Richard Roma, Glengarry Glen Ross
Well. Wasn't this interesting? A real fun fest.
Ricky Roma took stock of the room, no hurry but not missing anything, not if he could help it. Not looking anything beyond self-assured. Hell, he knew what he was about. And you never let your guard down. Especially not with a group like this. What in - What in the hell was this nutjob operation? ( Read more... )
Ricky Roma took stock of the room, no hurry but not missing anything, not if he could help it. Not looking anything beyond self-assured. Hell, he knew what he was about. And you never let your guard down. Especially not with a group like this. What in - What in the hell was this nutjob operation? ( Read more... )
Comments 227
Smaug, not so much. He tended to snap first and not ask question later-kind of came with the territory, being quite a bit more powerful than most beings he ran into. Such advantages nurtured a bully mindset. Smaug, that would be the giant golden-scaled dragon who only fit in the Sorting Room by virtue of being shrunk by magic, teeth as long as a man's torso even then. He probably wasn't interested in purchasing real estate.
What did interest him was the man's ceaseless babble, which was barely comprehensible to the dragon. It was only natural that he think Roma the bullshitter might know a good riddle or two, as the silver-tongued folk of his own land would. One tended to keep those things handy when they might mean the difference between life and-you know. Not death, at Hogwarts, but something unpleasant enough ( ... )
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Oh, for fuck's sake.
Roma was coming very quickly to the conclusion that he might as well toss aside any preconceived notions here, because none of them were going to mean a damned thing when you got down to having dragons running around. This did beg a rather pressing question, however: if dragon decided it wanted to roast someone and have itself a snack, did dragon go ahead and do so?
Question the second: who in their right mind would stop dragon from doing it?
Okay, well, that was unsettling.
Still, if Roma was going to be eaten by a dragon (what the fuck, what the fuck?), he wasn't going to wet himself over it. He shrugged, ( ... )
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And maybe it is. God knows, maybe that dog is really some sort of fucked up nuclear bomb or some shit like that.
"I'm starting to get that impression, yeah." He looks around casually, or damned near casually, nods. "And what are you, then? Some sort of black magic wizard, or something? Maybe Satan's long-lost half-brother?"
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"I wouldn't call myself a clerk," he didn't like that term, not a damn bit, but he didn't bristle at it; no real sense in that. "If you insist, all right, maybe you could, yes, but clerk implies some sort of servility. And I am not big on working for anyone in that fashion."
God knew what this guy meant by saying 'real estate' like that, and it might be better not to ask... But what the hell, he wanted to know. This didn't look like the sort of individual likely to make successful sales (there was a certain, ah, appeal lost with that much bulk, for Christ's sake), but stranger things had happened.
Were happening all the fuck over the place.
"And what kind of, ah, real estate are you talking, then?"
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James Bond sauntered into the sorting room, the king of cool himself. He was dressed in a suit that was tailored to the nth degree, with a confident posture that suggested confidence bordering on arrogance and a background of military discipline. He regarded Roma coolly, watching the man take in the room. When Bond read the application, he couldn't help but smirk at the answer to question four.
"Have you ever thought that your problem with beautiful, intelligent women might be in your technique?"
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Had the situation been different, Roma might have bristled. Probably would have, questioned like that. This time, he only smirked slightly.
"Did I say I've got problems with women? God, no. Never. I have never in my life found myself with a shortage of women. That has never been a problem." It's true enough; he knows where to find them and how to charm them. A certain sort of "them," anyway, and fortunately (unsurprisingly, he figures) enough, they're a goddamn good-looking kind. Not always the brightest, but Roma's always had better things to do than listen to some woman chatter on at him. A woman who was chattering was not doing her job.
Not that he would have minded a woman with half a brain, necessarily. Just that they were starting to see like some sort of abstract myth.
"Now an intelligent woman, yes. Yes, I will say that I ( ... )
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"There is that," he said. "There certainly is a difference between having women problems, and women worth having problems over. From my experience, the wittier the woman, the more likely she is to be on the defensive. I'd say your difficulties with that certain type of creature starts at your mouth, and goes from there."
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That was a fair enough point, though, on defensive women. The few even slightly sensible women he'd come across started to get too self-concious. Asked for too much. Roma didn't mind playing games - hell, he liked a good challenge - but too often, almost always, the women weren't worth it, not in the end. Couldn't hold up the spark of almost-a-brain they'd started out with, and that was a real shame; ended up as dull as the rest.
"I don't mind defensive women, to a point. It gets to be ridiculous, not worth my fucking time. And you take too long with any one woman, they start to get the sense that maybe you care about them, and maybe you want them to stick around. Which I emphatically do not want."
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"Do you actually own any real estate?" He asks suspiciously. He holds up his hand. "Before you answer, consider that I think you should be segregated from the other students until you learn to set a better example to your peers."
"Yes," He hisses, "Your fellow students."
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Automatic response. What? A man ought to take care of his hair. Roma had found you could tell a lot about someone that way, and what he could tell about this glowering son of a bitch wasn't overly complimentary.
And he ignores the remarks about students. Okay, if he's a student, great. It'll be like old times, pulling the work and dicking around. He isn't necessarily opposed to that, though he isn't sure why he should be a student or what he could possibly bother learning, here. "What, you doubt me? Of course I own real estate. And our company owns real estate. Looking to buy some?" He raises his eyebrows, knowing fully well (or assuming, at least) that this character isn't going to want any such thing. Still.
"It's only polite to ask." Wasn't that kind, explaining like that?
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"In any case, when I direct my attention to something - and I would never choose something so vain, selfish and petty - I am at least successful in my endeavours.
"I already own sufficient real estate." He manages a very small sneer, though his 'real estate' is Spinner's End.
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"Oh, oh, ohhhh, watch you, you almost hurt me, there! Next time I'm bathing in flowers-" that one's too much, the absurd image of it, and he cracks a grin, "I'll be sure to think about my failures in life. My long, lonnnnng line of failures. My God, I ought to be ashamed to live, the way I've carried on!" The smile has mostly gone, though it continues to make brief, flickering appearances.
"And my mistake, entirely my mistake! Well, what can you expect, a failure like me? I'm sure you own the most stunning castle this side of the English Channel, don't you? Sir, I have clearly misjudged you!"
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This guy is, what do you say, a real class act, by the looks of him. Roma raises his eyebrows. "You saying you're afraid of a little war? A little competition?"
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"You want to tell me what it is you sell? Or is that top-secret information? One of those 'for privileged eyes only' affairs?"
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