The Tax Inspector

30

At Catchprice Motors they called a potential customer a ‘Prospect’, and as the big black cumulus clouds rolled in from the west and the first thunder of the day made itself heard above the pot-hole thump of the Fast-Mix Concrete trucks heading north towards the F4, Benny hooked a live one. It was a Tuesday, the second day of Benny’s new life.

He found the Prospect there at eight-thirty, crunching around in the gravel beside the Audi Quattro. Benny made no sudden movements, but when the Prospect found the Quattro’s door was locked, Benny was able to come forward and unlock it for him.

‘Thank you,’ the Prospect said.

‘No worries,’ Benny said, holding the black-trimmed door open and releasing a heady perfume of paint and leather. The driver’s seat made a small expensive squeak as it took the Prospect’s weight. The white paper carpet-protector rumpled beneath grey slip-ons whose little gold chains made Benny take them for Guccis. The guy folded his hands in his lap and asked to be given ‘the selling points’. Benny had not slept all night – he had been working on one more angle in his campaign to seduce the Tax Inspector – but now all of his gritty-eyed tiredness went away and the fibreglass splinters in his arms stopped itching and he squatted on the gravel beside the open door and talked about the Quattro for five minutes without lying once. He watched the Prospect as he spoke. He waited for signs of boredom, some indication that he should shift the venue, alter the approach, but the guy was treating this like information he just had to have. After twenty minutes, Benny’s knees were hurting and he had run out of stuff to say.

Then the Prospect got out of the Quattro. Then he and Benny stood side by side and looked at it together. The Prospect was five foot six, maybe five foot seven – shorter than Benny, but broader in the shoulders. He played sport, you could see it in the way he balanced on the balls of his feet. He had a broad nose, almost like a boxer’s, but you could not call him ugly. He was good-looking, in fact. He had a dark velvet suit and a small tuft of black hair – you could not call it a beard – sitting underneath his lower lip. He was twenty-two, maybe twenty-five years old, and he had Guccis on his feet and he was looking up at Benny – what a wood duck!

‘So,’ he said. ‘When do we do the test drive?’

‘Hey,’ said Benny, ‘don’t panic.’ The truth was: he was unlicensed. They would kill him if they saw him demo this unit. He was going to do it none the less, but gentlee gentlee catchee monkey – he had to wait for Mort who was sitting in a Commodore by the front office. He was hunched over in the seat reading out the engine functions on the computerized diagnostic device – the Compu-tech.

‘The thing you’ve got to appreciate about an Audi,’ Benny said, ‘is nothing is rushed. They rush to make all this G.M. shit, but not an Audi.’

‘I have something for you,’ the Prospect said.

Benny did not notice what he had. He was watching Mort unplug the Tech II and put it in his back pocket.

The Prospect was occupied with a separate matter – withdrawing a sleek silver envelope from his inside jacket pocket.

‘Here,’ he said.

He held it out to Benny.

Benny took the envelope. What do you want?

The Prospect smiled. Benny was spooked by his black eyes.

‘You have good taste in ties,’ the Prospect said. ‘I’m sure you will like this one.’

The envelope held a black and silver and green tie.

Benny felt a tingling at the back of his neck.

‘Silk,’ said Sarkis.

Benny looked up at the eyes and then down at the tie.

‘I’ll buy it,’ he said. He had a boner. He did not want a boner. He did not want a gift or come in his mouth, but the man’s eyes were like a sore tooth he could not keep from touching.

‘No, it’s a sample,’ said Sarkis. ‘I made it.’

Benny smiled at the Prospect. He wet his lips and smiled.

‘You make ties?’ he asked.

‘There are no good ties in Australia,’ said Sarkis, who was as impressed with Benny’s haircut as Benny had been with Sarkis’s shoes. You needed to be making big money to maintain a cut like that. ‘There’s a big market waiting for these ties. What I need is the capital to do it in a bigger way. Here … have it … It’s a gift.’

The man held the packet out with one hand. The other hand he kept behind his back. He flexed his knees and looked out at the street trees with their pretty red-dotted lichen-encrusted leaves and their hairy, mossy trunks. They were side by side. Benny could feel the space between them.

‘A present? Just for nothing?’

‘For good luck,’ said Sarkis, ‘on my first day here.’

‘First day?’

‘I’m sorry …’ Sarkis said, suddenly confused.

‘First day? Come on, what are you saying to me. What are you proposing?’

‘Working here,’ said Sarkis. ‘I’m sorry. I was hired to work here. She said someone would come and fill me in.’

‘Got it,’ said Benny. He felt a pain in his stomach. He watched his father nurse the Commodore slowly out along the brown-puddled service road. All the fibreglass splinters in his arms began to itch. ‘Who hired you? Mrs McPherson?’

‘The owner hired me,’ said Sarkis. ‘The old lady.’

This was exactly how Howie got into Catchprice Motors and it made Benny get a freezing feeling behind his eyes. ‘Oh shit,’ he laughed. ‘You got hired by Grandma.’ He tapped his forehead and rolled his eyes.

‘She’s got the keys,’ Sarkis said. ‘I saw her.’

‘She’s got the keys because she’s got the keys – she doesn’t own the business.’

‘She told me that she did.’

‘Well she doesn’t. It’s owned by my auntie and my Dad and me. Not even my uncle Jack has got shares. He’s a property developer in town, but he doesn’t work here so he can’t have shares. Even my brother,’ Benny said, ‘could have had a future here …’

Then he saw the Tax Inspector’s Colt making a right-hand turn across the traffic to come into Catchprice Motors.

‘I’ve got to tell you,’ Sarkis said, ‘I never sold cars before.’

Benny groaned.

‘So if you can help me …’ Sarkis rubbed his fingers together, indicating money passing hands.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You help me, I’ll split my commission.’

‘We don’t have commissions,’ Benny said. ‘This is a family business.’ But he was mollified by the offer. ‘This is a fucking minefield,’ he said. ‘It’s a snake-pit. They all hate each other. None of them can sell a car. If you work here, you’d have to work for me.’

‘Sure,’ said Sarkis. ‘Sure, O.K.’

‘We’ve got a lot of stock to move,’ Benny explained. ‘We’ve got a fucking enormous tax bill.’ He looked at Sarkis. ‘What makes you think you can sell cars … what’s your name?’

‘Sarkis.’ He hesitated. ‘They call me Sam,’ he told this kid. He hated how it sounded. The kid must be seven years younger and he was saying, ‘Call me Sam’.

‘Sam? Listen Sam. The first thing you’ve got to know is that the car is not the issue. The car is only the excuse. It’s the F&I you make the money from. No one understands that. The kings of this business are the F&I men. There’s no one in Catchprice Motors knows an F&I man from their arsehole. Someone says to my old man, “I need insurance,” he picks up the fucking phone and dials the fucking insurance company for them and it costs us thirty cents and makes us nothing. You want to work here, you got to go away for five days and learn about F&I …’

‘Sorry … what’s F&I?’

‘I’ve been telling you,’ said Benny. ‘Finance and Insurance. F&I. You stay here now, all this week, but next Monday you get on an F&I course. You learn how to use the computer, how to do the paper work. You don’t need to know shit about cars. You don’t need to know the difference between an Audi Quattro and a washing machine. A week from now you’ll know how to sell them comprehensive insurance, disability cover, extended warranty. If that’s impossible …’

‘I’m Armenian,’ said Sarkis. ‘We’re the best salesmen in the world.’

‘Yeah, well don’t go round giving people silk ties. You get people mad with you. Forget it now. Listen to me – I’ve got a hundred bucks and I want to buy a car from you, how are you going to do it? I mean, I come in here with a blue mohawk and a leopard-skin vest and a ring through my nose and when I’ve finished jerking off all I can get together is a hundred bucks …’

‘You can’t afford a car, sorry …’

‘You know as much as the directors of this business.’ Benny could see Cathy standing at the top of Grandma Catchprice’s landing. She was waving her arms around and waving at Benny and Sarkis. ‘You want to sell a car, you’ve got to understand finance, O.K. Listen to me,’ Benny said, ‘not her. You’ve got a hundred bucks, you want a nice car. I say to you, see that old F.J. Holden over there. I’ll sell you that for a hundred bucks.’

‘You call that a nice car?’

‘No, I don’t. Just be patient. O.K. You buy it from me for a hundred. O.K.?’

‘O.K.’ said Sarkis.

‘O.K., now I buy it back from you at five hundred. Car hasn’t even moved. What’s happened?’

‘You’ve lost money.’

‘No, now you have five hundred bucks – you can afford to do business with me. You’ve got enough money for a deposit on a $3,500 car. I can finance it to you. I’ll make good money on the sale, I’ll keep on making money on the F&I. You understand me?’

‘I think so,’ said Sarkis.

‘It takes time, don’t worry,’ Benny said. ‘They think I’m dumb round here, I’ll tell you now.’ He could see Cathy lurching awkwardly down the stairs. ‘But none of them appreciates this. You’re getting it faster than they are. You can make two hundred grand a year in this dump, really. You believe me.’

‘You want to know? I think it’s a great opportunity.’

‘You get this F&I under your belt, we can set this town on fire.’ He turned to face Cathy who was weaving towards them. ‘Just ignore this,’ he told Sarkis. ‘This doesn’t count.’