Chapter 20 : Hands On

Chapter 20: Chapter 20 : Hands On

Kyle found Ethan after dark.

Ethan was sitting in a folding chair outside the editing room with a notebook open on his knee, turning pages. Noah was inside, and the glow of a monitor leaked through the gap in the door and laid a stripe across the ground.

"Busy?" Kyle stopped beside him, hands in his pockets, more polite than he’d been in over a week. "Wanted to run something by you. Let’s lock the car in the service bay tonight and roll it back out for the reveal in the morning. Leave it out here overnight and somebody keys it, we’ve got a problem."

Ethan looked up at him.

It was a brief look, and Kyle couldn’t have said what was in it.

"Sure." Ethan closed the notebook and stood. "It’s all yours, then. I’m heading home. I’ve got to be back here first thing."

Kyle blinked. "You’re... not staying the night?"

"Staying for what?" Ethan stuffed the notebook into his backpack and yawned. "I haven’t had a full night’s sleep in three days. One more and I’m the first guy they carry into the EMT tent tomorrow."

He called through the door to the editing room. "Noah, knock it off. We’re going back to the dorm."

There was some shuffling around inside before Noah finally came out hugging his backpack, his eyes barely open.

The two of them crossed the lot one behind the other and drifted out the front gate. Noah was weaving as he walked. His shoulder bumped into Ethan’s, and Ethan didn’t even shove him back. Whatever energy they usually had for ribbing each other the whole way home was gone.

Kyle watched them turn the corner, and only then did he realize he’d been grinning the whole time. He couldn’t wipe it off.

He’d been sure the kid would camp out on the lot tonight. That was the whole reason for the service bay idea: lock the front, work through the back, and whoever was out front would never see a thing. Now he didn’t even need that. The car was sitting in the middle of an empty lot, and he could make the swap any way he liked.

Kyle went back into the showroom. Bob was still behind his big desk with the lamp off, a piece of gum pinched between his fingers, still in its wrapper.

"Dad, the kid went home." Kyle kept his voice low. "Tonight it’s just us."

Bob didn’t seem to hear. Then he lifted a hand and waved it vaguely, twice.

"You hand it over to him tonight." He took a manila envelope out of the drawer and pushed it to the edge of the desk. "Contract’s in there. I filled it out. Have him sign it and give him his copy."

Kyle took the envelope, felt its weight, and didn’t open it. Bob had been filling out bills of sale for thirty years and had never once gotten one wrong. There was no need.

"Don’t you worry about a thing."

Bob didn’t say anything else. He unwrapped the gum, put it in his mouth, and chewed slowly.

Kyle walked out of the showroom with his heart pounding. It was going too smoothly. So smoothly he could almost smell the ink on fresh bills.

Out past the back gate, one of the streetlights was dead, and the other kept flickering on and off.

Kyle got there an hour early. He drove the car in the middle of the lot around to the back gate, then pushed the one from the service bay out into its place, stuck the signs on its doors, and pulled the tarp back over it.

The two cars sat side by side. In the dark, front bumper to back, even he couldn’t tell which was which. He couldn’t help feeling a little proud. He was the one who’d found the guy to put that kit on, and the guy had done a beautiful job.

The buyer showed up in a cab, got out at the corner, and ambled over with a gym bag slung on his shoulder.

He walked around the car with a flashlight, crouched at the back for a look, then opened the door, sat behind the wheel, and ran his thumb over the M on the steering wheel. He grunted, satisfied.

Kyle tore open the envelope, slid out the contract, and spread it on the hood under the flashlight. His eyes ran down the page. 2002, BMW... M3... $30,000. Right.

"Sign here." He tapped the line at the very bottom.

The buyer clamped the flashlight in his teeth and signed without reading a word. Kyle tore off the carbon copy and handed it to him, then folded the original and tucked it back in the envelope.

When the gym bag’s zipper came open, the bills inside were stacked neat and tight. Kyle crouched and counted. He counted twice. Forty-five thousand, every bill there.

He stood, zipped the bag, and slung it over his own shoulder. Only then did he speak. "And my ten?"

The buyer already had the car door open. "What’s the rush? After the contest, our people come down and check the car. Once everything goes the way it’s supposed to, you’ll get yours."

"That’s not what we agreed."

"We didn’t agree you’d get paid before it worked, either." He grinned, flashing that crooked front tooth. "Relax. Nobody said you’re not getting paid."

The engine turned over. The headlights came on and washed the wall by the back gate white. The guy rolled down his window, whistling, stepped on the gas, and swung out onto the street. At the corner, the taillights flashed once and were gone.

Kyle stood there with the bag on his shoulder, feeling a little sour about it. Then again, he had forty-five in hand, and he’d told Bob thirty. That was fifteen grand for him off this one deal alone. The ten could wait until after the contest.

The night air had a chill to it. Out on the freeway, headlights slid past one after another. Up on the showroom roof, a small green light glowed beside the air-conditioning unit, and the tarp in the middle of the lot stirred a little in the breeze. Kyle hitched the bag higher on his shoulder and went back inside.

?

Kyle went home, showered, put on his best-pressed suit, and was back at the dealership as the sky was just going gray.

People were already lining up out front, wrapped in blankets, holding coffee, chatting in twos and threes. He skirted the line, went in through the showroom’s side door, looked up, and stopped.

The light was on in Bob’s office. Through the glass partition he could see three people crowded inside. Bob sat behind the desk with Ethan and Noah standing at either shoulder, all three heads bent toward the computer on the desk, the one Bob usually couldn’t be bothered to switch on.

Nobody was talking. The screen lit up all three faces. Bob’s jaw was clenched tight, and the gum in his mouth wasn’t moving.

Kyle stood in the middle of the showroom, and something in his chest gave a small lurch.

Those two kids had left together last night, so wiped out they could barely walk straight. Why were they back before it was even light? Bob never showed up before eight. Why had he beaten Kyle here? And what were they watching?

He went back over last night from start to finish. The car was under its tarp in the middle of the lot. He’d checked on his way in, and the folds were exactly the way he’d left them. The original contract was locked in his drawer. The forty-five grand was sitting in a shoebox in his closet at home. The buyer had driven off without leaving so much as a footprint.

Every piece of it was clean.

And still something felt wrong. What, exactly, he had no idea.

In the office, Noah was the first to look up. He saw Kyle, paused, and tapped a key. The picture on the screen jumped and turned into the site’s countdown page.

All three of them stood up.

Kyle pushed the door open and put on a smile. "Well, look at everybody up early. What are we watching?"

"Yesterday’s footage." Ethan pushed the chair back under the desk. "Noah says the light’s off in one shot and dragged us in to look at it. Looks fine to me. He’s just obsessive."

"It’s yellow. It’s obviously yellow," Noah muttered, rubbing his red eyes.

Kyle glanced at Bob. Bob had his head down, unwrapping a fresh piece of gum, and didn’t look at him.

"It’s about time." Ethan checked his watch. "Let’s head out."

Outside, the whole place had changed.

The sun had just cleared the roof of the Toyota store across the street, and the line outside the dealership ran halfway down the block and was still growing. People held up homemade signs. Someone was riding on a friend’s shoulders. Kevin’s volunteers were holding the caution tape and had already shouted themselves hoarse.

Inside the tape, the thirty contestants stood in a row with numbers pinned to their chests.

Tyler had claimed the most visible spot and was stretching, left leg, then right, taking it very seriously. Last time he’d lost to Mac in front of a few hundred people. This time he was here to settle the score. While he stretched, his eyes kept sliding sideways.

Three people down stood Mac, half a donut in his fist and glaze all over his chin. When he caught Tyler looking, he raised the donut at him. "Want a bite? You’ll need the energy to lose."

Tyler’s face darkened, and he went at his stretches even harder.

Next to Mac stood Owen, small and thin, the number on his chest looking oversized. He wasn’t looking at Mac or at the crowd. Hands in his pockets, he kept his eyes on the tarp in the middle of the lot.

At the other end, Sierra had on a wide-brimmed sun hat and was rubbing sunscreen into her arms. Dylan stood next to her holding her water bottle and her jacket, a bag of energy bars hanging off one arm. Ever since that bucket of water in the first video, he’d been paying off the debt.

"Hold the sunscreen too." Sierra shoved the bottle at him.

"I’m out of hands."

"Then use your teeth."

Somebody in the crowd laughed out loud.

Noah shouldered the A camera, but instead of the contestants, he swung the lens toward Bob in the showroom doorway.

"Bob, want to say a few words?"

Bob tucked his gum into his cheek, cleared his throat, and stepped in front of the camera.

"This dealership opened its doors in 1981." The moment he started talking, his voice took over the lot. "Back then there were two places on this street that sold cars. Mine, and a repair shop on that empty lot across the way. Later the Toyota store went up over there, and I’m still here. I’m the one who got the South Bay dealers’ association going. Twenty-three dealers, and I was president six years running. Back in those years, half the cars sold on this street drove out through this gate right here."

He was getting into it now, one hand thumping his chest, the other pointing at the faded sign behind him. "Today, Big Bob’s bringing this car out, and it’s not for sale. It’s a gift. For one of you."

The crowd broke into applause.

Kyle stood behind him and clapped twice along with everyone else, sneering inside. President? That was ten years ago. These days, when the association met, Ray Delgado from across the street sat at the head of the table, and Bob had to wait until last to speak. The minute this contest was over and those people showed up with reporters to check the car, the Big Bob’s sign, and this whole speech with it, would be the joke of the city.

Ethan, standing by the tarp, nodded at Bob.

Bob walked over, took hold of one corner, drew a deep breath, and yanked it off.

For an instant, the crowd went quiet.

The morning light fell at a slant across the middle of the lot. The silver M3 sat there, its paint polished bright enough to show your reflection. Vents were cut into the flared fenders, and four exhaust tips poked out side by side under the back bumper. BIG BOB’S AUTO ran across the doors. The neon price on the windshield had been wiped away.

Then the noise exploded.

"Oh my God..."

"They’re giving that away? For free?"

"That’s a thirty-thousand-dollar car!"

Somebody whistled. People with cameras surged forward, and Kevin’s volunteers shoved them back. A girl in the front row clapped a hand over her mouth and grabbed her friend’s arm.

In the row of contestants, Gus’s mouth hung slightly open, his eyes glued to the car, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He swiped his sleeve across his chin, and only then realized he actually had been drooling.

Noah swung the lens off Bob and onto Ethan. The moment the red light came on, Ethan stepped forward, square to the camera, and talked fast.

"Thirty people, one M3, and one rule. The last person with a hand on this car drives it home. Contestants, gather round!"

Thirty people formed a ring around the car, thirty hands hovering an inch above the paint.

Ethan turned to the crowd and raised a hand. "Count it down with me!"

"Ten! Nine! Eight!..."

Tyler gritted his teeth. Mac crammed in the last of his donut. Sierra tugged her hat brim lower. Owen shut his eyes for a second.

"Three! Two! One!"

"Hands on!"