The Lords of the Lot

Parking valet Vladimir Kasl is the shot-caller, the maitre d’ of the lots at the trendy Westside restaurant Eclipse. He knows when a car’s occupant is Known and whether he or she warrants The Treatment: being called by name, no tag necessary for the windshield, and an unspoken promise that if that person and 10 others arrive simultaneously to claim their cars, this driver’s will miraculously glide out first.

Kasl also knows when rude car owners deserve the mark of scorn: to have their doors shut by a valet pressing the window, leaving a large, eye-level handprint.

“I’m just a valet, but I play God for a second and take charge of their cars,” he says with a gleam in his brown eyes.

Kasl, 25, is part of a Southern California valet subculture that has mushroomed in response to drivers’ demands for convenience and increased fear of walking in urban areas.

Valet parking is now offered not only in restaurants but at selected shopping malls, markets and hospitals. National surveys show that the average customer will tolerate a walk of 200 to 500 feet from car to destination, but many Los Angeles drivers are clearly more picky.

Their unofficial spokeswoman may have surfaced in last year’s hit comedy “Clueless” when the film’s wealthy teenage protagonist named Cher was asked if she wanted to practice parking in preparation for her driver’s test.

“What’s the point? Everywhere you go has valet,” she said without a trace of irony.

“You would think we were saving lives,” said Chuck Pick, Kasl’s boss and owner of Chuck’s Parking, one of the oldest of about 40 valet parking companies in Los Angeles.

Being a valet means pasting a smile on your face and blowing off the inevitable moments of humiliation, like when a car stalls or you inadvertently grind gears. It means knowing whether to tell a woman that her ultra-short skirt has gotten hitched up in the back, revealing her underpants. It means getting your foot run over or having a limb pinched if a driver forgets to shift into “park.” It means having a sterling steel ego so you can endure the equivalent of an employee evaluation every five minutes when you’re tipped--or not.

Kasl has a recurring nightmare: He’s parking cars at a party that never ends. Every time he looks over his shoulder, 10 more cars line up. Hour after hour, no matter how fast he runs, more cars appear, owners impatient to relinquish keys. He has lost the battle for order and control.

It’s a reflection of the battle he fights every night: Will order give way to chaos? Will the cars hopelessly converge in a huge knot in the lot? Will the right cars show up to give the restaurant the proper air of elitism, encouraging drivers to give bigger tips?

When you pull your car into Kasl’s lot, he judges you by simple rules: what you drive, who you are and how you’ve tipped in the past. The Bentley-driving heir of Hilton Hotels, for instance, usually tipped at least $10 and always got a good spot. So did the teenager who roared up in his red Ferrari Testarossa: Even if he tipped only $1.50, he did drive a flashy, $200,000 car.

*

Kasl moved here with his parents and younger brother 12 years ago from Czechoslovakia, a country where valet parking was about as common as new Cadillacs. When he got his first valet parking job in high school, he found himself behind the wheel of cars he had seen only on television. He was dazzled by this place, where a man would hand a complete stranger--a teenager--the keys of a car that cost more than a modest home. A place where movie stars like Joe Pesci deigned to talk to him, even if just to ask him to fill up the gas tank and press a folded bill into his hand.

Today, Kasl, his brown hair combed straight back and shellacked into place with gel, works with an unflappable demeanor that implies it’s only a matter of chance that he’s parking your car instead of vice versa.

Holding a mere community college degree, he wants to earn enough money to toot around town in a Ferrari or pop over to London for a quick visit. He toys with several schemes, like selling out-of-issue military jets. The right opportunity just hasn’t come along yet, he reassures himself. Meanwhile, he still lives with his mother, a part-time bookkeeper, and his father, a maintenance electrician, in Van Nuys.

“There is a fear we all have deep down inside that we will be 45 years old and still parking cars,” he says somberly. “We don’t want to end up this way; we want our own careers, our own lives.”

As a supervisor for Chuck’s Parking, he earns about $16 per hour including tips, far more than someone with only two years of college can usually expect to make in an era of shrinking wages. Tips, which are pooled and shared by the valets on duty each night, make up as much as 30% of pay.

To Kasl, the Eclipse’s pavement is not just a parking lot. This is the place where he broke up with his girlfriend and she unceremoniously returned his belongings. Here, too, they made up. And earlier this month, out of eyesight of two other valets, Kasl knelt to give her a $3,000 diamond engagement ring and whisper the sweet chatter of love.

“I live in this parking lot,” he says. “I won’t ever forget this place.”

On a recent Saturday night at the restaurant, 175 people had dinner reservations. Kasl checked the names to get an idea of what cars to expect. The evening, like most, started slowly.

This night, Kasl oversaw two valets, Kirtland Lesow, 24, and Brent Brown, 34, who forgot to wear a belt and fretted that his black pants would sag. These valets--the runners--average about $12 per hour, tips included.

Of the three, only Lesow, an aspiring actor with a resemblance to David Hasselhoff and almost five years’ experience as a valet, has ever eaten at the restaurant. The 24-year-old community college graduate ate a steak there when his mother visited from Florida.

*

For each valet, the job is a temporary--not permanent--career. “My dad sure as hell didn’t want me parking cars at age 24,” said Lesow, whose father is an attorney in Washington, near the Canadian border.

At 7:30 p.m., Lesow and Kasl savored their cigarettes and bantered with the third valet, Brown, a moody, aspiring actor with a penchant for reciting passages from Eugene O’Neill plays between sprints to fetch cars.

The front lot held three Mercedes-Benzes, a BMW, a Cadillac, a Lincoln Continental and a Mustang. This is Kasl’s signature lot, an ever-evolving work in progress, in which a nice car, such as a Lexus, would be moved elsewhere to make room for a jazzier one. (Your battered 1986 Toyota is parked in one of the off-site, satellite lots one or two blocks from the restaurant.)

On a good evening, this lot fills with classy cars that cost at least $50,000. Kasl, who drives a Ford Taurus, likes to have a Bentley or Rolls-Royce parked to the right of the restaurant’s door and a nice Ferrari to the left so diners have something to ogle as they await their own vehicle.

For new valets, the instructions are succinct: Smile (your tips depend upon it). Run (“If I see an attendant is not running, it’s like putting daggers through my heart,” said Pick, Kasl’s boss). Park with wheels straight. Park with two feet: one on the gas, the other on the brake. Always open the woman’s door first.

By 8:05 p.m., 25 cars had arrived. Kasl accurately predicted that this represented only about one-third of the total that would be parked that evening. A woman drove up in a red Alfa Romeo convertible, and 6-foot-3-inch Lesow tried to look busy.

“I can’t drive those cars,” he said. “I’m too big; my feet will hit the wrong pedals.”

For the most part, early diners are not considered big tippers, valets say. They’re the ones most likely to ask for change when they hand a $5 bill to the valet for the $3.50 parking charge.

The busiest hours are usually between 8:30 and 10:30 p.m., when as many as 60 cars can come in one hour, so many that a line snakes around the block. It turns valets’ lives into one frantic, heart-pounding scramble. In their vernacular, being inundated with vehicles is called “getting slammed.”

It didn’t happen this evening. Instead, the cars appeared at a steady but not overwhelming pace. In the warm evening, a thin film of sweat developed on Lesow’s and Brown’s brows.

At 8:10 p.m., a black Bentley convertible pulled in. Kasl was relieved--this car truly warranted a good space in the front lot. The evening would not be a bust.

He opened the passenger door. “Good evening. How are you tonight?” he asked so genuinely that the well-tanned blond woman replied honestly.

“I have a stress headache,” she confided, adjusting her white, body-clinging bodice before disappearing through the restaurant door.

Kasl promptly parked the Bentley in a showcase spot, making the occupants of a black Jeep briefly wait. Then Kasl began to relax. He had exactly the kind of car he wanted in precisely the right place. Now he needed to upgrade the space occupied by a black Mercedes-Benz to the left of the restaurant door. As classy as the Benz was, this spot required a sporty car.

Minutes later, a cream-colored Rolls-Royce convertible slipped into the lot. “They’re lousy cars--the door always sticks,” the female passenger warned the valet. “Pretty to look at but lousy.”

Within 15 minutes, Kasl was inhaling contentedly on a cigarette. Now the front lot had two Rolls-Royces, two Bentleys and a Jaguar. It scarcely mattered that tips from the early crowd were meager. (One driver tipped 50 cents, two others $1.50.) Image was everything.

At 10:10 p.m., a very youthful couple in a red Ferarri Testarossa zipped in. It was as though exactly the right piece had fallen into an elaborate jigsaw puzzle. Now the front lot had a proper centerpiece. “A car like this is every valet’s dream,” gushed Kasl.

Minutes later, a crush of diners gathered by the door, waiting for cars. This was the inevitable nightly test of nerves: driving, running and directing. Now the valets would find out whether the atmosphere of class and service would pay off. The size of the tips would determine how quickly Kasl paid off the diamond engagement ring and how many acting classes Brown could take.

Kasl orchestrated the departing vehicles with aplomb, whistling discreetly and giving hand signals. As the runners brought cars, Kasl opened doors, bidding customers farewell. One blond woman planted a kiss on his cheek.

Thirty-five minutes later, only 20 of the 70 cars parked that evening remained. Lesow gulped down the cold remains of an olive and sausage pizza, delivered an hour earlier, and departed into the night.

At 11:30 p.m., the owner of the cream-colored Bentley emerged and bounded into his car, pressing a $5 bill into Kasl’s hand. Not a great tip for a showcase spot, which usually warrants at least $10. But the driver is a regular and around holidays he always tipped well so Kasl warmly wished him a good night.

The driver of the Testarossa, too, reclaimed his car. Tip: $1.50. Kasl shook his head. Only seven cars remained. In tips, the trio netted about $100 for 6 1/2 hours.

A slow night. Good cars, bad tips.

“It’s a strange business,” sighed Kasl. “Every year, I say this is the last. And somehow, I’m still here.”