Chapter 3: The Closer
Jared Kessler arrived at seven forty with his coffee finished and his jacket perfect.
"You are late," he told Brett Harmon.
"I am early," Brett said. "You texted seven thirty."
"And I got here at seven twenty," Jared said. "That makes you late to me. Write that down somewhere."
"What are we doing before doors?" Brett asked.
"We are looking at the only thing in this building that never lies," Jared said. "Read it to me."
"It says Kessler, forty one units this quarter," Brett said.
"Louder. The board likes confidence."
"Kessler, forty one units this quarter," Brett said. "Harmon, nineteen. Marsh, seventeen."
"Good boy. Now read the little gold stars, Brett. Tell the room what they mean."
"Top seller, three years running," Brett recited. "Soon to be four, if I know you."
"You do know me," Jared said. "That is why you are standing here instead of fetching tire pressures with the porters. Three years, Brett. Not three good months. Three years of everybody in this store aiming at my back and hitting nothing."
A detailer crossed the far end of the showroom with a bucket, and Jared watched him go with open distaste.
"Slow down, friend," Jared called. "You are making the rest of us look ambitious."
"You are in a mood this morning," Brett said.
"I am in a launch week mood," Jared said. "Fifty Sovereigns, Brett. Fifty. Ninety eight thousand dollars apiece, and Saturday they roll out of here like a parade. Do you know what my piece of one Sovereign is?"
"More than my rent," Brett said.
"More than your rent, your car note, and your dignity combined," Jared said. "And do you know who buys a Sovereign?"
"Rich men having excellent midlife crises," Brett said.
"Prepared men," Jared corrected. "Men who call ahead. Men whose assistants call ahead. Men who already know the number before they smell the leather. What a Sovereign buyer never does is wander in off South Lamar in a bus stop jacket to press his nose against the tank and dream."
"Speaking of dreaming," Brett said, "we had three walk-ins yesterday who wanted to sit on everything and buy nothing."
"Tire-kickers," Jared said. "The natural predator of the working salesman. They kick, they sit, they ask about financing they will never qualify for, and then they go home and tell their wives they almost bought a motorcycle. Almost is not a commission, Brett. Almost does not keep me on that board."
"So what is the rule?" Brett asked. He asked it the way he asked everything Jared said, like a student who suspected the answer would be on a test.
"The rule is ninety seconds," Jared said. "Ninety seconds to qualify a man. Watch the shoes, watch the watch, listen for the word someday. Someday means never. If a man says someday, you smile, you hand him a brochure, and you return to civilization."
"And if he is serious?"
"Money has a sound, Brett," Jared said. "It does not shuffle."
From the front windows came the low, uneven rumble of an old cruiser pulling into the lot. Jared did not turn around.
"That," he said, "is the sound of a trade-in nobody wants."
"You have not even looked yet," Brett said.
"I do not have to look. I can hear the valves from here."
The door chimed. Margaret Ellery came in with her helmet under her arm and not one ounce of apology in her face. Her old cruiser sat cooling outside, chrome dulled, leather worn honest.
"Morning," she said. "Beautiful day for it."
Cal Turner looked up from the Sovereign platform and gave her a wave. "Morning, ma'am. Somebody will be right with you."
"I do not need right with me," Mags said cheerfully. "I need a number. That cruiser outside has carried me eleven years and I am thinking about trading her in this week. Who here can talk to me about what she is worth?"
Brett glanced at Jared. Jared stayed where he was, seated now on the edge of the sales desk, his pen turning circles between his fingers.
"Trade desk is backed up today," Jared said, without standing, without looking at the bike. "Launch week. Leave your name at the counter and somebody will call you."
"I am standing here now," Mags said. "And so is the motorcycle."
"Then you both can wait together," Jared said, and he smiled at Brett to show him how it was done. "We will get to you, ma'am. Everybody gets gotten to, eventually."
Mags studied him for a long, calm moment. "Eleven years," she said, "and that bike has never once been rude to a stranger."
Then she walked past him toward the coffee. Jared turned back to the numbers board and began, again, to admire his own name.
Chapter 4: Six Figures
Jared Kessler crossed the showroom floor with a smile that never quite reached his eyes.
"Help you with something, friend?" he asked.
Elias looked up from the Sovereign. "Just admiring it."
"Admiring is free," Jared said. "That much is in your price range."
Cal Turner stood near the parts counter, polishing cloth in hand, and watched.
Elias rested his gaze on the motorcycle again. Matte black. Brass along the tank and the pipes, quiet and deliberate. "She photographs smaller," he said.
"She is not a she to buy," Jared said. "She is a Sovereign. Limited run. Fifty total, and most of them were spoken for before the paint had time to cure."
"I heard that," Elias said.
"You heard right." Jared stepped closer. "Ninety eight thousand dollars. Six figures, once you add the destination charge and the paperwork and the privilege of owning one. People fly in for this bike. They wire money. They do not take the bus in to warm themselves by it."
Elias nodded, mild as ever. "It is warm in here."
A man browsing helmets slowed beside the ropes. His wife touched his sleeve, and they both lingered, pretending to read a specification card.
Jared noticed them and lifted his voice half a degree. "I am happy to help serious buyers all day long. What I cannot do is give the tour out here to everybody who wanders in off Lamar looking for air conditioning."
"I did not ask for a tour," Elias said.
"No, you asked with your eyes." Jared let his own eyes travel slowly down the plain jacket, the faded jeans, the scuffed boots. "Let me save you the arithmetic, friend. That jacket might have cost forty dollars new, and I am being generous on the year. The boots have done their service. But you are standing next to a machine that costs more than most houses did when you were young."
"I remember what houses cost," Elias said.
"Then you remember being able to afford things." Jared smiled at the helmet couple, inviting them to share the joke. The woman looked at the floor. The man studied the specification card. "Times change. This floor changed with them."
Cal shifted his weight. The cloth hung forgotten in his fist. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, and his ears went red.
Elias turned a little toward Jared. "You sell many of these?"
"More than anybody in this building, three years running," Jared said. "Collectors. Business owners. A resort fellow is coming in this week for twelve of them. Twelve. That is the level we work at on this side of the ropes."
"And on the other side of the ropes?" Elias asked.
"On the other side, we have a very nice section," Jared said, and pointed with his tablet toward the far corner of the showroom, past the accessories wall, where the smaller entry machines stood in a modest row. "Those are honest little bikes. First bikes. Starter bikes. Prices a man can read without sitting down first. Nobody over there will waste your time, and you will not waste theirs. That is your section, friend. I mean that as a kindness."
"A kindness," Elias repeated.
"Absolutely. I am protecting you from embarrassment." Jared lowered his voice into something that sounded almost confidential and carried anyway. "You reach for a Sovereign, somebody has to explain the number out loud, and then everybody feels awkward. The buyer, the staff, the bike. I am sparing all three."
An older customer near the cruisers stopped pushing his grandson's stroller and listened openly now. Nobody pretended very hard anymore.
Elias looked at the row of entry bikes, then back at the Sovereign. "Maybe the man in the wrong section just likes looking at the right bike," he said.
"Looking is for museums," Jared said. "This is a business. Glass cases are down the street."
"You talk to me this way because of the jacket?" Elias asked quietly. "Or the age? Help me understand the system."
Jared laughed, a short polished sound. "There is no system. There is a floor, and the floor has levels, and knowing your level is not an insult. It is information."
"Then here is a question, since you value information," Elias said. "Do you speak to every customer this way, or did I earn the special tour?"
For the first time, Jared's smile thinned. "I speak plainly to everybody."
"Plainly," Elias said. "All right."
"I can get somebody to walk you over," Jared said, recovering, already turning away. "Cal can show you the starters. Cal loves the starters. It is about his speed too."
Cal looked down at the cloth in his hand and said nothing at all, and his silence sat on the floor between them like something dropped and broken.