Big Money (40 page)

One night when he'd taken Bill Cermak, who was now a foreman at the Flint plant, over to a roadhouse the other side of Windsor to talk to him about the trouble they were having with molders and diemakers, after they'd had a couple of whiskies, Charley found himself instead asking Bill about married life. “Say, Bill, do you ever have trouble with your wife?”

“Sure, boss,” said Bill, laughing. “I got plenty trouble. But the old lady's all right, you know her, nice kids good cook, all time want me to go to church.”

“Say, Bill, when did you get the idea of callin' me boss? Cut it out.”

“Too goddam rich,” said Bill.

“S——t, have another whiskey.” Charley drank his down. “And beer chasers like in the old days. . . . Remember that Christmas party out in Long Island City and that blonde at the beerparlor. . . . Jesus, I used to think I was a little devil with the women. . . . But my wife she don't seem to get the idea.”

“You have two nice kids already; what the hell, maybe you're too ambitious.”

“You wouldn't believe it . . . only once since little Peaches was born.”

“Most women gets hotter when they're married a while. . . . That's why the boys are sore at your damned efficiency expert.”

“Stauch? Stauch's a genius at production.”

“Maybe, but he don't give the boys any chance for reproduction.” Bill laughed and wiped the beer off his mouth.

“Good old Bill,” said Charley. “By God, I'll get you on the board of directors yet.”

Bill wasn't laughing any more. “Honestly, no kiddin'. That damn squarehead make the boys work so hard they can't get a hard on when they go to bed, an' their wives raise hell with 'em. I'm strawboss and they all think sonofabitch too, but they're right.”

Charley was laughing. “You're a squarehead yourself, Bill, and I don't know what I can do about it, I'm just an employee of the company myself. . . . We got to have efficient production or they'll wipe us out of business. Ford's buildin' planes now.”

“You'll lose all your best guys. . . . Slavedrivin' may be all right in the automobile business, but buildin' an airplane motor's skilled labor.”

“Aw, Christ, I wish I was still tinkerin' with that damn motor and didn't have to worry about money all the time. . . . Bill, I'm broke. . . . Let's have another whiskey.”

“Better eat.”

“Sure, order up a steak . . . anythin' you like. Let's go take a piss. That's one thing they don't charge for. . . . Say, Bill, does it seem to you that I'm gettin' a potbelly? . . . Broke, a potbelly, an' my wife won't sleep with me. . . . Do you think I'm a rummy, Bill? I sometimes think I better lay off for keeps. I never used to pull a blank when I drank.”

“Hell, no, you smart young feller, one of the smartest, a fool for a threepoint landing and a pokerplayer . . . my God.”

“What's the use if your wife won't sleep with you?”

Charley wouldn't eat anything. Bill ate up both their steaks. Charley kept on drinking whiskey out of a bottle he had under the table and beer for chasers. “But tell me . . . your wife, does she let you have it any time you want it? . . . The guys in the shop, their wives won't let 'em alone, eh?”

Bill was a little drunk too. “My wife she do what I say.”

It ended by Bill's having to drive Charley's new Packard back to the ferry. In Detroit Bill made Charley drink a lot of sodawater in a drugstore, but when he got back in the car he just slumped down at the wheel. He let Bill drive him home to Grosse Pointe. Charley could hear Bill arguing with the guards along the road, each one really had to see Mr. Anderson passed out in the back of the car before he'd let Bill through, but he didn't give a hoot, struck him so funny he began to giggle. The big joke was when the houseman had to help Bill get him up to his bedroom. “The boss a little sick, see, overwork,” Bill said each time, then he'd tap his head solemnly. “Too much brain-work.” Charley came to up in his bedroom and was able to articulate muzzily: “Bill, you're a prince. . . . George, call a taxi to take Mr. Cermak home . . . lucky bastard go home to his wife.” Then he stretched out on the bed with one shoe on and one shoe off and went quietly to sleep.

When he came back from his next trip to New York and Washington, he called up Bill at the plant. “Hay, Bill, how's the boy? Your wife still do what you say, ha, ha. Me, I'm terrible, very exhaustin' business trip, understand . . . never drank so much in my life or with so many goddam crooks. Say, Bill, don't worry if you get fired, you're on my private payroll, understand. . . . We're goin' to fire the whole outfit. . . . Hell, if they don't like it workin' for us let 'em try to like it workin' for somebody else. . . . This is a free country. I wouldn't want to keep a man against his will. . . . Look, how long will it take you to tune up that little Moth type, you know, number 16. . . yours truly's Mosquito? . . . Check. . . . Well, if we can get her in shape soon enough so they can use her as a model, see, for their specifications. . . . Jesus, Bill, if we can do that . . . we're on easystreet. . . . You won't have to worry about if the kids can go to college or not . . . goddam it, you an the missis can go to college yourselves. . . . Check.”

Charley put the receiver back on the desk. His secretary Miss Finnegan was standing in the door. She had red hair and a beautiful complexion with a few freckles round her little sharp nose. She was a snappy dresser. She was looking at Charley with her lightbrown eyes all moist and wide as he was laying down the law over the phone. Charley felt his chest puff out a little. He pulled in his belly as hard as he could. “Gosh,” he was saying at the back of his head, “maybe I could lay Elsie Finnegan.” Somebody had put a pot of blue hyacinths
on his desk; a smell of spring came from them that all at once made him remember Bar-le-Duc, and troutfishing up the Red River.

It was a flowerysmelling spring morning again when Charley drove out to the plant from the office to give the Anderson Mosquito its trial spin. He had managed to give Elsie Finnegan a kiss for the first time and had left her crumpled and trembling at her desk. Bill Cermak had said over the phone that the tiny ship was tuned up and in fine shape. It was a relief to get out of the office where he'd been fidgeting for a couple of hours trying to get through a call to Nat Benton's office about some stock he'd wired them to take a profit on. After he'd kissed her he'd told Elsie Finnegan to switch the call out to the trial field for him. It made him feel good to be driving out through the halfbuilt town, through the avenue jammed with trucks full of construction materials, jockeying his car among the trucks with a feeling of shine and strength at the perfect action of his clutch and the smooth response of the gears. The gatekeeper had the New York call for him. The connection was perfect. Nat had banked thirteen grand for him. As he hung up the receiver he thought poor little Elsie, he'd have to buy her something real nice. “It's a great day, Joe, ain't it?” he said to the gatekeeper.

Bill was waiting for him beside the new ship at the entrance to the hangar, wiping grease off his thick fingers with a bunch of waste. Charley slapped him on the back. “Good old Bill. . . . Isn't this a great day for the race?” Bill fell for it. “What race, boss?” “The human race, you fathead. . . . Say, Bill,” he went on as he took off his gloves and his well tailored spring overcoat, “I don't mind tellin' you I feel wonderful today . . . made thirteen grand on the market yesterday . . . easy as rollin' off a log.”

While Charley pulled a suit of overalls on the mechanics pushed the new ship out onto the grass for Bill to make his general inspection. “Jesus, she's pretty.” The tiny aluminum ship glistened in the sun out on the green grass like something in a jeweler's window. There were dandelions and clover on the grass and a swirling flight of little white butterflies went up right from under his black clodhoppers when Bill came back to Charley and stood beside him. Charley winked at Bill Cermak standing beside him in his blue denims stolidly looking at his feet. “Smile, you sonofabitch,” he said. “Don't this weather make you feel good?”

Bill turned a square bohunk face towards Charley. “Now look here,
Mr. Anderson, you always treat me good . . . from way back Long Island days. You know me, do work, go home, keep my face shut.” “What's on your mind, Bill? . . . Want me to try to wangle another raise for you? Check.”

Bill shook his heavy square face and rubbed his nose with a black forefinger. “Tern Company used to be good place to work good work good pay. You know me, Mr. Anderson, I'm no bolshayvik . . . but no stoolpigeon either.”

“But damn it, Bill, why can't you tell those guys to have a little patience . . . we're workin' out a profitsharin' scheme. I've worked on a lathe myself. . . . I've worked as a mechanic all over this goddam country. . . . I know what the boys are up against, but I know what the management's up against too. . . . Gosh, this thing's in its infancy, we're pouring more capital into the business all the time. . . . We've got a responsibility towards our investors. Where do you think that jack I made yesterday's goin' but the business of course. The oldtime shop was a great thing, everybody kidded and smoked and told smutty stories, but the pressure's too great now. If every department don't click like a machine we're rooked. If the boys want a union we'll give 'em a union. You get up a meeting and tell 'em how we feel about it but tell 'em we've got to have some patriotism. Tell 'em the industry's the first line of national defense. We'll send Eddy Sawyer down to talk to 'em . . . make 'em understand our problems.”

Bill Cermak shook his head. “Plenty other guys do that.” Charley frowned. “Well, let's see how she goes,” he snapped impatiently.

“Gosh, she's a honey.”

The roar of the motor kept them from saying any more. The mechanic stepped from the controls and Charley climbed in. Bill Cermak got in behind. She started taxiing fast across the green field. Charley turned her into the wind and let her have the gas. At the first soaring bounce there was a jerk. As he pitched forward Charley switched off the ignition.

They were carrying him across the field on a stretcher. Each step of the men carrying the stretcher made two jagged things grind together in his leg. He tried to tell 'em that he had a piece of something in his side, but his voice was very small and hoarse. In the shadow of the hangar he was trying to raise himself on his elbow. “What the devil happened? Is Bill all right?” The men shook their heads. Then he passed out again like the juice failing in a car.

In the ambulance he tried to ask the man in the white jacket about Bill Cermak and to remember back exactly what had happened, but the leg kept him too busy trying not to yell. “Hay, doc,” he managed to croak, “can't you get these aluminum splinters out of my side? The damn ship must have turned turtle on them. Wing couldn't take it maybe, but it's time they got the motor lifted off me. Hay, doc, why can't they get a move on?”

When he got the first whiff of the hospital, there were a lot of men in white jackets moving and whispering round him. The hospital smelt strong of ether. The trouble was he couldn't breathe. Somebody must have spilt that damned ether. No, not on my face. The motor roared. He must have been seeing things. The motor's roar swung into an easy singsong. Sure, she was taking it fine, steady as one of those big old bombers. When he woke up a nurse was helping him puke into a bowl.

When he woke up again, for chrissake no more ether, no, it was flowers, and Gladys was standing beside the bed with a big bunch of sweetpeas in her hand. Her face had a pinched look. “Hello, Glad, how's the girl?” “Oh, I've been so worried, Charley. How do you feel? Oh, Charley, for a man of your standing to risk his life in practice flights . . . Why don't you let the people whose business it is do it, I declare.” There was something Charley wanted to ask. He was scared about something. “Say, are the kids all right?” “Wheatley skinned his knee and I'm afraid the baby has a little temperature. I've phoned Dr. Thompson. I don't think it's anything though.”

“Is Bill Cermak all right?”

Gladys's mouth trembled. “Oh, yes,” she said, cutting the words off sharply. “Well, I suppose this means our dinnerdance is off. . . . The Edsel Fords were coming.” “Hell, no, why not have it anyway? Yours truly can attend in a wheelchair. Say, they sure have got me in a straitjacket. . . . I guess I busted some ribs.” Gladys nodded; her mouth was getting very small and thin. Then she suddenly began to cry.

The nurse came in and said reproachfully, “Oh, Mrs. Anderson.” Charley was just as glad when Gladys went out and left him alone with the nurse. “Say, nurse, get hold of the doctor, will you? Tell him I'm feeling fine and want to look over the extent of the damage.” “Mr. Anderson, you mustn't have anything on your mind.” “I know, tell Mrs. Anderson I want her to get in touch with the office.” “But it's
Sunday, Mr. Anderson. A great many people have been downstairs but I don't think the doctor is letting them up yet.” The nurse was a freshfaced girl with a slightly Scotch way of talking. “I bet you're a Canadian,” said Charley. “Right that time,” said the nurse. “I knew a wonderful nurse who was a Canadian once. If I'd had any sense I'd have married her.”

The housephysician was a roundfaced man with a jovial smooth manner almost like a headwaiter at a big hotel. “Say, doc, ought my leg to hurt so damn much?” “You see we haven't set it yet. You tried to puncture a lung but didn't quite get away with it. We had to remove a few little splinters of rib” “Not from the lung . . .” “Luckily not.” “But why the hell didn't you set the leg at the same time?” “Well, we're waiting for Dr. Roberts to come on from New York. . . . Mrs. Anderson insisted on him. Of course we are all very pleased, as he's one of the most eminent men in his profession. . . . It'll be another little operation.”