His Name Over Mine

Brent Harlow's thumbs were on Ivy Albright's keyboard when I reached her desk, and my name was coming off the screen one letter at a time.

He hit void on a deal that had been funded since nine that morning. Then he opened the car back up as fresh stock and typed HARLOW where Ivy's name had been.

"Mr. Harlow, that one's paid," Ivy said. Her voice cracked on the last word.

"Paid by who?" He finally looked at me. He took in the canvas jacket, the boots, the thin white scar through my left eyebrow, and he smiled at a man he had already priced.

Seven minutes earlier I had walked through the glass doors of Summit Row Motorcars at 1:40 for a two o'clock delivery. The pearl-white convertible sat on the turntable under the spotlights, tan top folded down, exactly the way I had ordered it over three weeks of phone calls. I never got within ten feet of it.

A salesman named Garrett Lusk stepped into my path. "Service entrance is on the other side, chief."

"I'm here to take delivery on the white one."

"Sure you are." He waved over a couple in matching quilted vests, Rex and Tiffany Pemberton, and swung the car door wide for them, one hand on the frame. "Folks, hop in. Nobody's claimed her yet. She's the only one in the state."

Rex sat down in my car. Tiffany took a picture of him doing it.

Then Garrett asked my name. When I gave it, his grin slipped, and he went to get his manager. That was how Brent Harlow ended up at Ivy's desk.

"Mr. Treadwell wired the full amount," Ivy tried again. "It's my deal. He's been on the phone with me since August."

"You're on probation, Ivy. How many days left?"

She swallowed. "Three."

"Then count them quietly." He tapped the screen where his name now sat. "Big fish goes to the manager. That's how this floor works."

I kept my hands in my jacket pockets. A long time ago I learned that a man in old boots does not get to raise his voice first.

Ivy turned to me anyway, pale under the spotlights. "Mr. Treadwell, your detail request was done this morning. Clem Haverty did the final wipe himself, and he's scheduled to be here at two, just like you asked."

Brent laughed out loud. "You asked for Clem? The wash guy?" He grinned at the Pembertons, and they laughed with him without knowing why.

Then his eyes found my faded green pickup, out past the glass on the delivery drive, tailgate to his showroom.

"And that," he said, "is an eyesore in front of my showroom." He snapped his fingers at two porters by the door. "Get the lot wrecker. Hook it and drag it to the back fence."