for @pitch-fics pitching prompts: Mike Lawson never plays Major League Baseball
AKA: baby-shill!Mike grows up to be reformed-con-man!Mike
read it on ao3
It’s may be time to accept that his life might not actually get better.
After all, he’s thirty-six and selling over-priced cars to over-paid Hollywood burnouts. It’s hard to believe that things can go up from here.
What’s sad is that this is inarguably the high point of his life.
Which is something of a let down after leaving his shady past behind. After all the trouble he went to make sure his life wasn’t the shit show his mother’s had been, realizing that he might never live the good life sucks. Especially when he sees how far a life of crime got Madoff. He might never grow out of the little kid who helped his mom con guys into paying to repair a car that ran just fine. Might never move beyond using the stupid dry cleaning bill scam to make rent. At least he’ll never swindle families out of their life savings, but he’ll also never be known as one of the infamously great: Ponzi or Abagnale or Valfierno.
Honestly, it’s the kind of problem for a headshrinker to sort out.
Too bad it’s much easier to ignore his unplumbed psychological issues, though.
Anyway, he’s gone straight. Mostly straight. It’s not his fault if there are plenty of legitimate businesses that will pay a man with his talents handsomely to separate clients from their hard-earned money. Since most of those clients end up getting something approximately equal to what they pay out, Mike’s not too fussed.
It’s only a scam in as much as capitalism as a whole is.
What does he care about the ethical ambiguity of his job? As long as he gets his paycheck, he’s happy.
As a plus, “Luxury Car Dealer” sounds a lot better than “itinerant con-artist” even when the skill sets have some serious overlap.
So, no. He might never make it to the big time, the American Dream that gets sold to every other sucker in the country. But Mike is pretty sure that no one gets there, at least not by walking the straight and narrow like he is. Things could definitely be worse, though. He likes San Diego. Likes his apartment. Likes his neighbors and casual acquaintances. If he doesn’t have any friends to like, that’s his business. In fact, he likes his life here enough that he doesn’t really want to have to hightail it out of town for a poorly-planned, spur of the moment con.
No matter how big the payout might be.
At least, that’s what he keeps telling himself as he clocks his next mar—client circling the showroom of the dealership.
“Well, if it isn’t Ginny Baker in the flesh,” he greets with his customary charming smile. When her eyes cut away from the truly gorgeous Mustang convertible she’d been eyeing and land on him, indifference clear on her face, Mike doesn’t let himself falter. It’s not his fault that she’s the most recognizable woman in San Diego. Hell, in America, probably. And that’s for people who don’t even follow baseball.
And Mike doesn’t follow baseball. He gave that up when he was a kid, back when he wanted to play first and his d—coach stuck him under a mask instead. It’d been fun for a while, but after he and his mom left town, and then kept leaving towns, it stopped being important. What was the point in playing a game that wouldn’t get him anywhere? Hard to get scouted when his mom could hardly keep him in the same school for more than a semester at a time.
Although, looking at San Diego’s rookie starter, maybe he wouldn’t mind crouching behind the plate for her.
She’s giving him a once over, too, though Mike’s not sure that her conclusions are anywhere near as flattering.
“And you are?” she asks, challenge evident in her tone and the tilt of her chin.
“Mike Lawson,” he responds easily, sticking out his hand to shake.
It hangs there a beat too long before she slips her strong, brown fingers against his. After all these years, the feeling of a pitcher’s calluses are still familiar. “Ginny Baker.”
He smirks. “Oh, I’m aware.”
When her lips twitch, that awareness of weak spots—the one that kept his mom happy with him as a kid, but he’d been trying to ignore. Straight and narrow, remember?—rears its ugly, little head. Most people, he’s sure, would see the quirk of her lips as a self-deprecating gesture, an acknowledgement of her fame. But to Mike, who’d grown up reading people as a matter of survival, the twist in her mouth is pure, bitter discomfort.
Sensing a sale slipping through his fingers, and that’s the only reason, Mike quickly changes tacks. Gesturing to the convertible beside them, he says, “She’s a real beaut, isn’t she?” Mike circles the sleek, powerful machine as he goes over the specs, a frowning pitcher trailing along behind. It’s probably ridiculous to want to smooth out the wrinkles in her brow, so he ignores the impulse and talks more about the V8 engine and its acoustic performance rather than try and figure out what she wants to hear the way he usually would. “So, how’d you like to take her for a spin?” he finishes with his patented tempting smirk.
“Oh.” Her frown turns from one of concentration to embarrassment. “I can’t. I actually don’t know how to drive.”
That knocks him for a loop. “You don’t know how to drive.”
She shakes her head, looking over the other floor models. Now, her aimless wandering when she first came in makes sense.
“What the hell are you doing in a car dealership, then?”
Mike wants to wince, but that would just be proof that he let his mouth get away from him, which is one of the first lessons his mother ever taught him. Never let a mark know she’s got you flat-footed.
Ginny Baker just smiles wryly when she turns her attention back to him. “It’s supposed to be a birthday present? For my agent. She’s, uh. She’s done a lot for me this year.”
That’s putting it mildly. Even as someone who very specifically does not care about America’s pastime, Mike would have to live in a cave not to know about the media storm that’s followed in Ginny Baker’s wake. The old comments from her manager, her wild night in LA, the release of some very risqué photos from her past. The woman was clearly a magnet for trouble.
Looking at her now, though, in well-worn athletic gear and her hair in its usual game day ponytail, Mike has to wonder if it’s not the woman who’s a trouble magnet, but the position she’s been put in.
So, he nods, and doesn’t comment beyond, “Did you have anything in mind?”
That earns a shrug. “I don’t actually know anything about cars. Never had a reason to.”
Mike nods like that’s a perfectly reasonable thing to say. For a lot of 23-year-old women, it is. It’s not that he’s that into cars himself, despite his job. So, it’s not as if this is some sort of sacrilege he has to deal with. It’s just strange to realize that Ginny Baker is a regular human being with weaknesses and quirks and hidden depths just like anyone else.
“All right,” he says, trying to find an angle that will result in Ginny Baker buying something that will earn him a nice, fat commission check. If he gets to keep chatting with a pretty girl, then all the better. “Why don’t you tell me about your agent. What kind of car does she drive now?”
“I don’t know. It’s white and sleek. Just like her.”
Mike actually lets out a surprised burst of laughter at that. Ginny Baker’s responding smile is shy but so much better than the fierce grins he’s caught in her post-game interviews.
(So what if he’s started watching games again? This is about history in the making, not baseball.)
He turns back to the Mustang. “So, what drew you to this one? You were looking her over for a couple minutes before I came by.”
She eyes him sidelong. “Is this you trying to find another reason to laugh at me? I already told you I don’t know anything about cars.”
When he answers, he keeps his tone sober. “No wrong answers, scout’s honor.”
The doubtful look she gives him is probably warranted. He’d never been a Boy Scout, but keeps his face appropriately remorseful. Eventually, she answers, “It’s red.”
That it is and for someone who doesn’t care at all about cars or engines or automotive performance, color is obviously going to be one of the few things that makes a model stand out. Mike files away this bit of information, as well as her reluctance to share it. It’s what he would do for any customer, especially one as ambivalent as Ginny Baker. The more information, the easier the con.
He should probably stop thinking about his job as a series of long cons. But again, there’s a reason Mike doesn’t have a shrink.
“And you said the car your agent…”
“Amelia,” she supplies as he trailed off.
“Your agent Amelia drives a white car now?” At her nod, he put on his pensive face. “Did you see the red car and immediately think of Amelia?”
“No,” she replies, a little bewildered.
“Well, let’s see if we can find something that speaks to you,” he says and steers her away to another make and model.
Normally, when he’s selling to women, they respond better to emotional cues. There are more than a few who want to know all about power and performance, but most are more interested in his own capabilities in those departments. So, Mike knows all about flirting a woman into an acquisitive mood. A few strokes of her ego, a little banter too put her in the right mindset. Then, he’ll have her sit in the front seat with her hands on the wheel and ask how she likes the view or what it makes her feel.
Nothing about selling to Ginny Baker can be classified as normal. Set aside the fact that she’s not shopping for herself, but the woman is wrapped up even tighter than the fit of her spandex leggings would suggest. Any time he even approaches flirtation, she shifts a little uncomfortably, so he backs off quickly. Wouldn’t want her running for the hills with a commission on the line.
He has to work for every detail she drops and most of them aren’t even about her. They’re about the agent, which, admittedly, makes Mike’s job a little easier. He’s just glad he’s not really trying to cold read her. It seems unlikely that he’d get very far.
“You know,” he drawls after she’s nixed a third option in a row without explanation, “if you want me to tell you what you want, I do need at least some information.”
“What, you’re admitting you don’t already have the perfect car picked out and you’ve just been waiting for me to get desperate so I won’t argue over the price?” is her response, just as dry.
Mike’s eyebrows shoot up and he can hardly help the delighted grin that unfurls the corners of his mouth.
Ginny Baker rolls her eyes. “I might not know anything about cars, but I do know how not to be taken advantage of.”
There’s a story there and Mike desperately would like to know it. Rather than acknowledge that thought, though, Mike leads her over to his ace in the hole. A two-door Jaguar he’d been working his way up to. It’s definitely sleek, but powerful, too. Just enough of a departure from the Benz the agent’s apparently been driving to feel like a trade up, but still familiar. Mike watches as the young woman trails her fingertips along the hood, listening as he rattles off specs he knows mean next-to-nothing to her. Still, she nods seriously at every bit of information.
When he’s done, she looks up from her serious contemplation of the side mirrors and aims a smile his way. Mike’s breath doesn’t leave his chest, but it’s a close thing. “See,” she says, still smiling, “I knew you had the perfect one all picked out.”
“You’re a clever one, Ms. Baker,” he ends up replying, falling back into his vaguely complimentary costumer service voice. He’s so glad that he hadn’t started thinking about a long con the moment she walked in the doors. After knowing her less than an hour, Mike’s sure there’s no chance he would have gone through with it. He’d have ended up playing himself. And that would have made him just as bad as any of the pigeons his mom worked over throughout his childhood.
“Ginny’s fine,” she replies, wrinkling her nose.
“If you say so,” he chuckles, leading her over to his desk to hammer out the details.
In the end, Ginny Baker manages to haggle him down on the price more than he’d usually go. It’s not like it matters. He’s still going to get a ridiculous commission off this sale. If he were trying for the hard sell, there’d be a bit of professional indignation, but Mike has been in the game long enough to know when his head isn’t in it. That Ginny Baker might be the reason for his distraction is ridiculous and can’t be proven. Not satisfactorily anyway.
If Mike slips a copy of his business card in her purse, not to mention the one he pressed into her hands along with her signed receipts, would anyone really blame him?
“If you ever decide you want one of these beauties for yourself, I hope I’m your first call,” he tells her as they walk to the glass-fronted entrance.
“Still don’t know how to drive,” she responds, but there’s a little something extra in her smile.
“I can be your first call for that, too.”
Ginny laughs at his, frankly, genius answer, but it doesn’t bother him the way a pretty girl laughing in his face should. Something strange and warms bursts beneath his lungs and doesn’t fade. Not until she’s disappeared into the back seat of her hired car and been driven away.
The rest of the day, he feels almost light-hearted. Sure, he’s still basically a con artist selling a lifestyle that needs constant upgrading: at least once a year when the new models come out.
But, who knows. Maybe things are looking up for Mike Lawson. As long as his card is still in a certain pitcher’s purse, he can live in hope.
i'm dying! to death! 