Kathy Hogan Trocheck - Truman Kicklighter 02 - Crash Course Read Online Free Page B

Jackie said.
    “Better let me take a look,” he said.
    He perched his reading glasses on the end of his nose. The print on the contract was tiny and faint, a carbon of a carbon. He’d been thinking about going to the VisionMart to get some new prescription glasses. He had a coupon—$14.99, including the eye exam.
    As he read, Truman frowned. And sighed. Jackie kept busy with the hostel students, who were shoveling down pancakes and hash browns as fast as she could bring them out, but every few minutes she came by and stood next to his shoulder, anxiously watching his expression.
    “Well?” she said when she could stand it no longer.
    “These people ought to be run out of town,” Truman said, flinging the contract aside like a soiled napkin. “Goddamn con artists.”
    “What?” Jackie said. “What’s wrong? You haven’t even seen the car yet. Wait till you see my ‘Vette, Mr. K. It’s cherry. Jeff said so. You can even ask Ollie. I was gonna see if you’d give me a ride out there after breakfast, to pick it up. Maybe the battery just needs charging. That happens sometimes, right?”
    “Sometimes,” Truman said. “If the car even has a battery.”
    “Jeff’s a good guy,” Jackie protested. “A lot of people, they see a black chick getting off a bus, they wouldn’t give them the time of day. But Jeff was real polite and nice. And Mr. Bondurant doesn’t let just anybody drive that Corvette. Don’t be so negative, Mr. K. Just because they run a used-car lot doesn’t mean they’re dishonest. That’s a stereotype, you know.
    “Here comes Ollie now,” Jackie said, looking toward the door from the lobby. “Ask him, he’ll tell you it’s a good car.”
    The college kids were sniggering to each other as the dwarf with the thinning, uncombed hair trudged through the dining room toward them. He still wore the baggy, tar-stained orange shorts from the night before, but today’s shirt was an acid-green tank top that exposed his pale, hairless chest.
    Ollie collapsed into the empty chair at Truman’s table. “You’re buying me breakfast,” he told Jackie. “After last night, you owe me at least that much.”
    “I’ll buy you breakfast,” Truman said. “I’ve seen the contract for that car of hers. She’s been cleaned out, my friend.”
    Ollie rubbed his eyes. “Maybe it’s just a spark plug.”
    Jackie turned his coffee cup over and filled it up. “Mr. K thinks I’ve been ripped off. But he doesn’t know Jeff like I do. He let me write a check for the down payment, because the bank was already closed and I couldn’t get cash. And after we’d done all the paperwork, he was real excited for me. He says he loves to put beautiful women in beautiful cars. He was going to take me to dinner, but he couldn’t leave because Mr. Bondurant and his assistant manager are out of town and Jeff is acting sales manager. Does that sound like a crook to you?”
    “It’s a great car when it’s running,” Ollie said, helping himself to a biscuit. “She let me drive it.”
    “You don’t have a driver’s license,” Truman said. “You’re both crazy.”
    “Cherry,” Jackie repeated. “That’s what Jeff called it.”
    “Does cherry translate to rip-off?” Truman asked. He could tell Jackie didn’t like hearing the truth, but it couldn’t be helped.
    He didn’t know anything in particular about this Bondurant Motors outfit, but buy-here, pay-here lots were as big a scourge in Florida as cockroaches and hurricanes.
    The way it worked was like this: The used-car lot would sell you a car, a piece of crap, probably, and at a price that was two or three times what it was worth. They didn’t run credit checks because they didn’t need to. They milked you for as much down payment as they could, then they set up an “easy payment plan” biweekly or even weekly, sometimes, at indecent interest rates.
    And if you missed even one payment, legally they could come after your car, keep any payments