Vincent Karp could tell a serious buyer by the shoes, and Elliot Crane wore serious shoes.
"You are not here for the brochures," Karp said, guiding him past the Lumen One and toward the small consultation room at the back of the Glass Pavilion. "Am I right, Mr. Crane?"
"Call me Elliot. And no. I am here because my assistant called three times and got three different stories about the waitlist."
"That is because the waitlist is not a list," Karp said, closing the door with a click. "It is a conversation. Sit. Coffee? Something colder?"
"Coffee is fine. Talk to me about the conversation."
Karp smiled and poured. "Officially, the Lumen One is one of one. A prototype. Not for sale, not allocated, not promised to anyone. Paula will tell you that with a straight face, and she believes it."
"And unofficially?"
"Unofficially, everything in Miami has a door. Some doors are just quieter than others."
Crane set his phone face down on the table, a gesture Karp always appreciated. Discretion recognized discretion. "I collect first editions of things," Crane said. "When this car goes from prototype to program, and it will, I want my name above the men who waited politely."
"Polite men get polite outcomes," Karp said. "I can move your name into the private allocation tier. That is not the public list. That is the room before the room."
"What does the room cost?"
"Forty. Cash. Today it holds your place while the paperwork stays clean and boring. Allocation consulting, handled through my own firm so the showroom never has to trouble itself with promises it cannot put in writing."
Crane studied him for a moment. "Forty thousand to be unofficially first for a car that officially does not exist yet."
"You are not buying the car, Elliot. You are buying the absence of competition."
Crane reached inside his jacket. The envelope he produced was thick, cream colored, and unmarked. He placed it on the table between them and kept two fingers on it.
"If this is a story I am telling myself, I want a receipt," he said.
"You will have one before you finish that coffee."
Karp did not touch the envelope while Crane watched. That was amateur work. Instead he rose, crossed to his desk, and opened the lower drawer with his key. Inside sat two receipt books. The first was bound in Pavilion navy, its pages numbered in the showroom series Paula audited every Friday. The second was plain black, bought with cash at an office supply store in Hialeah.
He took out the black book.
"VK Allocations LLC," he said, writing in his neat, unhurried hand. "Allocation consulting fee, forty thousand dollars, received from Elliot Crane. There. Signed, dated, and entirely respectable."
Crane read it twice. "No mention of the car."
"No mention of anything either of us would need to explain. That is what respectable means."
"And if Paula asks what I paid you?"
"Paula asks about cars, financing, delivery windows. She lives in the official world, bless her. In the official world, you are a valued guest enjoying preview week."
"You do not like her much."
"I admire her enormously," Karp said. "She keeps the glass so clean that nobody looks at the hands touching it."
Crane slipped the receipt into the same pocket the envelope had come from, stood, and offered his hand. "When do I hear something?"
"When there is something worth hearing, you will hear it from me first. That is the entire product."
"And if there never is?"
"Then you will still have been first in line for it, which is more than the polite men can say."
Only when the door closed behind Crane did Karp open the envelope. The bills were banded, orderly, beautiful in their plainness. He counted once, because ritual mattered, and once again, because accuracy mattered more. Forty thousand, exactly. He noted it in the small ledger beneath the receipt book, six names now, then slid the envelope into his briefcase and locked the drawer on both books.
Rules, Karp believed, were excellent things. They kept timid people timid.
Jonah Fields knocked twice and came in carrying a crate of detailing supplies for the storage cabinet, apologizing to the empty chair before he saw Karp at the desk. "Sorry, Mr. Karp, Paula said before six."
"No apology needed, Jonah. The kingdom runs on microfiber."
Jonah set the crate down and glanced at the desk as Karp closed the black receipt book, and his eyes caught the page edge long enough to read the number printed there. Jonah restocked the Pavilion books every Friday. He knew their series began with seven. This one began with two. He said nothing, photographed nothing, and repeated the number twice in his head until it stayed.
Chapter 7: What Meg Found