Kessler nodded slowly, as if a ledger had balanced. He lifted his phone, thumbed a message, and in less than two minutes the steel door hissed open and Yolanda came through it, still pulling off her nitrile gloves, wet to the wrist, a smear of blue glass cleaner on her forearm. She was a tall woman, mid-thirties, and she walked across the white floor fast, in rubber-soled shoes that squeaked, and the squeak was the loudest thing in the showroom.
She didn't look at Kessler first. She looked at her son. Julian saw the question pass between them — what did you do — and saw the boy answer it with nothing but a small lift of his chin.
"Ms. Toussaint," Kessler said. "Can I borrow you for one minute?"
They went into his glass office. The glass was the problem with the glass offices; everyone could see everything and hear nothing. Julian, wiping down the fender with a microfiber so the women wouldn't see his handprints on the silver, watched Kessler talk with his hands open and reasonable, watched Yolanda stand with her gloves balled in one fist. He watched her nod once. He watched her not sit down when Kessler gestured at the chair.
He knew what was being said, more or less, because he'd been at the all-staff meeting in March when Kessler introduced the new policies from the ownership group. Northgate Automotive Partners had bought Larkspur and four other stores the year before, and with Northgate had come laminated cards about the brand experience. No personal phone calls on the floor. No food outside the break room. No family or non-employee visitors in customer areas during business hours. Kessler had read that one out with special emphasis, because somebody's kid had once spilled a slushie in a Bentayga.
Nine years, Julian thought. Nine years and he had never once spoken to Yolanda Toussaint about anything except where a car was parked.
When she came out of the office, her face was perfectly composed, and her eyes were wet, and she was not going to let one drop fall in that building. She went to the lounge, said something low to her son, and the boy stood and tucked the library book under his arm. Then the two of them walked across the white tile toward the side door, not the service corridor, the front, as if she wanted to use the customer exit once.
Julian could have said something then. He knew it. He could have walked up and said, Your son found the fault. Your son just saved the delivery. Kessler, she shouldn't be written up for that, she should be — what? Thanked? Paid? He didn't know the end of the sentence, and while he was looking for it, the door swung shut behind them, and the October light came in across the floor, and the older woman with the rust-colored scarf was standing beside him.
"That child," she said, "knew exactly what he was talking about."
"Yes, ma'am."
"And now he is being sent out. Is that right?"
"I don't know what's happening, ma'am." That was half true.
She studied him. "I'm Ingrid Sato-Bell. This is my car, or will be, once someone ties that ribbon. My late husband bought his first car from a boy about that age, you know. Well. The boy's father. The boy did the talking." She paused. "I think I'd like to write a letter."
"To who?"