Left You Dead

31

‘Success is all about being ahead of the curve.’

An appropriate metaphor for a dealer in performance cars that his bank manager had used, ‘Lanky’ Larry Olson rued.

‘But sometimes,’ his bank manager told him, turning him down for a further business loan, ‘you can be too far ahead of the curve. Ever heard the saying, “It’s the second mouse that gets the cheese?”’

Larry had come in early this morning to open up his small showroom with its big name, Sussex Sporting E-Cars. The location, in a mews off Church Road, wasn’t helping, because there was hardly any through traffic. He should have been bolder and gone for a prime site when he’d opened, but he had worried that the rent would have stretched him too much.

The gangly fifty-five-year-old was dressed as he was every day of his working life, in a sharp suit, shirt and sober tie. He had a mop of thinning fair hair turning to grey, big blue eyes, a winning smile, and was charm personified. His first wife had told him he could sell fridges to Eskimos. His second that he could sell guano to bats. His future third wife had told him, three years ago, that he was nuts to give up his lucrative job as the top salesman for Jim Spatchcock Honda.

But hey, when he’d hit fifty he’d seen Jim Spatchcock in the Sunday Times Rich List with a fortune of over £200 million from his chain of car dealerships around the UK. Sure, Larry knew he earned good money himself, but it was peanuts compared to that. With retirement looming too close for comfort, it was now or never if he was going to strike out and make his fortune.

The way forward, for sure, was in electric cars. He used his savings, remortgage money from his house and a decent bank loan to start this specialist business, trading in second-hand electric performance cars.

Except the business, which had started two years ago, wasn’t as of yet booming the way he had anticipated, and he was fast running out of cash — and credit.

As he stared around the shiny, brand-new-looking stock of cars in his showroom, he was reflecting on just how poor business had been during these past months. The words from a record made by his favourite-ever comedians, the late Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, came to mind.

Moore was interviewing Cook in his persona of the world’s most unsuccessful entrepreneur, Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling, about his latest catastrophic venture, a restaurant serving only frogs and peaches, situated in a bog in the middle of the Yorkshire Moors. In response to the question about how business had been, Cook replied, ‘Business hasn’t been and there hasn’t been any business.’

Which was pretty much how he felt, Larry reflected.

So far he was surviving, just. But with the further loan he’d been hoping for now turned down, he needed to make some good sales — and quickly. And he had one very big prospect coming in this morning to test drive the most expensive car in the showroom. A top spec, two-year-old BMW i8 hybrid. New, it had cost close to £130,000. He’d managed to buy it at an auction of cars seized back by finance companies for a knock-down £37,000 and had it advertised at £89,500. If he got that price it would hand him a profit of more than £50,000, which would see him through for a good few months.

The potential customers, a young couple, Christopher Goodman and his fiancée, Sophia, had come in on Saturday and made a beeline for the car, both clambering in and sitting there, admiring it.

If there were two things, above all, Larry had learned in thirty-seven years as a car salesman, the first was that customers did not always end up buying the first car they sat in — mostly because they couldn’t afford it. And second, that it was usually the woman who made the decision on what car to buy.

He had left them alone for some while, then casually sauntered over, copy of the Argus in his hand, and knelt beside the passenger door so as not to intimidate them by looking down at them. ‘Hi!’ he said breezily. ‘I’m Larry. Are you Albion fans?’

Another of the things he’d learned was never to open a conversation talking about cars.

‘Not really,’ the young woman said, ‘but my fiancé is.’

‘What do you think of the latest signing?’ Olson asked, raising the paper, with the news being the headline item.

‘£14 million. A lot of money — let’s hope he does the magic, right?’ the guy said.

‘Oh yes. I’m right with you!’ Larry paused a moment. ‘If there’s anything in here you’d like to take a look at, just shout.’

‘We actually like this,’ the guy replied. ‘We’re getting married next month and we’re planning a motoring honeymoon through Europe — so we’re looking for something suitable.’

‘Congratulations!’ he said. ‘I’m Larry Olson, by the way.’

‘Chris Goodman, and this is my fiancée, Sophia.’

‘A delight to meet you, Chris and Sophia!’

This was definitely hopeful, he decided. ‘Are you looking to exchange anything?’ he asked, as the next step to drawing someone in.

‘We have a Lotus Elise, but we’re happy to sell that privately.’ Goodman held the wheel and fondled the gear shift, the smile on his face spreading. Then they both got out of the car and walked around it.

‘She’s a beauty, isn’t she?’ Larry encouraged. ‘You know what, we’re only here for a short while. Live the dream! If you can afford it, why not?’

It was that phrase, ‘If you can afford it’, that hooked them, he had learned. Oh yes!

And he could see that the words had struck home.

‘Imagine gliding away from your wedding reception in this beauty! And there are very good finance deals at the moment,’ Olson said, pushing at temptation. ‘Might even be able to get you zero interest for the first twelve months.’

It was the generous terms he had to offer from finance companies, enabling customers to buy something they thought would be beyond their reach, that usually clinched it. And who would dare to admit they couldn’t afford it?

‘You’re asking for £89,500?’ Sophia said, looking at the price displayed on the windscreen. ‘What would be your best price, if we were interested?’

‘Let me talk to my boss and see if we can do anything.’ Larry winked. ‘Give me a couple of minutes.’

‘Sure.’

He walked to the rear of the showroom and through the door into the empty double garage at the rear, closing it behind him. There was a kitchenette in there. He sat on a stool at the table for a carefully timed five minutes, reading the paper, then he went back into the showroom and approached the couple with a beam.

‘My boss says he would take £88,000 and throw in a year’s tax and warranty.’

‘What about servicing charges?’ Goodman asked.

‘I’m sure we could do something on that, too.’

Sophia knelt and studied the tyres.

‘All replaced three months ago, I understand,’ Larry said.

She stood back up and looked at her fiancé. He was nodding enthusiastically. She turned to Larry. ‘OK, we’ll think about it.’

Quoting one of his favourites, from Robert Browning, Larry Olson’s parting words to the couple had been, ‘Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?’

It had been no surprise to him when Christopher Goodman called, later that afternoon, asking first if the car was still available, and then, sounding very relieved it was, to book a test drive. Could Larry hold the car until Tuesday morning?

He’d given him the usual patter that he had someone else who was interested coming back on Monday, but for a £5,000 deposit, fully refundable, he’d hold it until midday, Tuesday. And he would need to see on Tuesday either a bank statement showing he was good for the finance or a reference from his bank manager, along with his driving licence.

Goodman had replied that he would bring both. And the deposit had been paid minutes later.

Larry walked across the showroom floor shortly after 7.30 a.m. with a spring in his step. He already had a selection of financial options printed out to show the punter just how incredibly affordable it was.

He only had one slight concern, and that was the weather. It was dry at the moment, but rain was forecast for a little later. Electric cars, especially this BMW, had phenomenal acceleration, and even this BMW with its sure-footed handling could easily catch out the inexperienced driver on a slippery, wet road. But hey, hopefully it would still be dry for the test drive.

And he was confident that, once he had driven it, Goodman would be smitten.

Suddenly he felt a tightening in his chest and a pain, like indigestion. The pain shot acutely down both his arms. It was another angina attack coming on. His heart specialist had been trying to fix a date to book him in for a triple bypass, but Olson didn’t have time for that, not at the moment, when he had to focus on keeping his business afloat. Maybe if he got this sale he could then afford the time.

He dug his hand into his jacket pocket, pulled out the vial of tiny white nitroglycerine tablets and popped one under his tongue. Within half a minute or so the pain began to subside. Shit, the symptoms were coming on increasingly frequently now.

You’d better buy this car, Christopher Goodman. You won’t just be saving my business, you might be saving my life.

And with his lovely, caring Irish girlfriend, Shauna, life was really good for him again, after the trauma of his health scares. He would have the op and afterwards he would do his damnedest to get fit again. He had promised her that.

Manoeuvring some of his other stock out of the way, he slid open the showroom doors, grabbed the BMW’s keys off the hook on his office wall and decided to take it for a quick spin round the block to check everything was working fine, after a few weeks of it sitting idle in the showroom. Unplugging the charging cable, he then, mindful of his bad back, eased himself gently into the driver’s seat with a pained grunt, glided the car silently out of the showroom, drove north up to Church Road, Hove, and turned left. It was 7.45 a.m.