Finally, he made it almost to a sitting-up position in the bed, his wide, agonized eyes staring at her. The words seemed to come thickly from his lips. “Melanie! I’m sick. Call the doctor!”
Then slowly, as if the words had taken all the strength he had, he began to tumble forward. She leaped to catch him, but his weight proved too much for her and he slipped from her arms and rolled heavily to the floor.
“Loren!” she screamed.
The Detroit evening papers the next day carried banner headlines and pictures of what came to be known as the Battle of River Rouge. Bennett’s flying squad descended upon the unsuspecting union organizers in force. Frankensteen and Walter Reuther were in the hospital, the latter with a back broken in three places after being dragged down a flight of thirty-six steps. Several others were also hospitalized, among them a pregnant woman who had been kicked in the stomach. But perhaps what incensed the press even more was that after Bennett’s boys had finished with the union people they turned on the reporters and photographers, working them over and breaking cameras. It was reported by them as one of the most disgraceful episodes in the history of American labor relations.
Because of the tremendous news impact of the River Rouge story across the nation, the story about Loren Hardeman was relegated to the inside pages. There was a small headline in column four of page two of The New York Times of May 27th, 1937.
LOREN HARDEMAN ILL
Detroit, May 26—Loren Hardeman I, chairman of the board and founder of Bethlehem Motors, is resting comfortably in a Detroit hospital, doctors report, after an operation for the removal of a benign brain tumor which had been troubling Mr. Hardeman for some years.
Chapter Fourteen
John Bancroft, vice-president of sales, Bethlehem Motors, swiveled around in his chair as Angelo came into his office. He rose, the salesman’s smile broad on his face, his hand outstretched. “Angelo! It’s good to see you.”
His grip was a salesman’s grip. Firm, hearty, impersonally friendly. Angelo returned his smile. “Good to see you, John.”
“Sit down,” Bancroft said, returning to his seat behind his desk.
Angelo sat down silently and lit a cigarette. He came right to the point. “I got your message. I’m here.”
Bancroft looked uncomfortable. “I’m glad you came. We have problems.”
“I know that,” Angelo said. “What’s so special about yours?”
“I’m starting to lose dealers.”
“Why?” The surprise was evident in Angelo’s voice. “I thought we had more requests for new dealerships than we ever had before.”
“We have,” Bancroft admitted. “But they’re all fringe dealerships. Used-car men trying to upgrade, foreign-car dealers who are not making out too well with their own lines trying to get in on something new. The big problem is that ninety percent of them haven’t enough money to back up their sales with an adequate service department. The other ten percent check out all right, but most of those are in areas where we are already well represented.”
“That still doesn’t add up to losing dealers,” Angelo said.
A worried look knitted the salesman’s brow. “In the last two months I’ve been getting letters from our established dealers. Some of them with us ever since the company started. They’re beginning to worry about discontinuing the Sundancer. They’re afraid the Betsy won’t hold their place in the market for them. I’ve got almost four hundred letters like that.” He paused for a deep breath. “But what’s even worse, we’ve gotten cancellation notices from about ninety dealers. Chrysler, Dodge and Plymouth got about half of them, Pontiac and Buick about thirty, American Motors about ten, Mercury four, and Olds one.” Despite the air-conditioning, he mopped his brow. “They were all good producers. God only knows if the new ones can match them.”
Angelo dragged on the cigarette. After a moment, he spoke. “I don’t get it. The Mazda Rotary with the Wankel engine has dealers begging for it from coast to coast and we have trouble. What is it?”
“Most of them are probably the same fringe dealers who are coming to us. They’ll take a shot at anything new. Besides Mazda is trying to crack the American market. They’re supplying financing for the service departments.” He looked across the desk at Angelo. “If we had to do that we’d need another fifty million dollars to spread across the country. That’s why Mazda is concentrating only in California and Florida. If they can take off in those markets and build up a demand, they hope they won’t have to finance the rest of the country.”
Angelo nodded. “And we’re locked in. We’ve got to go across the country in one shot because we’re already there.”
“Now you’re getting it,” Bancroft said.
Angelo put out his cigarette. “What do we do?”
“I can give you my answer from a sales point of view. I can’t answer for your production problems.”
“Go ahead,” said Angelo.
Bancroft’s voice was deliberate. “One, don’t discontinue the Sundancer. That will keep the dealers from worrying too much. Two, follow the Japanese plan for infiltrating the market by concentrating on limited testing areas and building up demand. If it takes off, we can expand slowly and in two or three years, when we’re in solid, drop the Sundancer.”
“And if we drop the Sundancer now?”
“My best guess is that we’ll lose a net of six hundred more dealers after picking up the new ones.”
Angelo got out of his chair and walked thoughtfully to the window. “I need the Sundancer plant to build the Betsy engines.”
“I know that,” Bancroft said. “But with only about seven hundred dealers left throughout the country we’re out of business even before the car is on the market.”
Angelo knew what he meant. They had averaged out the dealerships at four new cars a week, counting on at least fifteen hundred dealerships. That was six thousand cars a week, three hundred thousand a year. They broke even at two hundred and twenty thousand units. Seven hundred dealers would only add up to one hundred and forty thousand units and that would be disaster. A one-hundred-and-sixty-million-dollar loss the first year.
He walked back to Bancroft’s desk. “Who else have you told about this?”
Bancroft returned his gaze steadily. “Nobody. I just put the figures together and you’re the first one I’ve talked to about it. But Loren Three returns from his honeymoon tomorrow and I have to alert him before the board meeting on Friday.”
Angelo nodded. The Friday board meeting was for the express purpose of reaching a decision about the Sundancer. “I appreciate your telling me, John.”
The salesman smiled. “Look, Angelo, you know I believe in the Betsy as much as you do. But I can’t make the arithmetic work.”
“I understand,” Angelo said. “Let me give it some thought. Thank you, John.”
He was halfway down the corridor to his own office when the thought struck him. He turned and went back to the sales manager.
Bancroft was on the telephone. He looked up in surprise at Angelo’s return. He finished his call and put down the phone.
Angelo said, “Doesn’t it seem strange to you that suddenly, in the last two months, you begin to get dealer letters all bearing the same message?”
“I don’t know,” Bancroft answered. “I never really thought about it. We usually go through something like this at the end of every car year.”
“As many letters?”
Bancroft shook his head. “No. Normally we get like twenty to forty or fifty. Usually from dealers who blew their quotas and are looking to squeeze us. All companies go through the same thing.”
“Have you read all the letters?”
Bancroft shook his head. “I have to. That’s my job.”
“Is there any one particular item or thought that seems to be almost the same language common to the letters?”
Bancroft looked thoughtful for a moment. He pressed the intercom on his telephone. “Bring in the file on the last batch of deale
r letters.”
A moment later his secretary came in with several folders in her hand. She placed them on his desk and left the office. John opened the folders and began glancing through them.
Angelo waited silently as the sales manager skimmed through letter after letter. Almost ten minutes passed before Bancroft looked up, a strange look on his face. He looked down at the letters again, this time picking up a pencil and circling lines in several of the letters in red. A moment later he handed some of them to Angelo. “Just read those lines.”
The language was different in each of the letters but the thought was basically the same. They were all concerned that the turbine engine could prove dangerous and might explode at high speeds.
John was still marking letters when Angelo spoke. “It’s beginning to make sense.”
Bancroft put down his pencil and looked up at him. “What do you mean?”
“Did you ever hear of an outfit called the Independent Automobile Safety Organization?”
“Yeah. It’s run by a slimy bastard by the name of Mark Simpson. I threw him out of my office a half a dozen times but he keeps coming back every year.”
“What’s he looking for?”
“Basically it’s a shakedown, I guess.” Bancroft reached for a cigarette and lit it. He pushed the pack toward Angelo. “But he’s clever about it. He runs this rag which is sent out to a national mailing list; it gives a phony evaluation of cars and makes a great point of its honesty because it doesn’t accept advertising.”
“What does he do?”
“I’m not quite clear,” Bancroft said. “I never got that far into it with him. As near as I can make out, however, he either owns or has interests in some used-car lots across the country. You know the kind. Dealer dumps. Really new cars but with fifty to a hundred miles on them to qualify as used. He intimated that if a hundred Sundancers were made available to him, the car would get a good rating. That’s when I threw him out of the office.”
“Do you know if any of the companies do business with him?”
“None of them. They don’t like him any better than we do.”
“Then how does he stay in business?”
“Dealer pressure on the local level,” Bancroft answered. “Dealers are always running scared. They figure giving him a few cars won’t hurt and besides it helps them make their quota.”
“I have a feeling he’s the man behind this,” said Angelo. “We found out he was the man behind our trouble out West.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Bancroft said. “Simpson doesn’t do anything unless there’s something in it for him. What the hell can he gain by keeping the Betsy off the market?”
“That’s what I’d like to find out,” Angelo answered. “The kind of campaign he’s running has got to cost a lot of money. From the looks of it he’s getting all around the country.”
“Where do you think he’s getting it?” Bancroft asked. “He’s not the kind of man who puts out on spec.”
Angelo looked at him. “I don’t know. But whoever he’s getting it from doesn’t want us to get the Betsy on the road.”
“It’s not the other companies,” Bancroft said. “I know that. They’re happy to let us do the pioneering. Do you think it might be the gasoline outfits?”
Angelo shook his head. “No. We’ve already got arrangements made with all the national gasoline chains. They’ve agreed to have kerosene pumps at all their stations when we come out on the market.”
They both fell silent. Angelo walked to the window. A freight train was pulling from the yards, filled with automobiles, their colors shining brightly in the sun. He watched the train move slowly out of the yard and then went back to Bancroft’s desk.
“You get on the phone and talk to every one of those dealers,” he said. “Find out if Simpson or anyone connected with him actually spoke to them.”
“What good will that do?”
“There has to be something illegal about what he’s doing and maybe we can prove it. Slander, libel. I don’t know. I’m going to turn that over to the lawyers and let them figure it out.” He took a cigarette from the package on Bancroft’s desk. “Meanwhile you reassure them that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the car. Tell them about our tests.”
“They’ll think I’m bullshitting them,” John said. “Simpson’s line seems to back up the trouble we had when Peerless killed himself; and they read all about that in the papers.”
“Then you invite every one of them to come out to our testing grounds at our expense and actually see how the car performs,” said Angelo. “That ought to convince them.”
“I don’t know whether it will convince them,” Bancroft said. “But they sure as hell will come. I’ve never known a dealer yet who turned down an all-expense-paid trip to anywhere, even if it was only across town.”
Angelo laughed. “I’ll leave that to you. Meanwhile I’ll see what I can learn on my end. We’re not dead yet.”
“I’m beginning to feel better,” Bancroft said. “At least we’re doing something instead of just being sitting ducks.” He rose to his feet. “We still can’t afford to ignore any of this.”
“I don’t intend to,” Angelo said. He looked at the sales manager. “I didn’t take on this job to destroy this company and I intend to do what’s best for it, whether or not it fits into my personal preferences.”
Chapter Fifteen
Prince Igor Alekhine awoke with the sunlight flooding into the windows of his room overlooking the blue waters of the Mediterranean. He leaped from his bed, smiling, went over to the windows, throwing them wide, and breathed deeply of the sweet morning air. He tugged at the pull cord for the butler to bring his coffee and began to do his morning sit-ups.
Religiously, in front of the window, every morning. Inhale, two, three, four. Exhale, two, three, four. Each time swinging his arms wide. Twenty times. Then the push-ups. Up, two, three, four. Down, two, three, four. Also twenty times.
By then the butler appeared with the coffee and the morning newspapers. The local Nice Matin and the Paris Herald Tribune. The butler placed the tray on the small table near the window. “Will there be anything else this morning, sir?” he asked as he had a thousand times before.
“Twenty.” Igor looked up. He got to his feet, breathing slightly from the exertion. He looked down at his stomach. Flat and hard. Not bad for a man of fifty. He smiled at the butler. “I don’t think so, James.”
It didn’t matter that the butler’s name was François. Once they were employed by the prince, they all became James. “Thank you, sir,” he said, his face expressionless. He turned to go.
Igor called him back. “Is the princess awake yet?”
“I don’t think so, master,” the butler answered. “We haven’t received her signal in the kitchen as yet.”
“Let me know as soon as you hear from her,” he said.
“Yes, master.” The butler left the room.
Igor walked to the table, and still standing, poured a cup of coffee. He raised the coffee to his lips at the same time flipping open the Herald Tribune to the stock market report. His experienced eye glanced down the columns quickly. Automotives, steady. Metals, steady. AT&T, Eastman Kodak, relatively unchanged. Dow Jones Index up, .09. He put the paper back on the table and took his coffee cup to the window and looked out. All was well with the world.
A yacht was heading toward Monte Carlo, the white sails billowing in the wind as it skimmed the calm blue waters. Another power yacht was going by, heading for its berth in Beaulieu sur Mer. It looked like a good day to be out on the water. He would ask Anne when she awakened whether she would like to have lunch aboard the yacht. Until then, he might as well have a swim and work on his tan. She rarely awoke before eleven thirty.
He took the elevator all the way down to the private beach. He came out of the building, his eyes blinking in the sun. He looked back up at the villa.
It loomed five stories tall. It was built of native Pyraneean ston
e in a group of turretlike buildings into the side of the cliff that descended from the Bas Corniche to the water’s edge. Inside the house, the rooms were on different levels, each turret connected to the other by an interior archway. It was a crazy house but he loved it. It was the nearest thing to a castle that he could build on this property.
He walked out on the edge of the small dock and knifed his way into the water. The cold caught his breath deep inside him. He came up sputtering. Damn, it was June and the water was still freezing. He began to swim vigorously and by the time he was back on the dock twenty minutes later, he felt warm and glowing.
He climbed the short stairway to the pool terrace and took a towel from the cabana. Rubbing himself vigorously, he went behind the bar and pressed the intercom switch to the kitchen.
“Yes, master?” The butler’s voice echoed hollowly from the box.
“Bring some coffee to the pool, James,” he ordered. He flipped off the switch and came out from behind the bar. He went around the side of the small building to the pool. It wasn’t until then that he saw her.
A broad smile came to his lips. He liked his niece. “Good morning, Betsy,” he said heartily. “You’re up early.”
Betsy sat up on the matelas, her hands holding the straps of her brassiere to her breasts. “Good morning, Uncle Igor,” she said.
He laughed. “For all the cover you get from that bikini, you don’t have to be so nervous.”
She didn’t smile, instead fastening the strap.
He turned and looked out at the water. “Another beautiful day on the Riviera.” He waved his arms. He turned back to her. “It’s hard to believe sometimes with all the trouble there is in the world that here the sun is shining.”
She was silent.
He looked at her. It was not like her to be so quiet. “Are you all right?” he asked. Then he remembered. “Weren’t you supposed to go sailing this morning?”
The Betsy (1971) Page 29
