Living Room (29 page)

In the past, when she had displayed sophisticated mechanical knowledge, she had been treated like some kind of freak. In either situation, the problem was that the female customer totally lacked power until the next time she was buying a car, when her whims would be catered to perhaps more than a man’s only because she wouldn’t be expected to trade as hard on price.

Meanwhile, inside, Cass was asking the service manager, “Isn’t it dangerous for her to go driving around with bad brakes?”

“I can’t solve the world’s problems, mister. She isn’t even a regular customer.”

“I’m not either.”

“What’d you say your problem was?”

“It’s missing.”

“Oh yeah.” The service manager slid in behind the wheel and turned the ignition on. The car shook in idle. He got out, lifted the hood. “How long since you had a tune-up?”

“Not too long.”

“It needs plugs and points.”

“You sure?”

“Look, mister, I been in this business for twenty years.”

“Right,” said Cass. He poked his head under the hood and with Shirley’s screwdriver reset the screw on the carburetor. When he started the engine, it sounded nearly right. He got out and turned the screw one tiny bit more, the service manager at his back, poking.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I fixed it.”

“If you knew how to fix it, what did you come in here for? You a wise guy?”

“You know damn well I didn’t need plugs and points.”

“I ought to—”

“Take it easy,” said Cass. “I’m an inspector for the Ford Motor Company. You flunked on two counts. The lady’s car and mine. Now open that door so I can back out.”

Cass left. The service manager had developed a tic on the right side of his face.

Outside, Cass spotted Shirley’s car and pulled up behind her. He joined her in the red car.

“Yikes,” he said.

“Sorry to put you through this.”

“It’s educational, all right.”

“The idea really isn’t mine,” said Shirley. “Friend of mine at McCann solved Coca-Cola’s problems by riding around in a delivery truck for a week.”

“A girl in a delivery truck?”

“You’re making the same chauvinist mistake, Mr. Rodgers. Not all my friends are women. How about a cup of coffee in that place up there?”

“I thought we were in a frantic hurry.”

“Let’s compare notes. It’ll save time later on.”

“You mean you’re desperate for coffee.”

“Three hours sleep. All for Henry Ford.”

Over coffee, Cass told her what had happened after she left.

“Conclusion?” she asked.

“He was going to sell me something I didn’t need that would cost me thirty or forty bucks and tie me up for half a day. I’d bet he’d find time to do it even though he was too busy to take you.”

“Sex prejudice. Ask any woman driver.” Shirley warmed her hands on the coffee cup. “A quick piece of sociology. As you go down the social scale from the professions to the so-called middle class to the working class, you’ll find male chauvinist piggery more deeply entrenched. Females provide cooking, cleaning and a place to put the cock.”

The waitress gave her a withering look.

“Your friends in Detroit, who are presumably Yale and Princeton and not Wayne State, have they considered that the dealers who sell their cars are mainly lower middle class and that the shops are run by the working class?”

“Truthfully,” said Cass, enjoying himself, “I have never heard any talk like that in the board room.”

“Question. Selling you a tune-up you don’t need, is the dealer in on the racket, does he know what the sales manager is doing?”

“Probably. Plugs and points come in a kit. It has to be checked out of the parts department. They’d have to account for it. Of
course the service manager would have to be working with a mechanic, who’d know that the tune-up wasn’t needed. Maybe they wouldn’t even change anything if I wasn’t around to see. They’d just charge me for it. Wait, they’d have to do it on a dealer invoice and those things are numbered. You can’t void or lose one without accounting for it.”

“Unless you were a woman. He could give you a bill on some other form and ask for cash.”

“Too tricky. If he does it frequently, chances are he’d get caught.”

“So the dealer is probably in on it.”

“The dealer may have invented the idea and makes unnecessary fixes a job requirement. It bothers me that he’d let you drive away with a dangerous condition. How’d you pick this dealership?”

“Out of the red book last night when you told me where to meet you. I wanted one in a different borough but near enough to make by eight o’clock. I didn’t want to get stuck behind a line of cars checking in.”

“What’s next?” asked Cass.

“You pick the next dealer.”

“At random?”

“Any way you like.”

“How about Jersey?”

“Sure.”

“Just so we can say we did our research in more than one state,” he laughed.

“Arthur is checking twenty other states by phone. It’ll be a good sampling.”

“You’re going to put together a basket of Ford’s problems and ship it collect to Dearborn?”

“I deal in solutions, not problems.”

“An ad campaign?”

“An ad campaign.”

Cass was intrigued.

The place in Jersey proved a surprise. The service manager of Benson Motors was out sick. Taking his place was the dearest old man imaginable, late sixties, white-haired, wearing an ill-fitting pair of coveralls over a white shirt and tie. He introduced himself as Mr. Benson. “Always take over myself when Joe’s out. Joe’s had three or four angina attacks in the last few months, none in the shop, mostly when he’s out gardening on the weekends. Been with me over twenty years. He’s a great service manager and all he knows is cars. One of these days one of the mechanics here is going to get the number-two job in the shop. I’m watching them carefully to see how they are with customers. How can I help you?”

Mr. Benson test-drove the red car and told Shirley politely that there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with it. He suggested that if she had any trouble, she should come back. Or if she got stuck anywhere nearby, he gave her his card so she could telephone and he’d send someone to take a look.

As for the blue car, he made the carburetor adjustment as quickly as Cass had. When Cass reached for his wallet, Benson said, “Never you mind. It took a minute. Just think of Benson Motors next time you’re shopping for a car.”

They pulled over about a mile down the road.

“That was a sweet man,” said Shirley. “Ford ought to make him dealer of the year or something.”

“I wish I could say that was typical. Let’s try the next town over. I’ve got an idea for this one.”

Shirley was glad Cass was taking the initiative, getting personally involved.

Cass’s plan involved letting a good deal of air out of both right-hand tires of the red car. They left the blue one, at his behest, and Shirley drove the lopsided red one with Cass in the seat beside her. They could see the neon sign of Franklin Ford up ahead.

“Now drive carefully,” Cass told her. “It won’t handle well
with the air down all on one side.”

In front of Franklin, a tow truck was parked in front of the service entrance. “To keep customers out,” said Shirley.

They parked the red car and went inside.

Cass tapped the shoulder of a young man in coveralls counting a stack of spare parts. “Where’ll I find the service manager?”

“He’s the tall redhead down there,” said the young man, pointing, but without taking his eyes away from the pile he was counting. Shirley and Cass wound their way along the double row of slant-parked cars, some raised on one end, some with hoods up and worklight installed, all looking as if they were being worked on. They found the tall redhead down the other end. He was checking out some under-the-dashboard work with a mechanic whose legs were visible on the front seat.

The reverberating clang of metal filled the shop with noise. “You the service manager?” Shirley yelled as loud as she could.

The redhead swung his head around to look at her. “Very busy,” he said, “can’t take on anything more this week.” He turned back to his work.

“I’ll try,” said Cass. He tapped the service manager. “Excuse me. Our car has a condition that could be dangerous.”

The service manager examined intruder Cass from head to toe. “What make car?” he finally said.

“It’s a Ford,” said Cass. “That’s why we stopped here.”

“You buy the car here?”

“We’re just driving through this area.”

“I can’t help you, mister.”

“Look,” said Cass, “the car is leaning over to one side. Something must be broken. Please.”

The unenunciated word on the man’s lips was clearly “Shit.” Then he said, “Where’s the car?”

Shirley gestured to the front of the building. The tall redhead led the way outside, grumbling. He walked around the red car, looked at the plates. “New York, huh?” he said. Clearly, he didn’t like New Yorkers. He examined the lean
of
the car from several angles, then spotted the low tires. He whistled. “You need new shocks. I can’t help you. Busy with my own customers.”

“Ford says you can get the car serviced anywhere in the country.”

“Well, this ain’t the country,” said the redhead. “What you do is go there”—he pointed to a service station a few hundred yards down the road—“and tell him Gus sent you. He can get the shocks from our parts department. Tell him I said so.”

He left them standing outside.

“I wonder how much the service station kicks back to Gus?”

“Let’s find out,” said Cass.

Shirley drove the red car carefully to the filling station Gus had pointed to. Cass told her to pull up near the air pump. The attendant was upon them before they could get out of the car. “No air unless you buy gas,” he said.

“Gus over at Franklin Ford sent us. He told us to tell you we had low tires on both right wheels.”

The attendant’s look was worth a Polaroid picture if they had a camera. “I’ll phone him,” he said.

While he was inside, Cass filled both right-hand tires up to normal. As he put the air hose away, the attendant came out of the hut. “He says you need shocks. I can get them at his parts department and put them in real quick.”

“I’ll bet,” said Cass. Then to Shirley, “This is one instance where the dealer isn’t in on it. He gets the money for the parts, but the installation is entirely a side business for our red-haired friend.” Then to the attendant, “Next time you talk to Gus, you tell him the fellow who needed shocks was an inspector for the Ford Motor Company.”

Shirley and Cass drove off, back toward where they had left the blue car.

“I just hope it gives Gus a few sleepless nights, the bastard. How many more of these are we going to do?” asked Cass. “My skin is crawling.”

“I think we’ve got enough if you’re willing to extrapolate from a few experiences plus what Arthur picks up. Let’s head back.”

“Where to?”

“I’ve got my worksheets in the apartment. We could pick them up and go on to the office or—” She looked at him. “If you want to live dangerously, we could work at the apartment.”

“I guess I’ll just have to trust you,” Cass said. “Let’s turn the cars in, okay?”

In the apartment, she offered Cass a hamburger and a beer, then called Arthur.

“Lucky I got you,” she said. “I was afraid you’d gone to lunch. How’d you make out?”

“Cancelled lunch. We’ve got about two-thirds in. We’re getting some good guys and some bad guys but I tell you, a guy stalled twenty miles from a dealer almost anywhere in the United States is going to hate car dealers. The only advantage we have is that the other makes are probably no better and the public knows it.”

“Can I try a hypothesis on you?”

“Shoot.”

“A car customer is not a customer. Once he’s bought the car, he has no power.”

“Looks that way this morning. What are you and Cass up to?”

“Up to the top of page one of what I hope is a new ad campaign.”

“You bringing it up to the office now?”

“I can’t, Arthur,” she said. “We’re both naked.” And gently she hung up the phone.

“You wouldn’t last five minutes in Dearborn,” said Cass.

“Did Iacocca get his ideas in his office or in his head? Cass, I’m not being mean to Arthur, I’m trying to figure out something for myself.”

“Like?”

“Why people go to offices.”

“Autos aren’t a cottage industry. You can’t run a production line out of people’s homes.”

“You work wherever the hell you are, on the hoof mostly,” said Shirley. “Why can’t I?”

“For one thing, you’re being damned discourteous to Arthur. It’s his company. And it’s a six-million-dollar account.”