He looked at the desk beside him. Dark walnut, polished to a deep shine. A computer. A small glass dish of mints. A stack of brochures. A brass nameplate at the front edge: DEREK LAWSON. And in a small wooden tray beside the keyboard, two sets of car keys, laid out side by side, perfectly parallel. Black leather fobs with the Cadillac crest in silver. He could read the tags tied to them from where he sat. One said ESCALADE PLATINUM — BLACK RAVEN — STOCK 4471. The other said XT5 — CRYSTAL WHITE — STOCK 4508.
Calvin looked at the keys for a long time, sipping his coffee.
He looked at his watch. It was a plain steel watch with a leather strap, older than the young man with the round glasses, which Loretta had given him on the day Booker Executive Transportation bought its tenth car. Ten-twenty.
He waited.
At ten-thirty-five, the salesman in navy finally got off the phone. He stood by the coffee station for a moment, scrolling through something on the screen, his jaw set. Then he walked, not toward his desk, but to an office at the back of the showroom with a frosted glass door and a sign that said GENERAL MANAGER, and knocked, and went inside, and closed the door behind him.
Calvin waited.
At ten-forty, a heavy middle-aged woman came in through the front doors with a little boy by the hand, looked around the showroom, saw Calvin sitting at the first desk, and came over to him and asked whether he worked here, and he said, no, ma'am, I'm afraid not, I'm a customer too, and she said, oh, sorry, and went to find someone else. The tall blond salesman in the tight gray suit came in from the lot and took her into his office.
At ten-forty-five, the young man in the round glasses came back over with the silver coffee pot and refilled Calvin's mug without being asked.
"I'm sorry, sir," he said in a low voice. "He's in with the manager. I'm sure he'll be out soon. Are you sure there isn't something I could help you with in the meantime? I'm still pretty new. But I know the cars. I could show you around."
Calvin looked up at him. At his anxious, earnest young face behind the round glasses. At the black graduation suit a little too big in the sleeves. At the brass name tag on his lapel. ELI BROOKS. SALES CONSULTANT.
"How long have you been working here, Eli?" Calvin asked.
"Five weeks, sir."
"How many cars have you sold?"
Eli hesitated. Then he told the truth. "One, sir. To my aunt."
Calvin nodded slowly.
"And if you came over here and helped me," he said, "while I'm sitting at Mr. Lawson's desk. What would Mr. Lawson think about that?"
Eli's face did something complicated. He looked over his shoulder at the closed door of the general manager's office. He looked back at Calvin.
"He wouldn't like it, sir," he said quietly. "It's called skating. You're not supposed to take another man's customer."
"Even if he doesn't come over?"
"Even then."
"Then don't," Calvin said gently. "You've got a job to keep. I'll wait for Mr. Lawson. I'd like to see what he says." He lifted the mug. "But I'm grateful for the coffee. More than you know."
Eli looked at him for a moment longer, puzzled. Then he nodded and went back to the brochure rack.
At ten-fifty-two, the frosted glass door of the general manager's office opened and Derek Lawson came out.
Calvin watched him come. He came fast, across the back of the showroom, his face flushed, his jaw tight, his red tie slightly askew as if he had been tugging at it. Whatever had been said in that office, Calvin thought, it had not been good. The salesman looked at his watch as he walked. He looked at the front doors. He looked at the parking lot through the big glass windows. And then he looked at his desk, at the first desk by the door, at the old man sitting in the fawn-colored leather armchair beside it with a mug of coffee on a napkin, and his face changed.
Calvin understood, watching it change, what the salesman was seeing. He was seeing his desk. The best desk in the showroom, nearest the front doors, where he would sit with his eleven o'clock customer in eight minutes and sell him two cars and save his job. And he was seeing an old man in a beret and loafers with no socks sitting in the chair where that customer was supposed to sit. Drinking the dealership's coffee. From a good mug. Taking up space.
Wasting his time.
Derek Lawson changed direction. He came straight across the showroom floor toward the first desk, fast, his black shoes ringing on the gleaming gray tiles, click click click click, the sound echoing up into the high white ceiling with its great round disks of light. He did not slow down until he was standing at the corner of his own desk, beside the leather armchair, close, looming over it, a tall broad man in a dark navy suit standing over a thin old man sitting down.