Wheels

by Arthur Hailey

  “You sure you can’t? Not for the sake of Teresa and them kids?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Smokey Stephensen rubbed his beard and ruminated. His outward anger had gone, and when he spoke his voice was low, with a note of pleading. “I’ll ask you to do one thing, Adam—and, sure, it’d help me—but you’d be doing it for Teresa.”

  “Doing what?”

  Smokey urged, “Walk out of here right now! Forget what you know about today! Then gimme two months to get finances back in shape because there’s nothing wrong with this business that that amount of time won’t fix. You know it.”

  “I don’t know it.”

  “But you know the Orion’s coming, and you know what it’ll do to sales.”

  Adam hesitated. The reference to the Orion was like a flag planted in his own back yard. If he believed in the Orion, obviously he believed that, with it, Stephensen Motors would do well.

  Adam asked curtly, “Suppose I agreed. What happens at the end of two months?”

  The dealer pointed to the black loose-leaf notebook. “You hand over them notes to your company marketing guys, the way you said you would. So, okay, I’d have to sell out or lose the franchise, but it’d be a growing business that was sold. Teresa’d get twice as much for her half, maybe more, than she would from a forced sale now.”

  Adam hesitated. Though it still involved dishonesty, the compromise held a compelling logic.

  “Two months,” the ex-race driver pleaded. “That ain’t so much to ask.”

  “One month,” Adam said decisively. “One month from today; that’s all.”

  As Smokey visibly relaxed and grinned, Adam knew he had been conned. And now the decision was made, it left Adam depressed because he had acted against his own conscience and good judgment. But he was determined he would turn over to his company’s marketing department, a month from now, the notes on Stephensen Motors.

  Smokey, unlike Adam, was not depressed but buoyant. Though—with a dealer’s instinct—he had asked for two months, he had wanted one.

  In that time a lot might happen; something new could always turn up.

  21

  A svelte United Air Lines ground hostess brought coffee to Brett DeLosanto who was telephoning from United’s 100,000-Mile Club at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. It was close to 9 A.M., and the pleasantly appointed club lounge was quiet in contrast to the noisy, bustling terminal outside. No strident flight announcements were ever made here. The service—as became the VIP crowd—was more personal, and muted.

  “There’s no enormous hurry, Mr. DeLosanto,” the girl said as she put the coffee on a table beside the tilt-back chair in which Brett was reclining while he phoned, “but Flight 81 to Los Angeles will begin boarding in a few minutes.”

  “Thanks!” Brett told Adam Trenton with whom he had been conversing for the past few minutes, “I have to go soon. The bird to Paradise awaits.”

  “Never thought of L.A. as being that,” Adam said.

  Brett sipped his coffee. “It’s part of California, which viewed from Detroit is Paradise whichever way you slice the oranges.”

  Adam was speaking from his office at the company staff building, where Brett had called him. They had been discussing the Orion. A few days ago, with Job One—the first production Orion—only two weeks away, several color matching problems had arisen affecting soft trim inside the car. A design “surveillance group,” which stayed with any new car through all its stages of production, had reported that some interior plastic delivered for manufacture looked “icy”—a serious fault—and upholstery, carpeting, and head lining were not the exact match they ought to be.

  Colors were always a problem. Any car had as many as a hundred separate pieces which must match a color key, yet the materials had differing chemical compositions and pigment bases, making it difficult to achieve identical color shades. Working against a deadline, a design team and representatives from Purchasing and Manufacturing had finally rectified all differences, news just received by Adam with relief.

  Brett had been tempted to mention the newer project, Farstar, on which work was proceeding excitingly on several fronts. But he caught himself in time, remembering he was on an outside telephone, also that this airline club room, where several other passengers relaxed while awaiting flights, was used by executives from competing companies.

  “Something you’ll be pleased to know,” Adam told Brett. “I decided to try to help Hank Kreisel with his thresher. I sent young Castaldy over to Grosse Pointe to look at it; he came back full of enthusiasm, so then I talked with Elroy Braithwaite who seemed favorable. Now, we’re preparing a report for Hub.”

  “Great!” The young designer’s pleasure was genuine. He realized he had let emotion sway judgment in putting pressure on Adam to support Hank Kreisel’s scheme, but so what? More and more, nowadays, Brett believed the auto industry had public obligations it was not fulfilling, and something like the thresher gave the industry a chance to utilize its resources in filling an admitted need.

  “Of course,” Adam pointed out, “the whole thing may never get past Hub.”

  “Let’s hope you pick a ‘cloud of dust’ day to tell him.”

  Adam understood the reference. Hub Hewitson, the company’s executive vice-president, when liking an idea, whirled himself and others into instant, feverish action, raising—as associates put it—clouds of dust. The Orion had been a Hub Hewitson dust cloud, and still was; so had other successes, failures too, though the latter were usually forgotten as fresh Hewitson dust erupted elsewhere.

  “I’ll look out for one of those days,” Adam promised. “Have a good trip.”

  “So long, friend.” Brett swallowed the remainder of his coffee, patted the airline hostess amiably on the rump as he passed her, then headed for the flight departure gate.

  United’s Flight 81—Detroit nonstop to Los Angeles—took off on schedule.

  Like many who live frenetic lives on the ground, Brett enjoyed transcontinental air travel in the luxury of first class. Any such journey assured four or five hours of relaxation, interspersed pleasantly with drinks, good food and service, plus the complacent knowledge of not being reachable by telephone or otherwise, no matter how many urgencies boiled over down below.

  Today, Brett used much of the journey merely to think, reviewing aspects of his life—past, present, future—as he saw them. Thus occupied, the time passed quickly and he was surprised to realize, during an announcement from the flight deck, that nearly four hours had elapsed since takeoff.

  “We’re crossing the Colorado River, folks,” the captain’s voice rattled on the p.a. ‘This is a point where three states meet—California, Nevada, Arizona—and it’s a beautiful day in all of them, with visibility about a hundred miles. Those of you sitting on the right side can see Las Vegas and the Lake Mead area. If you’re on the left, that water down there is Lake Havasu where London Bridge is being rebuilt.”

  Brett, on the port side with a seat section to himself, peered downward. The sky was cloudless and though they were high—at thirty-nine thousand feet—he could see, easily and sharply, the shape of the bridge below.

  “Funny thing about that bridge,” the captain went on chattily. “Story is—the people who bought it from the British got their bridges mixed. They thought they were buying the bridge on all those London travel posters, and no one told them until too late that that one is Tower Bridge, and London Bridge was a bitty old bridge upstream. Ha! ha!”

  Brett continued to look down, knowing from the terrain below that they were now over California. He said aloud, “Forever bless my native state, its sunshine, oranges, screwball politics, religions, and its nuts.”

  A passing stewardess inquired, “Did you say something, sir?” She was young, willowy and tanned, as if her off-duty hours were spent exclusively at the beach.

  “Sure did. I asked, ‘What’s a California girl like you doing for dinner tonight?’”

  She flashed an impish smile. �
�Mostly depends on my husband. Sometimes he likes to eat at home; other times we go …”

  “Okay,” Brett said. “And the hell with women’s lib! At least in the old days, when airlines fired girls who got married, you knew which were the unclipped wing ones.”

  “If it makes you feel any better,” she told him, “if I weren’t going home to my husband, I’d be interested.”

  He was wondering if that piece of blandishment was in the airline stewardess manual when the p.a. system came alive once more.

  “This is your captain again, folks. Guess I should have told you to make the most of that hundred-mile visibility we’ve been enjoying. We’ve just received the latest Los Angeles weather. They’re reporting heavy smog, with visibility in the L.A. area reduced to one mile or less.”

  They would be landing, the captain added, in another fifty minutes.

  The first smog traces were evident over the San Bernardino Mountains. With Flight 81 still sixty miles from the Pacific Coast, Brett, looking out, reflected: Sixty miles! On his last trip, barely a year ago, no smog had appeared until Ontario, another twenty-five miles westward. Each time he came here, it seemed, the photochemical smog spread farther inland over the loveliness of the Golden State like an evil fungus. Their Boeing 720 was losing height now for the approach to Los Angeles International, but instead of landmarks below becoming clearer, they were blurring beneath an increasing gray-brown haze which nullified color, sunshine, seascape. The panoramic view of Santa Monica Bay which approaching air travelers used to behold was mostly, nowadays, a memory. As they continued descending and the smog grew worse, Brett DeLosanto’s mood became increasingly melancholy.

  Ten miles east of the airport, as the captain had predicted, visibility diminished to a mile, so that at 11:30 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, the ground was barely visible.

  After landing, in the United Terminal a brisk young man named Barclay from the company’s regional office was awaiting Brett.

  “I have a car for you, Mr. DeLosanto. We can drive directly to your hotel, or the college if you wish.”

  “Hotel first.” Brett’s official purpose in being here was to visit the Art Center College of Design, Los Angeles, but he would go there later.

  Though the aerial view of his beloved California under its despoiling, filthy blanket had depressed him, Brett’s spirits revived at the sight and sound of the airport’s surging ground traffic at closer quarters. Cars, either singly or en masse, always excited him, especially in California where mobility was a way of life, with more than eleven percent of the nation’s automobiles crammed within the state. Yet the same source had helped create an air pollution which was inescapable; already, Brett felt an irritation of the eyes, his nostrils prickled; without doubt the unclean brume was deeply in his lungs. He asked Barclay, “Has it been as bad as this for long?”

  “About a week. Seems now, a partly clear day is an exception, a real clear one about as rare as Christmas.” The young man wrinkled his nose. “We tell people it isn’t all made by cars, that a lot is industrial haze.”

  “But do we believe it?”

  “Hard to know what to believe, Mr. DeLosanto. Our own people tell us we have engine emission problems licked. Do you believe that?”

  “In Detroit I believe it. When I get here I’m not so sure.”

  What it came down to, Brett knew, was the balance between economics and numbers. It was possible, now, to build a totally emission-free auto engine, but only at high cost which would make the cars employing it as remote from everyday use as a nobleman’s carriage once was from the footslogging peasantry. To keep costs reasonable, engineering compromises had to be made, though even with compromises, present emission control was excellent, and better by far than envisioned only a lustrum ago. Yet sheer numbers—the daily, weekly, monthly, yearly proliferation of cars—undid the end effect, as was smoggily evident in California.

  They were at the car Brett would use during his stay.

  “I’ll drive,” Brett said. He took the keys from Barclay.

  Later, having checked in at the Beverly Hilton, and shed Barclay, Brett drove alone to the Art Center College of Design on West Third Street. CBS Television City towered nearby, with Farmers’ Market huddled behind. Brett was expected, and was received with dual enthusiasm—as a representative of a company which hired many of each year’s graduates, and as a distinguished alumnus himself.

  The relatively small college buildings were, as usual, busily crowded, with all usable space occupied and nothing wasted on frills. The entrance lobby, though small, was an extension of classrooms and perpetually in use for informal conferences, interviews, and individual study.

  The head of Industrial Design, who welcomed Brett amid a buzz of other conversations, told him, “Maybe someday we’ll take time out to plan a quieter cloister.”

  “If I thought there was a chance,” Brett rejoined, “I’d warn you not to. But you won’t. This place should stay the pressure cooker it is.”

  It was an atmosphere he knew well—perpetually work-oriented, with emphasis on professional discipline. “This is not for amateurs,” the college catalogue declared, “this is for real.” Unlike many schools, assignments were arduously demanding, requiring students to produce, produce … over days, nights, weekends, holidays … leaving little time for extra interests, sometimes none. Occasionally, students protested at the unrelenting stress, and a few dropped out, but most adjusted and, as the catalogue put it too: “Why pretend that the life they are preparing for is easy? It is not and never will be”

  The emphasis on work and unyielding standards were reasons why auto makers respected the college and kept in touch with faculty and students. Frequently, companies competed for the services of top-line students in advance of graduation. Other design colleges existed elsewhere, but Los Angeles Art Center was the only one with a specific course in auto design, and nowadays at least half of Detroit’s annual crop of new designers traveled the L.A. route.

  Soon after arrival, surrounded by a group of students, Brett broke off to survey the tree-shaded inner courtyard where they had gathered, and were sipping coffee or soft drinks, and chewing doughnuts.

  “Nothing’s changed,” he observed. “It’s like coming home.”

  “Pretty packed living room,” one of the students said.

  Brett laughed. Like everything else here, the courtyard was too small, the students elbowing for space too many. Yet for all the congestion, only the truly talented were admitted to the school, and only the best survived the grueling three-year course.

  The exchange of talk—a reason why Brett had come—went on.

  Inevitably, air pollution was on the minds of students; even in this courtyard there was no escaping it. The sun, which should have been shining brightly from an azure sky, instead filtered dully through the thick gray haze extending from the ground to high above. Here, too, eye and nose irritation were constant and Brett remembered a recent U. S. Public Health warning that breathing New York’s polluted air was equal to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day; thus nonsmokers innocently shared a smoker’s probability of death from cancer. He presumed the same was true of Los Angeles, perhaps even more so.

  On the subject of pollution, Brett urged, “Tell me what you characters think.” A decade from now students like these would be helping shape industry policy.

  “One thing you figure when you live here,” a voice from the rear injected, “is something has to give. If we go on the way things are, one day everybody in this town will choke to death.”

  Brett pointed out, “Los Angeles is special. Smog is worse because of geography, temperature inversion, and a lot of sunlight.”

  “Not so special,” someone else put in. “Have you been in San Francisco lately?”

  “Or New York?”

  “Or Chicago?”

  “Or Toronto?”

  “Or even little country towns on market days?”

  Brett called across the chorus, “Hey! If you f
eel that way, maybe some of you are headed for the wrong business. Why design cars at all?”

  “Because we’re nutty about cars. Love ’em! Doesn’t stop us thinking, though. Or knowing what’s going on, and caring.” The speaker was a gangling young man with untidy blond hair, at the forefront of the group. He put a hand through his hair, revealing the long slender fingers of an artist.

  “To hear a lot of people out West, and other places”—Brett was playing devil’s advocate—“you’d think the only future is in mass transportation.”

  “That old chestnut!”

  “No one really wants to use mass transport,” one of the few girls in the group declared. “Not if a car’s practical and they can afford it. Besides, mass transit’s a delusion. With subsidies, taxes, and fares, public transport delivers a lot less than automobiles for more money. So everybody gets taken. Ask New Yorkers! Soon—ask San Franciscans.”

  Brett smiled. “They’ll love you in Detroit.”

  The girl shook her head impatiently. “I’m not saying it because of that.”

  “Okay,” Brett told the others, “let’s agree that cars will be the main form of transportation for another half century, probably a lot longer. What kind of cars?”

  “Better,” a quiet voice said. “A lot better than now. And fewer.”

  “Not much argument about being better, though the question’s always: Which way? I’m interested, though, in how you figure fewer.”

  “Because we ought to think that way, Mr. DeLosanto. That’s if we take the long view, which is for our own good in the end.”

  Brett looked curiously at the latest speaker who now stepped forward, others near the front easing aside to make room. He, too, was young, but short, swarthy, with the beginning of a pot belly and, on the surface, appearing anything but an intellectual. But his soft voice was compelling and others fell silent as if a spokesman had moved in.

  “We have a good many rap sessions here,” the swarthy student said. “Those of us taking Transportation Design want to be a part of the auto industry. We’re excited by the idea. Cars turn us on. But it doesn’t mean that any one of us is headed for Detroit wearing blinders.”