“Mr. Livemore? I don’t recall that name.”

“That’s because he rarely leaves Coventry. He’s the operations manager at Brown’s Lane, and he hates to travel.”

“Operations manager, you say? He’s rather old for the job, isn’t he?”

“Yes, but experience tells, don’t you know. We really should get on with it. It’ll only take a few minutes.”

“But it’s not procedure. We have our procedures, our channels of authority here-”

I leaned close to him and whispered, “It’s my job on the line. Cut me a break, will you? I’d do the same for you.”

His brushy black mustache twitched, his blue eyes were as bright as the XJS in front of us. Sapphire, they called the color, with an Oatmeal interior. Six cylinders and $66,200 of gorgeous. But since I was pretending to help build these beauties, I did not drool on the showroom floor. “I don’t like this at all, Miss Jamesway,” he said.

“Please? I need this job. I’m a single mother, trying to make a living.”

He softened. “Oh, all right. Where do you work, Miss Jamesway? England or the U.S.?”

“I go back and forth.” Between truth and falsehood. “Now, as I said, Mr. Livemore has been very concerned about the paint quality on the black models in recent years. Have you had any complaints about the black paint?”

“Exterior enamels? Not that I recall. Most of our customers are very satisfied, very loyal.”

“Have you had complaints from your customers about chipping? Particularly around the doors? In the black models?”

He thought a minute. “No.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sal run his finger along the polished side of a Kingfisher Blue XJ12 Coupe. His greasy fingertip made a streak like a slug’s trail on the car’s virgin surface. “Mr. Livemore would like to locate the owners of black Jaguars in the area. He wants to contact these customers to see if they are as satisfied as Jaguar wants them to be. Do you have such a list?”

He blinked. “Not per se, no. We have a list of the cars sold in a year, but not by color. We sell many black cars, as you know. It’s one of our most popular colors after British Racing Green.”

Over my shoulder, Sal was opening and closing the long door of a Flamenco Red XJS Convertible with a Coffee interior. The ca-chunk sound echoed harshly, the only rugs in the room were squares under each Pirelli. Ca-chunk, ca-chunk, ca-chunk. The convertible door closed fluidly each time, but Sal grimaced like an Uberfieldmarshal.

The salesman caught Sal’s expression. “He’s very thorough, isn’t he?”

“It’s his job to be very thorough,” I said, wanting to wring Sal’s stringy neck.

“Maybe I should call my manager. He’s at the dentist, but he has a beeper.”

“No, you wouldn’t want to bother your boss. You know what Mr. Livemore would do to me if I called him at his dentist?” I glanced at Sal, who was climbing into the driver’s seat of the low-slung convertible. His puny frame vanished into the cushy leather seat. “Let’s just get on with it, can we? Before Mr. Livemore starts testing the ashtrays.”

“But the ashtrays are fine!”

“How about the electrical system?” The automatic windows on Fiske’s car stuck constantly and the door locks were possessed.

“The electrics have improved since the quality controls we’ve instituted with Ford.”

“Yeah. Right. This is me now, not Autoweek,” I said, and he winced. “Look, I know how popular black is. That’s why they’re so concerned, back in England, that the paint on the black models is chipping and flaking.”

“Flaking, too?” His face went white. Glacier White, to be exact.

“Mr. Henry, just so I understand the scope of the problem, I would guess there are hundreds of black Jaguars sold by this dealership.”

“Hundreds? Thousands would be more like it, including the leases.” His hands fluttered to the knot on his rep tie. “Chipping, really? You would think I would have heard about it.”

“It occurs on very few models, but Mr. Livemore wants us to stay on top of the situation. Uphold the quality of the marque. Don’t you agree?”

“By all means.”

“And you’re the only Jaguar dealer in the greater Philadelphia area, is that right? There’s one in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and none in Delaware?” I’d let my fingers do the walking.

“Yes,” he answered, distracted by Sal, who had found the convertible’s pristine shoulder harness and was snapping it back and forth. It retracted with a high-quality craakkk and the salesman flinched each time, like it was a rifle shot.

“Do you think I could see your list of cars sold or leased in the past, oh, three years?” Then I would have a list of everybody with a black Jag in the area. Maybe one of them had reason to frame Fiske. “I can pick off the black cars myself.”

“That would take an enormous amount of time. It’s a huge number.”

“I have an assistant. In Mahwah. Mr. Farnsworth’s assistant.”

Mr. Henry shook his head slowly. “Maybe I should call my manager.” He walked toward a desk located behind a glass partition before I could stop him.

Shit. “Mr. Livemore!” I called to Sal. “Perhaps you should come along. We may be phoning the manager.”

Sal turned in the car seat, his eyes barely clearing the headrest, then began to climb out of the car.

“Come quickly, Mr. Livemore!” I said, panicky. I flashed on a scene of me manacled before the ethics committee of the Pennsylvania bar and hurried to Mr. Henry’s desk, where he was reaching for the telephone.

“I’m shocked!” shouted a British voice from behind me. It was Sal. His face was Signal Red and his scowl was deep as the pile on a floor mat. “That’s what I am, shocked! Put down that phone!”

Mr. Henry froze and the receiver clattered onto the cradle.

“How dare you!” Sal thundered. He stood taller and straighter, his scrawny shoulders squared off in their shoulder pads. Even his accent had sharpened up, he sounded like Pierce Brosnan as Remington Steele. I was dumbfounded. So was Mr. Henry.

“How… dare I?” the salesman asked uncertainly. “Call my own manager?”

Sal glowered at him. “This is shocking! You, my good man, you are in charge here, are you not?”

“Yes.”

“Then why are you-as you Americans say-trying to pass the buck?”

“I’m not, sir.”

“Do you have the information my client requested?”

Client?

Mr. Henry nodded. “But I need authorization to get the printouts.”

“I’m giving you authorization!”

“But I mean from my own management-”

“I am your management, my good man. I am your management’s management!”

Mr. Henry looked puzzled, rapidly discovering that Uncle Sal was a confusing person to be around. But this time it was paying off. “It will take at least a day to get that information.”

“Right as rain!” Sal said, morphing into Rex Harrison. On steroids.

“And my manager would have to approve it.”

Shit. I should have realized it. I couldn’t get the records this way, but I could subpoena them now that I knew they existed. Time to fold ’em. “Mr. Livemore, perhaps we should go and seek the proper authorization. We can obtain it today or tomorrow, then come back.”

“My word! How can you say that! And look at this man’s desk! It’s abdominal!”

Say what?

“This is a travesty!” Sal flipped inexplicably through the papers on Mr. Henry’s desk, scattering them in a corporate hissy fit. I think he was trying to create a diversion even though nobody was breaking for the perimeter, and I gathered he had seen too many old war movies. “A mockery!”

“Please, Mr. Livemore!” Mr. Henry yelped, watching in horror as all of his papers flopped onto the floor, until the only thing on his desktop was a black three-ring binder and a cup of cold tea. “Please, sir!”

“What kind of order is this? What must our customers think when they come here? Disorder! Catastrophe! In short you have a ghastly mess!”