He took the mug in both hands. Eli saw that his hands were thin and dark and heavily lined, with prominent knuckles, and that there was a plain gold wedding ring on the left one, worn smooth. The old man held the mug for a moment, letting the warmth go into his palms. Then he sipped from it, and nodded, and set it down on the corner of the walnut desk, carefully, on the napkin, so it would not leave a ring.
"Is somebody helping you, sir?" Eli asked. "I'm afraid this is Mr. Lawson's desk. He's our senior salesman. He's on a call right now. I can let him know you're here."
"I'd appreciate that," said the old man. "Tell him there's no hurry. I don't mind waiting."
"Can I tell him your name?"
The old man considered this for a moment. Then he smiled again, a slightly different smile, as if at some private joke.
"Just tell him there's a gentleman at his desk who'd like to talk about buying some cars," he said.
Eli went back across the showroom to the coffee station and stood near Derek and waited until Derek, who was saying, absolutely, absolutely, no, I totally understand, into the phone, looked at him with raised eyebrows and an expression that said very clearly, what.
"There's a customer at your desk," Eli said quietly. "An older gentleman. He says he wants to talk about buying some cars. He says there's no hurry."
Derek looked past him, across the showroom, at the first desk by the door. Eli watched his eyes find the old man in the leather chair. He watched them travel, in about one second and a half, from the tan beret to the khaki jacket to the plaid shirt to the pleated trousers to the brown suede loafers and the bare ankles above them. He watched them stop there, at the ankles. And he watched something close in Derek's face, like a door swinging shut in a breeze.
"Thanks," said Derek. "I'll get to him."
And he turned his back and went on talking into the phone.
* * *
Calvin Booker sat in the leather armchair beside Derek Lawson's desk and drank his coffee and waited.
He did not mind waiting. He had spent the first eleven years of his working life waiting. Waiting outside hotels and office buildings and churches and courthouses and hospitals and nightclubs, sitting behind the wheel of a black car with the engine off, for people who might be five minutes or five hours. He had learned to wait the way some men learn to fish. Patiently. Watchfully. Without expecting anything. He had found that you learned more about the world in an hour of waiting than in a day of doing. You saw who came and went. You saw how people talked to the doorman. You saw how they talked to each other when they did not know anyone was watching.
So he sat, and he waited, and he watched.
He watched the tall salesman in the navy suit at the back of the room, pacing up and down beside the coffee station with his phone, talking fast and low, one hand gesturing in the air. A good-looking man, in the way that some men are good-looking in their thirties, all angles and polish. Slicked-back hair, a red tie, shoes that shone. Calvin had watched the young man in the round glasses go over to him, and watched the salesman look across the showroom. He had felt the salesman's eyes on him. He knew that look too. He had felt it go down him from his beret to his loafers and stop at his ankles, and he had seen the salesman turn his back.
He was not offended. He was interested.
He watched the young man in the round glasses go back to the brochure rack in the middle of the floor, and stand there, and keep glancing over at him, and then at the salesman, and then at him again, with an expression of growing discomfort. A good young man, Calvin thought. Somebody raised him right. Somebody taught him to bring an old man a coffee in a real cup.
He watched a tall blond salesman in a tight gray suit come back in from the lot, jingling a set of keys, and say something to the salesman in navy and laugh, and look across the showroom at Calvin, and laugh again, and then go back outside.
He watched a quiet young Asian man in a charcoal suit and a dark green tie come out of an office in the back with a stack of papers, and see Calvin sitting alone at the first desk, and stop for a moment, and frown, and look at the salesman in navy, and then look at his own feet, and go into another office, and close the door.