What Is In The Envelope

"What's this, a check?" Brent said. "Tipping the help so she'll back your story?"

"It's for Ivy," I said.

"It's for nobody." He reached across the desk for it.

I got there first. Two fingers on the envelope, and I slid it off the keyboard and into my hand before his palm came down on empty plastic.

The showroom had gone quiet around us. Garrett stood by the turntable with his tablet against his chest. The Pembertons had their phones up and did not bother to hide it.

"Let me guess," Brent said. "A lawyer's letter. You're going to sue us because a salesman didn't roll out a red carpet for your truck." He laughed. "Buddy, I've been selling cars eleven years. I know a shakedown when I see one."

"Eleven years," I said, "and you still read a man's boots before you read his wire."

His mouth went flat.

Ivy was staring at the envelope in my hand. "Mr. Treadwell, is that about me? Did I do something wrong on the paperwork?"

"You did everything right. That seems to be the problem in this building."

"Then what is it? What did you come here for?" She glanced at the car on the turntable. "You haven't even looked at it."

She was right. I hadn't. I looked at it now, the pearl paint, the tan leather where Rex had sat, and I gave her the truth without giving her all of it.

"The car isn't the part I came for."

Brent heard that, and something in him decided. He picked up the desk phone and punched two numbers.

"Howard. Floor. Now." He did not wait for an answer. "We've got a problem customer, and I've got a hunch we've got a problem wire." He hung up and rapped his knuckles on the glass. "Luis! What are you waiting for? Lift it."

Out on the drive, the porter at the wrecker hesitated one more second. Then he pulled the lever.

The wheel-lift arm slid under my front bumper. The chain snapped tight with a crack I felt through the glass. My pickup's grille tipped up toward the sky, and her front tires left the concrete and hung there, still turning a little, the same lazy turn they made the day I drove her out of Colorado at eighteen.