On the day a person was born, only one date on the calendar, her birthday, was significant, but as she proceeded through life other dates became permanently exalted or befouled, the date her father killed himself, the date she married, the dates her children were born, until the calendar was densely checkered with significance. On the evening of January 24, a young man in a dripping fedora walked into the Lerner showroom shortly before closing time. A lesser salesman sidled up to him and got the brush-off. At Lerner, they called any man who came inside to flaunt his automotive knowledge, or to be fawned over for a couple of minutes, or just to get out of the weather, with no intention of buying, a Jake Barnes. Bradley Grant, who’d coined the name, and who’d already closed three sales that day, strolled up to Marion’s desk with an apple and ate it carefully while he studied the young Jake Barnes. “I like his shoes,” he said, dropping the apple core in her wastebasket. “Is there somewhere you need to be?” There was never anyplace Marion needed to be. Within a minute, on the floor, Bradley had a hand on the Jake Barnes’s shoulder and was helping him into a brand-new Buick Century. She watched Bradley’s features stretch into cartoons of astonishment, indifference, compassion, stern admonition. With a gliding tread that let him hurry without seeming to hurry, he returned to her and told her to keep the showroom open and a manager on duty. “Jake and I are making a little cash run,” he said, gliding away again. An hour later, he and the young buyer were back on the floor and Marion was typing up the paperwork.
“How easy was that?” Bradley exulted when the buyer was gone. He was bumping one fist on the other like a dice roller. “What do you want to bet I can’t move another car today?” His energy reminded Marion of her father’s in the pre-crash years. They were the only ones left in the office, and he couldn’t sell a car without authorization from a manager. “There’s a T-bone steak in it for you,” he said to Marion. “What do you want to bet?” Before she could answer, he grabbed an umbrella and ran out of the showroom. From the front door, smoking a cigarette, she saw him working the cars braking at the corner of Hope and Pico, saw drivers rolling down their windows, saw him gesturing at their vehicles and then at the dealership. It was insane, and she didn’t know who he was doing it for, himself or her, but watching him brought her latent dread to the surface. Later, in Arizona, she came to think that the sight of Bradley in the rain, with his umbrella, had been a premonition of pure evil. People who weren’t seriously Catholic didn’t understand that Satan wasn’t a charmingly literate tempter, or a funny red-faced devil with a pitchfork. Satan was pain without limit, annihilation of the mind.
“This gentleman has come to the sensible realization that he no longer wishes to drive a Pontiac,” Bradley said, ushering into the showroom a heavyset bald man who smelled of drink. It had taken him less than half an hour to find a customer, but he was soaked with sideways rain and street spray. He asked Marion to get the gentleman a cup of coffee while—he winked at her—he had a word with his manager, and then he asked her to pull the keys for the cherry-red ’35 Oldsmobile coupe for which the gentleman wished to trade in his Pontiac. The gentleman, he added, would be paying by personal check. The two men returned to the back lot, where the red car was parked. Marion might have walked out and let Bradley close the sale by himself if Roy Collins hadn’t made her such a rule-breaker. When the sucker drove away in his Oldsmobile, Bradley produced a flat pint bottle of whiskey and two clean coffee cups. Perched on a seat warmed by the sucker’s fat butt, at Bradley’s desk, she could see a small studio photograph of Bradley and his wife and their two little boys. She wondered if the T-bone steak was still coming or if he’d forgotten. She lit another cigarette and sipped the whiskey. “I sure hope that check doesn’t bounce.”
“It won’t,” Bradley said, “but I’ll cover it if it does. Even without it, we did better than break even.”
“His car was worth more?”
“It’s one year old! I could have offered him a straight swap, but then he would have started thinking, ‘Hey, wait a minute…’ So I made up a number and let him take me down to half of it.”
“That was mean,” she said.
“Not at all. Half the fun of owning a superior brand of car is knowing you could pay for it.”
“You were doing him a favor.”
“It’s psychology. This job is all psychology. My problem is I’m so damned good at it. Did you see me in the street? Have you ever seen anything like it?”