Kathy Hogan Trocheck - Truman Kicklighter 02 - Crash Course (17 page)

“It needs to go back to the factory,” Donna said. “I need me a car with air-conditioning, Mr. Bondurant.”

Wormy came out of the inner office. He was leaning on the cane, a dreamy expression on his face. The Malaysian muscle relaxants had kicked in, and his legs felt squiggly, like one of those Slinky toys.

“Ronnie?” he said quietly.

The boss and the two women turned to look at him.

“That air conditioner. I had a chance to check it out for a customer of mine who’s interested in it.” Wormy looked up at the clock on the showroom wall, and it seemed to him that he could see an extra hand there. “I didn’t want to say anything before, but Mr. Howard, he’s due back here at four with his money. He’s a cash customer, Mr. Howard is. And he had his mechanic look at it. That air conditioner, it just needs charging. A can of Freon is all.”

Ronnie slapped his forehead, like he’d forgotten all about a cash customer. “Mr. Howard! I forgot all about him. He was looking at the New Yorker for his mother-in-law. Was that it?”

“She’s moving down here from Michigan,” Wormy agreed. “And Mr. Howard wants her to have something nice and safe.”

Donna and Polly exchanged a look. “Will you excuse us a moment?”

The two women stepped out into the parking lot. They stood close, their heads bent together, bobbing back and forth as the debate raged. At one point, they stopped talking, walked onto the lot and circled the New Yorker again, kicking at the tires, peering into the interior one more time.

Ronnie watched them with only casual interest. “What’s that make for me this week?” he asked Wormy.

“Let’s see. The white Capri, the white Camry, that black El-Dog…”

“Two El-Dogs,” Ronnie corrected him. “The school janitor and his wife.”

“This’ll make five on the street,” Wormy said. “Who gets credit for the red Corvette?”

For a fleeting moment, Ronnie looked like he might throttle Wormy. Truman tried hard not to stare. It took Ronnie only a moment to compose himself. “That’d be Jeff’s sale,” he said smoothly. “Only right he gets credit. Of course, he did go off and leave us in the lurch. So I’d say we’ll make that a house account.”

“Remember that week you did ten cars?” Wormy asked.

“February of 1994,” Ronnie said. “Three of ‘em to Canadians. It’s only Wednesday now, you know.”

The doorbell chimed and Donna Sparks walked back in with her pocketbook thrust in front of her like a prize-winning pie at the state fair. “I’ll take it,” she said.

Ronnie took Ms. Sparks into the inner office to do the paperwork while her friend Polly sat in the showroom and leafed through old issues of
Newsweek
. Fifteen minutes later, Ronnie escorted Donna out. He opened a closet door in the showroom, reached in, and came back with an armload of goodies.

“Ice scraper,” he said, handing one to Polly. “Key chains for both of you. Yardsticks. Penlights. And,” he said, with a grand flourish toward the door, “right now, Mr. Weems is loading a case of complimentary soft drinks in the trunk of your new vehicle. It’s our way of saying thank you for joining the Bondurant Motors family of satisfied customers.”

Donna Sparks turned the ice scraper over in her hand, like she was seeing one for the first time. Maybe she was, Truman realized. You didn’t get much call for ice scrapers in this part of Florida.

“Well, thank you,” Donna said. “For everything.”

Wormy pulled the New Yorker up to the canopy outside the office, got out, and opened the doors for the women. They chugged off with Polly waving gaily out the open window.

“What’s the story on that AC?” Ronnie asked, watching them go.

“Aw, hell,” Wormy said. “That compressor’s blown.”

A dilapidated pickup truck bristling with ladders, metal scaffolding, five-gallon buckets, and long-handled brushes came coasting onto the lot. Three men were squeezed cheek to jowl onto the front seat.

“Busy day,” Truman said to Ronnie and Wormy. “These folks look like they need a car.” He’d already made a note to himself to get Donna Sparks’s phone number out of the files, maybe leave an anonymous message that she’d just bought herself a big fat lemon. Might have to wait, though, at least until he got the goods on these weasels. He didn’t want to blow his cover.

Ronnie took a look. A thin, paint-spattered man unfolded himself out of the right side of the truck, took a last deep puff off a cigarette, then tossed the butt onto the asphalt.

“Son of a bitch Wesley Coombs,” Ronnie said, disgusted. “I hate a goddamn litterbug.”

Wormy slouched down into a chair, his eyes half closed. “Wes Coombs. King of the Bogs,” he said, pronouncing the word to rhyme with “rogue.”

“Heeyy,” Ronnie said, his face brightening. He was still looking out the showroom window. “What have we here now? My next best girfriend, looks like to me.”

LeeAnn Pilker’s gold lame hot pants were so short and so tight, the matching gold leather boots so high-heeled, that she had to take quick, mincing half steps, dodging in and out of the traffic on U.S. 19. Each step sent the overflowing halter top bouncing, the curtain of ebony hair streaming down her back. Cars came to a halt, horns blared, there were whistles and shouts of approval.

“Wormy, you deal with Wes Coombs,” Ronnie said as he stepped out onto the lot to give LeeAnn an appropriate greeting.

“Nah, man,” Wormy said, “I gotta get some rest.” His speech was slurred, his jaw hanging open, his eyes closed all the way.

“What’d Doc give you?” Ronnie asked, looking down at Wormy, whose jaw had dropped completely down onto his chest. Wormy snored softly in reply.

The showroom door opened, the doorbell pealed, and Wes Coombs stood aside, holding the door, not necessarily a gesture of gallantry, more likely that he was completely frozen by the vision of LeeAnn Pilker and her surgically enhanced chest.

“Have you heard from Jeff yet?” LeeAnn asked, skipping the hellos. “He owes me some money.”

“Uh, no, but I do have some things I’d like to discuss with you in my office,” Ronnie said. He nodded curtly at Wesley Coombs, who stood stock-still in the doorway. “Coombs. Mr. Kicklighter here is helping us out now. He’ll take your payment.”

Ronnie put an arm around Truman’s shoulder and his lips close to Truman’s ear. “This son of a bitch is the original hard-luck story. He’s three weeks in arrears on an ‘86 Monte Carlo we sold him six weeks ago. Like Wormy said, he’s a bog. You know, bogus, always got a story. I need to have a word with this young lady here, but you stay out here, shake that money out of him.”

Before Truman could protest, Ronnie was leading the girl into his office. “I go on in five minutes,” LeeAnn was saying, trying to shake his hand off of her hip.

The door closed softly behind them. Truman became aware of a sour smell that emanated from Wesley Coombs. It was sweat, very old sweat that had dried and reactivated again. Truman went through the file and found Coombs’s payment card and tried to breathe through his mouth.

“I can’t pay nothin’ today,” Coombs said flatly. “That’s what I come to tell y’all.”

“Seventy-three dollars, and you’re three weeks behind,” Truman said. He did the math. “Two hundred nineteen dollars you owe.”

Coombs blinked. Even his eyelashes were coated with flakes of paint. “My dog’s been sick, man,” Coombs said. His voice was high, toneless. “Hadda pay two hundred dollars to the vet. Pizza man ran over the dog in the driveway. Dog was bad hurt. Next week, I got some money coming in. I’ll pay then.”

Truman got up and looked out the window at the truck Coombs had arrived in. The truck was still running, and the men in the front seat were downing what looked like quarts of malt liquor.

“Mr. Coombs, why don’t you ask your boss out there for an advance?” Truman said, trying to be polite. “Because Mr. Bondurant, he told me to make sure you pay up today. No excuses.”

Coombs shook his head and a fine mist of white paint flakes filled the sour air around him. “That’s my buddies, not my boss,” he said. “Bossman don’t give no advances.”

As if on cue, the painter behind the wheel gave three long blasts of the car horn.

“I gotta go,” Coombs said, edging toward the door.

“Hey, asshole.” Wormy was still slumped down in the chair and his words came out slowly, slurred but recognizable. Coombs stopped, stared at Weems.

Truman relaxed a little. Maybe Wormy could make this deadbeat see reason. He’d had little training in his time as a shakedown artist.

“What’s this shit about a sick dog?” Wormy was sitting forward now, his eyes hardened slits. The slackness in his face was gone.

“It’s true,” Coombs said uneasily. “That pizza guy took off when he seen what he done. And the vet wouldn’t let me have the dog back unless I paid first. Cash.”

“Fuck the dog,” Weems said. “You owe two hundred and nineteen dollars for that Monte Carlo.”

“That’s my kids’ dog,” Coombs whined. “He was hurting bad, howling, bleeding all over the place. The kids were screaming. What was I supposed to do?”

“Shoulda ordered another pizza, finished him off,” Wormy said. “Come on, Coombs, you know the drill here. Gimme fifty dollars now, come back here Monday with the rest.”

“I’m tellin’ you, I’m stone-cold broke,” Coombs said. Two thin rivulets of sweat beaded down his flat, paint-streaked face. The truck honked its horn again. Coombs bolted for the door. The truck was already moving as he jumped into the front seat.

“Now what?” Truman asked.

Weems slumped back into the chair. “Now you tell Ronnie you couldn’t get jackshit out of a scumbag like Wesley Coombs. He ain’t gonna like that. You work here, old-timer, you gotta pull your weight. You gotta know the customers. You gotta realize, we’re dealing with the bottom of the food chain here.”

Truman scanned Coombs’s index card. It didn’t look like he’d ever gone more than two weeks without being in arrears on his payments. There was a home phone number, an address, and a work phone on the card. “I could call his boss,” Truman suggested. “Tell him his employee has a bad debt he needs to settle up with us.”

“Forget it,” Wormy said. “He works for his brother-in-law.”

“Call his wife, ask if she could come in and make a payment?”

“It’s his girlfriend, and that number was disconnected last month,” Wormy said. He sighed. “Nut-cutting time. Call Eddie.”

The office door opened then, and LeeAnn Pilker and Ronnie emerged. LeeAnn’s face was pale, her smile forced. Ronnie had an arm draped around her shoulder, fingers resting lightly but possessively on her left breast. “I really gotta go,” LeeAnn said. “The manager docks my pay if the show starts late because of me.”

Ronnie gave her a wink, and squeezed her breast hard. She winced, but this time didn’t try to shake him off.

“You just tell that manager he better start treating you right, or he’ll be looking for a new star attraction,” Ronnie said. “Tell him Ronnie Bondurant knows people around this town. And Ronnie likes his friends to be treated right. You tell him that, okay, hon?”

“Okay,” she said, moving fast for the door.

“I’ll see you tonight, after the show,” he called to her. “Get us some dinner.”

When she was gone, Ronnie gave a loud war whoop. “How about that, friends and neighbors?” he said, perching on the edge of the desk where Truman was seated. “Is that a fine piece of grade-A pussy or what? And it’s mine, my friends. All mine.”

“I don’t like it,” Wormy said flatly. He cut his eyes over at Truman, reminding Ronnie that they weren’t alone.

“You don’t have to like it,” Ronnie said. “I’m still running this operation, last time I checked. And speaking of which, Pops, how’d you do with old Wesley? You didn’t take a check off him, I hope. That card should make it clear we don’t take none of Wesley Coombs’s bad paper.”

“Coombs gave him a load of bullshit, then ran off,” Wormy said. “Pops here didn’t get a dime off him.”

“That right?”

“Yes,” Truman said. He was steeling himself for the firing. It had been a good try, but maybe he wasn’t still the investigative reporter he thought he was. Maybe he’d lost his edge. At least he’d found out something about Jeff Cantrell’s girlfriend. Now he knew what she looked like, where she worked. It was a lead. It was better than nothing.

Ronnie was in an unusually good mood. Nothing, not even Wesley Coombs, was going to change that. He turned the dial of the Rolodex, plucked out a card, flipped it across the desk at Truman. “We’re done dicking around with that lowlife. That’s Eddie’s number. Does our repos. Call him. Tell him to come by and pick up the key to the Monte Carlo. Tell him Ronnie wants the car back on the lot tomorrow.”

“Better tell him about Wesley’s neighbors,” Wormy added. “That’s a snake nest over there, with all his brothers and half-brothers and cousins living there. Hell, even the girlfriend packs a shotgun, way Wesley tells it.”

“Eddie can take care of himself,” Ronnie said confidently. “Make the call, Pops.”

The back bumper of the cream-colored Mercedes made a scraping sound as it came onto the Bondurant Motors lot. Its right rear looked like it had been attacked with a baseball bat, the brake and tail-lights shattered, the bumper hanging and actually dragging on the ground.