting machine stopped by Ag 925, telling me that Jen, their fitness trainer, had told them about this new booth at the Grand Bazaar with the best deals on silver jewelry. They bought a significant percentage of what I had on display and I turned a good profit. When Jenefer reappeared Sunday afternoon, I commented on it.

"It seems to me a whole lot of your students, or trainees, or whatever you call them have discovered my place. Thanks for telling them about me."

"Happy to do it. I'm not the only woman at the Kama-Rati Health Club who likes silver jewelry. The pieces you're selling aren't like what they sell at the mall, or even in the hoity-toity jewelry stores that all buy from the same Italian factories and just put their pieces into velvet boxes with their names on it. Your jewelry is artisan made, at least the better pieces are, almost one of a kind. The kind of thing they'd bring home if they got to travel to the places you get to go to. The sort of thing that is passed down from mother to daughter for generations."

"I'm learning what you ladies like. Next time I travel abroad, I'm going to be trying to find the unusual and the art pieces, since that is what you ladies are looking for. Having an excuse to keep buying jewelry pleases me. Please tell them that if they have any special wants, let me know and I'll see what I can do."

"I'll just do that," she said, brushing past me to take a look at the necklaces. She looked at several, picking them up and putting them back, until she came to the necklace with the carved temple dancers. She looked at it for a long minute before taking it out of the case and holding it up to herself in the mirror on the table, turning this way and that, before sighing sadly and returning it to the display and moving to the bracelets.

As I put the three bangle bracelet set she'd chosen into a velvet bag, I said, "You fancy that Thai necklace, I think."

"Yes," she admitted, "but it's out of my reach at the moment. Perhaps later this year, if it's still here."

"And in the meanwhile, should I keep my eyes open for a matching pair of earrings?"

"Those, I can likely afford," she replied, smiling for the first time since she'd put the necklace back. "See you next week?"

"Very likely," I smiled.

"I'll look forward to it," she smiled in return. Again, she brushed past me, closer than before. Interesting behavior, that.

After two more weekends of excellent sales, I bit the bullet and bought myself a used Mercedes Sprinter that had been traded in by a plumbing company. It was a high-roof model that I could almost stand straight up in, with shelves on one side and brackets intended to hold pipe on the other. With a little modification, the Sprinter took all the display cases on the shelves, and after adding a generator to power a hot plate and a dorm fridge, there was still plenty of room for my folding tables and chairs, plus the fly, its sidewalls, and my overnight sleeping gear.

Two more successful trips to the Bazaar had the effect of reducing the magpie horde some. The word of the good deals to be found at Ag 925 was spreading. Ladies of all ages from intermediate school to the local assisted-living center passed through, but the one I looked forward to seeing was Jenefer. The sight of her gliding into my little store made my heart speed up. Her purchases weren't always expensive, but they always were of exquisite taste and not based on troy weight. She took her time and conversed with me, flirting a bit, always making contact with me, holding my arm, stroking my hand, giving me a quick hug coming and going. It felt to me like she was saying, "I'm interested in more than a proprietor - customer relationship," though my courtship sensors were not only rusty, but decades out of date and in urgent need of a system upgrade. I found I was enjoying myself more than I thought I would when I first decided how to deal with all the accumulated silver.

Thus, I was simultaneously annoyed and pleased when Mark called and told me a factory in India had somehow managed to wreck four pieces of equipment vital to their business, bringing all work at the plant to a halt. Esther already had my reservations, the owner of the factory had arranged for a suite at the best hotel in the city, and one of my engineers would take my gear and me to the airport that evening, so get packed and get moving!

While I was flying to Amritsar, I went over the information Mark had received from the factory owner. The company in question made pashmina shawls and cashmere fabric, starting with raw cashmere wool, processing it, spinning it into yarn, and weaving it into finished products. The modern "spinning mules" that did the spinning had had their control systems self-destruct. One side effect had been the failure of the automatic lubricating system, which in turn had destroyed the bearings that depended on it. Reading between the lines of the report, I was walking into a clusterfuck.

On arrival, I was met by the owner, who greeted me with the kind of awe normally reserved for visiting rock stars. He drove me to my hotel in a Rolls, and urged me to forego unpacking in favor of heading directly to the plant. I changed into my work clothes and did so.

When I got there, the engineer brought me to the machines. It did not take long to find the cause of the breakdown. When the power supply to the factory had been upgraded, in an economy measure the line reactors that leveled the power supply and smoothed it out to the optimum the machines were designed to use had been omitted. A power surge had blown into the circuitry and fried a number of components, and that had precipitated the failure of the bearings. I looked over the looms and found no line reactors in any power circuit there, either. In a rage, I sought out the factory manager.

"Your penny-pinching has damaged the spinning mules, perhaps irreparably. I can rebuild the control systems, but I don't know if I can fix the bearings. It's not going to be easy, and I will tell you this: I am not going to reconnect the mules to the power supply until and unless you idiots install line reactors for every machine in this factory! What were you THINKING when you cut those out of the power system?"

I sent an email back to B&B's main office, telling them to look up the specs on the spinning mules, specifically the data on the bearings, and ship replacements to me by the fastest means possible, even if that meant sending someone from the office to hand-carry them. I did not trust the local engineers who had worked on the machines one nanometer, and would not let them near the mules even as I began taking them apart to repair them.

Mark got me the bearings, the owner got himself a new chief engineer and factory manager, the best commercial electrical company in the city got some unexpected business, and I missed two weekends at the Bazaar while I rebuilt the four machines and made sure they were at 100 percent. I was working long hours with the engineers, teaching them the quirks of the equipment and the power supply that fed them while the manager fumed because the power looms were idle and production was zero. The owner was forbearing, however; he understood that engineers hate to see good machinery abused.

Thanks to his position in the city, I was introduced to a number of jewelers who were willing to talk to me after hours. Over the two weeks it took to get the machines back on line, I purchased almost ten thousand dollars in sterling and nurtured business relationships with the Indian silversmiths and jewelers that would serve me well. I have always liked working with Sikhs; they are forthright, have ironclad integrity, and recognize those same traits in others, even those not of their faith.

At the airport while I was waiting for my flight in the first class lounge, the factory owner and his wife handed me a carved wooden box. Inside was a jet black pashmina shawl embroidered with genuine silver thread around the edges.

"We thought your wife might like a homecoming gift," she said.

"My wife is dead," I said, "but I know a lady who will genuinely appreciate it. Thank you very much for your hospitality and consideration."

The flight back deposited me back in the States late on Friday, and I got home with enough time to make a considered decision. I emailed the Bazaar and told them I would be there that weekend, and loaded up my black and silver Sprinter for the trip.

I was all right during setup and through the morning, but by midafternoon my tail was really dragging. Even strong coffee from the hot plate and percolator wasn't helping. When Jenefer walked in half an hour before closing, I was drooping at the table.

"I'm glad to see you here, Max, but if you don't mind my saying so, you look like hell," she said, coming to the table and feeling my forehead with the back of her hand. "Are you sick?"

"No," I said, taking her hand and kissing it while giving her a gentle tug towards the chair on the other side of the table. "I just flew in from fifteen time zones away and came straight here. I'm not sure what day of the week it is, never mind what time it is."