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Philippe waited until the client left, and Corbeau sat down before asking the question in his mind.
“Boss, how did you—”
“He sat down before I invited him.”
Philippe hesitated at the speed of his response. “How did you know what I was going to ask?”
“I heard your brain mulling over it the past few clients and figured you were saving this conversation for a rainy day. Well, it looks like rain.” Corbeau clicked away at his laptop while he spoke. “I have a couple things I look for when I take on a client.”
“But he sat before you told him to?”
“Exactly.”
“But we were all by the couches?”
“Yes, my couches, but I didn’t tell him to follow me there or to sit. He felt entitled to do so, and after not greeting me, I knew he’d be too cocky for the deal he wanted. Better to throw him out early than deal with that.”
Philippe stammered and just agreed to think it over himself.
Corbeau chuckled. “Wanna see what I mean? I’ll show you when the next one comes in.”
What an odd way to read people. However, Corbeau setting up little tests to see what kind of a person someone was sounded exactly like something he would do.
Their next client, a young person Philippe didn’t know, timidly approached them. Corbeau pushed his laptop away and met their eyes. Philippe noticed Corbeau tapping something and his eyes found a paper with the client’s name and pronouns: Leo, they/them.
“Bonjour, Mr. Corbeau. My name is Leo. Thank you for agreeing to see me this morning.”
Corbeau glanced at Philippe once and nodded to Leo. “Right on time. This is concerning a loan you need?”
“To cover my sister’s medical bills. She’s very sick and can’t pay them herself—and my credit is so bad that no bank is willing to give me money.”
Corbeau hummed to himself while the kid, maybe a little past their teens, spoke. When he got up and walked to the couches, the kid followed at a respectable distance. “Bad credit means poor decisions. How will you pay me back if you can’t manage money yourself? The banks have that system for a reason.”
They all hovered near the couches.
“I do work, and I can do maybe small installments. I can get a second job too if my salary looks bad for the amount…”
Corbeau checked the paper he carried over from his desk. “Your salary is awful. The installments wouldn’t be enough. The interest rate alone would make it impossible to ever pay me back, even at a generous rate. You’d be adding debt infinitely.”
Leo hung their head and their shoulders slumped. As they went to offer their solution to that, Corbeau sat down and offered them the seat right where the kid stood. The kid sat at that moment, and Corbeau looked at Philippe briefly.
“I’ll get a second job and amend my payments according to both salaries! Please, I already submitted a few resumes too. A few cafes, a restaurant—they always need waitstaff—I even sent one to a Furfrou salon. I’m great with dog pokémon! When we were growing up, our mom trained service pokémon, and Furfrou are a common one in the Kalos region. I put that on my resume too. I’ll definitely get something.”
“You sound responsible, but why the bad credit then?” Corbeau leaned back and looked down on them.
“I was a dumb kid and tried to open a juice business without a real plan. But I’m not the same person I was back then, I swear! This is for my sister!” Leo clasped their hands together and faced the ground.
Corbeau raised an eyebrow at Philippe.
“Listen, kid,” Corbeau prompted so the kid would look up, “quit your current job and work for me instead. I’ll give you the money, and you pay it off by working for me. Once you’re done paying it off, why don’t you raise some service pokémon yourself? No one does that in the city anymore and we could really use ‘em.”
“Really?”
“Wipe the slate clean, bring up the credit score, and you’ll be on your way. But while you’re working for me, you have to do whatever I tell you to do, get it, Leo?”
“Of course, Mr. Corbeau! Wow, thank you!”
Corbeau pulled out a paper and set it in front of the kid. “Sign it and hand it to me the day you can start. Get your affairs together first. Read it over. Whatever you need to do.”
“I can’t thank you enough!!!”
Corbeau put out a hand and the kid shook it, shaking with youthful enthusiasm. “See yourself out then.”
When the kid disappeared, Corbeau smiled up at Philippe. “What did we learn?”
“When did you know you would hire them?”
“I knew it was a possibility when their credit score was bad. There was no way they were gonna ever pay me back. And at this amount, it was going to be chump change. But I had the loan paperwork too in case they didn’t pass the tests.”
Philippe nodded.
“Not just that, but they were honest about why their credit was so bad. I like the recruits to be a bit desperate, but not to the point where they’re volatile. They all but threw themself on the ground. They’re easily moldable too. Imagine they make a bundle on that Furfrou business—they got untapped potential. Perfect fit.” Corbeau smirked at the elevator.
“How much did they request?”
“A drop in the bucket! Hardly anything honestly. But they’re underpaid in a city where rent is atrocious. This way they make and save for the next thing in their life. Ambitious and young, perfectly well-mannered. You know what? Even if that was just a show for me, at least they know how to pay their respects when it’s important.” Corbeau gave Philippe the paperwork.
The papers had everything they discussed. If the kid had lied, Corbeau would’ve known. Corbeau had the loan paperwork written up and could’ve thrown them in debt forever, and Leo would’ve tried to pay it off possibly all their life. A meager amount of money ruining their life forever by hanging over their head.
“Greeting someone is a sign of respect, waiting to sit until I offer it is humility, and owning up to your past mistakes is accountability. I don’t always look for these, and I’m not gonna sit here and tell you everything I look for because it also changes from person to person. But, almost every action a person takes shows their character. And character matters. It tells me what they’ll be like down the road. You can read about almost anybody online, but unless I meet the person, I can’t judge whether or not they’ll be good clients.”
“Very wise, Boss.” Philippe complimented him. “I noticed something too.”
“Something helpful?”
“You didn’t know their family worked with service pokémon. Once they mentioned that, your eyes sparkled and you gave yourself away. They were already scared, but they had you hooked by that point.”
“I don’t mind letting some emotions come out when it’s not too serious of a meeting.” Corbeau lied to him.
“So much for the ‘scary loan shark’ boss. You just love to play with puppies, don’t you?”
Corbeau pouted up at Philippe, and that scary edge he started the day with evaporated immediately.