“Nice, huh?” the woman said, noticing that we were both admiring the same car. “The Virtue is such a cute car. It’s perfect for my daughter.”

Hmmm. It might be perfect for mine, too, if the price was right.

The guy in the ill-fitting suit kicked the car’s tires, coughed again, took another sip, and shot me a look as I made a closer inspection of the car’s interior. I looked at the dash, the layout of the gauges, which were placed in the center of the dash and angled toward the driver. There were several buttons I couldn’t figure out the purpose of, then realized they controlled the CD player. A CD player!

I found Lawrence and asked him for the auction list. “What’s a Virtue?” I asked. “I think I’ve seen some ads.”

“One of the big Japanese companies makes it. It’s one of those hybrid cars.”

“A who?”

“A hybrid. Has like two engines. A gas one and an electric one. The electric one keeps the gas one from working so hard. When you’re stopped at a light, electric motor kicks in so you don’t have to waste gas; light changes, you hit the accelerator, gas motor kicks in. Like that. Great gas mileage, hardly pollutes the environment.”

“Okay,” I said, remembering what I’d read about hybrids in the paper’s weekly automotive section. “Is this the one, the electric engine is always recharging its own batteries?”

“Yeah, and it’s got a lot of them. They got one of those here?”

“I guess it belonged to a drug dealer who was environmentally conscious,” I said. “There’s a little good in everybody.”

“Yeah. Wasn’t Hitler nice to his dog?”

“Come and have a look at it.”

Lawrence followed me over. “Looks in pretty good shape,” he said. He opened the door, checked the odometer. “Not all that many miles on it. And I hear they have a pretty good reliability record.”

“And the suggested opening bid,” I said, finding the car again on the list and holding my thumb there for future reference, “is kind of reasonable.” I slipped in behind the wheel. “I like it,” I said.

I checked out everything. The size of the glove box, the map pockets on the door, more storage pockets on the back of the seats, the interior trunk release, the sunroof buttons. “Seems pretty well equipped. And you know what else I like?”

“Tell me,” said Lawrence. “What else do you like?”

“The statement it makes. Says you care about the planet, that you want to do your part to preserve the ecosystem.”

“Yeah,” said Lawrence. “Chicks love that.”

“Some might.”

“So, you gonna bid on it?”

I was nervous. I’m always this way when I consider spending a lot of money. I get short of breath and my mouth goes dry.