“Sales manager?'
“Parts.'
“I was waiting for the sales manager. Can you reconnect me, please?'
“Sure.” The line clicked. Then obviously disconnected. He dropped more money and dialed again with his usual total concentration and unswerving perseverance.
“Mannschrecker's.” The same busy voice.
“I was holding for the sales manager and was cut off,” putting a bit of fake edge in his tone.
“Sorry you had trouble, sir, just a moment.” Click. A tune by the Beatles performed by some butt-kissing, nothing band played in the bowels of a far and unnecessary hell, then—'Here you are, sir,” again unnecessarily.
“Tim Brinkman, can I help you?'
“Tim, I was in last week looking at that black Caprice?'
“Yeah.” Friendly tone. Meant it had been on the lot for at least a week. Good.
“I just drove by and see you still got it. I just was wondering here, uh, tell ya what, Tim, I just don't wanna go five thousand for it like I talked to somebody there. But, uh, let me say this: you let me have it forty-five hundred and I'll come in right this minute and write you a check.'
“Who's zis?'
“Oh, Tim, you don't know me. I'm wantin’ a car for me but I'm gonna let my niece take it when she goes away to college,” he started the story he'd concocted for Sissy. Using the name the way he'd want it on the registration.
“Bud, ah can't do it. I mean, that Caprice's a honey. Hell, it's LOADED. I might knock a couple hundred down if you came in right NOW with the check, but, no, I just can't—'
Chaingang cut him off, “I understand that. But that's for comin’ in there right now an’ writing a CHECK. I got us a better idea.'
“How's that?” Suspicious tone.
“Suppose a feller like you wanted some immediate cash flow. And a feller like me wanted a nice little ole’ Caprice for forty-five hundred dollars. Looks like there's some way we could strike a deal?” A pause and Bunkowski knew instantly he had him and he closed it. “So I say I send the girl on over with the cash money, an’ you write it all up real nice any old way you like. You understand what I'm telling you. We're not talking financing. We're not talking checks. We're talking those nice dollars. CASH money, Tim. Forty-five hundred and we'll drive it off the lot now.'
“When you think you could get here?'
“Oh, I'd say about five minutes.” He was looking at the lot.
“You got five minutes,” the sales manager said in his best sucker-con voice and hung up. Chaingang walked back to the stolen wheels and over to the girl's side.
“Memorize your part?” he asked, smiling in the window with the right profile toward her.
“Yeah. You want to hear it?” She was ready for the applause. If this was all there was to acting...
“Okay. Let's really try it out. I got an idea,” he said with sudden animation, and in a burst of energy he chugged around and got in behind the wheel, perhaps for the last time. “Here. I want you to try your luck. Go across the street there and—” He pulled out the big roll and started counting big bills off to her. She almost fainted. Welcome to the big time, she thought, not really believing it but not NOT believing either.
“This is five thousand,” she said to him somewhere in between the inflection of an interrogatory and an exclamation. Five grand could do a lot to make disbelief go up in a puff of lime-colored smoke. Five thousand in real money. She'd never dreamed something like this could happen. She'd hit the bull's-eye that people talked about. This was it.
“You really want me to BUY a car?” She couldn't quite let it register.
“Yep. I want to see if you can do. Uh, that is, I want to let you have this
“And really GET a car. BUY a CAR?'
“That black Caprice, right there. He pointed, letting his hand graze her leg and she sat there calmly.
“You gonna be there.'
“No. Talk just like we rehearsed. If I'm there you won't be alone ON STAGE. This way you're the lead actor. You get experience in a starring role. Get it?'
She nodded, the money feeling good in that big stack that dried her throat just at the exciting thought of it all. “Yeah.'
“Can you pull it off?'
“SURE.'
“Okay.'
“But don't we trade THIS car in?'
“No.” He had forgotten she had a functioning human brain. It was by far her most intelligent question or statement, and he had to take a beat to frame an answer.
“See, the deal is, most people TRADE and they lose so much in blue book. What your best deal is—you SELL your own car to a private individual, then amortize your collateral or if you have a mortgage or submortgage your equity, you see—then take the difference and put it into your refinancing.'
“Oh,” she said, satisfied at the double-talk. “Okay. Do I have to do anything else?'
“No. Just the way we rehearsed it. Then get the temporary tags, and after you pay tax and title and all, you be sure you have the motor vehicle registration, the pink slip we talked about. That's it. You drive ‘er back over here.'
“Okay,” she said with a luminous smile. She looked pretty to him and he patted her leg and the smile didn't change. And Chaingang realized how horny he must be.
“Okay,” he rumbled. “Outstanding.'
“Now?'
“You're ON,” he told her, his huge, dimpled grin straining at the battle dressing. “Break a leg.'
He watched her get out of the car, pushing her dopy sunglasses that were held by a cord around her neck back up on her nose and starting across the street with the money in stolen bills clutched in her small, bony hand.
“SISSY,” he called to her, his bark startling her, and she spun around, hurried back, and stuck her head in the car window.
“Probably be better,” he said, smile fixed in place, “if you didn't have the money in your hand like that. Ya know? Why don't you put it in your purse now? Then you can hand it to the man when you get the thing all signed, eh?'
“Yeah, okay.” She opened her purse and stuffed the money in. “Good idea,” she told him.
He thought how he'd like to pull her right in this second. Grab that hair and just yank her in, slapping her hard enough to break her puny neck and then masturbate into her open mouth while she died. How easy it would be to waste her. He watched her walk across the street, her thin legs outlined through the cheap dress.
Agent Pfeltmann was reading the chronological sequence report in a loud, slightly adenoidal, singsong voice,
“...constitutes the relevant and known sequence of events in the investigation of the bank robbery and shooting death of Mr. Floyd Raymond Coleman, of 2802 Brook Valley, Buckhead, which occurred on the morning of 3 July as per attached 52-11.
“Time: 0610. Occurrence: Two armed male Caucasian subjects gained entrance to the Fields residence at
