The front of the showroom was where the trouble was.
A silver Bentley Continental GT sat angled toward the windows, the delivery spot, a white ribbon folded on its roof that nobody had tied yet. Its hood was up. That was wrong in a room like this, Ezra could tell; it was like seeing a man in a tuxedo with his shirt untucked. A mechanic in a dark blue work shirt stood bent into the engine bay with a jump pack clamped to the remote positive post. His name patch said Julian. He had dark hair going gray at the edges and a beard he kept rubbing with the back of his wrist, because his hands were dirty and the car was not.
Every few minutes, the young salesman in the driver's seat pressed the start button. Every few minutes, the same thing happened. The dash woke up. The center screen began to bloom into a picture. And then, from somewhere under the hood, came a small, dry, rhythmic ticking, tick—tick—tick—tick, steady as a turn signal, and the dash dropped out, and came back, and dropped out, and the starter never even tried.
The first time, Ezra had looked up from page 212 and then made himself look back down.
The fourth time, he had closed the book on his finger.
The seventh time, he had found that he was no longer in the caramel chair. He was standing at the edge of the lounge rug. Then he was on the white tile. Then he was at the front bumper of a car that cost more than his grandfather's house, close enough to feel the warmth still coming off the engine from an hour of somebody trying, with his hands jammed in the pocket of his hoodie where they could not touch anything.
He didn't decide to go. It was more that the sound pulled him the way a dropped coin pulls your eyes. Pop said a relay was a little man with one job: when the computer told him to, he closed a door so the big current could get through. A good relay closed the door once and held it. This one was opening and closing, opening and closing, like somebody couldn't make up their mind. And every time the door opened, the dash died, and every time it closed, the dash came back.
Julian had his meter probes on the battery post. Twelve-point-four, the screen said, then twelve-point-three when the salesman hit the button, then twelve-point-four again. He swore under his breath, a soft, tired word, and reached for the jump pack's dial as if more would help.
Ezra said, with his eyes on the engine, "Your battery isn't dead."
He did not say it loudly. He said it the way you'd tell somebody their shoe was untied.
But the room heard it. The salesman in the driver's seat stopped with his finger over the button. The women by the Porsche turned. And from the direction of the glass offices, a man came walking across the white floor with the particular speed of somebody who was used to arriving at problems and making them go away.
He was older, sixty maybe, with silver hair styled back off his forehead like a wave that had decided to stay. His navy suit fit him the way the light fit the cars. Light-blue shirt, patterned tie, a light-blue pocket square folded into three neat points. On his wrist, a silver watch with a face like a little moon. He came right up to the bumper and stood over Ezra so that Ezra had to tip his head back to see him, and he put his hand on the edge of the open hood as if it belonged to him, which it did.
"Nobody asked for your diagnosis," the man said.
Ezra knew who he was. Mama had said the name in the car three times. Mr. Kessler. General manager. Doesn't like family on the floor.