Onyx (71 page)

For days the country talked of little else. The contract granted the union more than it had asked. Some decided that the public outrage over the deaths and the open beating of the two union officials had shamed the company into capitulation, others said it was Caryll Bridger's earnest generosity that had prevailed, but the consensus was that the automotive pioneer, Tom Bridger, a puzzling oddball, never did anything halfway.

At Woodland's reopening the first shift swung in singing and waving small blue and white union flags. The double work week was ended, the few remaining Security wore uniforms, a seniority system from now on would govern layoffs and rehiring, and shop stewards were to be elected that week. Those fired for union activity were already lined up outside Employment for their back wages—they would be rehired according to the new seniority system.

To the other auto manufacturers' consternation Onyx announced that all their plants would from now on be operated as closed shops, and the company would automatically check off dues from paychecks, transferring them to the AAW treasury.

“Tom Bridger,” pronounced the aging Henry Ford, “has made a gift of the automotive industry to Moscow.” This same angry sentiment resounded more blasphemously in every thick-carpeted executive suite of every motorcar factory.

In later years the settlement would be hailed as the greatest about-face in industrial history, the major landmark in American labor relations, the first contract ever wrested from an automotive company—and the most generous. Walter Reuther would say in 1946, when the AAW merged with the United Auto Workers, “Labor of America saw in the AAW victory a brilliant glow that lit the darkness of the Depression.”

Each time Tom glimpsed a blue and white union button on the lapel of one of the multitude of workers, he would think of Justin and again experience that irreconcilable, guilt-ridden grief—yet he never regretted those buttons. They meant that the spirit of his older son lived within his factories.

EPILOGUE

The display spots were off in the new Onyx Museum, and the tall, angular white-haired man and the somewhat shorter, wiry young staff sergeant cast uneven, slow-moving shadows as they traversed the stillness of the three cavernous halls of automobiles.

Tom's ironic, occasionally grieving voice had finished what he knew of his life's story, and the two were silent as they reached the last car, the 1947, the postwar model. Her sapphire-blue paint glowed with the iridescent depths once seen only on the forty-times-painted, lovingly hand-buffed automobiles of aristocracy. Her hood was long, sleekly long, she was built without a running board to mar her distinctive lines, her white sidewalls shone like ivory around silver-chromed hubcaps; she drew both pairs of eyes from the vista behind her, lumbering tanks, drab khaki trucks, jeeps, ambulances. Her design conjured up the happy highways of peace.

Tom turned away, unable to look upon Caryll's legacy to the company that had destroyed him.

Ben, in his quick, nervous stride, circled the model once, then read from the lectern: “‘Hundred horsepower hydraulic brakes.' Etcetera, etcetera.” He formed a circle with thumb and forefinger. “Perfecto,” he said. “Quite a museum you have here altogether, sir. How dare anyone challenge that you're the colossus of the low-price field?”

“A couple or three companies do,” Tom replied. “Well?”

“Comment you want on your cautionary tale?” Ben asked. “The history of the automotive industry is a picture of human crime and misfortune.”

“Is that what you think?”

“Why else would I misquote Voltaire?”

“Are you always so damn itchy?”

“I'm allergic. Believe it or not I invariably break out in hives when I learn I'm grandson to the legend of our machine age.”

“A sharp tongue won't cut me, Ben. At twenty I lacked your education but spoke the same language.”

“As a matter of fact, this afternoon's restored my faith in Mendel. I've always wondered with Sir Galahad for a dad how I turned out to be such a turd.”

Tom smiled. So did Ben; then, clearly deciding this was an act of treachery, he frowned. “I don't know the legalities for turning down a bequest, but count me out.”

“You've lost me.”

“That stock Uncle Caryll left me in his will, I won't take it.”

“Why the hell not?”

“I despise reparations. Is that clear enough?”

“All I know is there's only five percent of Onyx that doesn't belong to me. Caryll and Zoe's wedding gift. Caryll's left you his ownership. Those two hundred and fifty shares are two and a half percent of the shop.”

“The whole Onyx shooting match?”

“Yes.”

Ben whistled. “A cool fortune.”

“Quite a few million,” Tom agreed.

“Good. Excellent. Double insurance. I'll turn it down. And Aunt Zoe's bound to contest.”

“She won't.”

“Well, you know the beautiful lady and I don't, so I'll have to take your word that she lacks the mercenary instincts of your wife.”

The vast sums involved in Tom and Maud's divorce had captivated a Depression-sunk populace hungry to learn that the incalculably wealthy had their problems, too. On the other hand, their quiet remarriage a year later was buried on back pages.

“What was that crack about reparations?” Tom asked.

“I'll tell you.” Ben's voice slid up a half octave. “At Onyx good and decent people were barbarically savaged. My parents. That's what I mean by reparations. There's no way your millions can make it up.”

“Your uncle wanted you to have his holdings.” Tom's sigh was grievingly deep. “He was a fine man. Ask your father.”

“I was at Buchenwald at the liberation. I've always connected i: with Onyx in my mind.”

“What an ugly thing to say!”

“You think so?” Momentarily the edgy tension left Ben's fine-featured face. Above the ill-fitting uniform he looked a wrung out deserted child. “I have a missing piece of your story. About Mother.”

“I've always felt I'm guilty of her death.”

“A regrettable accident. I blame you for it, too. But this incident probes deeper into the true heart of evil. One night she was visited by certain of your dignitaries—”

“What?”

“You didn't know?”

“I swear not. Who were they?”

“Later I recognized one from photographs, your former big mar, Dickson Keeley.” Ben stared at the center of the gleaming new windshield as he described shivering on the dark stairtop, the broaccast melodrama of
The Green Hornet
assaulting him as he saw his mother violated.

Tom's hands trembled, and he sank down on cold marble, his back curved against a tire. “Oh, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ.”

“Mother and I are Jewish, sir. He didn't come to help us.”

“Your father, did he know about it?”

“Mother sent me and Tonia away right after,” Ben said with a wan smile. “But I'm positive Dad never knew. Mr. Keeley died intact.”

In 1942 the Lincoln that Dickson Keeley was driving blew up, an inferno death reputedly caused by Keeley's underworld chums. Hugh, from his lonely lakeside hermitage that was visited only by Tom, claimed to have certain knowledge of the underworld connection.

“Thanks for the tour, sir.” Ben gave a mocking salute. “Interesting exhibits, fascinating tales.”

He walked to the empty rotunda.

Halted.

His hands were at his sides, bending and contorting as though fingering his violin. The anger around his eyes and mouth softenec He gazed back into the hall where Tom sat, white-haired Lear on the floor, dwarfed, surrounded, overwhelmed by vehicles of his own making.

Ben returned slowly.

Tom didn't look up. “Museum's closed,” he said.

Not smiling, Ben rested a strong, long-fingered hand on blue metal. “I don't blame you for what happened to Mother, not anymore.”

“You should.”

“Know something? Since that night I've visualized you as Lucifer. The evil one. The lord of darkness. You had all the horror and glamour of absolute evil. You gave us cars to speed and lust in. You were a hundred times larger than the devil, and a thousand times more vengeful. You sent your werewolves to destroy Mother. I must've read everything written about you. Biographies, articles, doctoral dissertations, newspaper fluff. A lot of them put you down out of envy. Because you're a monumental success.”

“Screw the pity, Sergeant Hutchinson. You don't have to flatter me.”

“You think I'm saying this because you're old? Because one of your sons just died and the other won't come near you? Not me. Never. Not Ben Hutchinson. Not that kind of crap. No.” Ben rapped sharply on the new Onyx. “I believe you. You never meant harm to Mother. And as for not being able to tell Dad what you feel for him, well, I can't tell him how much I love him, either.” The words clicked out, staccato.

Tom looked down at the creases of his black trousers. “How is he, Justin?”

“Dad? He's living. But he's lonely, lonely, and more lonely. By now he should have gotten over Mother, wouldn't you think? But he hasn't. Did you know he's been running illegal immigrants into Palestine? Well, the last trip, the
Elisse
was sunk.”

“I heard he was wounded.”

“If you know, why ask?”

“Hugh keeps tabs. Is Justin's leg mended?”

“Not properly. The bullet smashed the kneecap. But the instant he heard about Uncle Caryll, he had himself sprung from Hadassah Hospital, that's in Jerusalem, to sail to New York. I'm stationed in New Jersey. With me in tow he's come to offer our manly aid to the most ravishing widow in the world, I am quoting the Hearst chain.”

Tom said, “This marble's damn cold.” He pushed to his feet. “Is that a definite no, then, on the shares, Ben?”

“Let me give it some cool-headed consideration.”

Uneven footsteps sounded in the rotunda, and they both turned.

“Ben?” Justin's voice called.

“In here, Dad. We're in here.”

Justin limped toward them, leaning heavily on his stick, a large, strong-looking man in a Harris tweed topcoat, his silver hair windblown around his tanned face. He met Tom and Ben at the archwav to the rotunda, and here, at the apex of the long-hailed vistas of automobiles, the three men halted awkwardly.

Justin lifted his right arm, a curious wavelike gesture that seemed an irritable dismissal yet in reality was an effort to make the first move at shaking hands. The cold hostility in his deep-set blue eyes was also misleading. Long ago he had released his confused accusations, resentments, ambivalences toward this man who was is father, and now he was experiencing that old loving admiration as well as primitive shock at temporal erosion.
Tom's an old man
, he thought.
Old … how is that possible? Where have the years vanished
?

“So, Dad,” Ben said.

“Hello, Ben.”

“Mr. Bridger's been telling me about a promise he made to the first Antonia Hutchinson. He'd very much like to get together win you and explain about it. For a continuation of these tripartite armistice talks, I vote we go someplace without a single Onyx.”

Tom's eyebrow arched, but he found he lacked the strength to look at Justin, so he waited.

After an endless moment Justin said, “That sounds very good to me. What about that idea, Tom?”

“Sure,” Tom answered, shaken. A translucent film stung in his eyes.

“Let's go, then,” Ben said, draping his arms around his father and grandfather. For a few moments the three were joined in a loose embrace, then slowly, at Justin's pace, they circled the origina gasoline-powered vehicle, that frail dragonfly contraption, moving slowly toward the hazed, wintry light.

About the Author

Jacqueline Briskin (1927–2014) was the
New York Times
–bestselling author of fourteen historical novels that reflect the tumultuous changes in American society that she witnessed over her lifetime. Complete with dynamic storylines, vibrant characters, and passionate romantic relationships, her novels have sold more than twenty million copies worldwide and have been translated into twenty-six languages.

Briskin was born in London, England, the granddaughter of the chief rabbi of Dublin, Ireland. Her family moved to Beverly Hills, California, to escape Adolf Hitler and religious orthodoxy. A few years later, she married her best friend and the love of her life, Bert, whose family was deeply embedded in Hollywood and the movie business. When Briskin's three children were little more than toddlers, she attended a class at UCLA entitled “The Craft of Fiction.” To her surprise, it was a class about writing fiction rather than reading fiction. And so her career began.

Over the next forty years, many of Briskin's books topped the
New York Times
bestseller list. Her adoptive home of Los Angeles and her husband's old stomping ground of Hollywood often play a prominent role in her meticulously researched books.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Excerpts from “Solidarity Forever”: © Alpha Film Music (BMI). Reprinted by permission.

Copyright © 1982 by Jacqueline Briskin

Cover design by Mimi Bark

ISBN: 978-1-4532-9379-9

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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