Sal turned in the car seat, his eyes barely clearing the headrest, then began to climb out of the car.
“Come quickly, Mr. Livemore!” I said, panicky. I flashed on a scene of me manacled before the ethics committee of the Pennsylvania bar and hurried to Mr. Henry’s desk, where he was reaching for the telephone.
“I’m shocked!” shouted a British voice from behind me. It was Sal. His face was Signal Red and his scowl was deep as the pile on a floor mat. “That’s what I am, shocked! Put down that phone!”
Mr. Henry froze and the receiver clattered onto the cradle.
“How dare you!” Sal thundered. He stood taller and straighter, his scrawny shoulders squared off in their shoulder pads. Even his accent had sharpened up, he sounded like Pierce Brosnan as Remington Steele. I was dumbfounded. So was Mr. Henry.
“How… dare I?” the salesman asked uncertainly. “Call my own manager?”
Sal glowered at him. “This is shocking! You, my good man, you are in charge here, are you not?”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you-as you Americans say-trying to pass the buck?”
“I’m not, sir.”
“Do you have the information my client requested?”
Client?
Mr. Henry nodded. “But I need authorization to get the printouts.”
“I’m giving you authorization!”
“But I mean from my own management-”
“I am your management, my good man. I am your management’s management!”
Mr. Henry looked puzzled, rapidly discovering that Uncle Sal was a confusing person to be around. But this time it was paying off. “It will take at least a day to get that information.”
“Right as rain!” Sal said, morphing into Rex Harrison. On steroids.
“And my manager would have to approve it.”
Shit. I should have realized it. I couldn’t get the records this way, but I could subpoena them now that I knew they existed. Time to fold ’em. “Mr. Livemore, perhaps we should go and seek the proper authorization. We can obtain it today or tomorrow, then come back.”
“My word! How can you say that! And look at this man’s desk! It’s abdominal!”
Say what?
“This is a travesty!” Sal flipped inexplicably through the papers on Mr. Henry’s desk, scattering them in a corporate hissy fit. I think he was trying to create a diversion even though nobody was breaking for the perimeter, and I gathered he had seen too many old war movies. “A mockery!”
“Please, Mr. Livemore!” Mr. Henry yelped, watching in horror as all of his papers flopped onto the floor, until the only thing on his desktop was a black three-ring binder and a cup of cold tea. “Please, sir!”
“What kind of order is this? What must our customers think when they come here? Disorder! Catastrophe! In short you have a ghastly mess!”
Sal was segueing into Mary Poppins, but I didn’t have time to watch. I was intrigued by the salesman’s black binder, which held a stack of forms filled in in a hasty pencil. There was a blank for the customer’s name, address, and trade-in, and business cards had been stapled to the top right of the forms. As Mr. Henry bent over to pick up the papers, I read the top form upside-down. At the top of the form it said in a pretentious font: TEST-DRIVES.
“But I usually keep it neater than this,” Mr. Henry said apologetically, his arms full of slipping papers.
“I should hope so!” Sal said. “In England we keep everything neat and clean. The telephone booths are red, did you know that? They have windows. Clean windows!”
Mr. Henry nodded. “I saw. On a commercial.”
Undoubtedly the same commercial Sal had seen. The ersatz Mr. Livemore was ad- libbing dangerously, leaving Alistair Cooke territory and entering the Irwin Corey zone. I wanted to get out before he blew our cover completely, but the notebook nagged at me. “Is this a log of test-drives?” I asked.
Mr. Henry nodded.
“Do you go with the customers on the test-drives?”
“Not usually. Most of our customers take the car out alone.”
“Wot?” Sal exploded. “You just
Mr. Henry looked like he was starting to wonder. If he read the newspapers, he could catch on any minute now. “We
“Do you make a copy of the license?”
Two papers fell from the salesman’s grasp. “I make a Xerox of it, then I throw it away after about a week.”
Hmm. “Is there a time limit on how long you let the customer test-drive the car?”
“I should hope there is!” Sal interrupted. “I should hope so, for your sake! I should report this to my posteriors in Coventry!”
Eeeeek.
Mr. Henry looked from Sal to me, and back again. “Well, not usually. We trust our customers. Some of them, our manager lets them have the car for the whole afternoon.”
“Shocking!” Sal said, and I shot him a warning glance.
“How long do you keep the log sheets for?”
“I hope they are disposed of right away!” said Sal the Major General. “And neatly! In the rubbish!”
“In fact, sir, I keep mine for six months,” Mr. Henry said.
“That’s an outrage! Disorder! Democracy! In short you will have a ghastly mess!”
Mr. Henry turned to me for succor. “But some people don’t buy right away, and I keep the addresses that I log in. They make a good mailing list. No one I’ve dealt with ever mentioned anything about the paint chipping, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
Not exactly. What I was wondering was whether it were possible to commit murder on a test-drive. Patricia’s carriage house was only fifteen minutes from here. “Do you let the customer test-drive any model they wish, Mr. Henry?”
“If the one they want is available. Usually I lend them a demonstrator. Our most popular model, the XJS Coupe.”
“Is it black?”
“Yes.”
Bingo. Except that Fiske’s model was a Sovereign, so was Kate’s. “Do you let them test-drive a Sovereign?”
“The Daimler? No, we don’t usually have one on hand, they’re scarcer. They look the same as the XJS anyway from the outside.”
Boy oh boy. The jackpot.
“Well, I never!” Sal barked. “Never!” He was about to speak for the British Empire again, but I gave him the high sign when Mr. Henry bent over for more paper.
“Yes, Miss Jamesway?” he asked, not understanding. “Wot is it?”
