The Betsy (1971)

by Robbins, Harold

  Interstage heat in the turbine at normal operating driving temperatures averaged 800° centigrade. There wasn’t a tire made that could withstand that temperature constantly. It needed insulation, venting and perhaps additional cooling. He made some notes on the comment sheet to have Design and Engineering look into it and come up with its practicality and costs.

  The telephone rang. “Hello.”

  The familiar British voice was in his car. “Angelo?”

  “Yes, Bobbie?”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Working,” he answered.

  “Would you like to have a drink?”

  He was surprised. “Where are you? I thought you went out to the test track with the others.”

  “I didn’t feel up to it,” she said.

  “Anything wrong? You sound strange.”

  “No.” She seemed vague. “I don’t know. Anyway it’s not important. I’m sorry I disturbed you.”

  The phone abruptly clicked off as she hung up. He stared at it a moment, then put it down. He thought about calling her back but decided against it and got up and made himself a drink instead.

  The phone rang again as he was walking back to the desk, the ice tinkling in his glass. He picked it up. “Yes, Bob—”

  Rourke’s voice interrupted him. “Angelo, I have the name of the man. Mark Simpson. He’s with an outfit called the Independent Automobile Safety Organization. IASO. They’re out of Detroit. Know anything about them?”

  “Not the outfit,” Angelo answered. “But I heard something about the man—” The doorbell rang. “Hold on a minute, I have to get the door.”

  He put down the telephone and crossed the room. The doorbell rang again. He opened the door. Bobbie stood there.

  She looked up at him. “Am I interrupting anything?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Come in. I’m on the telephone.”

  He went back to the phone and picked it up while she closed the door behind her. “Help yourself to a drink.”

  “Tony,” he said into the phone. “The guy’s a hustler. He claims to be another Ralph Nader but that’s a lot of crap. He publishes a weekly newsletter which supposedly gives out inside information on new cars. There’s been talk around Detroit that he’s on the take, but nobody seems to know from whom.”

  “Why would he go after us?” Tony asked.

  “That’s a good question,” Angelo said. “As far as I know, he’s never been near our place. Somebody there has got to be backing him.”

  “Well, I’ve done everything I could,” Tony said. “Detroit’s your town.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Angelo said. “Thanks for the information.”

  He put down the telephone and looked across the room. Bobbie hadn’t moved from the door. “You made it this far,” he said. “You might as well come all the way in.”

  She walked toward him, her eyes taking in the piled-up papers on the desk and the file cabinets along the wall. “You really were working,” she said.

  “What did you think I was doing?”

  She didn’t answer. She crossed the room to the table on which the bottle of whiskey and ice rested. She poured some into a glass. “I didn’t know you had one room fixed up as an office.”

  “I do a lot of work here,” he said. “The days aren’t always long enough.”

  “I don’t want to disturb you.”

  “You said that before,” he said pointedly.

  “I know.” She put her drink down on the table without touching it. “I’m sorry. I’ll leave.” She started back to the door.

  “Why did you come down?” he asked.

  She stopped and looked at him. “I was jealous. I thought you had a girl here. That was stupid of me, wasn’t it?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “I love you,” she said. “I thought—”

  His voice was harsh. “Don’t think. We went all through that once before.”

  “I made a mistake,” she said. “I thought I knew what I wanted. But it’s not too late.”

  “It is too late. You’re supposed to be married next week, remember?”

  “I know that,” she said. She walked back toward him slowly. She looked up into his eyes. “But there will be times. We can still see each other once in a while.”

  He didn’t move. A pulse began to beat in his throat. “Now you’re thinking with your cunt,” he said. “I liked it better when you thought with your head.”

  She put her arms around his neck and pressed herself against him. “You tell me you don’t want me,” she whispered.

  He stared into her eyes without moving.

  “Tell me!” she repeated, a note of triumph in her voice. She dropped a hand to his trouser front. Quickly, she zipped open his fly and searched him out. “Tell me if you can while I hold your cock, hard and hot and juicing in my hand.”

  She began to go down on him and was almost on her knees when a knock came on the door and it swung open.

  “Angelo! The car is fantastic!” Betsy’s voice trailed off as she saw them.

  They stared at her. Bobbie almost stumbled and fell as she got back to her feet. Angelo turned away for a moment, adjusting his pants. By the time he turned back to her, she was inside the room, her face suddenly very pale and very young.

  “I know it’s hard to understand,” he began.

  “Don’t say anything. Please,” she said in a thin small voice. She looked at Bobbie. “Daddy’s on his way to your room to get you,” she said, almost calmly. “You better go to the bar and tell him you were there waiting for him. Because he was going to bring you down here to have a drink to the new car.”

  Bobbie looked at her for a moment, then at Angelo. He nodded. She went silently past Betsy and out of the room. Her footsteps echoed down the corridor outside.

  They stared at each other silently until the sound of the footsteps vanished. He picked up his drink from the desk behind him.

  “I guess the stories I’ve heard about you are all true,” she said. “You’re not a very nice man, Mr. Perino.”

  He held the glass without drinking, his eyes steady on her face. He didn’t speak.

  “Don’t think I did it for either of you,” she said. “I did it for Daddy. He’s very much in love with her. And it would break his heart. You see, he’s not like you. He’s really a very naïve man. Not hip at all.”

  Angelo still didn’t say anything.

  “You could have been honest with me,” she began to sniffle. “You didn’t have to go through that virtuous shit and how-important-it-was-that-we-get-to-know-each-other-first routine with me.”

  “It was the truth,” he said.

  “No it wasn’t!” she cried bitterly. “And you’ll never get me to believe you! Why didn’t you just fuck me when I wanted you to?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Was it because you thought I didn’t have enough experience for the great Angelo Perino?”

  “Now you are talking like a child,” he said.

  She came toward him, her clenched fists pummeling at his chest. “I hate you, Mr. Perino! I hate you!”

  He caught her wrists and held her still. She looked up into his face. Suddenly she slumped against him, weeping.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Elizabeth,” he said quietly. “Truly sorry.”

  “I feel like such a fool,” she cried.

  “Don’t,” he said.

  “Leave me alone!” She pulled away from him. “You don’t have to patronize me!”

  “I’m not—”

  “Good-bye, Mr. Perino,” she said frostily.

  He looked at her silently for a moment. “Good-bye, Miss Elizabeth.”

  She stared back at him, then began to cry again and, turning abruptly, ran out into the hall, almost stumbling over Number One’s wheelchair in the corridor.

  “Betsy!” Number One called.

  She didn’t turn back. “Not right now, Great-Grandfather,” she shouted over her shoulder as she ran down
the steps.

  Number One pushed the wheelchair into the open doorway and looked at Angelo. “What the hell is going on here?” he asked irascibly. “When I get on the elevator downstairs, Loren’s girl comes off it looking all upset; when I get up here, Betsy comes storming out of your door, crying like a baby.”

  Angelo stared at him. “Oh, Jesus!”

  Number One looked at him and then began to smile. He pushed the wheelchair through and the door shut behind him. “You look like a man who’s just been caught with his cock out.”

  Angelo swallowed his drink in a single gulp. “Aah, shit!”

  Number One laughed aloud. The more things changed, the more they were the same. He could still remember the last time it happened to him.

  And that was over thirty years ago.

  Chapter Six

  The engine of the big black 1933 Sundancer sedan bearing the license plates L H 1 purred quietly as the chauffeur turned the car off Woodward Avenue onto Factory Road, three and a half blocks before the plant gate. The sidewalks on both sides of the street were filled with men, standing patiently in the cold March drizzle.

  “What’s going on?” Loren asked from the back seat.

  “I don’t know, sir,” the chauffeur replied. “I never seen nothin’ like this before.” He began to slow the car down. As they came nearer to the gate, the lines of men grew thicker, spilling over into the roadway.

  “Turn on the radio,” said Loren. “Maybe we’ll get something on the news.”

  The familiar voice of H. V. Kaltenborn filled the car. “In closing, I would like to repeat to all Americans once again this morning the words President Roosevelt uttered in his Inaugural Address yesterday in Washington. ‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.’

  “They are well worth remembering. This is H. V. Kaltenborn signing off from New York.”

  Another voice came on. “This closes our morning newscast. The next news will be on at noon.”

  They were almost at the gate. “Turn it off,” Loren said.

  The car crawled up to the gate through the men thronged before it. The chauffeur blew the horn. The men looked back and slowly parted to let the car inch its way forward. Two men opened the gate so the car could go through, then closed it.

  Loren rolled down his window. “What happened, Fred?”

  The older guard looked at him. “We advertised in the papers for six machinists, Mr. Hardeman.”

  “Six machinists?” Loren looked back at the crowd. “But there must be at least a couple of hundred out there.”

  “More like a thousand by my reckoning, Mr. Hardeman.”

  “Did we hire them yet?”

  “No, sir. The personnel office doesn’t begin interviewing until nine o’clock.”

  Loren looked at his watch. It was a few minutes after seven. “That means they have to stand out there two more hours in this freezing rain.”

  “Yes, sir,” the guard said. “A lot of them have been here all night since the evening papers came out yesterday.”

  Loren looked back at the crowd. Some of the men held newspapers over their heads to keep off the rain, others had their coats pulled up over their necks across the brims of their hats. Their faces were all the same pale gray of the morning.

  He turned back to the guard. “Call the canteen and have them send a truck down here with hot coffee and doughnuts for them.”

  “I can’t do that, sir,” the guard said uncomfortably. “It’s against the rules.”

  “What rules?” Loren was too surprised for the moment to get angry.

  “From the personnel office,” the guard said in a nervous voice. “They said if we start that we’ll have a lineup of men every morning whether we need help or not, just to get themselves a free breakfast.”

  Loren stared at him without speaking for a moment. “Who made that rule?” he asked finally.

  “I was told that it came from the president’s office,” the guard answered. He was very careful not to mention Junior by name.

  “I see.” Loren drew back into the car. “Drive on,” he said. The chauffeur drove the car behind the administration building into the parking place beside Loren’s private entrance. Loren got out of the car without waiting for him to open the door. The small elevator was in use so he went up the stairs to the second floor, then down the long corridor. He pushed open the door and walked past the startled secretaries into Junior’s office.

  Junior was just putting down the telephone. His voice was excited. “I was just speaking to Washington. There’s talk that the President’s going to call a bank holiday right away!”

  Loren stared down at him. “Did you have breakfast?”

  Junior was bewildered. “Didn’t you hear what I said? The President’s going to close the banks! Do you know what that means?”

  “Did you have breakfast?” Loren repeated.

  “Of course I had breakfast,” Junior answered, annoyed. “What’s that got to do with what I just said? If he closes the banks we’re on the verge of anarchy, a revolution can break out the next day and the Communists will take over the country!”

  “Bullshit!” Loren exploded. “Come over here to the window.”

  Junior got out of his chair and walked over. Loren pointed to the crowd of men beyond the gate. “See them?”

  Junior nodded.

  “Did you sign an order that the canteen was not allowed to give them coffee and doughnuts?”

  “No. That would come out of Warren’s office.”

  “If it came out of Joe Warren’s office that means you approved it. He’s your man.”

  “Father,” Junior’s voice was placating. “How many times do I have to tell you that Joe has nothing but our own best interests at heart? If it weren’t for him, those kidnappers might have got their filthy hands on Anne and Loren Three. And you have to admit that there have been no problems with labor since he took over.

  “Sure, I approved the order but we’re not the only one that has that rule. Half the companies in Detroit have adopted it. Bennett over at Ford says if we don’t keep a firm hand on things, they’ll take over.”

  “Who’ll take over?” Loren’s voice was sarcastic. “And what makes Bennett such an expert? He’s nothing but an ex-sailor.”

  “Joe says that Bennett’s the number one man at Ford. He says that Mr. Ford trusts him implicitly and keeps Edsel in there only for window dressing.”

  “Then the old man has reached his dotage. Edsel’s got more brains than all of them,” Loren said. “I want those men to have coffee and doughnuts.”

  “No, Father,” Junior said stubbornly. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to overrule you on this one. Believe me, I know what I’m doing.”

  “You stupid little shit!” Loren stared at him. “If you like being president of this company, you’ll call that prick Warren in here and see to it that those men out there have coffee and doughnuts.”

  Junior’s face was pale. “No, Father.”

  Loren’s voice went hard and cold. “Then I’ll expect your resignation on my desk in ten minutes.” He turned and started from the office.

  “Father,” Junior’s voice turned him around. “I won’t give it to you.”

  “Then you’re fired!” he snapped.

  “You can’t do that either, Father.” Junior’s voice held a thin edge of bitter triumph. “Along with those notes you signed for the bank loans, you escrowed your voting stock into a trust voted by them until such time as the loans are repaid. And the bank is very satisfied with my management of the company.”

  Loren stared at him speechlessly.

  “Unless you have thirty million dollars in cash to repay their loans, Father, you might as well get used to the idea that I’m the chief operating officer of this company.”

  Loren was still silent.

  “If the idea doesn’t appeal to you,” Junior continued, “I would like to suggest that you might find it much more pleasant if you were to go back to Europe with your F
rench whore.”

  “Is that all you have to say?” Loren asked.

  “Not quite,” Junior answered. He was very sure of himself now. “I hadn’t intended to raise the issue this soon but since we’re speaking frankly, we may as well face it.

  “We’ve managed quite well the past three years while you’ve been away. Now that you’ve returned with a wild idea to rejuvenate the automobile business with a new low-priced car, I might as well inform you that the matter has been completely gone into by both the board of directors and the banks. There is unanimous agreement among them to reject your plan. They have no intention of committing another twenty million dollars to experimentation in this kind of market with industry sales peaking at about a million and a half cars this year. Now that we have the automobile division under control we plan to eliminate further losses on that end by going into subcontracting bodies for Ford. Bennett was kind enough to give us a contract for one hundred thousand units since they’ve been having problems with Briggs. For the first time in two years we’ll be in the black and everybody likes it.”

  “You haven’t changed, have you?” Loren said. “When you were a little boy you used to hide behind your mother’s skirts, now you’re hiding behind Harry Bennett.”

  “It’s merely good business,” said Junior. “We’re guaranteed a profit without risking a penny of our own.”

  “You’re also delivering your company into the hands of Bennett. Before long he will be able to dictate everything you want to do and all he will have to do to close you up is cut you off.” Loren’s voice was sober. “Even you have to see that. The only chance we have to stay alive is to stay independent.”

  Junior laughed. “I’m afraid you’ve lost touch with reality, Father. See those lines out there? I’ve been watching them grow for three years now. Do you think any of them can afford to buy our cars?”

  Loren stared at him. “I’m sorry, Junior,” he said reluctantly. He began to tug at his leather trouser belt. “I guess you’re still a child and will have to be treated like one.” The belt came free and, holding it in his hand, he started toward Junior.