Imposter

Clarence walked nonchalantly downtown, nothing especial to do, and while humming a tune he espied a placard between entrances to indeterminate establishments. It read:

Love Shopping? …seeking person or persons to pose in store incognito. $12 per survey.

He didn’t, particularly, love shopping, but the poster intrigued him. Was it a social experiment? A zealous competitor trying to undermine its opposition? A fraud baiting naïve-innocents with a non-fatiguing lure? But then again what was twelve bucks nowadays? A drink and a sandwich, and nothing fancy. So, how many survey’s were they talking about? Doing exactly what? His mind took a cynical bend.

He dialed the number walking. Having already paused too long, he took the call from a distance. Defensively posturing, as others might have presumed-- making a connection-- that he had been, maybe, suckered in.

He expected an automated service.

“Hello, Abott Marketing. How may I help you?” said a polite yet sultry voice of unspecified age, young but mature, or mature but youthful-- very attentive.

Now he felt a reproachful goofiness, a grown man seeking a shopping spree, not worth a dozen singles. And yet:

“Uh, yes. I’m responding to the advert posted,” he said feigning great interest, animating his tone a little extra, unnecessarily.

“What is your location?” she enunciated charmingly. Was he detecting an accent? He couldn’t quite place it. He craned his neck out from the shadow doorway he’d ducked into to better read the street sign:

“Corner of First and Boulder.”

“One moment…” and abrupt silence swept into music.

He started imagining how the face or body might match or contrast the vocal. The elevator tune raised an image of Jane Harlow, then turned a bit more Latina from Rita Hayworth to Victoria Monet, and then she was suddenly an overbearing trench with gorilla arms and low drawn hat not quite in any traditional shape, drooping and uniform grey, barely covering steely grey eyes.

“Ya’ rang?” he growled in a low hoarse whisper.

The wire went dead.

“Yeah. The… woman had me... on hold… “ he hung up and fixed his lip, emotionless.

“Ya’d be waitin’ a long time, heh, heh?” the cavalier sniggered at the dummy.

He had been taken in, a robocall, after all; and this was strange “personal” service.

Just how far was this farce going to evolve?

He kept a poker face. It was well-tanned apeman’s turn to make a false move.