Trust (16 page)

“And now you’re not,” Earl said.

The man lifted and dropped his eyebrows, tilting his head slightly, and making a small gesture with his left hand. “And now I’m not,” he said.

“What’ve you got in mind?” Earl said.

“I don’t know,” the man said. “Well, like I said, I know damned well I’m in no position to buy me another new car. But she said to me, my wife did, this morning, I’d better face facts pretty soon. Because winter’s on the way.” He sighed. “And she’s right. I know that. I’ve got to get on the stick here.”

“Do you know what you want?” Earl said. He nodded at the Impala, back up on the platform. “I’ve got a customer looking at that, but it isn’t sold yet. Committed. I don’t personally think it’s likely to give you the service you got out of this one, but it is ten years younger, eighteen on the clock, and you’d still have that, well, sporty look. How much you figure you can spend?”

The man shook his head. “I wouldn’t want that one,” he said, squinting at it. “You can see it from
here—it’s been hit. And as for the sporty thing, well, facts’re facts: my sporty days’re behind me. Least for damned certain now, I can tell you, and as far’s I can see up ahead. I think what I’m looking for’s what they put under the old ‘good transportation’ flags there. Something three or four years old, kind of dull, with low mileage on it so far and good mileage on the gas. I’d like a radio and heater—well, I’d like a lot of things, but I really do need those.”

“We’ve got some, might meet your requirements,” Earl said. “But I still can’t be sure till I know, about how much you can swing.”

“Well,” the man said, “I won’t know that until I know how much my car there’s worth in trade. How much I can swing on another one depends a lot on that.”

Earl stared at him. “You mean,” he said, “you don’t know? Is that what you’re telling me here?”

“Well,” the man said, somewhat defensively, “I mean, I know it can’t be much. It does have a lot of mileage on it, and I know it’s twelve years old. But it still starts and everything—it runs. I put new tires on it last year. And it’s had new shocks, and a tune-up. I know it won’t stand up much longer, someone drives it to work every day, or needs a car in his work, as I do. But for somebody who just needs it for doing errands, maybe retired, going to the store and so forth, or to get to the nearest subway stop, well, it might last someone like that quite a good long time. It must be worth something. Had no trouble passing Inspection.”

“Mister,” Earl said, “don’t give me ‘Passed Inspection.’ You had that done by the guy sells you gas. He’d pass a camel, you had one. No, you just got a common
sickness. Some people get it from getting too close to their dogs. Or their cats. Canaries. Some people get it from boats, so I heard anyway. And some people, like you, get it from cars. You fall in love with your dog, you just can’t face the fact the dog’s gotten old, and it’s sick, and it’s got to go to sleep. The cat, same thing. The bird. The people who get it from pets: their vets all drive big Cadillacs. The people who get it from boats: if the old tub doesn’t just sink and drown them, the guy that repairs it gets rich. And that’s why where cars’re concerned, you don’t fall in love with the things. Gets in the way of your judgment.

“Now,” he said, “it does start. Starts when it’s hot, at least, and the weather isn’t too cold. But it doesn’t really
want
to start, even when it’s warm. You had it tuned? Well, it was either a while ago, and you’ve been driving it a lot in city traffic, or else it’s burnin’ more oil’n both of us think, because those plugs in there’re all fouled. And the tune-up did not include a new starter motor, which pretty soon is my guess is gonna cost someone most of what’s in a C note. New shocks? Cheapies, then, or else you’ve been driving on dirt roads—they’re shot. Tires’re bottom-the-line Sears, and you were smart to save your dough because the front ones’re all scalloped and the back ones’re all scuffed. It needs a new muffler, and a new tail pipe, and a new resonator—you drive it with the windows closed, like people do, the winter, you’re at least gonna get a bellyache from the exhaust fumes seeping up from that system through the floorboards. If you’re lucky and don’t die—because my guess is those boards’re all rusted out, just like the rockers, and the wheel wells, and the sills, and all the panel welds that
I saw just in my few minutes. Which means that anyone dumb enough to dump a lot of money into parts and labor on that thing is only saying he’s determined to make sure that when it falls apart, it will be at least moving.

“So, mister,” Earl said, “I hate to hurt your feelings, but I got to tell the truth. We’ve had some junkers on this lot and in time we got them sold. But your car if it was a horse, the place to take it, way it is, would be the dog food factory. It’s shot. It’s not worth anything, except, maybe, to you.”

“Gee,” the man said wistfully, “I really didn’t expect much, no more’n a few hundred dollars. But, nothing? Nothing at all? I got to have a car, my job, I never know, I’m gonna need it, but it’s got to be around.”

Earl spread his hands. “What can I tell you?” he said. “Whaddaya want me to do? You want me to hike up the price on something that’ll do what you want, need a car for? We got what you’re looking for, I think. At least one and possibly three. We got a nice ’sixty-three Falcon, out in the yard in the back. Why’s it out back, instead of out front, if it’s such a bargain for someone? Because most of the people, come in off the street, they come in when they see the hot stuff. Convertibles, hardtops, real jazzy wheels: that’s what brings them in here. When we get a Cadillac, right? Or a Lincoln, big Chrysler or something—if it can be polished, it goes out in front, and better cars, not flashy but better, they go in the back.

“Now,” Earl said, “this little Falcon, it’s white and it’s got Fordomatic. Which means it’s a two-speed, hitched to a six-banger, and quick off the line it is not. It’ll go sixty, go sixty-five, but you’ll have to be patient
getting there. If some cop arrests you for seventy-five, go to court and you’ll get acquitted. The most it’ll ever do, running flat out, is seventy—that takes a week. And the downside of a steep hill with a good stiff wind behind you. Thrilling this car is not.”

The man smiled weakly. “No good for picking up girls,” he said.

“No good at all for that,” Earl said. “You might get an old nun, you trolled long enough, but otherwise, no hope at all.”

“What’s the mileage?” the man said.

“Twenty-seven honest thousand,” Earl said. “You doubt that, I suggest you check the carpeting, the seats, and the inside of the trunk. All the usual stuff, and all original, that most people never learn is how you tell if the clock’s honest. It gets, at least they tell me, it gets nineteen miles the gallon.”

“And the old lady who owned it drove it just to church on Sundays,” the man said.

“We don’t know who owned it,” Earl said. “We got it at an auction when a big dealer out in Holyoke got himself overextended and had to Chapter-Eleven his inventory. All I can tell you’s that he sold it new to whoever it was, and whoever it was’d just traded it when the guy’s show went belly-up. His nameplate’s still on the trunk. You got a toothpick or something, you can run it along the letters and peel off the dried paste wax that owner missed with his rag. This car had good care. But good care don’t go out front.”

“How much is it,” the man said.

“That’s what I was getting to,” Earl said. “I got to look it up in our book—which I’m not gonna show you—because I really don’t know what we own it for,
or what we’re asking for it. So my question is, when I look at those numbers, what do you want me to do? I tell you your car is worth nothing to us—your unit is ready for Goldie’s. You drive it down there, it’s right down in Braintree, if it’ll make it that far, and Goldie might give you two tens and a fin, maybe five tens if he’s in a good mood and he knows a guy desperate for ’fifty-five Ford chrome parts—your chrome does look pretty good. If I stick to that statement, that we don’t want your car, is that gonna hurt all your feelings? Hurt them enough so you go somewhere else, get someone to tell you nice lies?

“Because I can do that, you know,” Earl said, smiling. “I tell lies with the best of them. And if that makes you happy, happier at least, just say so and I will get going. I’ll get down the book and I’ll look at the numbers, and then I’ll add three hundred bucks. And then I’ll say to you, a completely straight face: ‘Well, sir, I’ll go this far for you. Two hundred bucks is the best I can do for that fine antique car you drove in.’ And you can tell me that that’s not enough, you got to have four at the least. And I’ll cough and I’ll shake my head, shake my head lots, and do some more math on my pad. And then I’ll say: ‘Look, this is it: two fifty on yours for the Falcon.’ And you’ll say. ‘Three fifty.’ I’ll say: ‘Split the difference.’ You’ll grin and then we’ll shake hands.’ And you will end up paying eight hundred dollars, if that’s what we
do
have to get, and Monday or Tuesday the boss’ll tell me: ‘Your lunch hour today, drive that clapped-out old Ford down to Goldie’s, and keep what he gives you, yourself. I’ll pick you up, my way in.’

“So what’s it going to be,” Earl said. “Eight ball, nine ball, straight pool?”

The man forced his smile again. “Let’s go and look at the book,” he said. “And if that’s in the ballpark, the car.”

The man said he was impressed with the Falcon. He sat in it and looked under the hood, repeating the inspection steps he had seen Earl perform on the Ford. “I really don’t know why I’m doing all this,” he said, standing up after rapping the rocker panels lightly with his fist. “I just saw you do it, so I know there must be a reason. Makes me feel like I know what I’m doing.”

“Well,” Earl said, “if somebody asks you sometime, you ever do it again, the reason is that’s how you tell if you got rust starting under the paint, coming from inside out. If it’s solid, there isn’t, or there probably ain’t—if it isn’t, there certainly is, and it’s not gonna be long before you can see it, which is when you say ‘bye-bye’ your dough.”

The man dusted his hands off and looked critically at the Falcon. “It’s pretty much the way you described it,” he said. “I’d like a test drive, though.”

“Well,” Earl said, frowning, “you oughta get one, of course. But my problem is, I’m here alone, and I can’t leave the office, but our rules say I got to ride with you. That way if the car doesn’t come back, neither do I, but the cops take kidnapping more serious’n they do plain auto theft. That’s if the boss isn’t mad at me that day, so he decides not to report it.”

The man laughed. “Well,” he said, “is anyone else coming in?”

Earl looked at his watch. “He was due back from lunch twenty minutes ago,” he said. “But that doesn’t
mean what you think. Roy don’t do it often, but every now and then he gets to having a glass of beer with his sandwich. And then he has another one, and sometimes he comes back pretty late. Like maybe two or three days.”

The man looked crestfallen. “I’m sorry,” Earl said. “If you think I’m pulling something on you, you’re wrong. I really want to sell you this car, and I’d like to close it today. Because I think you like it, and I’m off tomorrow, and I will bet you will come back. Which will mean Roy will be here, and he’ll close the deal, and he’ll get at least half commission. When I was the one that made the damned sale, and he’s getting paid for beer drinking.”

“Well,” the man said, “suppose we do this: Get all the paperwork done now, and I’ll give you a deposit. Then I’ll come back tomorrow and road-test the thing, and if it’s okay, I’ll pay the rest.”

Earl studied him. “How you planning, pay for this?” he said.

The man shrugged. “I’m not going to borrow the money,” he said. “If that’s what you’re thinking about. I’ve seen too many people, much better off than I am, get themselves in trouble taking out loans. Even when they manage to pay them off on time, it’s always a struggle. And it’s usually because they weren’t able to control themselves, and decided to spend more’n they could afford—Cadillacs on Chevy wages—so that they got in too deep. I’ve got no self-control, either. Well, not much, at least. Just enough so I don’t even go to new-car places, and tempt myself. I shop for bargains, where bargains’re are sold, and I only carry as much
money as I can safely spend. I carry that much in cold cash.”

“But you’ve got the checking account, I assume,” Earl said.

“Sure,” the man said, “but there isn’t much in it, I’m sorry to say. Maybe two or three hundred bucks.”

“Okay,” Earl said, “how about this? We agreed on eight hundred plus your car. Which looks like I’m giving you a hundred but is actually fifty big bucks. Now this little Falcon is cheap to repair—not that I think it needs work. If the front end is shot, or the thing’s out of line, the most it can cost you’s a hundred. You give me seven in cash, and your regular check for a hundred. I can’t deposit the check until Monday, so you can stop it before then, or let it go through, get the car fixed yourself. And that means we do the deal right this minute, and my thirsty friend gets no divvies.”

The man smiled. “Excellent,” he said. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

Back at Earl’s desk in the office, the man produced his checkbook and the registration for the Crown Victoria. He wrote the check to Centre Street Motors for a hundred dollars, and Earl filled in the serial and engine numbers of the Falcon on the standard bill of sale, along with the description of make, model, and year. He signed it. He said, “Hey, all of this, we’ve been talking all this time and I wish to God all my customers were like you, but I never did get your name.”

The man had taken out his wallet and was counting crisp new hundreds onto the desk, making seven of them into a fan. “Make it out in my wife’s name,” he said. “I’m in the process of putting all our bigger assets in her name. In case I should drop dead or something.
Get more conscious of that possibility, I find, as you get closer to forty. Eleanor D. Forrest. With two
r
s.”

Earl paused. “Yeah,” he said, “well, I hope the Ford’s in your name, though. Or else she signed that registration over.”