Lexicon

you’re having.”
    She swallowed the last of the hash browns. “Well, thanks for thinking of me, but you know, I’m pretty happy with what I’ve got going on now. Thanks, though.” She gulped coffee dregs. “Thanks for the breakfast.” She reached for her bag.
    “It pays.”
    She hesitated. “How much?”
    “How much do you want?”
    “I make five hundred a day now,” she said, which was an outrageous lie, of course. She made between zero and two hundred dollars a day, and split that with Benny.
    “This would be more.”
    “How much more?” She caught herself. What was she thinking? He was wearing a
plastic watch
. He would take her to some dingy apartment and lock the door. There was no job. “Look, you know what, I’m just gonna pass.”
    He reached into a pocket and opened his wallet. She’d noted yesterday that he had no more than twenty dollars in there. He unzipped a section and tossed notes onto the table. She stared. There were a lot of them.
    “We wear cheap clothing because it would seem odd if we stood around on street corners in ten thousand dollar suits.”
    “I see,” she said, not really listening.
    “Let go of your bag.”
    She looked at him. Apparently it was obvious that she had been thinking of snatching that cash and running like hell. She released the bag.
    “You get a first-class air ticket to our head office in DC. You spend one week there, doing a round of tests. If you pass, you become a trainee on a starting salary of sixty thousand dollars. Fail, and we fly you home again with five thousand in an envelope for your trouble. How does that sound?”
    “Like a scam.”
    He laughed. “I know. It does sound like a scam. I thought the same thing when they approached me.”
    She kept looking at the cash on the table. She didn’t want to. It was irresistible.
    “You went to school,” Lee said. “I mean, at some point. And it didn’t suit you very well. They wanted to teach you things you didn’t care about. Dates and math and trivia about dead presidents. They didn’t teach persuasion. Your ability to persuade is the single most important determinant of your quality of life, and they didn’t cover that at all. Well, we do. And we’re looking for students with natural aptitude.”
    “Okay,” she said. “I’m interested; I’ll take a ticket.”
    He smiled. She remembered his comment about the blow job. She must have gotten that backward. He must want her to blow him in exchange for the air ticket. That way made sense. She wondered if there really was a job. He was kind of believable.
    “Show me something,” she said. “Something official.”
    He slid a business card across the table. His full name was Lee Bob Black. She tucked this into her bag, feeling better. This card enabled her to call Lee’s boss and explain what Lee had asked her to do in exchange for a job. She hoped it was a big company, the kind that hated publicity. She hoped there was really a job, because she would be awesome at it.
    “Now you know who I am,” said Lee. “Who are you?”
    “Emily.”
    “Are you a cat person or a dog person?”
    “What?”
    “Cats or dogs? Which do you prefer?”
    “What do you care?”
    He shrugged. “I’m just making conversation.”
    “I hate cats. Too sneaky.”
    “Ha,” he said. “What’s your favorite color?”
    “This is your idea of conversation?”
    “Just answer the question.”
    “I’m just saying, as someone who knows about banter, you’re really terrible at it,” she said. “Black.”
    “Close your eyes and pick a number between one and a hundred.”
    “Are these from your questionnaires?”
    “Yes.”
    “You’re surveying me? Is this the test?”
    “Part of it.”
    “I’m not closing my eyes. Thirty-three.”
    “Do you love your family?”
    She didn’t move. “Are you serious? You think I’d be here if I had a good family?” She almost got up. But she didn’t. “No.”
    “Okay, then,” said Lee. “Last question. Why did you do it?”
    She stared.
    “Don’t manufacture an answer,” said Lee. “I’ll be able to tell, and it will invalidate the test.”
    “This is a bullshit question, isn’t it?”
    “How do you mean?”
    “You don’t even know what you’re asking. You just want me to think you do.”
    He shrugged.
    “This doesn’t sound like a survey.”
    “It’s a personality test.”
    “Is this Scientology?”
    “No.”
    “Amway?”
    “I promise it’s not Amway. It’s no one you’ve heard