The Betsy (1971) (33 page)

 Chapter Seven

Marion Stevenson, head of Bethlehem Security, had the faceless look of the FBI agent he used to be. His dark gray suit and characterless tie did nothing to dispel the illusion. He was the kind of man you could overlook in a crowd. He was a medium man in every way except one. He had the palest eyes I ever saw. You could almost see through them to the back of his head.

“You wanted to see me, Mr. Perino?” His voice was as expressionless as the rest of him.

“Yes, Mr. Stevenson. Thank you for coming by.” I usually wasn’t this formal but I remembered his resentment when I first put the Burns people out at the test track. He had enough J. Edgar left in him to take it as a personal affront. “Please sit down.”

“Thank you,” he said, equally formal.

The telephone rang. I picked it up. It was Max Evans of the purchasing department. He had a problem.

I covered the mouthpiece while I listened. “Excuse me,” I said to Stevenson. “I’ll only be a moment.” Stevenson nodded and I went back to the phone.

“We’ve just received a revised estimate from the contractor for the electrostatic connectors for the drivers’ seat belts. Up three dollars and forty cents.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Additional insulation for lead wires and grounding wires to come up to Underwriters’ fire and safety standards.”

“Wasn’t that covered in our specs?” I asked.

“Yes,” he answered. “But Underwriters changed their requirements on us two weeks ago.”

There was nothing we could do about it. The driver’s seat belt was one of our featured, standard, no-extra-cost safety items. It was connected electrically to a governor on the engine. All belts unfastened, the car would go no more than ten miles per hour. Seat belt fastened, the speed went up to twenty-five miles per hour. Shoulder harness fastened, the governor released completely. But still it was a lot of money. Over a million dollars on three hundred thousand cars.

“Have you checked with other contractors?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “When we sent out for the original bids. But it’s too late now. It would take any one of them at least eight months to get set up for us.”

“Then we have no choice,” I said.

“Yes, sir,” he answered.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “This comes under Cost Control. Don’t you usually get approvals on things like this from Weyman’s office?”

“That’s right,” he said apologetically. “But as of this morning we were told to secure all approvals on the new cars from you.”

“I see.” I saw more than that. There were hundreds of items like this every week. If Weyman could unload them on me, I would be so busy shoveling shit that I would have time for nothing else.

“Is it okay to go ahead, Mr. Perino?”

“It’s okay, Max,” I said. “Send up a purchase order and I’ll approve it.”

I put down the telephone and turned to my visitor. I took a cigarette and held the pack out to him.

“Gave them up, thank you,” he said.

I lit up and leaned back in my chair. I let the smoke drift idly from my mouth while I sat there watching him. After a few moments I noticed he was getting slightly restless.

The telephone rang. I picked it up. “Hold all calls, please.” Then I put it down and continued smoking silently.

After about a minute, he made a point of looking at his wristwatch. I ignored it until I had finished the cigarette and ground it thoroughly into the ashtray. “I know you’re a busy man, Mr. Stevenson,” I said, “but you’ll have to bear with me if I seem slow to you this morning. I have a great many things on my mind.”

“I understand, Mr. Perino,” he said smoothly.

“I have been reading the Table of Organization,” I said. “And if I read it correctly, you are responsible directly to the president and executive vice-president.”

“That’s correct.”

“And your responsibilities are all security matters pertaining to the company’s business from employee malfeasance to protection of corporate records and industrial secrets.”

He nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Let me pose a hypothetical question,” I said. “Should you discover a security leak in my office, would you report that to the president?”

“No, sir,” he said. “First to the executive vice-president.”

“And if you discovered a leak in either of their offices?”

“To the president, if the leak was in the executive vice-president’s office, and vice versa.”

“And if the leak came from both offices?”

He thought for a moment. “I would then have to assume that the leak was a matter of company policy and approved by them.”

I pushed the copy of
The Wall Street Journal
story to him. “Have you seen that story?”

He nodded.

“Would you say that the information contained in that story resulted from a breach of company security?”

“I wouldn’t know, sir.”

“I call your attention to the phrase, ‘informed company sources.’ I also call your attention to certain figures quoted in that story. They happen to correspond exactly to the figures in our secret company cost records. There are no more than a dozen executives in the company who are privy to those figures. Suddenly that information appears in a national newspaper and in such a manner as to be potentially harmful to the company. Wouldn’t you say that was a serious breach of company security?”

He was getting uncomfortable. “I couldn’t say, sir.”

“Might I assume then that you feel this matter comes under your classification of approved company policy?”

He was genuinely uncomfortable now. Lawyers and policemen make the worst witnesses. They hate to be questioned. “I can’t answer that question, Mr. Perino.”

I nodded. “That article happens to be unsigned. Would you know the name of the writer by any chance?”

“Yes, sir,” he said.

“Could you tell me?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Perino,” he said. “I’ve already given my report on that subject to Mr. Weyman.”

I paused for a moment. “Do you know of a man named Mark Simpson?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What do you know about him?”

“He’s head of an outfit called the IASO and publishes a weekly newsletter concerning the automobile industry.”

“What else do you know about him?”

“Mr. Weyman has my report on that gentleman,” he said. “I’m not allowed to distribute copies of it.”

“I see. Is it also against regulations to supply me with a list of the times Mr. Simpson visited this plant and whom he saw on each visit over the past two years?”

“No, sir,” he said. I could see he was pleased to find there was something I asked that he could do. “I will have it in your office this afternoon.”

“Thank you,” I said. “You’ve been very helpful.”

His face flushed. He knew exactly how helpful he had been. Zilch. He got to his feet.

I looked at him. “You have my permission to report this conversation to your superiors if you wish.”

“Mr. Perino, if I thought this conversation should be reported to my superiors I would do so with or without your permission,” he said stiffly. “I would like to point out that I am in charge of plant security, not plant politics.”

I rose to my feet. “Mr. Stevenson, I apologize.” I held out my hand.

He hesitated a moment, then took it. “Thank you, Mr. Perino.”

I called Weyman the moment he left the office. His voice was almost pleasant when he came on the phone. I think he was expecting a bitch from me about unloading the cost approvals on my office. He didn’t get it.

“Number One is bugging me for the report we asked for on Mark Simpson some time ago,” I said. “I just spoke to Stevenson in Security and he tells me that he left it with you.”

He flustered easily. “I remember seeing it. I’ll look around for it and shoot it right over to you.”

I put the telephone down knowing damn well I would never see that report but, at least, I was on record as knowing that he had it.

Early in the afternoon, I received Stevenson’s report on Simpson’s visits to the plant. There were quite a few of them in the past few years and with the exception of one visit to Bancroft of Sales, all the rest were with Weyman.

I made up my mind to get out of the office and pay Mr. Simpson a visit, but one thing led to another and it was four o’clock before I could leave. I called Cindy at the apartment.

“How would you like to have dinner at the Dearborn Inn?” I asked.

“Fantastic,” she said. “I’ve never been there but I’ve heard about it. It’s right in the middle of Ford country, isn’t it?”

“Smack dab in the middle,” I laughed. “But don’t hold that against it. It’s really quite good. I have one stop to make on the way out there, but that shouldn’t take long. Be downstairs at the auto entrance in fifteen minutes. I’ll pick you up.”

“Fifteen minutes on the dot,” she said. “I’ll be there.”

And she was. Even wore a dress for the occasion. I stared as the doorman held the door of the Maserati for her. It was the first time in almost two years that I’d seen her wearing anything but slacks.

“Hey! You’re a girl,” I said, putting the car into first.

She turned to me with a smile as she finished buckling up. “Man, you’re awfully slow. I thought you’d never find out.”

The IASO offices were located on Michigan Avenue outside the high-rent district on the way to Dearborn. It was a nondescript two-story building next to a used-car lot. Downstairs was occupied by job printers, with large blacked-out painted windows in what in better days had to be a new-car showroom. Upstairs, over them, the small windows bore the letters IASO in faded blue paint.

I pulled the car into the small off-street parking place in front of the job printers and reserved for their clients and got out. “I won’t be long.”

She nodded, opening her purse and taking out a cassette. “Mind if I use your tape player?”

By the time I walked away from the car, she had Creedence Clearwater blasting from all four speakers and was leaning back, bathing in the sound, a beatific expression on her face.

There was no separate entrance to the upper story that I could see, so I went into the print shop. The sound of a rolling press hit my ears as I opened the door. There was a beat-up old wooden counter separating the entrance from the rest of the shop. A rusted punch bell sat on top with a sign next to it: RING BELL FOR SERVICE.

I hit the bell but its sound was lost in the roar of the presses. I hit it again.

Several workmen stuck their heads out from behind the machinery to see who was there.

“IASO?” I shouted above the noise, pointing with my hand at the ceiling.

A big man with black hair, his face and hairy arms covered with printer’s ink, stepped out from behind the press. He made a sweeping gesture with his arm. “Around the building,” he shouted. “There’s a staircase in the back alley.”

“Thank you,” I shouted. I went outside, glad to get away from the hammer of the presses. Cindy saw me and smiled, beginning to roll down the window.

I shook my head and pointed around the building. She nodded and rolled the window back up, leaning into the sound again.

There was a black rusted-steel staircase on the outside of the building off the alley. On the building there was a small sign with an arrow pointing to the steps. IASO. I climbed the steps and went into the building through the faded gray painted steel door.

I entered a deserted reception room. The walls were painted a dull green and were covered with posters: BUCKLE UP FOR SAFETY! SPEED KILLS! And others like it. From somewhere in the back I heard the sound of a bell announcing my arrival.

A moment later a heavy blond girl in a shapeless black sweater and miniskirt appeared. “What can I do for you?” she asked in a voice equally as bored as the expression on her face.

“Is Mr. Simpson in?”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No.” I shook my head.

“Your name please?”

I told her. There was no change in the bored expression of either her voice or face. “Please have a seat. I’ll see if he is available.”

She left the reception room and I heard the door lock behind her. I sat down on a wooden bench next to a table, the top of which was covered with the latest issue of the IASO weekly newsletter.

I lit a cigarette and idly glanced through a copy. I learned all about the improvements that GM had built into the new ’72 Vega that could not be seen on the outside and the additional performance that could be gotten from the Pinto with the new Boss package, all of which could also be learned from the printed ads and TV commercials of the companies concerned. I got to the last page without having once come across an item that dealt with automobile safety.

I looked for an ashtray in which to stub out my cigarette. There wasn’t any, so I got to my feet, opened the door and snapped it out into the alley. Through the thin walls behind me, I could hear the sound of the bell. At the same time, the faint vibration in the floor and the muffled roar of the presses downstairs suddenly stopped. I looked at my watch. Four forty-five. I had been there more than ten minutes.