Chapter 17 : Dead Inventory

Chapter 17: Chapter 17 : Dead Inventory

"This again?" Noah set his case down on the curb. "Hands on a car, last one to let go wins? Ethan, the Arizona State guys did a pickup last week. Two hundred views! Yesterday you were pinning sticky notes to the wall about how bad theirs was."

"Not the same," Ethan said. "This time the prize is different."

"Huh?" Noah perked up a little. "Two grand? Three?"

Ethan didn’t answer. He pointed across the street. At the front of the lot was a glass showroom with a single car inside. A silver BMW M3, nose to the street, a fine layer of dust on the roof. The price on the windshield had been changed once in neon marker. $31,900, crossed out. Now it said $29,995.

"That."

Noah followed his finger to the car. Then he looked back at Ethan, then at the car again.

"You’re out of your mind."

"Come on." Ethan was already crossing. "Thirty-five hundred in the bank. I know."

Noah grabbed his case and hurried after him. "Then what are you giving it away with?"

"We’re not the ones giving it."

The showroom door had a bell over it, and it jangled when they pushed through.

Big Bob in person was a size bigger than the one on the sign. He sat behind a desk in the corner of the showroom reading a newspaper and chewing gum, hard. A box of nicotine gum sat on the desk, more than half empty. At a smaller desk beside him sat a man in his thirties with his shirt buttoned all the way to the collar and a ledger open in front of him.

The younger one looked up first. His eyes stopped on the two college kids and their black cases, and then he smiled.

"Bob," he said. "It’s the pelican kids."

Bob lowered the paper enough to show half his face. He looked at Ethan for two seconds, then flipped back to page two and read aloud. "’A lottery ticket that’s already been cashed.’" He spread the paper out on the desk. "Read it yesterday. Chuck Ross has been tearing into people for twenty-six years, and I can count on one hand the times he got it wrong."

"Then today you’ll need another finger," Ethan said.

Bob snorted. "If you’re here selling lottery tickets, door’s behind you."

That made twice this month someone had told him that. Ethan didn’t move. He tipped his head toward the M3.

"I’m not selling tickets. Chuck Ross was right, that one’s been cashed," he said. "I’m here because the next one is parked in your showroom, and it’s been collecting dust for most of a year."

Bob’s jaw paused, then went back to work. "That car’s not for sale to college kids."

"I’m not buying it. I want you to give it away."

The younger man laughed out loud. Bob didn’t even bother. He put the paper back up. "No."

Behind him, Noah tugged at his sleeve. Ethan ignored it, pulled a chair over, and sat down across the desk from Bob.

"You don’t have to answer me," he said. "I’ll ask a few questions, and you can do the math in your head. How long has that car been sitting there?"

Nothing from behind the paper.

"Eleven months," the younger man answered for him, sounding like he was enjoying the show.

"Floor plan interest on it every month? Two hundred? A little over?" Ethan didn’t wait. "Another month and it hits a year. Once a car hits a year, the bank that floored it wants a chunk of principal back. I’d guess around ten grand."

The paper came down an inch.

In his other life, Ethan had spent two years doing ads for a chain of dealerships. He knew the math on aging inventory better than most of their salesmen did.

"Second question." He pointed at the Bay Chronicle by Bob’s elbow. "That box on the back page is yours, right? What does it run you a month?"

"Eighteen hundred." This time Bob answered himself.

"Last month, how many customers walked in holding that paper?"

Bob stopped chewing. He thought about it and didn’t come up with a number.

"Neither do I," Ethan said. "Which is why I’m not charging you a dime for ads."

"We run the contest right here on your lot. Thirty people, hands on that car, last one to let go drives it home. Twenty-four hours a day, a few hundred people watching, the website updating every hour. Your showroom stays open the whole time, so somebody who wanders in at three in the morning can still buy a car."

"For a month after it starts, anybody who gives you the promo code from the video counts as mine. Every car one of them drives off with, you pay me a thousand."

"A thousand?" Bob put the paper down. "You know what I clear on a used car?"

"A little over two grand. Three on a good one," Ethan said. "I take a thousand, you keep a thousand or more, plus a customer who was never going to walk through that door. Nobody walks in, you don’t owe me a thing."

Bob was about to say something when the phone on his desk rang. He glanced at the caller ID, and his face went dark. He grabbed the cordless and got up, heading for the back office. "Gotta take this." The door shut behind him.

The showroom went quiet. The younger man closed his ledger, came over, and perched on the arm of Bob’s chair.

"I’m Kyle. Bob’s my father-in-law." He gave them a pleasant smile. "He’s a stubborn man. Set in his ways. You can talk as nice as you want today, but the minute he’s sitting alone thinking about that car, it’ll start to hurt, and tomorrow he’ll back out."

"So?"

"So somebody needs to be in his ear every day, putting in a good word for you." Kyle flicked dust that wasn’t there off his shirt cuff. "That’s not easy work."

Standing off to one side, Noah shifted his case to the other hand without meaning to.

Nothing showed on Ethan’s face. "Work like that. How does it usually get priced?"

"By results." Kyle’s smile didn’t move. "That thousand a car of yours, I’d say half is fair. And bringing a man around takes a few dinners. Expenses. Five thousand up front, sometime this week."

Noah’s ears went red. He stared down at his shoes and studied the crack in the floor tile very closely.

Five thousand dollars. The company had thirty-five hundred to its name. And even if he’d had it, Ethan wasn’t paying. What made this lot a good bet was the same thing that had made Sal one: the owner had his back to the wall and was ready to gamble. But L.A. was full of used car lots, and the next video didn’t even have to be about a car. He didn’t need Big Bob that badly. He needed Kyle even less.

"Thanks," Ethan said. "But we’re a small company. We can’t afford consultants."

The smile stayed on Kyle’s face a second too long. Then he stood, went back to his little desk, opened the ledger again, and didn’t look their way after that.

The back door opened. Bob came out still holding the cordless, his face a shade grayer than when he’d gone in. He sat back down, unwrapped a fresh piece of gum, put it in his mouth, and just held it in his cheek.

Ethan watched him. "The bank?"

Bob looked up. "How’d you know?"

"Lucky guess. When a dealer’s face does that over a phone call, it’s either the bank or his wife. You didn’t sigh when you checked the caller ID, so it wasn’t your wife."

Bob blinked, and then, of all things, he laughed. He shook his head when he was done. "Close enough."

Ethan didn’t rush in. He waited for Bob to keep going.

"Credit line," Bob said. "They’re tightening it. Starting next month, anything I’ve had sitting a year, they want paid down, one car at a time." He lifted his chin at the M3. "That one’s first."

"Then next month it might not be yours anyway," Ethan said. "Either you hand the bank ten grand, or you dump it on a wholesaler at a loss, and what you get back won’t cover the loan. Give it away this month, and it’s the most expensive billboard in the South Bay, with Big Bob’s name on it."

Bob didn’t say anything. He stared at the M3, his jaw working slowly. Twice he opened his mouth and closed it again.

"I need to think about it," he said at last.

Ethan could see it. Push any harder, and think about it would turn into no. When a man was attached to something, the harder you pushed, the tighter he held on.

"Take your time." He stood and pushed the chair back where he’d found it. "We’ll go take a look across the street."

Bob’s eyes followed him to the window. Across the street was a Toyota dealership, its glass front polished to a shine and a row of brand-new flags snapping out front.

On the way out, Noah glanced back. Kyle had come out from behind his little desk and was bent over beside Bob, saying something close to his ear. Bob was still staring at the M3. He hadn’t moved.

The general manager at the Toyota store was Ray Delgado, forty or so, a Toyota logo stitched on the chest of his polo and not a hair out of place. He grinned as soon as he heard why they’d come.

"My daughter showed me your video. She must’ve watched the water part ten times." He led them into a glassed-in office. "So. What do you need?"

Ethan ran through the same pitch he’d just given Bob, minus the M3.

Ray heard him out, pulled open a drawer, took out an inventory sheet, and circled one line. "’02 Corolla. Trade-in, thirty-six thousand miles, sticker’s sixty-nine ninety-five. That one I can give away."

Noah lit up beside him, then glanced at Ethan.

"A seven-thousand-dollar car," Ethan said. "Thirty people, two days and two nights, for a Corolla?"

"Son, around here, a Corolla is what people can actually afford and actually want." Ray leaned back. "A BMW? That’s for standing outside the glass and taking pictures. Then they drive home in their beat-up Hondas."

He had a point. Ethan was about to answer when Ray added, "Of course, if that’s too small for you, we can talk about other things. Say I put up the Corolla, and you give me thirty seconds at the top of the video—"

The bell over the door rang.

Big Bob stood in the doorway, one hand braced on the frame, chest heaving, too winded to talk. He’d run the whole way from across the street. His face was red, and somewhere along the way he’d lost the gum.

Ray’s smile froze. "Bob?"

Bob ignored him. His eyes were on Ethan.

"That M3," he wheezed. "I’ll put it up."