Big Money (37 page)

          ADDING MACHINES

               PAINTS AND VARNISHES

                    MARINE MOTORS

                        
OVERALLS

          SODA AND SALT PRODUCTS

            SPORT SHOES

                 TWIST DRILLS

                    SHOWCASES

                         CORSETS

                              GASOLINE TORCHES

                                   TRUCKS

 

Mr. Radio Man won't you do what you can

    
'Cause I'm so lonely

Tell my Mammy to come back home

    
Mr. Radio Man

 

DETROIT THE DYNAMIC RANKS HIGH

 

IN FOUNDRY AND MACHINE SHOP PRODUCTS

     IN BRASS AND BRASS PRODUCTS

          IN TOBACCO AND CIGARS

               IN ALUMINUM CASTINGS

                    IN IRON AND STEEL

                         IN LUBRICATOR TOOLS

                              MALLEABLE IRON

                                   METAL BEDS

 

Back to the land that gave me birth

    
The grandest place on God's green earth

         
California! That's where I belong.

 

“DETROIT THE CITY WHERE LIFE IS
WORTH LIVING”

First thing Charley heard when he climbed down from the controls was Farrell's voice shouting, “Charley Anderson, the boy with the knowhow. Welcome to little old Detroit,” and then he saw Farrell's round face coming across the green grass of the field and his big mouth wide open. “Kind of bumpy, wasn't it?”

“It was cold as hell” said Charley. “Call this a field?”

“We're getting the Chamber of Commerce het up about it. You can give 'em an earful about it maybe.”

“I sure did slew around in that mud. Gosh, I pulled out in such a hurry I didn't even bring a toothbrush.”

Charley pulled off his gloves that were dripping with oil from a leak he'd had trouble with in the bumpy going over the hills. His back ached. It was a relief that Bill Cermak was there to get the boat into
the hangar. “All right, let's go,” he said. “Thataboy,” roared Farrell and put his hand on Charley's shoulder. “We'll stop by the house and see if I can fit you into a change of clothes.”

At that moment a taxi rolled out onto the field and out of it stepped Taki. He came running over with Charley's suitcase. He reached the car breathless. “I hope you have a nice journey, sir.” “Check,” said Charley. “Did you get me a walkup?” “Very nice inexpensive elevator apartment opposed to the Museum of Municipal Art,” panted Taki in his squeaky voice.

“Well, that's service,” Farrell said and put his foot on the starter of his puttycolored Lincoln towncar. The motor purred silkily.

Taki put the suitcase in back and Charley hopped in beside Farrell. “Taki thinks we lack culture,” said Charley, laughing. Farrell winked.

It was pleasant sitting slumped in the seat beside Farrell's well-dressed figure behind the big softpurring motor, letting a little drowsiness come over him as they drove down broad straight boulevards with here and there a construction job that gave them a whiff of new bricks and raw firboards and fresh cement as they passed. A smell of early spring came off the fields and backlots on a raw wind that had little streaks of swampy warmth in it.

“Here's our little shanty,” said Farrell and swerved into a curving graded driveway and jammed on the brakes at the end of a long greystone house with narrow pointed windows and gothic pinnacles like a cathedral. They got out and Charley followed him across a terrace down an avenue of boxtrees in pots and through a frenchwindow into a billiardroom with a heavilycarved ceiling. “This is my playroom,” said Farrell. “After all a man's got to have someplace to play. . . . Here's a bathroom you can change in. I'll be back for you in ten minutes.”

It was a big bathroom all in jadegreen with a couch, an easychair, a floorlamp, and a set of chestweights and indianclubs in the corner. Charley stripped and took a hot shower and changed his clothes. He was just putting on his bestlooking striped tie when Farrell called through the door. “Everything O.K.?” “Check,” said Charley as he came out. “I feel like a million dollars.” Farrell looked him in the eye in a funny way and laughed. “Why not?” he said.

The office was in an unfinished officebuilding in a ring of unfin
ished officebuildings round Grand Circus Park. “You won't mind if I run you through the publicity department first, Charley,” said Farrell. “Eddy Sawyer's a great boy. Then we'll all get together in my office and have some food.”

“Check,” said Charley.

“Say, Eddy, here's your birdman,” shouted Farrell, pushing Charley into a big bright office with orange hangings. “Mr. Sawyer, meet Mr. Anderson . . . the Charley Anderson, our new consulting engineer. . . . Give us a buzz when you've put him through a course of sprouts.”

Farrell hurried off leaving Charley alone with a small yellowfaced man with a large towhead who had the talk and manners of a high-school boy with the cigarette habit. Eddy Sawyer gave Charley's hand a tremendous squeeze, asked him how he liked the new offices, explained that orange stood for optimism, asked him if he ever got airsick, explained that he did terribly, wasn't it the damnedest luck seeing the business he was in, brought out from under his desk a bottle of whiskey. “I bet J. Y. didn't give you a drink. . . . That man lives on air, a regular salamander.”

Charley said he would take a small shot and Eddy Sawyer produced two glasses that already had the ice in them and a siphon. “Say when.” Charley took a gulp, then Eddy leaned back in his swivelchair having drained off his drink and said, “Now, Mr. Anderson, if you don't mind let's have the old lifehistory, or whatever part of it is fit to print. . . . Mind you, we won't use anything right away but we like to have the dope so that we can sort of feed it out as occasion demands.”

Charley blushed. “Well,” he said, “there's not very much to tell.”

“That a boy,” said Eddy Sawyer, pouring out two more drinks and putting away the whiskeybottle. “That's how all the best stories begin.” He pressed a buzzer and a curlyhaired stenographer with a pretty pink dollface came in and sat down with her notebook at the other side of the desk. While he was fumbling through his story, Charley kept repeating to himself in the back of his head, “Now, bo, don't make an ass of yourself the first day.” Before they were through Farrell stuck his head in the door and said to come along, the crowd was waiting.

“Well, did you get all fixed up? . . . Charley, I want you to meet our salesmanager . . . Joe Stone, Charley Anderson. And Mr. Frank and Mr. O'Brien, our battery of legal talent, and Mr. Bledsoe, he's in charge of output . . . that's your department.”

Charley shook a number of hands; there was a slick black head with hair parted in the middle, a pair of bald heads and a steelgrey head with hair bristling up like a shoebrush, noseglasses, tortoiseshell glasses, one small mustache. “Sure mike,” Eddy Sawyer was stuttering away nervously. “I've got enough on him to retire on the blackmail any time now.”

“That's a very good starter, young man,” said Cyrus Bledsoe, the greyhaired man, gruffly. “I hope you've got some more notions left in the back of your head.”

“Check,” said Charley.

They all, except Bledsoe who growled that he never ate lunch, went out with him to the Athletic Club where they had a private diningroom and cocktails set out. Going up in the elevator a voice behind him said, “How's the boy, Charley?” and Charley turned round to find himself face to face with Andy Merritt. Andy Merritt's darkgrey suit seemed to fit him even better than usual. His sour smile was unusually thin.

“Why, what are you doing here?” Charley blurted out.

“Detroit,” said Andy Merritt, “is a town that has always interested me extremely.”

“Say, how's Joe making out?” Andy Merritt looked pained and Charley felt he ought to have kept his mouth shut. “Joe was in excellent health when I last saw him,” said Andy. It turned out that Andy was lunching with them too.

When they were working on the filetmignon, Farrell got up and made a speech about how this luncheon was a beginning of a new spirit in the business of manufacturing airplane parts and motors and that the time had come for the airplane to quit hanging on the apronstrings of the automotive business because airplanes were going to turn the automobile men into a lot of bicycle manufacturers before you could say Jack Robinson. A milliondollar business had to be handled in a milliondollar way. Then everybody yelled and clapped and Farrell held up his hand and described Charley Anderson's career as a war ace and an inventor and said it was a very happy day, a day he'd been waiting for a long time, when he could welcome him into the Tern flock. Then Eddy Sawyer led a cheer for Anderson and Charley had to get up and say how he was glad to get out there and be back in the great open spaces and the real manufacturing center of this country, and when you said manufacturing center of this country what
you meant was manufacturing center of the whole bloody world. Eddy Sawyer led another cheer and then they all settled down to eat their peachmelba.

When they were getting their hats from the checkroom downstairs Andy Merritt tapped Charley on the shoulder and said, “A very good speech. . . . You know I'd felt for some time we ought to make a break. . . . You can't run a big time business with smalltown ideas. That's the trouble with poor old Joe who's a prince, by the way . . . smalltown ideas. . . .”

Charley went around to see the apartment. Taki had everything fixed up in great shape, flowers in the vases and all that sort of thing. “Well, this is slick,” said Charley. “How do you like it in Detroit?” “Very interesting,” said Taki. “Mr. Ford permits to visit Highland Park.” “Gosh, you don't lose any time. . . . Nothing like that assemblyline in your country, is there?” Taki grinned and nodded. “Very interesting,” he said with more emphasis.

Charley took off his coat and shoes and lay down on the couch in the sittingroom to take a nap but it seemed he'd just closed his eyes when Taki was grinning and bowing from the door.

“Very sorry, sir, Mr. Benton, longdistance.” “Check,” said Charley.

Taki had his slippers there for him to stick his feet into and had discreetly laid his bathrobe on a chair beside the couch. At the phone Charley noticed that it was already dusk and that the streetlights were just coming on.

“Hello, Nat.” “Hay, Charley, how are you making out?” “Great,” said Charley. “Say, I just called up to let you know you and Andy Merritt were going to be elected vicepresidents at the next meeting of Tern stockholders.” “How do you know?” Nat laughed into the phone. “Some intelligence service,” said Charley. “Well, service is what we're here for,” said Nat. “And, Charley, there's a little pool down here. . . . I'm taking a dip myself and I thought you might like to come in. . . . I can't tell you the details over the phone but I wrote you this afternoon.” “I haven't got any cash.” “You could put up about ten grand of stock to cover. The stock won't be tied up long.” “Check,” said Charley. “Shoot the moon . . . this is my lucky year.”

The plant was great. Charley drove out there in a new Buick sedan he bought himself right off the dealer's floor the next morning. The dealer seemed to know all about him and wouldn't even take a down
payment. “It'll be a pleasure to have your account, Mr. Anderson,” he said.

Old Bledsoe seemed to be on the lookout for him and showed him around. Everything was lit with skylights. There wasn't a belt in the place. Every machine had its own motor. “Farrell thinks I'm an old stickinthemud because I don't talk high finance all the time, but God damn it, if there's a more uptodate plant than this anywhere, I'll eat a goddamned dynamo.” “Gee, I thought we were in pretty good shape out at Long Island City. . . . But this beats the Dutch.” “That's exactly what it's intended to do,” growled Bledsoe.

Last Bledsoe introduced Charley to the engineering force and then showed him into the office off the draftingroom that was to be his. They closed the groundglass door and sat down facing each other in the silvery light from the skylight. Bledsoe pulled out a stogie and offered one to Charley. “Ever smoke these? . . . They clear the head.”

Charley said he'd try anything once. They lit the stogies and Bledsoe began to talk between savage puffs of stinging blue smoke. “Now look here, Anderson, I hope you've come out here to work with us and not to juggle your damned stock. . . . I know you're a war hero and all that and are slated for windowdressing, but it looks to me like you might have somepun in your head too. . . . I'm saying this once and I'll never say it again. . . . If you're workin' with us, you're workin' with us and if you're not you'd better stick around your broker's office where you belong.”