But the gentlemen were leaving, walking away between the rows of hopeless wrecks in the Ultraspecial department of Maximilian’s Used Cars, moving unhurriedly but steadily until Max raised his voice, calling, “Gentlemen, don’t you want this car?” Then they walked faster, not looking back.
Stan said, “They were gonna pay cash, right?”
“You’re goddamn right they were,” Max said. “Until you come along.”
“Max,” Stan said, “don’t you still get it? Don’t you know what those guys were?”
“Customers,” Max said. Then, before Stan could speak, Max raised a grimy-knuckled and nail-bitten hand, showed Stan its callused palm, and said, “But even if you’re right, so what? If you’re right, you know what I got? The perfect customer. Not only do they give me cash, so there’s no problem with the paper, the credit line, discounting with the bank, having to eat the damn car when they repossess, none of that, but these are customers who will never bring the car back to argue the way they always do. The transmission, the brakes, all this stuff they bitch about. These customers weren’t like that. Even saying you’re right, Stan, and I don’t say you’re right, these customers were the best kind of customers you could get. They’re like the army. They buy the product, they blow it up, everybody’s happy.”
“Except you,” Stan said.
Max glowered at him. “The sun is baking your brains,” he decided. “Come into the office, explain me this favor you did.”
“Be right there,” Stan told him, and walked over to Mom’s cab, where Mom looked up at him out her open window and said, “This is taking long.”
“There was a little complication,” Stan told her. “I’ll tell you on the way home.”
“You’re done? He said yes?”
“A few minutes,” Stan promised, and went back over to the office, where Max was seated behind his desk, chewing an imaginary cigar, the only kind the doctor would let him have.
“Good,” Max said, looking at him as though he’d believed Stan might run away rather than face him. “The expressman with the downside. Deliver.”
“The FBI,” Stan said.
Max shifted the imaginary cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other. “The FBI? Whadda they gotta do with me?”
“Your customers,” Stan explained, “your perfect customers out there, they go away with that heap, and a week or two from now some embassy blows up, maybe some airline office, maybe even a police station, the UN Building.”
“Good,” Max said. “The car is out of my inventory and out of my inventory.”
“But there’s enough of it left,” Stan said, “for identification, registration, history of the car. The FBI likes to say it checks out every lead, and that car’s a lead, and it leads here.”
“So what?” Max demanded, taking the imaginary cigar from his mouth and waving it in his hand. “This happens to be a time I’m innocent! I don’t know those people! I sold them a car! That’s what I do!”
“Max, Max,” Stan said, “don’t use the word innocent, okay? I look out the window here, I see half a dozen cars I sold you, and I know where I got them. You want police attention, Max? For any reason at all?”
Max didn’t answer. He gazed at Stan wide-eyed. The imaginary cigar had gone out.
Stan said, “The FBI comes in here looking for evidence on crime number one, checking you out, going through the records, studying the paper. But there isn’t any evidence on crime number one, because you’re innocent, you aren’t involved. So do they go away? Do they just ignore all the evidence they pick up on crimes number two through twenty-eight? Or do they turn over this big thick report to the local cops?”
“You’re right,” Max said. He sounded stunned. Shaking his head, dropping the imaginary cigar in an imaginary ashtray, he said, “I’m not used to innocence, it clouded my judgment. You saved me, Stan,” he went on, his agitation pushing him up onto his feet. “I owe you on that. I owe you a big one.”
Stan looked interested. “You do?”
Max spread his hands. “Name it. I know you come here to sell me a vehicle, but that—”
“Well, kinda, yeah,” Stan said, shifting gears, moving straight into plan B. “A beauty, actually, better than—”
“But that can wait,” Max said firmly. “I can see you got something in mind. What is it?”
“Well, as a matter of fact, Max,” Stan said, “I was gonna ask your advice.”
“Ask.”
“You see, I need a car, and—”
“You need a car?”
“This is a special car,” Stan explained, “with special kinds of modifications on it. I was thinking, the guys in your body shop—”
“Can do anything,” Max finished. “So long as you don’t need a vehicle more than, say, two, three weeks, my boys can give you whatever you want.”
“This is short-term,” Stan promised.
“Everything I do here is short-term,” Max said. “That’s what the customers refuse to accept. Whadda they want for fifteen ninety-five? Would they buy a TV set as old as these cars?”
“A good point,” Stan said. “Maybe you should put it in the advertising.”
“There are fine points of business, Stanley,” Max told him, “you’ll never understand. Tell me about this car you need. Fix up the engine? High speed?”
“Well, no,” Stan said. “The fact is, one thing we need is the engine taken out.”
Max looked at him. “Is this humor?” he asked. “Harriet keeps telling me about this stuff, humor; is that what this is?”
“Absolutely not,” Stan told him, and took the specifications out of his pocket. “Now, the most important thing is, the dimension side-to-side between the tires has got to be four feet, eight and a half inches, from the middle of the tread to the middle of the tread. The front tires got to be that wide apart, and the back tires.”
“Sure,” Max said.
“Then,” Stan said, “no engine. And either a convertible, or we cut the top off the car.”
“Cut the top off the car,” Max said.
“Well, here’s the list,” Stan said, and gave it to him. “You want to see the creampuff I brought?”
“In a minute.” Max studied the list, nodding slowly. “My boys are gonna laugh and laugh,” he said.
“But can they do it?”
“They can do anything,” Max repeated. “When do you need it?”
“In a hurry,” Stan said.
“How did I know?” Max put the list in his pocket. “So let’s see this creampuff you brought me.”
“And in appreciation for what you and your boys are doing,” Stan said as they went through Harriet’s office and out the back to go look at the Aston Martin, “I’m gonna let you call your own price on this one. Max, I’m almost giving it away!”
FORTY-TWO
“What time is it?” Judy murmured in his ear.
Doug Berry reared up on his elbows, rested his wrist on Judy’s nose, and looked at his waterproof, shockproof, glow-in-the-dark watch/compass/calendar. “Five to three,” he said.
“Oh!” she cried, suddenly moving beneath him on the life jackets spread on the bottom of his Boston Whaler much more enthusiastically than at any point before this. “Damn! The lesson’s over! Let’s go!”
“Judy Judy Judy,” Doug said, holding on to her bare shoulders. “I didn’t know I was finished.”
“It doesn’t matter when you’re finished,” she told him. “I pay for the lessons. And I have a waxing appointment this afternoon. Off, big boy.”