by Fante, Dan
This greatly pissed off Fernando, my poker-playing sales buddy, in our mutual area, because the couple were obviously Latinos and up until that day, he had been awarded all Spanish-speaking customers. But now, since Rhett had reshuffled the deck and I had greeted the customers, Fernando was SOL and he didn’t like it—or me.
After I said hi to the couple, Fernando ran inside and bitched me out to Max, yelling that I was skating him and was stealing his customer. Max called to Rhett in the big office and Rhett yelled back, “Hey, if they speak any fuckin’ English at all, then JD gets the up. It’s his patch too. He greeted them first. Case closed.”
AS IT TURNED out, Tomas Valenzuela was a landscape guy who had his own business manicuring the lawns and flower gardens of the rich and fabulous in Brentwood. Martina, his wife, was pretty much his interpreter and kept the checkbook in her purse.
I’d spent my own free time studying up on the 4Runner line so I knew a little bit about the SUV. But instead of talking about the excellence of the car, I did what Woody had suggested in one of our conversations after an AA meeting. Woody’s advice was, “Just give the mooch the price and then start talking about them, what they like. Forget the bucket seats and the cruise control and the fucking GPS and all that crap. Ask the mooch how long he’s been in L.A. Ask him where he lives. How many kids he’s got. Does he like sports? That stuff. Remember, the car sells itself. People already know what they want when they come on the lot.”
So I took Tomas and Martina on a demo ride up and down Santa Monica Boulevard, then across Lincoln Boulevard, with him behind the wheel. We talked about their kids (with Martina interpreting) and the landscaping business and then I asked her about her teacher’s-assistant job, and how they liked living in Southern California. And then—you have to do this as part of qualifying the mooch—I asked if they’d ever bought a car before on payments and how much down they intended to pay. The only things I didn’t discuss on the ride with Martina were world peace and her bra cup size.
The price I gave Tomas and pretty Martina from the typed flyer in my sports jacket pocket that listed all the prices for the used cars, was $11,995. This, I discovered later, was five grand over what the car was actually worth (what Sherman Toyota had paid for it). So the profit on the sale would be $5,000 at full price, less the dealership pack (the amount it costs to refurb the car and the cost of bank interest for retailing the car on the lot).
Tomas never blinked when I told Martina to tell him the retail ticket price. It was the first car they’d ever bought off a car lot and he and Martina were worried about their ability to get financing from our bank, so any price objection seemed to be settled right there.
When we got back to the car lot I took them inside to my desk and helped them fill out the credit application and got them each a cup of coffee. For a mother who said she had two boys, pretty Martina had a great figure beneath her snug black blouse and tight skirt.
They decided that the car would be in Martina’s name. She was the one with the credit cards. So she took out her checkbook and wrote out a good-faith check for the four-thousand-dollar down payment.
With the paperwork and her check in my hand, I walked into the sales office and showed the deal to Max, who, before looking over the paperwork, reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a ridiculous-looking faded pink fly-fisherman’s cap and put it on. Then he looked through his sales manager’s window at my customers.
“Okay, now I’m ready,” he said. “First deal of the day: we take no prisoners, right, JD?”
“Sure. Whatever.”
“Pretty girl,” he said. “Did you ask her if she sucks cock? We’ll make my blow job part of the deal?”
“Look, I got lucky,” I said. “I’m just glad I got the up.”
Now Max looked down at my paperwork, saw the check for the 4K down payment, then made a face that registered glee.
Opening his finance sheet, he found the highest interest rate at the top of the page. Then he ran a computer credit check on Martina.
Five minutes later my boss had her printed-out credit report with her credit score. She was spotless on her two credit cards, a Mastercard and a Visa, and had never missed a payment on anything. Martina’s credit score was a 721.
Max then wrote down a number on the front of the paperwork folder I’d handed to him: $469.00 (a total of over $22,000 for four years’ worth of payments, plus the $4,000 down payment). The profit on the deal had just gone to over $17,000.
Max circled the payment and the number of months—$469 x 48—with his black magic marker. “Tell these delightful wetback foreigner cocksuckers they can drive the car home today. All Mrs. Valenzuela needs to do—after performing my BJ—is sign the contract. JD baby, you just buried your first mooch, big time. If she signs the contract you’ve got yourself one helluva big pop on your first sale in the car business.”
“She’ll sign,” I said. “They want the car. I can smell it.”
Max was beaming. “Like blood to a vampire,” he sneered. “Four million spics in L.A. and ninety-nine percent of ’em are fucking grapes—perfect mooches.”
I took the contract and paperwork back to my desk and pushed it across to Martina. “Four sixty-nine a month,” I said with a straight face. “Can you afford that payment?”
“Jess, iz okay,” says Martina. “We cah do it. No problema.”
I liked Martina a lot. She was the decision maker, the brains in the family. “My boss says you can take the car with you right now, today, if you sign right down there by the X,” I said.
Martina and Tomas smiled at each other. They apparently had a nice relationship. Then pretty Martina wrote her signature across the contract, slowly, in bold script. Sherman Toyota had just sold a four-year-old 4Runner at more than the price of a new one.
Next, on Max’s instructions, I marched Martina and Tomas into the finance manager’s office, which was next door to Max’s sales office. The finance guy was Mickey Goldman, one of the management henchmen Rhett had brought with him when he took over as general manager four days earlier. Mickey’s name was in shiny gold letters on the fancy plaque stuck to his office door.
After I left the couple with Mickey, he further buried Martina and Tomas under the company’s biggest, nearly worthless extended warranty contract, for another hundred twenty-five per month, for forty-eight months.
Caveat emptor, especially in the used-car business.
MY COMMISSION ON the sale was $2,550, plus the $500 cash bonus. Max called me into the office an hour later and handed me my commission voucher. He was still smiling. “Look, guy,” he said, “they won’t always be this easy. Those spics were a total laydown. They never knew what hit ’em. But you did a good job. Keep it up.”
Then Max got up, adjusted his pink fishing cap, and walked me down the hall to the big office overlooking the sales floor. Formerly Max’s office, now Rhett’s new office.
Rhett was eating one of three In-N-Out burgers and watching the Dodgers cream the Diamondbacks in the second game of a three-game series. Game one had been rained out.
Max tossed the sales folder on Rhett’s big mahogany desk. When Rhett saw that Max was wearing his fisherman’s cap, he grinned. “Okay, I see you guys got something for me? Make it good.”
“Boss,” Max yelled, “Fiorella here just put away the first kill of the day. Over seventeen K profit!”
Rhett checked over the paperwork, then smiled broadly. “Nice work,” he said. “Nice deal. Now you boys go get me ten more and we’ll have a decent fuckin’ day.”
“I intend to be the best salesman at Sherman Toyota,” I said. “Top man. I’m here to make money.”
Rhett looked at Max, then shook his head. When the commercials came on, the big boss muted the TV sound. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a roll of hundreds. A big roll. He counted out five bills and waved them at me. “These are yours, kid.”
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“I’m no kid,” I said.
“Whatever. Don’t be so touchy, Fiorella. Look, I can smell a good car man. You’ll do okay here. Just calm down. Show up on time and keep your nose clean. And do whatever Captain Kangaroo in that goofy fishing hat tells you to do. I taught him everything he knows. Ha-ha!”
I scooped up the money and stuffed it into my new pants.
“Hey, Max,” Rhett snarled, pointing at the TV screen, “I’m about to dump two large on the fucking Diamondbacks! I hate Arizona.”
Max smiled. “What’d I tell you? Never bet the Backs.”
“Goddamn right.”
OUT ON THE sales lot, with Max and Rhett out of sight inside the dealership, potbellied Fernando, fifteen feet away, began to hassle me. “Hey, esshoe,” he hissed, “don’t jou neber try tha chit again. Jou skated me.”
“Kiss my ass, fat boy. Fair is fair. You heard the guy.”
“We gonna zee ow tuff jou are. We gonna zee. Jou wait for later. We gonna zee.”
THAT AFTERNOON MAX had hired a new saleswoman. Her name was Vikki Martin, a total L.A. cutie. Dark blonde with frilly curls and dressed to the nines in a tight-fitting skirt, and with red nail and toe polish. Midtwenties. Her low-cut black blouse advertised her two (what I was sure must be) aftermarket D cups.
EIGHT
At 9:20 P.M. I was done for the day. A thirteen-hour shift. The headache that had started five years ago in the East Bronx when I killed those people had never gone away, except when I was drunk. Today it was little more than a dull thump. Livable. I had five hundred dollars in cash in my pocket and had sold one more car, a two-year-old Camry, and made a total of three thousand five hundred for my first three days in the car business.
With mom’s Honda parked and locked up safely around the corner, I was on my way across the darkened car lot to get in my demo Corolla, when Fernando stepped out of the shadows and into my path.
“Ho kaye, chithead,” he snarled, “now we gonna zee whaz wha.”
Fernando outweighed me by sixty or seventy pounds and was three inches taller. He gave me a two-handed push in the chest. I was knocked off balance, but regained myself. Before I could straighten up fully, he landed a nice flush right to my jaw and I fell back against the Corolla.
But, to Fernando’s surprise, rather than go down or cover up, I straightened myself and stood there smiling. Then I lifted my hands and was ready to go. What fat boy didn’t realize was that I like to fight and that long ago in New York City I discovered that I have the adrenal system for it. I’m like a boxer in the ring. When the juice begins to flow I can be hit, but the pain is minimal, not unlike a guy in a ten-round bout at the Olympic Auditorium. I simply ignore what hurts.
“C’mon, you potbellied cocksucker, try that again,” I said, still smiling, waving him toward me.
Fernando made his next move, a wide right. I easily stepped back and it missed me by a couple of inches. After that I got in a series of three strong palm thrusts to the face followed by a nice kick. My foot found its mark and Fernando grabbed his crotch.
In some cases—in the past, in my private-detective days—I have taken pleasure in hurting people, but I didn’t want to scuff up Fernando too much or break his nose or knock out any teeth, so I decided to take my time.
My best punch as a boxer is my left hook. I landed two of them, a few seconds apart, flush on his cheek. Fatboy reeled on his heels and went down. I could have kicked him nicely in the face but I decided instead to step back and wait to see if he had any spit left in him.
Ten yards away, Max, with a thick key ring in his hand, had walked outside and was just locking up the showroom. He could hear us scuffling.
“Guys,” Max yelled, walking toward us, “that’s it! Knock it the fuck off!”
Fernando got to his feet and straightened his shirt. I was pleased to see that I hadn’t made him bleed. That would come later, if he still wanted more.
“We juss talkin, boss, iz all we beeng doin,” fat boy said cheerily, still trying to catch his breath.
I pointed a finger at Fernando. “Your Latino salesman thinks I skated him, boss,” I said. “He says that he wants to kick my ass. And, well, I’d sort of enjoy hurting him a little more, so if you don’t mind, we can settle this after you leave.”
“Shut up, Fiorella,” Max snarled.
“Then tell fat fuck here to back off before I get angry and really do some damage.”
“I said, shut up, Fiorella, if you want to keep your job!”
Then I turned back to Fernando. “Okay, moron,” I said, pointing a finger, “how ’bout me scattering a few of your teeth in the driveway? You up for that?”
Max put his hand on my chest. I let him push me back. I had no interest in losing my job over a brawl.
“I said, that’s it!” Max bellowed.
FIVE MINUTES LATER the deal was settled. Max ordered me to give Fernando two hundred and fifty bucks out of my salesman’s cash spiff on the 4Runner. A settlement.
I refused. “No goddam way,” I said. “I made that money fair and square. House rules. No goddam way!”
Then Max tried another angle. He decided that Fernando would get the first deal of the day the next morning if the up was in our area. I was okay with that.
IT WAS MONDAY night, too late to go to an AA meeting. My energy was flowing now. I’d had a short fight and I had five hundred bucks in my pocket for the first time in a year, since before I got sober.
I decided to buy myself dinner and drove my demo Corolla to the Broken Drum parking lot two blocks away on Wilshire Boulevard. The Drum is a steak house with an attached bar. When I was in high school it had been our hangout after a day’s classes or the Saturday night coed dances and basketball games. In those days the bartender was a guy named Sonny. He’d serve almost anyone provided there was a twenty-dollar bill in front of them on the bar.
Inside, the place was the same as it had been more than twenty years before—new paint, but that was all. It was dark with a lighted fireplace at the center of the main dining room. The bar area had pretty waitresses, fewer tables, and another newer fireplace. I decided to sit there.
I ordered a steak with a potato and a salad. The waitress was named Betty. In her forties. Tall and attractive with big, full lips. Red red lips. Very friendly. “Anything from the bar?” she asked smiling. “Gin and tonics are three twenty-five before ten o’clock.”
“I just started a new job down the street at the car dealer,” I said. “So I’m celebrating. I made my first sale today. I made two sales today, in fact.”
“Hey,” Betty chirped, “good for you. Very cool.”
“But just give me a tonic water—no gin,” I said. “Put a slice of lemon or lime in it too. Okay?”
“You know,” Betty said, writing the order down on her pad, a bit distracted, “I bought my car there. Last year. The guy’s name was Woody. Do you know Woody?”
“Sure, he’s a friend,” I said. “He’s the reason I’m selling cars. Woody got me the job.”
“They come in here a lot. The heavyset guy from Argentina. Arnoldo. He comes in with that other guy from the service department. Buckie, I think.”
“You mean Fernando,” I said.
“Yeah, Fernando. He’s nice. He’s okay.”
“Tell them to cook my steak medium rare, please? That’s how I like it.”
A couple of minutes later Betty set a salad down in front of me, along with my tonic water.
I started on the salad and was halfway through it when I took a sip of the tonic water. It tasted funny. A moment later I realized there was gin in it. It was my first sip of anything that contained booze since I’d quit drinking. My head immediately started pounding.
Just then Betty with the red lipstick was walking by, taking another order. “Everything okay?” she said, smiling. “How’s your salad?”
“Jesus,” I said. “There’s fucking gin in my drink!”
“You ordered a gin and tonic, didn’t you?”
“No! Tonic—no gin! I’m allergic to alcohol. Jesus!”
“Oh God, I’m soo-o sorry!” Betty said. “I’ll take it back.” Then she patted me on the arm, scooped up my glass, and walked off, shaking her head.
The taste of the stuff had made my brain crazy and it began chattering: Hey, have the fucking drink. Just one. Fix your headache! Jesus, what’s wrong with one drink? You already had a sip. Quit being a pussy. Enjoy yourself.
I dropped a twenty on the table, then got up. I was terrified. One drink and I’d be back where I was before, where my madness had taken me—back to hell.
Once outside in my demo car, still freaked that I’d had a sip of gin and would now be back out of control—that the obsession to get drunk would come back—I punched in Southbay Bill’s number on my cell phone.
No answer. I dialed again. When the call went to voice mail, I hung up.
Then I punched in Bob Anderson’s number. The mean-ass old guy had fired me as his sponsee nine months before because I failed to show up for one of our appointments about discussing the AA Third Step.
I was desperate and I didn’t care. I had to talk to someone who knew me and knew what to do. I was sure Bob could help and tell me how to handle the feelings.
When Bob answered I knew by his voice that I’d woken him up. “Hello, this is Bob,” he wheezed.
“Bob, it’s JD.”
“Hey, buddy, how are ya? It’s late. What’s up?”
“I had a fucking drink! That’s how I am. I’m crazy.”
“Hey, my friend,” he croaked, “that’s what we alkies do. We drink. So, tell me what happened.”
