For more on the Bitter Merchant, see The Bitter Merchant and the long slow slide Part 1 and The Bitter Merchant makes a Bum Call.

The Bitter Merchant took off for the weekend (without his trophy wife) to check on his ‘house’ and when he re-appeared on Monday morning, he was reticent to say just what had happened, other than it was, a ‘negative’ experience.

It took several days before we got the full story. The Bitter Merchant had started an ambitious home building project which, alas, had been put on hold, half built, due to lack of funds. Apparently the skeleton of a half-built multi-million dollar home in a posh neighborhood had upset some of the neighbors. Several of the contractors, who happened to be Russian and rather nasty, had been left unpaid in the process. The Bitter Merchant had arranged to meet with them, or they had somehow got wind of his visit and exacted their revenge.

Following the Bitter Merchant to a park, they Russians anonymously called the police, reporting a man with an exotic sports car waving a gun around. Then sat back to watch the fun. The police show up in full force ready for anything. The Bitter Merchant was surrounded and searched at gunpoint. And, of course, was mouthy to the cops, so they were rough with him. The took him downtown, impounded his car, and left him to cool his heels in the drunk tank overnight. No gun was ever found, so they had to let him go in the morning, but satisfied themselves with making things as unpleasant and inconvenient as possible.

And how was the drunk tank? Any further cutting edge adventures in the holding cell? Some interesting people? We will never know! The Bitter Merchant refused to discuss the incident further, other than to say it was very ‘negative’ and ‘not nice!’

See The Bitter Merchant and the Long Slow Slide Part 1
for the beginning of the tale.

A BUM call, in the popular vernacular is when a cellphone is in its holster, or in your back pocket, and is activated somehow, dials a number at random or from your address book, and broadcasts whatever you are doing to whoever it has randomly dialed.

Now the Bitter Merchant had a stunning trophy wife, who was also a nude model, and in frequent visits to his multi-million dollar penthouse condo, nude or topless pictures of his wife were accidentally/on purpose left lying out in plain sight. But despite all this, the Bitter Merchant was a frequent client of street prostitutes and escort services, and his frequent browsing of Escort services’ websites had let to marital dis-harmony on numerous occasions.

It was in just one of these occasions, where the Bitter Merchant was patronizing a street prostitute, when his cell phone activated and dialed his home number. His trophy wife, who spent a lot of time at home lounging in various stages of undress, answered the phone, and heard the entire lurid transaction, including his huffing and puffing and moaning under the skilled ministrations of a street prostitute. Followed by his terse thank you.

When he arrived home, she was livid and confronted him. Not to be caught short, he calmly told her he was helping a friend load boxes into their car, and hence the panting, and the terse thank you, which he claimed was not really him, but his friend thanking him for the help!

The Bitter Merchant comes from the Caterbury Pilgrims, by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804 - 1864).

“Well, sir,” said the pilgrim, “there was a day, and not very long ago, neither, when I stood at my counting-room window, and watched the signal flags of three of my own ships entering the harbor, from the East Indies, from Liverpool, and from up the Straits, and I would not have given the invoice of the least of them for the title-deeds of this whole Shaker settlement. You stare. Perhaps, now, you won’t believe that I could have put more value on a little piece of paper, no bigger than the palm of your hand, than all these solid acres of grain, grass, and pasture-land would sell for?”
“I won’t dispute it, friend,” answered Josiah, “but I know I had rather have fifty acres of this good land than a whole sheet of thy paper.”

“You may say so now,” said the ruined merchant, bitterly, for my name would not be worth the paper I should write it on. Of course, you must have heard of my failure?”

And the stranger mentioned his name, which, however mighty it might have been in the commercial world, the young Shaker had never heard of among the Canterbury hills.

“Not heard of my failure!” exclaimed the merchant, considerably piqued. “Why, it was spoken of on ‘Change in London, and from Boston to New Orleans men trembled in their shoes. At all events, I did fail, and you see me here on my road to the Shaker village, where, doubtless (for the Shakers are a shrewd sect), they will have a due respect for my experience, and give me the management of the trading part of the concern, in which case I think I can pledge myself to double their capital in four or five years. Turn back with me, young man; for though you will never meet with my good luck, you can hardly escape my bad.”

The Bitter Merchant of my acquaintance had make a lot of money from vending machines but had long since burned out any capital and had reached his prime some time ago and was on a downward spiral of epic proportions. However, his inevitable slide to the bottom of the barrel had not picked up speed as yet, and he still had credit cards, lived in a (rented) multi-million dollar penthouse condo in our building and drove an exotic sports car. This was not to last, and turn to dust in a matter of months, but he was enjoying himself while it lasted.

The Bitter Merchant walked into our waterfront offices one morning and proceeded to outline an ambitious scheme of online marketing with his hundreds of domains and websites, with cost as no object. Boastful and crass, he told us how much his clothing cost, ($500 for his belt alone) and regaled us with stories of his wealth and business acumen in the vending machine business.

We were all suitably impressed, and told him with a straight face we would prepare a proposal for him that would be suitable for a man of his stature. Just to prove that he was the big spender and man of wealth he claimed, he told us in a friendly tone, he would give us an advance of $1500 on his credit card.

We repaired to my office to process his credit card, or so I had assumed. Credit card proved to be very much a plural with the Bitter Merchant. Once inside my office, he pulled a stack of credit cards about 1 and ½ thick. Giving me the topmost card, he announced this one was good for at least $750, so why don’t you just try $500 on it, ‘cause we don’t want to run it up to the max. I agreed once again with his shrewd judgment.

I typed the card into my terminal and $500. Declined. Strange he says, try it for $300. Declined again. OK he said, taking back the card and putting it on the bottom of the stack and peeling off another from the top. Now, this one, it has thousands on it… It will go through for sure… try it for $1000.

Success! OK cool, he says with renewed confidence, here try this one for $250. Success again!

Not $1500 as promised, but getting close. I assured him it was no problem and $1250 would do fine, and really, he was not to worry.

This was to be our daily ritual. The Bitter Merchant came downstairs, and shared a smoke outside with my partner. He told more stores of his adventures in the Vending Machine Industry, and then stop by my office for more credit card processing. We would try an assortment of credit cards from his collection until we found one that went through. All the while, I assured him it was no problem, and indeed, quite OK.