Wheels (32 page)

"The Orion. He okayed add-ons, I'm told. Last minute hot stuff. I'm making
one of 'em
.”

"You are! Which one? The brace or floor reinforcement
.”

"Brace
.”

"Hey, I was in on that! That's a big order
.”

Kreisel gave a twisted grin. "It'll make me or break me. They need five
thousand braces fast, like yesterday. After that, ten thousand a month.
Wasn't sure I wanted the job. Schedule's tough. Still plenty of headaches.
But they figure I'll deliver
.”

Brett already knew of Hank Kreisel's reputation for reliability about
deliveries, a quality which auto company purchasing departments cherished.
One reason for it was a talent for tooling improvisations which slashed
time and cost, and while
not a qualified engineer himself, Kreisel could leapfrog mentally over
many who were.
"I'll be damnedt" Brett said. "You and the Orion
.”

"Shouldn't surprise you. Industry's full of people crossing each other's
bridges. Sometimes pass each other, don't even know it. Everybody sells
to everybody else. GM sells steering gears to Chrysler. Chrysler sells
adhesives to GM and Ford. Ford helps out with Plymouth windshields. I
know a guy, a sales engineer. Lives in Flint, works for General Motors.
Flint's a GM company town. His main customer's Ford in Dearborn-for
engineering design of engine accessories. He takes confidential Ford
stuff to Flint. GM guards it from their own people who'd give their ears
to see it. The guy drives a Ford car-to Ford, his customer. His GM
bosses buy it for him
.”

Elsie replenished Hank Kr
eise
l’
s Bourbon; Brett had declined a drink
earlier.
Brett told the girl, "He's always telling me things I didn't know
.”

"He knows a lot
.”

Her eyes, smiling, switched from the young designer's
to Kreisel's. Brett sensed a private message pass.
"Hey I You two like me to leave
.”

"No hurry
.”

The ex-Marine produced a pipe and lit it. "You want to hear
about parts
.”

He glanced at Elsie. "Not yours, baby
.”

Plainly he meant:
Those are for me.
"Auto parts," Brett said.
"Right
.”

Kreisel gave his twisted grin. "Worked in an auto plant before
I enlisted. After Korea, went back. Was a punch press operator. Then a
foreman
.”

"You've made the big leagues fast
.”

"Too fast, maybe. Anyway, I'd watched how production worked-metal
stampings. The Big Three are all the same. Must have the fanciest
machines, high-priced buildings, big overhead, cafeterias, the rest. All
that stuff makes a two-cent stamping cost a nickel
.”

Hank Kreisel drew on his pipe and wreathed himself in smoke. "So I went
to Purchasing. Saw a guy I know. Told him I figured I could make the
same stuff cheaper. On my own
.”

"Did they finance you
.”

"Not then, not later. Gave me a contract, though. There and then for a
million little washers. When I'd quit my job I had two hundred dollars
cash. No building, no machinery
.”

Hank Kreisel chuckled. "DIdn't sleep
that night. Dead scared. Next day I tore around. Rented an old billiard
hall. Showed a bank the contract and the lease; they loaned me dough to
buy scrap machinery. Then I hired two other guys. The three of us fixed
the machinery up. They ran it. I rushed out, got more orders
.”

He added
reminiscently, "Been rushing ever since
.”

'You're a saga," Brett said. He had seen Hank Kreisel's impressive
Grosse Pointe home, his half dozen bustling plants, the converted
billiard hall still one of them. He supposed, conservatively, Hank
Kreisel must be worth two or three million dollars.
"Your friend in Purchasing," Brett said. "T
h
e one who gave you the first
order. Do you ever see him?,'
"Sure. He's still there-on salary. Same job. Retires soon. I buy him a
meal sometimes
.”

Elsie asked,'What's a saga
.”

Kreisel told her, "It's a guy who makes it to the end of the trail
.”

"A legend," Brett said.
Kreisel shook his head. "Not me. Not yet
.”

He stopped, more thoughtful
suddenly than Brett had seen him at any time before. When he spoke again
his voice was slower, the words less clipped.
"T
h
ere's a thing I'd like to do, and maybe it could add up to something
like that if I could pull it off
.”

Aware of Brett's curiosity, the
ex-Marine shook his head again. "Not now. Maybe one day I'll tell
you
.”

His mood switched back. "So I made parts and made mistakes. Learned a
lot fast. One thing: search out weak spots in the market. Spots where
competition's least. So I ignored new parts; too much infighting.
Started making for repair, replacement, the 'after market.' But only
items no more than twenty inches from the ground. Mostly at front and
rear. And costing less than ten dollars
.”

"Why the restrictions
.”

Kreisel gave his usual knowing grin. "Most minor accidents happen to
fronts and backs of cars. And down below twenty inches, all get damaged
more. So more parts are needed, meaning bigger orders, That's where
parts makers hit paydirt-on long runs.
"And the ten-dollar limit
.”

"Say you're doing a repair job. Something's damaged. Costs more than ten
dollars, you'll try to fix it. Costs less, you'll throw the old part
out, use a replacement. There's where I come in. High volume again
.”

It was so ingeniously simple, Brett laughed aloud.
"I got into accessories later. And something else I learned. Take on
some defense work
.”

'Why
.”

"Most parts people don't want it. Can be difficult. Usually short runs,
not much profit. But can lead to bigger things. And Internal Revenue are
easier on you about tax deductions. They won't admit it
.”

He surveyed
his "Ford liaison office" amusedly. "But I know
.”

"Elsie's right. There's a whole lot you know
.”

Brett rose, glancing at his watch. 'Tack to the chariot factoryl Thanks
for lunch, Elsie
.”

The girl got up too, moved beside him, and took his arm. He was aware
of her closeness, a warmth transmitted through the thinness of her
dress. Her slim, firm body eased away, then once more pressed against
his. Accidentally? He doubted it. His nostrils detected the soft scent
of her hair, and Brett envied Hank Kreisel what he suspected would
happen as soon as he had gone.
Elsie said softly, "Come in any time
.”

"Hey, Hank
!
" Brett said. '-
y
ou hear that invitation
.”

Momentarily the older man looked away, then answered gruffly, "If you
accept, make sure I don't know about it.
Kreisel joined him at the apartment doorway. Elsie had gone back
inside.
"I'll fix that date with Adam," Brett affirmed. "Call you tomorrow
.”

"Okay
.”

The two shook hands.
"About that other," Hank Kreisel said. 'Meant exactly what I told you.
Don't let me know. Understand
.”

"I understand
.”

Brett had already memorized the number on the apartment
telephone, which was unlisted. He had every intention of calling Elsie
tomorrow.
As an elevator carried Brett downward, Hank Kreisel closed and locked
the apartment door from inside.
Elsie was waiting for him in the bedroom. She had undressed and put on
a sheer mini
kimono, held around her by a silk ribbon. Her dark hair,
released, tumbled about her shoulders; her wide mouth smiled, eyes
showing pleasurable knowledge of what was to come. They kissed lightly.
He took his time about unfastening the ribbon, then, opening the
kimono, held her.
After a while she began undressing him, slowly, carefully putting each
garment aside and folding it. He had taught her, as he had taught other
women in the past, that this was not a gesture of servility but a
rite-practiced in the East, where he had learned it first-and a mutual
whetting of anticipation.
When she had finished they lay down together. Elsie had passed Hank a
happi coat which he slipped on; it was one of several he had brought
home from Japan, was growing threadbare from long use, but still served
to prove what Far Easterners knew best: that a garment worn during
sexual mating, however light or loose, heightened a man's and woman's
awareness of each other, and their pleasure.
He whispered, "Love me, baby
!
"
She moaned softly. "Love me, Hank
!
"
He
d
id.

Chapter
fourteen

'You know what this scumbag world is made of, baby
.”

Rollie Knight had
demanded of May Lou yesterday. When she hadn't answered, he told her.
"Bullshit
!
There ain't nuthun' in this whole wide world but bullshit
.”

The remark was prompted by happenings at the car assembly plant where
Rollie was now working. Though he hadn't kept score himself, today was the
beginning of his seventh week of employment.
May Lou was new in his life, too. She was (as Rollie put it) a chick he
had laid during a weekend, while blowing an early paycheck, and more
recently they had shacked up in two rooms of an apartment house on Blaine
near 12th. May Lou was currently spending her days there, messing with
cook pots, furniture and bits of curtaining, making-,Ls a barfly
acquaintance of Rollie's described it-Aike a bush tit in the nest.
Rollie hadn't taken seriously, and still didn't, what he called May Lou's
crapping around at playing house. Just the same he'd given her bread,
which she spent on the two of them, and to get more of the same, Rollie
continued to report most days of the week to the assembly plant.
What started this second go around, after he had copped out of the first
training course, wasin Rollie's words
a big Tom nigger in a fancy Dan
suit, who had turned up one day, saying his name was Leonard Wingate. That
was at Rollie's room in the inner city, and they had a great big gabfest
in which Rollie first told the guy to get lost, go screw hirnielf, he'd
had enough. But the Tom had been persuasive. He went on to explain, while
Rollie listened, fascinated, about the fatso white
bastard of an instructor who put one over with the checks, then got caught.
When Rollie inquired, though, Wingate admitted that the white fatso wasn't
going to jail the way a black man would have done, which proved that all the
bullshit about justice was exactly
that-bullshit!
Even the black Tom,
Wingate, admitted it. And it was just after he had-a bleak, bitter admission
which surprised Rolli
e-that Rollie had somehow, almost before he knew it,
agreed to go to work.

It was Leonard Wingate who had told Rollie he could forget about
completing the rest of the training course. Wingate, it seemed, had looked
up the records which said Rollie was bright and quick-witted, and so
(Wingate said) they would put him straight on the assembly line next week,
starting Monday, doing a regular job.
That (again, as Rollie told it) turned out to be bullshit, too.
Instead of being given a job in one place, which he might have managed,
he was informed he had to be relief man at various stations on the line,
which meant moving back and forth like a blue-assed fly, so that as soon
as he got used to doing one thing, he was hustled over to another, then
to something else, and something else, until his head was spinning. The
same thing went on for the first two weeks so that he hardly knew
since the
instructions he was given were minimal -what he was supposed to be doing
from one minute to the next. Not that he'd have cared that much. Except
for what the black guy, Wingate, had said, Rollie Knight-as usual-was not
expecting anything. But it just showed that nothing they ever promised
worked out the way they said it would. So . . . Bullshit I
Of course, nobody, but nobody, had told him about the speed of the
assembly line. He'd figured that one for himself -the hard way.
222-wheets On the first day at work, when Rollie had his initial view of a final car
assembly line, the line seemed to be inching forward like a snail's funeral. He'd come to the plant early, reporting in with the day shift. The
size of the joint, the mob flooding in from cars, buses, every other kind
of wheels, you name it, scared him to begin with; also, everybody except
himself seemed to know where they were going-all in one helluva hurry -and
why. But he'd found where he had to report, and from there had been sent
to a big, metalroofed building, cleaner than he expected, but noisy. Oh,
man; that noise
!
It was all around you, sounding like a hundred rock bands
on bad trips.
Anyhow, the car line snaked through the building, with the end and
beginning out of sight. And it looked as if there was time aplenty for any
of the guys and broads (a few women were working alongside men) to finish
whatever their job happened to be on one car, rest a drumbeat, then start
work on the next. No sweat
!
For a cool cat with more than air between his
ears, a cincheroo!
In less than an hour, like thousands who had preceded him, Rollie was
grimly wiser.
The foreman he had been handed over to on arrival had said simply,
"Number
.”