Bad News

Stan stood at his pump and read all the options, the different grades of gasoline and the different payment methods, cash or credit, as the bald guy put his nozzle away and screwed on his tank cap. Stan chose cash, and so did the bald guy, who was walking over to the convenience store. Stan put the nozzle in the gas tank filler neck of the Cirrus, then walked over to the Mercedes, got behind the wheel, and drove off.

The Mercedes was a much better car. Also, the gas tank was full.

Maximilian’s Used Cars existed in a kind of neverland that was not quite Brooklyn, not quite Queens, and certainly not Nassau County. A small pink stucco structure blushed at the rear of the lot, behind a display of clapped-out gas guzzlers horrible enough to make any self-respecting building blush. Triangular plastic pe

Stan Murch drove past this automotive fool’s paradise, turned at the side street just beyond it, and turned again into an anonymous weedy driveway. He pulled to a stop in a scraggly area of beaten ground flanked by the white clapboard walls of garages. Leaving the Benz, he stepped through an unlocked gate in a chain-link fence, followed a path through winter’s dead leaves and weeds, and entered the pink building through its rear door.

He was now in a simple gray-paneled office, where Max himself stood like a snarling beast over the seated figure of his secretary, Harriet, a ski

Stan said, “Charfont?”

“Hi, Stan,” Harriet said.

“Hi, Harriet.”

“What’s it to you?” Max wanted to know. “Read that back to me, Harriet.”

Leaving the paper in the typewriter, Harriet read while Max, a bulky older man with heavy jowls and thin white hair, his white shirt under the black vest smudged from leaning against used cars, listened and paced. He no longer smoked his old cigars, but ethereal cigar smoke wafted behind him anyway as he paced.

Harriet read: “‘Better Business Bureau of Greater New York. Gentlemen: When you first made contact with me, I assumed it was your purpose to bring me better business. Now I see your hope is to drive me out of business entirely, by aligning yourselves with these malcontents and mouth-breathers who apparently can neither see the particular automobile they are in the process of purchasing nor read the standard contract relating to that purchase. The Royally Mounted A-One Collection Agency knows these people better than you do, and I suggest you check with them before leaving any of them alone in your office. As for me, the laws of the State of New York are good enough for me, and your Boy Scout pledges are not needed, thank you very much. I would prefer that our correspondence end at this point. Sincerely, Maximilian Charfont.’”

Max stopped his pacing. He said, “Didn’t I have some swear words in there?”

“Yes, you did.”

“Well, what happened to them?”

“This is a very old typewriter,” Harriet pointed out. “From the Victorian era. It won’t type dirty words. If you got me a nice new computer, I could type Portnoy’s Complaint in here.”

“You don’t want a computer,” Max informed her, “and I don’t want no complaint.” Rounding on Stan, he said, “And wadda you want?”

“Well, I’d like to call my Mom, if it’s okay.”

Max lowered an eyebrow. “Local call?”

“Sure, a local call,” Stan said. “You expect my Mom to leave the five boroughs?”

“I don’t expect anything,” Max said. “That’s it, you drop by, use the phone? You wa

“No, just the phone call,” Stan said. “And out back, there’s a Mercedes you might like.”

“Ah-huh,” Max said.

“Gas tank’s full,” Stan told his departing back.

Harriet had replaced Max’s letter with some Motor Vehicle form and was typing again, full tilt. She said, “Use the phone over there, okay?”

Meaning the room’s second desk. “Sure,” Stan said, and sat at desk number two and dialed his Mom’s cell phone, which she now kept in her cab, while she was working, so they could keep in constant touch.

“Hello!”

“Don’t shout, Mom.”

“I gotta shout, I’m next to a cement mixer!”

“You want me to call you back?”

“What?”

“You want me to call you back?”

“No, that’s okay,” Mom said, at a much more reasonable volume. “He turned off. How you doing out on Long Island?”

“Well, that’s what I’m—”

“Hold on, I got a fare, a fare!”

“Okay.”

Mom must have put the phone on the front seat next to her, amid the newspapers and take-out crap that always accumulated in there. He could hear a male voice, but not what it said, and then he heard his Mom’s distant voice say, “You got it,” and a few seconds later, she was back, very pleased. “JFK,” she said.

“Oh, yeah? Listen, that’s good, because things worked out different.”

“Long Island, you mean?”

“Well, it didn’t happen,” Stan said. “The rest of them all went off to discuss things with the officials, you know?”

“Uh-oh.”

“So it turns out,” Stan said, “I’ll be home for di

“No, you won’t,” Mom said.

“Why not?”

“John called, he’s got something. He wants a meet at the O.J., six o’clock.”

“Okay, then,” Stan said as Max came back in, trailing the memory of cigar smoke. “Where I am instead, I’m at Maximilian’s. When you’re done at Ke

“Don’t let that Maximilian cheat you, Stan.”

“What an idea,” Stan said, and hung up, and said, “Well, Max? Is that attractive?”

“But what does it attract?” Max wanted to know. “Truthfully, Stanley, how hot is that vehicle?”

“Well,” Stan said, “if it happened you wanted to fry an egg . . .”

“That’s what I thought. So that means,” Max explained, “a lotta work in the shop, changing parts, changing numbers on things, getting paperwork that doesn’t turn into dust in your hand. This is all expensive, Stanley, it’s time-consuming, the boys in the shop, it’s go

“As a matter of fact, no,” Stan told him. “My Mom’s got a fare to Ke

“My lucky day,” Max said.

The phone rang, and Harriet answered: “Maximilian’s Used Cars, Miss Caroline speaking. Oh, I’m sorry, no, Mr. Maximilian is no longer with us, he retired to Minsk. Yes, I’ll pass that along. You, too.” Hanging up, she returned to her machine-gun typing. “The one with the machete,” she said.