stood, the old man was just a shape now, a dark figure walking into a blaze of light, with the black cars burning gold on one side of him and the whole wide red-gold sky on the other. Somewhere at the bottom of the steps, Luis Ortega laughed — once, out loud, a short, astonished, helpless sound, as if it had been surprised out of him. Then he clapped a hand over his mouth. At Tyler's feet, the last of his papers lifted off the deck, turned over once in the wind, and went sailing away across the lot toward the highway, white against the red sky, and was gone.
Craig Pruett came out of the showroom at a speed nobody at Ridgeline Cadillac had ever seen him move. He had heard the bang. Everybody inside had heard the bang; it had rattled the glass wall of the showroom and made the receptionist drop her phone. Craig had looked up from his computer in the Fishbowl and seen, through two layers of glass, a crowd of technicians standing on the service apron staring at the deck, and Brent and Josh frozen by the door with their coffee, and a sheet of white paper go tumbling past the window like a bird. He had thought there had been an accident. He had thought somebody had backed a forty-thousand-dollar trade-in into a hundred-thousand-dollar Escalade. He had come out of his chair so fast it had spun all the way around. He burst out through the side door onto the deck and stopped. Tyler was standing beside the ESV Platinum with his hands hanging at his sides and a key fob dangling from one finger, and he looked like a man who had been hit on the head with a board. There were papers everywhere — on the deck, against the tires, in the planters. There was a large dusty handprint on the hood of Kessling's car. And walking away down the row of Escalades, slowly, in the red light of the sinking sun, was an old man in a feed-store cap and a canvas vest, looking into each car's tinted windows in turn with his hands cupped around his eyes, the way a child looks into a store window at Christmas. " What the hell," Craig said, not loudly. " Brooks. What the hell happened? What's going on? Who's that? " Tyler opened his mouth. Nothing came out. " Brooks. " " He wants twenty," Tyler said. " He wants twenty what? " " Escalades. " Tyler's voice was flat and odd, as if it belonged to somebody else. " Twenty Escalades. All black. Cash. He's got — he's got a check. In an envelope. " Craig looked at him. Then he looked down the deck at the old man, who had reached the far end of the row and was standing at the rail beside the last car, his cap pushed back, looking out across the plains at the sunset with his hands on his hips. " That guy? " " That guy. " " In the — with the —" Craig's hands made vague, baffled shapes in the air, sketching boots, a vest, a truck. " That guy? " " Yes. "
Craig stood still for perhaps three full seconds, which for Craig was a very long time. Tyler watched his face. He watched the sales manager do the same arithmetic Tyler had done, and come to the same impossible number, and then he watched something else happen behind Craig's eyes — a kind of greedy, terrified lighting-up, like a pinball machine when somebody hits the jackpot. " What did you say to him? " Tyler did not answer. " Tyler. What did you say to him? " " I said he couldn't afford anything in here. " Craig closed his eyes. " And then I told him to stop wasting my time. " Craig opened his eyes again. For a second he looked as if he might actually hit Tyler. Then he turned on his heel, smoothed his tie down flat against his stomach with both hands, rearranged his face into the broadest, warmest, most welcoming smile Tyler had ever seen on it, and set off down the deck toward the old man at a fast walk, his hand already out, already talking. " Sir! Sir, good evening! Craig Pruett, sales manager, so glad to — I am so sorry about that, sir, there's been a misunderstanding, our young man here has had a very long day, I want to personally — what can I —" The old man turned from the rail and looked at him. He looked at Craig's hand. He did not take it. " Are you the one in charge? " " I'm the sales manager, sir, I —" " No," the old man said. " I mean the one in charge. Is Dale here? " Craig's smile flickered. " Dale? You mean — Mr. Harmon? " " Dale Harmon. Vernon's boy. " " Mr. Harmon's in his office, sir. He's — I can certainly let him know you're — may I ask your name, sir? " " Whitcomb," the old man said. " Amos Whitcomb. " Craig had lived in western Oklahoma for twenty-two years. He did not have to look up the name. He went a shade paler under his sunburn and said, " Of — Whitcomb Freight? " " Used to be. " " Yes, sir. Yes, sir, of course. I'll get him. I'll get him right now. Please — please, don't — could I get you anything? A coffee? A water? We have — we have some very nice bottled water —" " Already had some," Amos said. " The young fella down there got it for me. " He nodded toward the bottom of the steps, where Luis was still standing with his bottles. " Luis. He's the only one who's offered me anything since I got here. He gave me the cheap kind out of the cooler. It was very good. " Craig turned and stared at Luis as if he had never seen him before in his life. Then he turned back. " I'll get Mr. Harmon," he said, and went, almost running, back along the deck and in through the side door.