“I promise.”
“And don’t do something dumb like pull on your ear. They have all these signals. You could end up buying it and not even know it.”
“I’m not in a Dick Van Dyke episode,” I told her. “I just have to— Oh shit.”
“What?”
“I didn’t bring my checkbook. I figured there was no way I’d buy anything. No, wait, Lawrence said he could buy it for me, I could pay him back after. That way—”
“Don’t fucking take my picture, man!”
I whirled around. Stan Wannaker was being shoved up against a Ford Explorer by the short guy with the bad cough and the Barbie keys. “Call you back,” I said, and slipped the phone back into my jacket.
“Fuck you!” Stan shouted back, the two cameras hanging down on his chest suddenly flinging about like enormous necklaces.
“Give me your film!” the man demanded.
“Fuck you!” Stan said again. He’d dealt with bad guys all over the world, in countries a lot scarier than this one, and he wasn’t about to surrender his film to some short asshole with a bad attitude in an ill-fitting suit.
“I wasn’t even taking your picture,” Stan told the man. “I was just doing an overall shot. Take a pill or something.”
The short guy was in Stan’s face now, as best he could, being about six inches shorter. He set his bottle of juice on the hood of the Explorer so he could poke a stubby finger into Stan’s chest. “You gonna hand over—” and he coughed “—that film?”
Stan backed up an inch to avoid any incoming phlegm. “Listen, dickwad, I’m here for The Metropolitan and if you want my film you better call our fucking lawyers and take it up with them. And if you touch me with that finger again, I’m gonna snap it the fuck off.”
The short guy was a bomb about to go off. His face went flush red, his shoulders tensed, and even Stan, as fearless as he’d been a moment earlier, looked like he was getting ready to move sideways in a hurry if he had to.
But then Stan’s attacker began to notice that he was getting a lot of attention. People had stopped looking at cars and boats and motorcycles and turned their heads in the direction of the commotion, not sure whether to intercede, watch, or move on. The guy glanced around, his lips pressed firmly together, breathing in and out in short bursts through his flat, wide nose. He gave Stan a final shove up against the SUV and strode off in the direction of the paddock exit.
“You okay?” I said once I’d reached Stan.
He was unruffled, just checking his cameras for any damage. “Fucking little Nazi,” he said. “Thought I was at an Afghan checkpoint there for a minute.”
“He was crazy,” I said. “I thought he was going to explode there for a second.”
“A suicide bomber without the dynamite,” Stan said flippantly. “Anyway, good thing he decided to take a hike.” He smiled, nodding his head toward the crowd. “Too many witnesses around. I’ll have to watch myself in dark alleys for a while.”
Once I was sure Stan was fine, I rejoined Lawrence.
“Let’s bid on the Virtue,” I said. “But I don’t want to go over eight-five. Eight-six, maybe. But that’s it. Maybe eight-nine.” I’d started sweating again.
Lawrence said, “You’re grace under pressure, aren’t you?”
9
THE OLDER WOMAN who’d been eyeing the Virtue the same time I was bailed out at $8,800. And I managed to go through the bidding process without tugging my ear or nodding my head in such a way as to end up with a $100,000 yacht by mistake.
There was some paperwork to deal with, forms to fill out, and then the car was ours. And not just any car. But a fuel-conserving, environment-saving, socially responsible automobile. And yet, I had a feeling, once I got home with it, I was going to be made to feel like Charlie Brown after he came back with the spindly Christmas tree.
Actually, it wasn’t quite mine yet. Lawrence wrote the check, and once I’d repaid him by the end of the day, he’d transfer the ownership to me.