Free The Quick Adios (Times Six) by Tom Corcoran

entered one more PIN and we were inside. He led me down a hallway past modest beige and gray offices on the left, each with twin windows to the front. Off to our right, a huge single room held an array of work cubicles. Cheap fixtures, commercial-use carpeting and fluorescents prevailed, as if someone had ordered the sterile furnishings out of a catalog. Or sight-unseen off the Internet.
    I sensed that the space would not be photo-friendly.
    “I know,” said Beeson. “It looks like more than a full day’s work.
    It looks like far less, I thought.
    “Our helpers can shift those cubes to different arrangements,” he said. “We can emphasize fabric colors, drop-downs, modular height, lighting, privacy and corner offices.”
    “Flexibility,” I said, already bored shitless.
    “Yep,” he said. “That big room doesn’t exist for its beauty. It’s there to generate revenue.” In a lowered tone he added, “For someone. Speaking of which…”
    He stepped into the last office on the left, flipped on the ceiling lights. With a key on his pocket ring, he unlocked the top drawer of his desk. He lifted out a notebook-sized checkbook and began to write.
    “Let’s call this your sixty percent up front, but if your bill runs higher, for any reason, you’ll get no argument from me.” He handed me a check for $1,500 then locked up the checkbook, flipped off the lights and led the way out of the office.
    Bordering the maze of cubicles, the hall turned to the right and ended at a steel door that Beeson opened with his passcard. “These were the shipping and receiving bays in our first incarnation,” he said.
    The workshop smelled of anti-freeze, axle grease, stale gas and Go-Jo soap. Just inside the doorway a young man in a vintage Guns N’ Roses T-shirt and oil-stained Levi’s sat at a parts bench. He appeared to be rebuilding a hefty carburetor. Beeson introduced him as Edwin Torres.
    I guessed that Torres was in his late-twenties. He nodded and wiggled his right hand as if to say, “I’m too greasy to shake hands.” He had a tattoo on the left side of his neck that resembled a hitchhiker’s thumb. I had to wonder if Edwin needed the skin art to solicit a ride back to prison. Then I reminded myself to hold back on my judgment of his appearance. The guy was working for Beeson. He could be a family man, a normal fellow.
    “How are things?” said Beeson.
    As if he knew he wasn’t to answer, Torres returned to his task. Another young man, face-up on a flat mechanic’s creeper, rolled out from under a 1955 Chevy two-door 150 with a shaved hood and American Racing wheels. “Smooth as can be,” he said.
    I looked back to Torres. He nodded in agreement but kept his eyes on his work and said nothing.
    Beeson introduced me to Luke Tharpe, a man with a choirboy face, probably in his early twenties. He also gave me a wave in lieu of a handshake. His hair style, with its part to starboard and wave above his forehead, was straight from a 1940s Norman Rockwell painting. He wore royal blue coveralls, a gray T-shirt and greasy sneakers, and came off as the spokesman for the pair. When he stood to chat with Beeson, I thought that he and Torres might be the two slimmest men in Florida.
    “There is one thing,” said Tharpe. He and Beeson began to discuss re-chromed trim and bumper guards that hadn’t been delivered on time. I walked away to let the men talk business without me.
    “Two minutes,”Beeson half-shouted to me. “I’m hungry, too.”
    The rear interior section of the building was partitioned under a maze of trusses and high storage bins. The rear wall had a glassed-in security access cube, less fancy than the one out front. It appeared to be a bother and a foolish expense next to three roll-up galvanized steel garage doors.
    In the section given to the failed museum, old gas station signs and framed showroom placards hung on walls and partitions. One sign promoted the aftermarket installation of seat belts. Model