Wheels

  Of course—as Matt Zaleski knew—there were dangers in scheduling “specials,” particularly if a car happened to be for a plant executive. A few workers always had grievances, real or imagined, against management and were delighted at a chance to “get even with the boss.” Then the legendary soft drink bottle, left loose inside a rocker panel so it would rattle through a car’s lifetime, was apt to become reality. A loose tool or chunk of metal served the same purpose. Another trick was to weld the trunk lid closed from inside; a skilled welder, reaching through the back seat could do it in seconds. Or a strategic bolt or two might be left untightened. These were reasons why Matt and others like him used fictitious names when putting their own cars through production.

  Matt put the next day’s schedule down. There had been no need to review it, anyway, since he had gone over it earlier in the day.

  It was time to go home. As he rose from the desk, he thought again of Barbara and wondered where she was. He was suddenly very tired.

  On his way down from the mezzanine, Matt Zaleski was aware of some kind of a disturbance—shouting, the sound of running feet. Automatically, because most things which happened in the plant were his business, he stopped, searching for the source. It appeared to be near the south cafeteria. He heard an urgent cry: “For God’s sake get somebody from Security!”

  Seconds later, as he hurried toward the disturbance, he heard sirens approaching from outside.

  A janitor who discovered the huddled bodies of the two vending machine collectors and Frank Parkland, had the good sense to go promptly to a telephone. By the time Matt Zaleski heard the shouts, which were from others who had come on the scene subsequently, an ambulance, plant security men, and outside police were already on the way.

  But Matt still reached the janitor’s closet on the lower floor before any of the outside aid. Bulling his way through an excited group around it, he was in time to see that one of the three recumbent forms was that of Frank Parkland whom Matt had last seen at the foremen’s meeting about an hour and a half before. Parkland’s eyes were closed, his skin ashen, except where blood had trickled through his hair and clotted on his face.

  One of the night shift office clerks who had run in with a first-aid kit, now lying unused beside him, had Parkland’s head cradled in his lap and was feeling for a pulse. The clerk looked up at Matt. “I guess he’s alive, Mr. Zaleski; so’s one of the others. Though I wouldn’t want to say for how long.”

  Security and the ambulance people had come in then, and taken charge. The local police—uniformed men first, then plainclothes detectives—quickly joined them.

  There was little for Matt to do, but he could no longer leave the plant, which had been sealed by a cordon of police cars. Obviously the police believed that whoever perpetrated the murder-robbery—it had been confirmed that one of the three victims was dead—might still be inside.

  After a while, Matt returned to his office on the mezzanine where he sat, mentally numbed and listless.

  The sight of Frank Parkland, who was clearly gravely hurt, had shocked Matt deeply. So had the knife protruding from the body of the man with the Indian face. But the dead man had been unknown to Matt, whereas Parkland was his friend. Though the assistant plant chief and foreman had had run-ins, and once—a year ago—exchanged strong words, such differences had been the result of work pressures. Normally, they liked and respected each other.

  Matt thought: Why did it have to happen to a good man? There were others he knew over whom he would have grieved less.

  At that moment, precisely, Matt Zaleski became aware of a sudden breathlessness and a fluttering in his chest, as if a bird were inside, beating its wings and trying to get out. The sensation frightened him. He sweated with the same kind of fear he had known years before in B-17F bombers over Europe when the German flak was barreling up, and now, as then, he knew it was the fear of death.

  Matt knew, too, he was having some kind of attack and needed help. He began thinking in a detached way: He would telephone, and whoever came and whatever was done, he would ask them to send for Barbara because there was something he wanted to tell her. He was not sure exactly what, but if she came the words would find themselves.

  The trouble was, when he made up his mind to reach for the telephone, he discovered he no longer had the power to move. Something strange was happening to his body. On the right side there was no feeling any more; he seemed to have no arm or leg, or any idea where either was. He tried to cry out but found, to his amazement and frustration, he could not. Nor, when he tried again, could he make any sound at all.

  Now he knew what it was that he wanted to tell Barbara: That despite the differences they had had, she was still his daughter and he loved her, just as he had loved her mother, whom Barbara resembled in so many ways. He wanted to say, too, that if they could somehow resolve their present quarrel he would try to understand her, and her friends, better from now on …

  Matt discovered he did have some feeling and power of movement in his left side. He tried to get up, using his left arm as a lever, but the rest of his body failed him and he slid to the floor between the desk and chair. It was in that position he was found soon after, conscious, his eyes mirroring an agony of frustration because the words he wanted to say could find no exit route.

  Then, for the second time that night, an ambulance was summoned to the plant.

  “You’re aware,” the doctor at Ford Hospital said to Barbara next day, “that your father had a stroke before.” She told him, “I know now. I didn’t until today.”

  This morning, a plant secretary, Mrs. Einfeld, had reported, conscience-stricken, Matt Zaleski’s mild attack a few weeks earlier when she had driven him home and he persuaded her to say nothing. The company’s Personnel department had passed the information on.

  “Taken together,” the doctor said, “the two incidents fit a classic pattern.” He was a specialist—a cardiologist—balding and sallow-faced, with a slight tic beneath one eye. Like so many in Detroit, Barbara thought, he looked as if he worked too hard.

  “If my father hadn’t concealed the first stroke, would it have changed anything?”

  The specialist shrugged. “Perhaps; perhaps not. He’d have received medication, but the end result could have been the same. Either way, the question’s academic now.”

  They were in an annex to an intensive care unit of the hospital. Through a glass window she could see her father in one of the four beds inside, a red rubber tube running from his mouth to a gray-green respirator on a stand close by. The respirator, wheezing evenly, was breathing for him. Matt Zaleski’s eyes were open and the doctor had told Barbara that although her father was presently under sedation, at other times he could undoubtedly see and hear. She wondered if he was aware of the young black woman, also in extremis, in the bed nearest to him.

  “It’s probable,” the doctor said, “that at some earlier period your father sustained valvular heart damage. Then, when he had the first mild stroke, a small clot broke off from the heart and went to the right side of his brain which, in a right-handed person, controls the body’s left side.

  It was all so impersonal, Barbara thought, as if a routine piece of machinery were being described, and not the sudden breakdown of a human being.

  The cardiologist went on: “With the kind of stroke which your father had first, almost certainly the recovery was only apparent. It wasn’t a real recovery. The body’s fail-safe mechanism remained damaged and that was why the second stroke, to the left side of the brain, produced the devastating effect it did last night.”

  Barbara had been with Brett last night when a message was telephoned that her father had had a sudden stroke and been rushed to the hospital. Brett had driven her there, though he waited outside. “I’ll come if you need me,” he had said, taking her hand reassuringly before she went in, “but your old man doesn’t like me, anyway, and being ill isn’t going to change his mind. It might upset him more if he saw me with you.”


  On the way to the hospital, Barbara had had a guilty feeling, wondering how much her own act of leaving home precipitated whatever had happened to her father. Brett’s gentleness, of which she saw more each day and loved him increasingly for, underlined the tragedy that the two men she cared most about had failed to know each other better. On balance, she believed her father mainly to blame; just the same, Barbara wished now that she had telephoned him, as she had considered doing several times since their estrangement.

  At the hospital last night they had let her speak to her father briefly, and a young resident told her, “He can’t communicate with you, but he knows you’re there.” She had murmured the things she expected Matt would want to hear: that she was sorry about his illness, would not be far away, and would come to the hospital frequently. While speaking, Barbara had looked directly into his eyes and while there was no flicker of recognition she had an impression the eyes were straining to tell her something. Was it imagination? She wondered again now.

  Barbara asked the cardiologist, “What are my father’s chances?”

  “Of recovery?” He looked at her interrogatively.

  “Yes. And please be completely candid. I want to know.”

  “Sometimes people don’t …”

  “I do.”

  The cardiologist said quietly, “Your father’s chances of any substantial recovery are nil. My prognosis is that he will be a hemiplegic invalid as long as he lives, with complete loss of power on the right side, including speech.”

  There was a silence, then Barbara said, “If you don’t mind, I’d like to sit down.”

  “Of course.” He guided her to a chair. “It’s a big shock. If you like, I’ll give you something.”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “You had to know sometime,” the doctor said, “and you asked.”

  They looked, together, through the window of the intensive care unit, at Matt Zaleski, still recumbent, motionless, the machine breathing for him.

  The cardiologist said, “Your father was with the auto industry, wasn’t he? In a manufacturing plant, I believe.” For the first time, the doctor seemed warmer, more human than before.

  “Yes.”

  “I get a good many patients from that source. Too many.” He motioned vaguely beyond the hospital walls toward Detroit. “It’s always seemed to me like a battleground out there, with casualties. Your father, I’m afraid, was one.”

  27

  No aid was to be given Hank Kreisel in the manufacture or promotion of his thresher.

  The decision, by the board of directors’ executive policy committee, reached Adam Trenton in a memo routed through the Product Development chief, Elroy Braithwaite.

  Braithwaite brought in the memo personally and tossed it on Adam’s desk. “Sorry,” the Silver Fox said, “I know you were interested. You turned me on, too, and you might like to know we were in good company because the chairman felt the same way.”

  The last news was not surprising. The chairman of the board was noted for his wide-ranging interests and liberal views, but only on rare occasions did he make autocratic rulings and obviously this had not been one.

  The real pressure for the negative decision, Adam learned later, came from the executive vice-president, Hub Hewitson, who swayed the triumvirate—the chairman, president, and Hewitson himself—which comprised the executive policy committee.

  Reportedly, Hub Hewitson argued on the lines: The company’s principal business was building cars and trucks. If the thresher didn’t look like a money-making item to farm products division, it should not be foisted on any segment of the corporation merely on public-spirited grounds. As to extramural activities generally, there were already enormous problems in coping with public and legislative pressures for increased safety, less air pollution, employment of the disadvantaged, and kindred matters.

  The argument concluded: We are not a philanthropic body but a private enterprise whose objective is to make profits for shareholders.

  After brief discussion, the president supported Hub Hewitson’s view, so that the chairman was outnumbered, and conceded.

  “It’s been left to us to inform your friend, Kreisel,” the Silver Fox told Adam, “so you’d better do it.”

  On the telephone Hank Kreisel was philosophic when Adam gave him the news. “Figured the odds weren’t the greatest. Thanks, anyway.”

  Adam asked, “Where do you go from here?”

  “Can raise dough in more than one oven,” the parts manufacturer said cheerfully. But Adam doubted if he would—at least, for the thresher, in Detroit.

  He told Erica about the decision over dinner that evening. She said, “I’m disappointed because it was a dream with Hank—a good one—and I like him. But at least you tried.”

  Erica seemed in good spirits; she was making a conscious effort, Adam realized, even though, almost two weeks after her arrest for shoplifting, and release, their relationship was still unclear, their future undecided.

  The day following the painful experience at the suburban police station, Erica had declared, “If you insist on asking a lot more questions, though I hope you won’t, I’ll try to answer them. Before you do, though, I’ll tell you I’m sorry, most of all, for getting you involved. And if you’re worrying about my doing the same thing again—don’t. I swear there’ll never be anything like it as long as I live.”

  He had known she meant it, and that the subject could be closed. But it had seemed a right time to tell Erica about the job offer from Perce Stuyvesant and the fact that Adam was considering it seriously. He added, “If I do accept, it will mean a move, of course—to San Francisco.”

  Erica had been incredulous. “You’re considering leaving the auto industry?”

  Adam had laughed, feeling curiously lightheaded. “If I didn’t, there’d be problems about dividing my time.”

  “You’d do that for me?”

  He answered quietly, “Perhaps it would be for both of us.”

  Erica had seemed dazed, shaking her head in disbelief, and that subject had been dropped too. However, Adam had telephoned Perce Stuyvesant next day to say he was still interested, but would not be able to fly West until after the Orion’s debut in September, now barely a month away. Sir Perceval had agreed to wait.

  Another thing that had happened was that Erica moved back into their bedroom from the guest room, at Adam’s suggestion. They had even essayed some sex, but there was no escaping that it was not as successful as in the old days, and both knew it. An ingredient was missing. Neither was sure exactly what it was; the only thing they knew with certainty was that in terms of their marriage they were marking time.

  Adam hoped there would be a chance for them both to talk things over—away from Detroit—during two days of stock car racing they would be attending soon in Talladega, Alabama.

  28

  A page one banner headline of the Anniston Star (“Alabama’s Largest Home-Owned Newspaper”) proclaimed:

  300 GOES AT 12:30

  The news story immediately following began:

  Today’s Canebreak 300, as well as tomorrow’s Talladega 500, promise some of the hottest competition in stock car racing history.

  For the grueling 300-mile race today, and even tougher 500-miler Sunday, super fast cars and drivers have pushed qualifying speeds close to 190 mph.

  What drivers, car owners, mechanics, and auto company observers now wonder is how the power-packed racers will act over the 2.66 mile trioval of Alabama International Speedway, at those speeds, when 50 cars are fighting for position on the track …

  Lower on the same page was a sidebar story:

  Severe Blood Shortage

  Will Not Diminish

  Big Race Precautions

  Local alarm had been manifest (so the secondary news story said) because of an area Blood Bank shortage. The shortage was critical “because of the possibility of serious injuries to race drivers and a need for transfusions over Saturday’s and Sunday’s racin
g.”

  Now, to conserve supplies, all elective surgery at Citizens Hospital for which use of blood was predicted had been postponed until after the weekend. Additionally, appeals were being made to race visitors and residents to donate blood at a special clinic, opening Saturday at 8 A.M. Thus, a supply of blood for racing casualties would be assured.

  Erica Trenton, who read both news reports while breakfasting in bed at the Downtowner Motor Inn, Anniston, shuddered at the implications of the second, and turned to the paper’s inside pages. Among other race news on page three was an item:

  New ‘Orion’ on Display

  This One’s a ‘Concept’

  The Orion’s manufacturers, it was reported, were being close-mouthed about how nearly the “styling concept” model, currently on view at Talladega, resembled the soon-to-appear, real Orion. However, public interest had been high, with prerace crowds thronging the infield area where the model could be seen.

  Adam would have had that news by now, Erica was sure.

  They had come here together yesterday, having flown in on a company plane from Detroit, and this morning Adam left their suite at the motor inn early—almost two hours ago—to visit the Speedway pit area with Hub Hewitson. The executive vice-president, who was the senior company officer attending the two-day race meet, had a rented helicopter at his disposal, which had picked up Hewitson and Adam, and later several more. The same helicopter would make a second series of trips shortly before race time to collect Erica and a few other company wives.