The Betsy (1971) (8 page)

 Chapter Thirteen

It was three days later; we sat on the lawn overlooking the swimming pool and the private beach with its white sand going down to the water. A faint early September wind rustled in the palm fronds over our heads. I closed my eyes and turned my face to the sun.

“Winter is coming,” Number One said.

“It’s still warm,” I said.

“Not to me. Each year I’ve been thinking of going farther and farther south. Maybe to Nassau or the Virgins. As I grow older my bones seem to signal the oncoming cold.”

I turned my head to look at him. He was sitting in his chair, his legs wrapped in the perennial blanket, his eyes looking out toward the sea. “What is it like to grow old, Number One?” I asked.

He didn’t take his eyes from the white-capped water. “I hate it,” he said, without giving his words any special emphasis. “Mostly because it’s such a bore. Everything seems to be passing you by, you find out that you’re not as important as you thought you were. The world moves on and after a while you become absorbed in the only game left to play. One stupid ambition: 12:01 a.m.”

“12:01 a.m.?” I asked. “What’s that?”

“Tomorrow morning,” he said, turning to look at me. “The survival game. Only you don’t know why you’re playing it. Tomorrow is nothing but today all over again. Only more so.”

“If that’s it, why are you starting all this?”

“Because just once again before I die, I want something to matter more to me than 12:01 a.m.” He turned to look again at the ocean. “I suppose I didn’t think much about what was happening to me until last year when Elizabeth came down and spent a few days. Do you know her?”

Elizabeth was Loren’s daughter. “We’ve never met.”

“She was sixteen then,” he said. “And, suddenly, she turned back the clock for me. Betsy, last summer, was the exact age that her great-grandmother was when we met. Time plays funny tricks on people, it jumps generations to recreate itself. For those few days I was young.”

I didn’t speak.

“I would get up early in the morning and look out from my window at her swimming in the pool. One morning, it was so beautiful that she dropped her swimsuit at the side of the pool and dove into the water. I watched her until the sheer youth and exuberance of her brought tears to my eyes. And then I realized what had happened to me. Too many years had gone by and I had not cared enough about anything to cry for it.

“My world had become my body. My body, my shell, my prison in which I served out my time. And that was very wrong. Because a prison is something you should try to get out of. I was doing exactly the opposite. My only concern was to find ways and means to spend more and more time in it. At exactly that moment I knew what I had to do.

“Take off my clothes and jump once more into the pool. For over thirty years I sat in this chair thinking I was alive when I was really dead. But I wasn’t about to stay dead. There was still something for me to do, something I could do. Build a car for Betsy as I had built a car for her great-grandmother.

“When she came up from the pool and we sat at the breakfast table, I told her what I would do. She jumped up and threw her arms around me. And do you know what she said?”

I shook my head.

“‘Great-Grandfather, that would be the grooviest thing that anyone could ever do for me!’”

He was silent. “After she had gone, I called Loren. He thought it was a beautiful sentiment. But not very practical. Economically, our profit structure had stabilized; building a new car could possibly disturb that. Physically, we didn’t have the space; over seventy percent was committed to other forms of manufacture. But I did get him to promise to look into it.”

“Did he?”

“I don’t know. If he did, I never heard from him. After a while I realized that if I wanted it done I would have to find someone else to do it for me. That’s how I came to you.”

“Why me?”

“Because automobiles are your life as much as they are mine. I knew that ever since that day in the park and I knew it would be just a matter of time before you stopped playing with toys and got to the core of what you’re about. I knew I was right the moment I heard your voice on the phone after the Indy.”

“Okay, you got me,” I smiled. “But there’s still Loren.”

A puzzled look came over his face. “I don’t understand that at all. I know Loren’s not stupid. He should have found out what we’re up to, long before now. But not a word from him.”

“Loren has other things on his mind,” I said.

“Like what? One thing Loren never does is take his eyes off the business.”

“This time he did.”

“Don’t be so damned mysterious,” he snapped. “If you know something I don’t, tell me.”

“Loren has romance on his mind,” I said. “Right now he’s in Hawaii.”

“How do you know that?” he asked sharply. “I’ve called his home and the office. Nobody knows where he is.”

I laughed. “I practically did everything but put the girl on the plane with him.” Briefly I told him the story and at its finish he began to smile.

“Good,” he said. “I was beginning to wonder if he was human. Maybe there’s some hope for him yet.”

I got to my feet. “I think I’ll take a look inside and see how the boys are coming along with their figures.”

I left him sitting there, looking out at the ocean, and walked back up to the house and into the library. Despite the opened windows there were always layers of blue cigarette smoke hanging in the air over the table around which the accountants were gathered. At one end of the table sat Len Forman, a senior partner of Danville, Reynolds, and Firestone, representing the combined underwriters, and at the other end of the table, Arthur Roberts, a prominent New York corporate attorney, who had been retained as our counsel. The thing I liked about Artie is that he wasn’t afraid of a fight and we all knew, going in, that this was not going to be a waltz.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“Almost finished,” Artie said. “I think we can begin talking now.”

“I’ll get Number One,” I said.

“Don’t do that,” Artie said quickly. “We’ll come with you. After three days locked up in this room a little fresh air can’t hurt.”

“I still have a few things to clean up,” Len said. “You go ahead, I’ll catch up.”

We went back down to the pool. Number One was still looking out at the ocean. He turned his head when he heard our footsteps. He came right to the point. “What do you think, Mr. Roberts? Can we do it?”

“It can be done, Mr. Hardeman,” Artie said. “But I think we should examine the various ways to accomplish our ends.”

“Explain,” Number One said succinctly. “But remember to keep it simple. I’m a mechanic, not a lawyer or an accountant.”

“I’ll try,” Artie said with a smile. He knew as well as I that Number One had thought it all out long before any of us got into the act. “There are several ways to go. One, take the whole company public. I believe this can be accomplished without serious tax disadvantages. Two, splitting the appliance and manufacturing division away from the main body of the corporation and either selling them or going public with them. Three, the reverse of two, splitting away the automobile division and going public with it. Because of its profitless structure, I think this would be the least attractive.”

“Do you think we could raise the kind of capital we require?” Number One asked.

“I see no reason why we can’t,” Artie said. “Regardless of the plan we adopt.” He turned to Forman, who had come up just as the question had been asked. “What do you think, Len?”

Forman nodded. “No problem. It should be the most marketable issue to hit the street since Ford went public.”

“Which plan do you recommend?”

“The first plan,” Artie said quickly. “Take the whole company public.”

“Do you agree?” Number One turned to Forman.

“Absolutely,” he nodded. “That would be the most attractive.”

“Is that your reason also?” Number One asked Artie.

“Not really,” Artie said. “I just can’t see why you have to relinquish your equity in the more profitable areas of your company in order to do what you want. I think if we follow the Ford formula, you can have your cake and eat it too.”

Number One turned away and looked out at the sea again. He was silent for a long while, then he took a deep breath and turned back to me. “When do you think my grandson will be back in Detroit?”

“Sometime during the coming week.”

“I think we should go up there and see him,” he said. “Maybe I’ve been wrong about him all along. I think he should have a chance to make up his own mind.”

“That’s fair enough,” I said.

“I’ll have Mrs. Craddock call his office and arrange a meeting at my home in Grosse Pointe, Wednesday evening.” He began to move his chair toward the house. Donald appeared mysteriously and began to push him. Number One looked at us. “Come, gentlemen, let me buy you a drink.”

We fell into step alongside the chair. Forman asked, “Have you thought of the kind of car you’re planning to build, Mr. Hardeman?”

Number One laughed. “One that will run, I hope.”

Forman was polite. “I mean its design.”

“We’re just beginning now,” said Number One. “Automobile design is a very complicated art. An art. That’s exactly what it is. Modern, functional art. A primary collage of our technocratic society. That’s what it is, gentlemen. The Model T of Henry Ford does not belong in the Smithsonian. A more proper place for it would be in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”

“Have you selected a name for the car as yet, Mr. Hardeman?” Artie asked. “I understand that names are very important.”

“They are. And I have.” He looked at me and smiled a private smile. “The Betsy. That’s what we’ll call it. The Betsy.”

 Chapter Fourteen

I dropped Artie and Len at the airport so they could make the late afternoon plane to New York and when I came out of the terminal, Hertz-Rent-A-Girl was standing next to my car. “I’m shuah disappointed in you, Angelo,” she said in her honey-and-orange voice. “Heah you’ve been in town foh three days now and you haven’t called me.”

“Sorry, Melissa. But I’ve been busy.”

She pouted. “And I thought you were interested.”

“I am, Melissa,” I said. “I am.”

“Then how about tonight? That is, if youah not busy.”

“Tonight is fine,” I said. “But no more places like the last time. It took me three days to get my hearing back. Don’t you know a nice quiet motel where we could just be together?”

She came on with the “Mr. Perino” shit again. “Mr. Perino, this is a small town and a girl has to be careful of her reputation. Maybe we could just go for a long, quiet drive.”

I remembered the way she drove and shook my head. “No thanks. Besides I’m too old for backseat fucking.” I walked around the convertible and slid in behind the wheel. I turned the key in the starter. “Be seeing you, Melissa.”

“No, Angelo,” she said. “Wait a minute.” Her voice lowered as she leaned across the car door, giving me a good look at the two ripe Sunkists pushing against her blouse. “I’ll have to make arrangements,” she whispered. “I’ll tell my folks I’m going to spend the night with a girl friend who has a small cottage just north of town. She’s away and she left the key with me.”

“Now you’re making sense.”

She had the Mach One again when she came to pick me up. She got out of the car when I came down the steps. “You drive.”

“Okay.” I got behind the wheel. I clipped my seat belt and looked at her. She fastened her belt. We went down the driveway.

“Turn right,” she said. “There’s a package store about a half mile up.”

I swung the car into the road and, keeping it in low gear, revved the motor to an almost roaring red line on the tach. I hit the brake hard and slammed to a stop in front of the package store. I looked over at her.

Her eyes were half closed and her mouth open as she sucked in air. Her legs were open too. I reached over and put my hand under her dress. Her pantyhose were soaked. She was a born pit popsie. She shivered.

“What are you drinking?” I asked.

She closed her knees on my hand. “Champagne,” she said. “French champagne. Make sure it’s good and cold.”

“Okay. Give me back my hand and I’ll go get it.”

I came back with three bottles of Cordon Rouge. I showed them to her. “This okay?”

She nodded. I got into the car and we pulled out onto the road. “You do drive a car, don’t you,” she said in a hushed voice.

“I do.” I put my foot down on the accelerator. I knew just what she wanted. Lucky for me, there weren’t any cops on the road. I think we made the seven miles to the cottage in under six minutes.

The cottage was one of many exactly like it on a small road a half mile off the highway. I pulled into the driveway she pointed out to me and stopped under the carport. I switched off the motor and looked at her.

Her eyes were shining. “You blew my mind.”

I didn’t speak.

“Remember that time you were passing three cars and that car came up the road at us?”

I nodded.

“I looked at the speedometer. You were doing one-twenty. When you cut back into the lane I came so hard I half peed. After that I couldn’t stop coming for almost a minute.”

“I hope you have some left,” I said.

She laughed. “Never dry,” she said, and got out of the car. She reached behind her seat and lifted out a small flight bag. I grabbed the champagne and followed her into the house.

She went through the whole house closing the blinds and pulling the drapes before she would let me turn on a light. “My girl friend is always complaining about nosy neighbors,” she explained.

“It’s nice to know somebody cares,” I said.

She opened the flight bag. “I have to hang up my dress for tomorrow so it won’t be wrinkled.” She put the dress in the closet and came back. “Do you smoke?”

“Sometimes.”

“Good,” she said. “I’ve got some great grass.” She took out a small cellophane bag and a package of Zig Zag papers and put them on the table. “Do you like poppers?”

“They’re fun.”

“A wholesale drug salesman gives me a can of them every time he comes through. These are fresh. I just got them today.”

“How lucky can I get?” I reached for her but she slipped away from me.

“Don’t be in such a rush,” she said. “You open a bottle of champagne while I grab a quick shower. I feel all icky.”

I looked at her. If she came just half as much as she said she did, she had to be solid glue by now. “Okay,” I said.

She took a paper bag out of the flight bag and gave it to me. It was ice cold. I looked at her questioningly. “Steaks,” she explained. “If we get hungry later.”

I laughed and patted her on the ass. “Go take your shower.”

She thought of everything.

Hertz-Rent-A-Girl was climbing up the wall. Two sticks and a popper as she hit her first orgasm and she was on a trip that had no return. I had my head down between her legs and she was pulling at my hair, trying to stuff my face into her. She was right about one thing. She was never dry.

Suddenly she pushed me away. “You won’t think I’m awful?” she asked.

I shook my head.

“I want you to come in my mouth,” she said.

“Do I get a fuck first?”

“Yes,” she said, “but I still want you to come in my mouth.”

I rolled her over and went into her from behind. She reached underneath her and grabbed my balls and squeezed. “Oh, God!” she said. “They’re so full and heavy.”

I felt it starting to come up. So did she. She got away from me and spun around grabbing me in her mouth. The sperm started spilling and she sucked, making gobbling noises and squeezing and milking my testicles until long after they were empty. I lay there spent and exhausted.

“That was great,” she said. “You taste like heavy sweet cream.”

She was still holding me, playing with me. “Do you have to take a pee?” she asked.

“Now that you mention it, I do.” I started out of the bed.

She followed me into the bathroom. “Let me hold it for you.”

I looked at her. “Be my guest.”

She stood behind me and aimed it at the bowl, but it was awkward and splashed over the seat.

“Just what I thought,” I said. “Women don’t know anything about taking a piss.”

“Let me try,” she said and climbed into the bathtub next to the toilet bowl. Then she held it. This time her aim was true.

I looked at her face. There was an expression of rapt concentration there that I had never seen before. A fascination that was almost childish. She turned her face up to me. Almost as if she were in a spell she put her free hand in the path of the stream. Abruptly she turned it to her.

I stopped in surprise.

She pulled angrily at my cock. “Don’t stop!” she cried. “It’s beautiful. Bathe me in it.”

“Different strokes for different folks,” I said. If that was what she wanted, who was I to say no?

It was a wild, crazy night. On top of everything else she turned out to be a screamer. Which only made a liar out of her girl friend. If the neighbors really had been nosy, they would have called the cops.

It was seven in the morning when she dropped me in front of the house. She put out her hand almost formally. “Thank you, Angelo,” she said. “It was the most beautiful and romantic evening of my life.”

I couldn’t help but agree with her. She drove off. I went up the steps and into the house. Donald met me at the door.

“A Lady Ayres tried to reach you several times last evening,” he said. “She left a call-back number. She says it’s very important.”

“Where’s she calling from?” I asked.

“New York,” he answered. “Shall I try to get her for you?”

“Please,” I said. I followed him into the library. There was a pot of coffee on the table. I filled a cup while I waited. A moment later, he signaled. I picked up the telephone near me. “Hello.”

“Angelo.” Her voice was very tight. “I’ve got to see you. … Right away.”

“What are you doing in New York?” I asked. “I thought—”

“Alicia knows about Loren and me going away,” she said. “The office was trying to find him and they made the mistake of telling her.”

“Why did the office want him?”

“It had something to do with you. He didn’t say very much. But he was very angry and he said you might wind up in jail. Then Alicia called and he told her everything.”

“The damn fool.”

“He’s not very sophisticated,” she said. “It’s a matter of honor with him. Now he wants to marry me.”

“Where is he?”

“In Detroit. I must see you. Can I come down there?”

“No. I’ll come up to New York. Where are you staying?”

“The Waldorf,” she said.

“I’ll be up this afternoon.”

Her voice sounded relieved. “I love you, Angelo.”

“’Bye, darling,” I said. Number One was in the doorway.

“Who was that?” he asked.

“The girl I told you about,” I said. “The shit hit the fan. Loren is on to us.”

“I know that,” Number One said testily. “I’ve already spoken to him. But something else happened.”

“Yes,” I said. “Alicia nailed him with the girl. He wants a divorce.”

“Oh, Jesus!” Number One said. “That boy will never grow up.”