Wheels (6 page)

He queried
Illas, "You told him it'll be even less funny if it happens again
.”

"He told me what he was supposed to," Newkirk said. "It won't happen no
more, not if there ain't no cause
.”

"You're pretty cocky," Zaleski said. "Considering you've just been fired
and unfired
.”

"Not cocky, mister, angry!
" The black man made a gesture which included
Illas. "That's a th
ing you people, all of you, won’
t ever understand
.”

Zaleski snapped, "I can get pretty damned angry about brawls upsetting
this plant
.”

"Not deep soul angry. Not so it burns, a rage.
'~Don't push me. I might show you otherwise
.”

The other shook his head. For one so huge, his voice and movements were
surprisingly gentle; only his eyes burned-an intense gray-green. "Man,
you ain't black, you don't know what it means; not rage, not anger. It's
a million goddam pins bein' stuck in from time you was born, then one
day some white motha' calls a man 'boy,' an' it's a million 'n one too
many.
"Now then," the union man said, "we settled all that. We don't have to
get into it again
.”

Newkirk dismissed him. '-fou hush upl" His eyes remained fixed,
challengingly, on the assistant plant manager.
Not for the first time, Matt Zaleski wondered: Had the whole
free-wheeling world gone crazy? To people like Newkirk and millions of
others, including Zaleski's own daughter, Barbara, it seemed a basic
credo that everything which used to matter-authority, order, respect,
moral decency-no longer counted in any recognizable way. Insolence was
a norm-the kind Newkirk used with his voice and now his eyes. The
familiar phrases were a part of it: Newkirk's rage and deep soul angry
were inter
-
changeable, it seemed, with a hundred others like generation
gap, strung out, hanging loose, taking your own trip, turned on, most
of which Matt Zaleski didn't comprehend and-the more he heard them
didn't
want to. The changes which, nowadays, he could neither keep pace with
nor truly understand, left him subdued and wearied.
In a strange way, at this moment, he found himself equating the big
black man, Newkirk, with Barbara who was pretty, twenty-nine, college
educated, and white. If Barbara Zaleski were here now, automatically,
predictably, she would see things Newkirk's way, and not her father's.
Christ!
-he wished he were half as sure of things himself.
Tiredly, though it was still early morning, and not at all convinced
that he had handled this situation the way he should, Matt Zaleski told
Newkirk brusquely, "Get back to your job
.”

When Newkirk had gone, Illas said, "There'll be no walkout. Word's going
around
.”

"Am I supposed to say thanks
.”

Zaleski asked sourly. "For not being
raped
.”

The union man shrugged and moved away.
The mist-green sedan which Zaleski had been
curious about bad moved still farth
er forward on the line. Walking
quickly, the assistant plant manager caught up with it.
He checked the papers, including a scheduling order and specifications,
in a cardboard folder hanging over the front grille. As he had half
expected, as well as being a "special"-a car which received more careful
attention than routine-it was also a "foreman's friend
.”

A "foreman's friend" was a very special car. It was also illegal in any
plant and, in this case, involved more than a hundred dollars'
worth of
dishonesty. Matt Zaleski, who had a knack of storing away tidbits of
information and later piecing them together, had more than a shrewd idea
who was involved with the mist-green sedan, and why.
The car was for a company public relations man. Its official
specifications were Spartan and included few, if any, extras, yet the
sedan was (as auto men expressed it) "loaded up" with special items.
Even without a close inspection, Matt Zaleski cou
ld see a de
luxe
steering wheel, extra
-
ply whitewall tires, styled steel wheels and tinted
glass, none of which were in the specifications he was holding. It
looked, too, as if the car had received a double paint job, which helped
durability. It was this last item which had caught Zaleski's eye
earlier.
The almost-certain explanation matched several facts which the assistant
plant manager already knew. Two weeks earlier the daughter of a senior
foreman in the plant had been married. As a favor, the public relations
man, whose car this was, had arranged publicity, getting wedding
pictures featured prominently in Detroit and suburban papers. The
bride's father was delighted. There had been a good deal of talk about
it around the plant.
The rest was easy to guess.
The p.r. man could readily find out in advance which day his car was
scheduled for production. He would then have telephoned his foreman
friend, who bad clearly arranged special attention for the mist-green
sedan all the way through assembly.
Matt Zaleski knew what he ought to do. He ought to check out his
suspicions by sending for the foreman concerned, and afterward make a
written report to the plant manager, McKernon, who would have no choice
except to act on it. After that there would be seventeen kinds of bell
let loose, extending-because of the p.r. man's involvement-all the way
up to staff headquarters.
Matt, Zaleski also knew he wasn't going to.
There were problems enough already. The Parkland-Newkirk-Illas
embroilment had been one; and predictably, by now, back in the glass
paneled office were others requiring decisions, in addition to those
already on his desk this morning. These, he reminded himself, he still
hadn't looked at.
On his car radio, driving to work an hour or so ago from Royal Oak, he
had heard Emerson Vale, the auto critic whom Zaleski thought of as an
idiot, firing buckshot at the industry again. Matt Zaleski had wished
then, as now, that he could install Vale on a production hot seat for
a few days and let the son-of-a-bitch find out what it really took, in
terms of effort, grief, compromise, and human exhaustion to get cars
built at all.
Matt Zaleski walked away from the mist
green sedan. In running a plant,
you had to learn that there were moments when some things had to be
ignored, and this was one.
But at least today was Wednesday.

Chapter T
hree

At 7:30 A.M., while tens of thousands in greater Detroit had been up for
hours and were already working, others-either through choice or the nature
of their work-were still abed.
One who remained there by choice was Erica Trenton.
In a wide, French Provincial bed, between satin sheets which were smooth
against the firm surface of her young body, she was awake, but drifting
back to sleep, and had no intention of getting up for at least two hours
more.
Drowsily, only half-conscious of her own thoughts, she dreamed of a man
. . . no particular man, simply a vague figure . . . arousing her
sensua
lly, thrusting her deeply-again! Again!
. . . as her own husband
had not, for at least three weeks and probably a month.
While she drifted, as on a gently flooding tide between wakefulness and
a return to sleep, Erica mused that she had not always been a late
riser. In the Bahamas, where she was born, and lived until her marriage
to Adam five years ago, she had often risen before dawn and helped
launch a dinghy from the beach, afterward running the outboard while her
father trolled and the sun rose. Her father enjoyed fresh fish at break
fast and, in her later years at home, it was Erica who cooked it when
they returned.
During her initiation to marriage, in Detroit, she had followed the same
pattern, rising early with Adam and preparing breakfast which they ate
together-he zestfully, and loudly appreciative of Erica's natural talent
for cooking which she used with imagination, even for simplest meals.
By her own wish they had no live-in help, and
Erica kept busy, especially since Adam s twin sons, Greg and Kirk, who
were at prep school nearby, came home during most weekends and holidays.
That was the time when she had been worried about her acceptance by the
boys-Adam had divorced their mother earlier the same year, only a few
months before meeting Erica and the beginning of their brief, jet-speed
courtship. But Erica had been accepted at once by Greg and Kirk -even
gratefully, it seemed, since they had seen little of either of their
parents over several preceding years, Adam being immersed in his work,
and the boys' mother, Francine, traveling frequently abroad, as she
still did. Besides, Erica was closer to the boys' own age. She had been
barely twenty-one then, Adam eighteen years her senior, though the
differences in ages hadn't seemed to matter. Of course, the gap of years
between Adam and Erica was still the same, except that nowadays-five
years later-it seemed wider.
A reason, obviously, was that at the beginning they had devoured each
other sexually. They first made love-tempestuously-on a moonlit Bahamas
beach. Erica remembered still: the warm, jasmine-scented night, white
sand, softly lapping water, a breeze stirring palm trees, music drifting
from a lighted cruise ship in Nassau harbor. They had known each other
for a few days only. Adam had been holidaying-an aftermath to his
divorce -with friends at Lyford Cay who introduced him to Erica at a
Nassau night spot, Charley Charley's. They spent all next day together,
and others afterward.
The night on the beach was not their first time there. But on the
earlier occasions she had resisted Adam; now, she learned, she could
resist no
longer, and only whisper helplessly, I can get pregnant
.”

He had whispered back, "You're going to marry me. So it doesn't matter
.”

She had not become pregnant, though many times since she wished she had.
From then on, and into marriage a month later, they made love frequently
and passionately -almost unfailingly each night, then expending themselves
further (but, oh, how gloriously) on awakening in the morning. Even back
in Detroit the night and morning love-making persisted, despite Adam's
early work start which, Erica quickly discovered, was part of an auto
executive's life.
But as months went by and, after that, the first few years, Adam's passion
lessened. For either of them it could never have sustained itself at the
original fevered pace; Erica realized that. But what she had not expected
was that the decline would come as early as it had, or be so
near-complete. Undoubtedly she became more conscious of the change because
other activities were less. Greg and Kirk now came home seldom, having
left Michigan for college-Greg to Columbia, en route to medical school;
Kirk to the University of Oklahoma to major in journalism.
She was still drifting . . . Still not quite asleep. The house, near
Quarton Lake in the northern suburb of Birmingham, was quiet. Adam had
gone. Like most in the auto industry's top echelon, he was at his desk by
half-past seven, had done an hour's work before the secretaries came.
Also, as usual, Adam had risen in time to do exercises, take a ten-minute
run outside, then, after showering, get his own breakfast, as he always
did these days. Erica had slipped out of the habit of preparing it after
Adam told her candidly that the meal was taking too long; unlike their
early years togeth
er, he chafed impatiently, want
ing to be on his way, no longer enjoying their relaxed quarter hour
together at the table. One morning he had simply said, "Honey, you stay
in bed. I'll get breakfast for myself
.”