'We got the wheels, we got the deals down here at Uncle Otto's Auto Barn right off I-95 in glorious Hollywood, Floriday!'� The fat man in a faded black linen suit hopped as high as his frame would allow and kick out brief clouds of gravel dust from his boot heels when he landed, almost hiding his fear of nearly falling live on local television as he steadied against the '78 Trail Blazer to his right.
It wasn't easy to miss. The truck had been painted tiger-stripe camouflage, lifted seven inches, and adorned with roll-bar lights that would burn corneas at high noon. No rust to be seen on the panels, but the nuclear green $2500 stamped on the windshield seemed more to serve as sight gag for the fat man's flailing during commercial breaks. On Sunday afternoon, with a Miami home game for the AFC Championship against the Steelers, the fat man bleakly knew that no one would be watching some tired Roy Rogers rerun.
'For today only, I'm paying tax and title on any cars purchased off the lot. That's right folks,'� the fat man punctuating the discount with an imaginary high five up and to his right, like a Pentecostal hand clap, 'tax and title free and clear!'�
The cameraman leaned his head and cracked his neck. Only one hour, thirty minutes to go, he grumbled. He was working with a remote engineer who fielded radio traffic from the station; one minute warning to commercial break, three minutes live remote, one minute station ads, then back to some grainy western with white heroes, dirty savages, and impossibly thin plot meant to uplift Depression-era moviegoers. Apparently, the programming director at WKVN decided that it would be just as inspiring and relieving for the dreary year of 1984 as well.
He drowned out the fat man's banter and kept him in frame. Otto Kingsley paid good money for the 'guest-host'� responsibilities advertising on Weekend Matinee required. Callers would dial the station when the magic number flashed, and Otto was doing his damnedest to keep his energy up while wearing black on an 82-degree afternoon in this dusty parking lot he passed off as a quality used car dealership. The cameraman was bored, but he stayed professional, remembering to do some justice for the poor bastard during his huckster show.
'And now, folks, back to the movie on WKVN's Weekend Matinee!'� Otto gave a flourish and held it for a beat or so. The engineer in the remote van gave a thumbs-up to the cameraman, who gave Otto the thumbs-up that they were clear.
'Whoo'�'� Otto pulled the handkerchief from his blazer pocket and mopped his balding head, careful not to aggravate the sunburn that grew darker by the moment. He tried several times the day before to keep sunscreen on, but he'd start sweating and nearly go blind as the salty mixture of perspiration and Coppertone eeked in around his eyes. 'Whad'ya think?'�
The cameraman nodded and unwrapped a sandwich. 'Good.'�
'Any advice?'� Otto scanned the vicinity. Traffic hadn't even slowed passing the lot, let alone stopped to check his offerings. They were alone in a maze of late model gas-guzzlers long overdue for the scrapheap.
'Yeah. Next time wear light colors.'� The cameraman sat down in the director's chair by the camera tripod and reached for his newspaper, clearly indicating he wasn't about to chat with Otto.
Otto folded the kerchief back into the lapel of his coat and shrugged. 'Well, I'm gonna go into the trailer and get me a cool breeze before the next sellathon starts, maybe catch the score for the game.'� The cameraman snapped his paper to a fresh section as his only sign of acknowledgement.
The fat man scuffled across the lot into his office, a contractor's trailer he bought at an auction after the INS closed down the Muriel processing centers. The trailer was just spacious enough to contain three desks and a water cooler. The office air conditioner was huge, requiring three lumber supports to keep the back end suspended sufficiently to prevent another broken window.
His receptionist saw him coming and tried to look busy. He caught her stashing the crossword puzzle and scrambling for a phone, bad sign that no one had called about the cars he desperately hawked. She was young and charming, not too pretty, but she worked hard for what Otto could afford to pay.
'Any calls, Tina?'� Otto closed the door and removed his blazer, convinced that it would drip from the sweat he generated bouncing like a clown for the cameras.
Tina shifted nervously in her seat. 'Uh'� well'� none you want to deal with right now, boss.'�
Otto stopped in front of his desk. 'No customers?'�
'No customers. Just'� that one guy'�'� She saw the color drain slightly from Otto's face. 'Said you needed to call immediately. About you know what.'� And she knew what 'you-know-what' involved, and she really didn't want to be on the premises when 'you-know-what' became something closer to 'I-told-you-so.'
Otto sank down in his chair. 'You know what he's calling about. Don't you.'�
Tina shifted again. 'I handle the books, boss. Fifty thousand dollars simply doesn't appear from thin air, especially with how slow we've been.'�
Otto only half-heartedly expected to keep his loan a secret. He had a bad run of business for the last few weeks, and his debts were catching up quickly. He had done well with the dealership when he started twenty years ago. Otto was younger, slimmer, a better salesman than he was today. Charm and charisma closed deals more effectively when he sported nine fewer inches around his waist and more hair on his head.
'How bad is it, Otto?'�
'Take the rest of the day off, Tina. I think I can hold down the fort for the rest of the afternoon.'�
Tina slowly stood up. 'Otto. How bad is it?'�
'Go home Tina. Enjoy the rest of the day.'� He opened his desk drawer and pulled a pint of Seagram's VO from under some paperwork. 'I'll see you tomorrow morning.'�
Tina collected her crossword puzzle and pencils, stashing them in her purse, then hung the purse over her shoulder. 'You know, you could call the police. Or maybe-'
'Tina. Go home.'� He uncapped the pint and took a long draw of whiskey.
She shrugged. Otto was a good person, but he had got himself into a world of shit over the last few years, the kind that doesn't clean up easily and sticks to everyone tempted to help shovel it out of the way. She had two kids and a husband who loved and needed her. Tina was good, but she was too broke to be anyone's saint, and she knew that calling the cops wouldn't help Otto out of his self-made hell. She left without saying anything else.
Otto capped the pint and leaned back in his chair, eyes closed, while he tried to rub the oncoming headache from his temples. Things were bad.
No, he told himself. They were bad when you let Dana talk you into another trip to Atlantic City. That's when they got worse.
Dana had been the title clerk at his father's dealership back in Tampa during the mid 1950's. Otto's old man was a legend in the Treasure Coast car game, one of the highest volume Buick dealers in the state. Otto signed on after two failed years at FSU majoring in business; he could do the classwork, but the social life proved to be far more important to keep a 2.0 average. His dad figured if Otto wanted to be a social butterfly, he'd better learn how to sell in the process.
Otto looked at the mementos of what had once been a promising life, hanging under dust and nicotine grime on half-penny nails in the hollow core walls of his office trailer. He had his photo taken with anyone famous who bought one of his cars; he had photos with Faye Dunaway, Pat Boone, Sidney Poitier, Cannonball Adderly, faded Kodachromes yellowed and yearning for another great upsurge.
The old man died from heartbreak in 1964, not long after Otto's mother had died in a wreck on Alligator Alley. She panicked when she saw a four foot gator sprawled across the highway, gunned her '63 Roadmaster convertible to try and kill the thing, and went through the windshield when 350 pounds of nature stopped her cart in its tracks. Within months, the old man succumbed to night after night of drinking until he could sleep.
'Rest easy, old hoss.'� Otto tipped his whiskey pint at the only photo he still had of his father, taken in 1962 when Otto topped the $100,000 mark for annual sales. The AC turned his sweat into arctic patches under his arms and on the back of his sportscoat. Overnight, Otto gained control of the largest Buick dealership in the Tampa metro area.
Those were the days, Otto reminisced with a hard personal chuckle. The 60's were unbelievable! What Otto lacked in formal education, he certainly made up for in his ability to bullshit. The Kingsley family of dealerships expanded with the Florida economy; Otto split the Buicks and Cadillacs onto two separate lots, picked up Mercury and Oldsmobile as additional car lines, and at the height of his empire, he had seven dealerships that spanned from the Space Coast to the Treasure Coast.
He looked at what had once been his proudest photo, the one where he was 33, shaking hands with Walt Disney between two Cadillacs. Disney bought fourteen cars total from Otto from 1968 through 1975, when Otto finalized his divorce from Lana Brown-Kingsley to pursue his current paramour, Fran Polanovski-Kingsley.
Otto tipped the pint back for two gulps that dropped his whiskey an inch below the label. Wise move, sport. He screwed the top closed, and threw the bottle into the open desk drawer with a disgusted thud. He glared at the 1976 photo at the corner of his desk, the one before Fran's curves became roundabout. He slapped the picture face-down hard enough to crack the glass pane, and enjoyed an evil smile when he realized the damage.
Lana had been an angel. She was originally from outside of Pittsburgh, a secretary who had ran away from home when she was 16 to elope with an orange farmer. When Lana finally made it to the Sunshine State, she discovered that her rich citrus farmer was a field boss in the orange groves west of Kissimmee; his 'mansion'� was a five room shanty-house with oilpaper windows and an outdoor john.
Otto met Lana when she was working as a cocktail waitress out in Ybor City; within six months, they were married, and Lana put as much time into the business supporting Otto as he did making the sales to turn a franchise into a near empire. She was beautiful beyond description, thin, Nordic blonde with perfect teeth and a laugh engineered by angels.
She was everything I needed, Otto achingly reminded himself. They balanced each other, their shortcoming evened out by their mutual strengths. Otto could sell, and Lana could keep it all organized. It was perfect.
'Almost perfect.'� The AC started the familiar whine than started when the condensers frosted over. Otto wiggled his thick frame out of his chair and gave the unit a hefty thump on top of the control panel; the whine amplified, then silenced as the unit returned to some semblance of normal operation.
Otto looked around the trailer and felt a sudden urge to weep. Two desks, four filing cabinets, institutional carpet, surplus rolling chairs, and a leather couch; his meager furnishings, his celebrity photos, and his certificates of recognition that were only as valuable as their paper stock, these were the only reminder of his heyday.
Otto leaned against the AC as he tried to compose himself. It shouldn't have mattered that Lana couldn't have kids, he reminded himself. We could have adopted, but I was so hell-bent on having a son, it didn't matter.
Lana tried to keep her spirits up when she discovered her ovarian cancer. Her oncologist from Miami caught the affliction soon enough to prevent it from spreading out of her reproductive system, but the hysterectomy took Lana's sense of womanhood as well. Had Otto been a compassionate man, the couple could have made it through the crisis unscathed and stranger than before; problem was, 1974 had been a tough year for everyone, and those goddamn Arabs squeezing every penny from their oil amplified every last one of Otto's problems.
Fran was the direct opposite of Lana, yet another cocktail waitress who poured the drinks at a private poker game in Boca Raton that required a grand buy-in for a seat at the table. She was Cuban and Italian, ethnic backgrounds that made women sexy at 32 and monstrous at 42. Fran's jet-black hair would spread to her arms and her moustache, and even her legs once the weight came and stayed on her already voluptuous frame. Damn woman quit shaving after she hit 250, Otto thought with a grimace. He needed another drink of whiskey.
Lana's lost womanhood put a curb on their physical affections. Otto tried to be sympathetic, but after a while, he justified his infidelities with what had become his favorite saying to his poker buddies at the time: If you don't scratch my belly once in a while, this dog ain't gonna stay on the porch for long. When Lana found out about the affair, Otto had been hateful, demanding understanding from his heartbroken wife.
He eased himself into his chair, shuddering momentarily when his cool, wet clothing adhered to his skin. I need a son for my empire, Otto grimly reminded himself as he reopened his stash drawer for his evaporating pint of Canadian whiskey. What empire, Otto?
He was brutal with Lana. The lost estrogen caused some weight gain and some depression, but Otto didn't care. He was a millionaire famous throughout southern Florida. He wanted, no, demanded a trophy wife as part of his success. The divorce cleared the Florida courts in record time; Otto gave her the house in St. Pete Beach, the vacation condo in Ft. Myers, and the four dealerships on the Gulf coast without batting an eye in lieu of alimony payments.
When Lana liquidated the inventory and turned the dealerships into Japanese lots, Otto could have killed the woman. He had his attorney make all sorts of menacing noise about damaging Otto's reputation by turning well-known American lots into rice-burner mega-shops. Unfortunately for Otto, Lana proved to be far more in-tune with the state of the car market, and her chain of dealerships tripled in volume by 1980.
Fucking Japs. Otto unscrewed the pint again and drained it to the bottom edge of the label. The phone rang, and the jarring bell startled Otto enough to drop the bottle, pouring the booze into the gritty taupe carpet. Otto grabbed the phone with a glimmer of hope. 'Uncle Otto's Auto Barn, this is Otto, how can I help you today?'�
He heard familiar static, then the voice on the other end laughed. 'Sent your girl home early, I take it. Can't afford the payroll?'�
'Hey, Tim.'� I got till tomorrow to pay up, you guinea douchebag. Tim Ruggerio had loaned Otto $50K to keep the lot floating. After one chapter 11 bankruptcy, most banks wouldn't touch Otto as a credit risk. Ruggerio was more than willing to accommodate, at five points a week, due every Monday, cash only.
'You got both nuts together?'� Ruggerio was on his car phone. When Otto looked out his window, he spotted the black Lincoln with the tell-tale curly cellular antenna centered on the back windshield. The windows were limo-tinted; God only knew who was in the car with him.
'Working on it. Been seeing some traffic.'� Bullshit. 'Should close the deal on four cars tomorrow.'�
Ruggerio laughed. He had a slight Southern twang that made his Baltimore accent slightly alien to most ears. 'Wasn't that the story last week?'�
Otto felt the stress pull into tight pain in his chest and his eyes. 'Well, yeah, Tim, but you know how it goes. Cost me a bit of change to lock in the advertising on TV, but you'll see the results. Gotta spend money to make money.'�
Ruggerio cleared his throat. 'Excuse me?'�
The AC started to rattle again.
'Let me tell you about money, Otto. I'm more than happy to help an old poker buddy out of a tight spot. My question is whether or not you're in a jam, or whether or not you're a fucking deadbeat.'� Ruggerio was calm, but Otto knew all about Tim Ruggerio. His crew fed a guy to the lions in one of the mom and pop jungle attractions out towards Lakeland for a $5,000 debt.
'Now wait a second, Tim-'
'I've been waiting, you fat fucking donut. Tommorrow, twelve noon, unless I decide to act on last week's debt and take a finger.'� The line went dead, and Otto watched the Lincoln roll from the curb.
'Noon. Sweet Jesus.'� Otto glared at the rattling air conditioner. He kicked out from behind his desk, stormed across the office, and slammed his fists on the unit until he left blood on the unit's control panel. The rotting wood supports outside cracked, and the unit shattered the glass as it crashed into the gravel, dying on impact; the Florida heat rolled in like a physical fog, condensing moisture on all the windows.
'You okay in there?'� Otto heard the cameraman holler; he had looked up from his newspaper long enough to see the calamity. Otto didn't answer. He walked back over to his desk and opened up the drawer underneath his desk pad. His snub-nosed .38 waited for him there in a paddle holster with a cheat loader filled with cross-point high velocity dum-dums.
Fran's appetite for excess more than matched her appetite for food. She always wanted to go to Atlantic City, or Vegas, or Tahoe. She demanded a new Caddie convertible, Mary Kay pink, every production year; although she sold their makeup, Fran lacked the drive to close a fraction of the sales required to win Mary Kay's ultimate symbol of success.
Otto clipped the holster to the left side of his belt and checked to make sure his coat concealed the weapon, then he put the speed loader into his jacket pocket. He had bought the gun in 1968 after one of his office girls got mugged taking the daily deposit to the bank; when they took the money, he made sure that one of his salesman escorted the lady with the gun to prevent any further thefts.
Otto walked over to the door and opened it. 'Technical difficulties, gentlemen. I'll be out in a jiffy.'�
'No rush.'� The engineer was outside the remote van. 'I talked to the station. They had a five minute wait between the prize line notification and their first caller.'� Nobody's watching, you old coot, he thought as he climbed back into the idling van.
Otto closed the door and wiped a sheet of sweat from the balding patch on his head. Fran had to have everything, he thought. Catered parties, gambling junkets, nine thousand redecorations for the house. He didn't realize until too late that Fran's only ambition in life had been to live off the hard work of others, much like her friend Tim Ruggerio.
Speak of the devil, Otto thought with a grimace as Fran's faded pink 1982 Eldorado ragtop sagged onto the lot, scraping the curb as it transitioned off the main drag. She took up the whole driver's side of the front bench; when Otto had to take it for service, he always had to move the seat closer to the wheel. It's a sad statement when a fat man has a fatter wife.
Fran had abandoned any sense of fashion in 1979, and she threw out her entire wardrobe for a sea of muumuus usually reserved for Floridians waiting to die in comfort after 70 years of hard labor. This one was bold candystripes, and Otto saw the television crew stifle laughs as she lifted her global frame out of the Caddie. The car's suspension sighed in relief as the frame lifted three inches.
'OTTO!'� Fran never came to Otto. She always made him walk outside, namely because she refused to humiliate herself by squeezing through the front door of the trailer. He buttoned his coat and slicked another mass of sweat from his balding scalp as he walked out of the office.
'OTTO, WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO YOUR OFFICE!'� She aimed a massive arm at the wreckage at the end of the trailer.
'Nothing, Frannie, I just tried the usual trick and, well, I guess the wood gave out.'� Otto was in front of his wife, rubbing his hands anxiously.
'You dumb bastard. I guess we gotta go buy a new one.'� Fran huffed and tried to fold her arms in disgust. Her muumuu made her look like a circus fat lady, and her hair was gathered in a bun wrapped tight enough to give her face an artificially toned look. 'I guess that means no bingo this week, huh?'�
Otto never hit a woman in his life, but from time to time, he fantasized about beating Fran senseless. She always wanted more, and rarely had a kind word to offer in support. For a moment, he saw his fist land squarely into her nose, her gigantic torso teetering off the Caddie and into the gravel, Otto bellowing over her fallen pride that you ruined me, you miserable bitch, you RUINED ME!
He snapped back to reality when she sniffed at his breath. Her fleshy eyes narrowed. 'You been drinking?'�
'Uh, not really-' He glanced away to the front seat of her convertible. She had an empty box of Dunkin Donuts in the passenger seat, with seven of the dozen half-eaten.
Fran laughed. Her voice reminded her of a hen and a bratty 13 year old; her laughter could cut glass and crack steel. 'No wonder you can't make any money. You're a lush, Otto, you know that?'�
Otto found a scrap of courage and nodded at the donuts. 'Enjoying your snack?'�
Fran was fat, but she had developed an unnatural strength in order to carry her girth. She knocked him to his knees with a slap to the face that left Otto seeing stars. The television crew watched with morbid fascination. 'You son-oufa-BITCH!'� Fran squealed with anger. 'You KNOW my thyroid condition gives me UNCONTROLLABLE CRAVINGS! How DARE you?'�
Otto slowly came to his feet, his head swimming with drink, fear, and rage. 'I'm'� sorry. Honey. It's been a tough day out here.'�
'Out HERE?'� Fran cackled again. 'If you've been OUT HERE all day, then why were you in the goddamn OFFICE WHEN I PULLED UP?'� She slapped him again, this time with less force.
The cameraman felt bad for the salesman, and decided to give him an out. 'Hey Otto! We're gonna roll in three minutes. You ready?'�
Otto brushed the dirt from his suit. 'Sure thing, boss.'� When he leaned in to kiss his wife, she recoiled and waved him towards the camera in disgusted silence.
The engineer came out of the van with a fistful of paper towels to blot up Otto's facial sweat. 'You okay? She doesn't have to be here, you know.'�
Otto lowered his head as the towels absorbed his sweat. 'I don't think we got anything heavy duty enough to haul her away,'� he snarled just under his breath. 'Just give me a minute to get it together.'�
Otto walked back to the spot where the engineer had cleared away his mark in the gravel. He wiggled his fingers and embraced the pain from Fran's slaps as the Florida sun amplified his tender skin. Gotta sell, gotta sell, gottasell, gottasellgottasellgottagottagotta-
'Welcome back to WKVN's Sunday Silver Screen MATINEE!'� Otto took his rage and his pain and transformed it into the best showmanship he could muster. 'We're wheeling and dealing here at Uncle Otto's Auto Barn-'
Fran's laughter silenced him. 'Give it up, Otto. Nobody's gonna buy these pieces of shit.'�
Otto watched the cameraman's free eye go wide with shock. They had warned Otto that this was a live remote, no broadcast delay, which meant no foul language. One profanity on-air, and Otto would have to foot the FCC fine with money Otto didn't have.
His hand moved faster than his mind, and he emptied the revolver into Fran before he realized he was going to murder her. The impact of his action hit home after the hammer hit the third empty round. The cameraman swerved his rig around to capture Otto's dead wife bleeding in the gravel; two shots in her forehead, four more crimson blots forming on her muumuu breaking up the horribly bright stripes.
The engineer froze as he tuned out the screaming in his earpiece. I just made my career, he thought. He had a murder on tape, going out live to 100,000 South Florida homes.
Neither of the broadcasters realized Otto reloaded his pistol until he fired a fresh round into the air. 'You boys might do well to get that camera back on me,'� Otto barked. The cameraman brought his rig back around to pull Otto back into frame; the car salesman had the gun aimed so that the viewing audience saw firsthand what an armed robbery would look like.
'No tears for her, boys. She's an evil bitch who had it coming, the way she led me wrong.'� Otto kept the gun squared at the cameraman. 'You kill this broadcast, and I kill your camera jock. We're gonna set it straight before I decide to go.'�
The cameraman had dreamed of Hollywood productions, real Hollywood productions complete with gaffers and special effects. He dreamed of covering war zones for the networks. This wasn't part of my plan, he thought as he felt his bladder fill in absent-minded panic.
'Here's the deal, folks.'� Otto took off his soaked sportscoat, sliding the right sleeve over his revolver, and walked off-camera to cover his dead wife, the camera tracking his every move. He walked back to his dugout mark and holstered his weapon. The viewers at home saw their call-in number disappear from their screens.
'I thought Fran was a good woman. She got what she wanted, and she ruined me in the process.'� Otto shrugged. 'I almost made it out of bankruptcy, but that whale of a gal over there had to redo that damned hose again. So I did what any man would do when the bank won't help. I went to a loanshark.'�
The cameraman tightened frame to capture Otto's strain. This is huge. This was the sort of random moment that turns into a Peabody or a Pultizer. It meant money and interviews and better markets for everyone involved.
'Guy's name is Tim Ruggerio. Drives a black Lincoln, Florida vanity plate R-U-G-G-E-R-I-O. Long and short of it, I got until noon tomorrow to get him five grand to cover the interest on fifty grand, or he starts taking fingers and breaking legs.
'Thing is, I quit. Everything my old man built in this business, I squandered.'� Otto wiped at his eyes, then clutched his chest for a moment. 'I had a good woman in Lana Kingsley, and I broke her heart. I deserve this, folks, I really do.'�
The engineer calmed down enough to tune back into his earpiece. Network was on the feed now, police were on the way, keep him talking so they can arrest him, but keep it rolling. He looked around the lot at the beaters; his grandfather had bought a Mercury in 1968 from Otto, and the engineer had known the general details about Otto's slide into low-rent infamy.
He also knew about Tim Ruggerio. Otto was as good as dead, either from the death penalty or from some unknown killer who'd catch up with him somewhere in prison. Mobsters took it personal when people aired dirty laundry about their business in public, especially when a dead body was tied into it all.
Otto pulled the gun back from the holster. 'I imagine the cops are on their way. I'm not going with them. Probably a good idea if you cut the camera. Folks at home don't want to see this.'�
The engineer heard his producer demand for them to keep it rolling. The cameraman had always been a prick, and he saw in the monitor the tight frame of Otto's sunburned pate, glassy eyes carelessly shattered, bright sunshine reflected off the chrome that burned the image for the viewers at home. He heard the radio kick over to breaking news, heard Otto's name, and held no regret killing the feed just as the final shot ended another televised tragedy.

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