Thunder City (16 page)

“Charlotte’s determined to win me over to the legitimate theater,” Dolan went on. “The Temple’s where I go to enjoy myself. I saw Eva Tanguay dance last year. One of these times she’s going to bust a seam.”

A fresh burst of laughter came from the other side of the wall.

“Is your wife with you?” Abner asked.

“No. One of the children is ill.”

“Nothing serious, I hope.”

“Too much spun sugar on Independence Day, I suspect. How are your sons?”

“They’re well. Edward’s wife may be expecting.”

“Congratulations. I hope it’s a grandson.”

“I haven’t given it much thought. Edith is hoping for a girl. She misses having a daughter.” His stomach twisted as soon as he said it. The infernal man’s obsequiousness had put him on his guard, causing him in the process to drop an older one he had taken for granted. He hadn’t spoken of Katherine in years.

Fortunately, Dolan appeared to miss the reference. “I saw Harlan a few months ago. A strapping young man.”

“I heard you met.”

“He’s quite taken with automobiles.” The Irishman drew on his cigar, watching Abner.

“He’s young.”

“He’s about the age you were when you assumed control of Crownover, isn’t he?”

Now they were coming to it. Abner fenced.

“Not quite. Anyway, times were different.”

“Noisy things, automobiles.” It was the same tone in which he had dismissed the noisy play. “I can’t remember the last time I spent an entire Sunday without one of them bucketing down my street, stinking and scaring the horses. Did you know thirty-eight companies began producing motorcars last year?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that thirty of them had already closed their doors.”

“That would still leave eight, more than there were two years ago all told. Strick tells me another forty-seven are expected to enter the market this year. If this keeps up, you and I will be wading arse-deep in the blasted machines come election time.”

“If you mentioned those statistics to Harlan, I shouldn’t wonder that he’s enamored.” He wasn’t sure he’d succeeded in keeping the irritation from his voice.

“I did not, and would not have had I been aware of them then. I’m not in the business of encouraging young men into foolish enterprise. There are as many spiritualists in Detroit as automobile manufacturers, and more opening up in storefronts all the time, offering to put gullible old women in touch with their departed husbands as easily as ringing up Central. No one I know in the mortuary business feels threatened. That’s because they recognize the difference between a genuine movement and a fancy of the season.”

“I agree.” Why, then, were they having this conversation?

He’d forgotten for the moment Dolan was a politico, and more than usually adept at reading minds. “Your son has invested five thousand dollars in Henry Ford’s latest motorcar venture. He borrowed it from Sal Borneo. Do you know the name?”

“I do not. And I’d be interested in learning where you obtain your information.”

“I’d be interested in learning where you plan to build your next plant, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. Sal Borneo is a Black Hander, a wop hooligan. He does favors for people, that’s his business. He never says no.”

“In that case, people must be asking him for favors all the time.”

“You’d think so, only they don’t. They have to be willing to pay the price.”

“A favor you have to pay for is no favor.”

“Now you understand. The man came here twenty years ago with no English and nothing in his pockets. Now he hands out wads of gelt right and left without asking for collateral. Does that tell you anything?”

“At the moment I’m more interested in hearing what it tells you.”

“Borneo isn’t interested in money. It’s just a tool, like the pool cue he used to bash in people’s heads with. He doesn’t care any more about automobiles than you or I do. If he gave Harlan money, it means he wants Crownover Coaches.”

Abner sipped from his glass for the first time. The acid burned his stomach, preventing him from laughing in Dolan’s face. The man’s oafishness made it possible to forget what a dangerous enemy he could be when sufficiently offended. “If that’s his purpose, he’ll have to aim higher than Harlan. My son has no control over the business.”

“He owns no stock?”

“Just three percent. So you see, Mr. Borneo can say good-bye to his five thousand.”

“Not if Ford succeeds.”

“I thought we agreed that isn’t likely.”

“The streetcar companies in Toledo and Monroe aren’t so sure. They’re dragging their feet on the interurban project until they see which way the wind blows. All these automobiles have got them wringing their hands like old maids. They’re afraid no one will ride the rails if he can make the same trip in a motorcar, and they’ll lose their investment. Meanwhile I’m sitting on thirteen hundred acres of farmland in Michigan and Ohio, and I’m no farmer. The property taxes are ruinous.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“Those Kraut farmers drive a hard bargain. I had to liquefy every asset in order to close the deals with reasonable speed. At the time the streetcar companies were going full tilt with the interurban. If I didn’t act fast, they’d have negotiated with someone else for the right-of-way.”

“So you borrowed against Democratic Party Funds.”

Dolan’s smile put him in mind of an enormous leprechaun. “You’re a great man, Mr. Crownover. Great men aren’t hobbled by the laws of the land.”

“We’re not talking about me.”

“We are. You have as much interest as I have in seeing Ford’s latest attempt end in disaster. It would be a whiff of pepper in your son’s nose to bring him to his senses and back into the fold.”

“Perhaps. I’m curious to find out how it would benefit you. According to your own figures, Ford’s failure would leave eighty-four automobile manufacturers still in business.”

“Don’t ask me why—he’s stumbled twice before—but the man inspires confidence in unlikely places. Alexander Malcolmson’s sold on him, and Malcolmson’s anything but a fool. If Ford falls spectacularly enough this time, the aftershock will bring down most of his competitors. What’s left couldn’t frighten a kitten, much less those fellows at Detroit United Railways. He’s the solution to both our problems.”

Abner swirled the liquid around in his glass. “What is your plan?”

“It’s a bit complicated. If you’re free any day next week, I’ll introduce you to the one man who can bring it all about. Do you know the Detroit Shipbuilding Company on Orleans?”

“I should think so. I went to school with the owner.”

“It’s a small world. The manager is a friend. He’s offered me the use of his private office on the top floor for the meeting I have in mind. If you will name the day and the hour, I’ll make the arrangements with the others.”

“What others?”

Dolan flicked a column of ash to the floor, not without elegance. “You must allow an old politician some of his secrets. All will be revealed in the fullness of time.”

“You’re ten years younger than I am,” Abner said. “One of the irritations of age is the number of pups who gather around me trying to convince me they belong to my generation, as if being old were some kind of exclusive club. It is not. It is a damn bore.”

“I meant no disrespect.”

“Respect is not your stock-in-trade. I can spare one hour Thursday at noon.”

He was about to return to the auditorium without awaiting a reply when the door to the ladies’ lounge opened and a striking woman glided their way on a sea of rustling taffeta. She was dressed entirely in black, with a gauzy shawl about her bare shoulders and a hat reminiscent of an old-time admiral’s fore-and-aft perched becomingly on a pile of glistening black hair. She coiled an arm inside one of Dolan’s and looked at Abner, lifting a pair of strong dark brows in expectation.

“Abner Crownover,” the Irishman said, “may I present Countess Maribel Louisa diViareggio. The countess is visiting from her home in Tuscany. Maribel, Mr. Crownover is our most important citizen.”

“Signor Crownover’s name is well known in my country. It was the fondest wish of my dear late husband to commission a coach from your great firm.” She laid a cool hand in Abner’s palm, extended automatically. The woman had the high cheekbones of a northern Italian and a smile Abner thought slightly mocking; but then he distrusted women who painted their faces, no matter how exotic their backgrounds. He withdrew his hand as soon as was decent.

“Are you recently widowed?” he asked.

“My poor Guglielmo was taken by fever at Christmas. I come here to visit relatives, and to forget.” Her accent, like her level gaze, was somewhat masculine.

Abner noted that Dolan had shifted some of his great belly into his chest since the woman had joined them. Clearly she was his mistress. He was furious to think the fat wardheeler would parade her before him in this way, as if he were expected to approve on behalf of the society of men.

He kept his voice level. “I’m afraid you’re missing the play.”

“It is no great sacrifice,” she said. “I did not like it when I saw it in London. Travel does not appear to have improved it.”

Dolan said. “The countess knows a good deal about the theater. Her family has patronized the arts for centuries.”

Abner said something about returning to his wife, declined his head in a cursory bow, and took his leave, setting his glass on the shelf of the concession window on the way to the door. He did not know if his departure was graceful and did not much care. He did know that the play taking place that evening in the Lyceum had been performed for the first time at the Lincoln Theater on Broadway in New York City in April 1901. It had never played London. The woman was an impostor.

The Detroit Shipbuilding Company, with plants in Detroit and Wyandotte, was the city’s biggest employer behind Crownover Coaches and the Michigan Stove Company. Its base of operations, a great brick box of a building at the foot of Orleans Street overlooking the Detroit River, was less than ten years old but already deteriorating; the constant shuddering clang of steel beams and hammering of rivets had cracked most of the window panes on the first two floors and shaken mortar out of the spaces between the bricks into dirty white heaps at the base of the structure. Steam-operated cranes swung smokestacks and anchor winches over the heads of the workers in the shipyard, where the naked superstructures of vessels in various stages of construction resembled a fleet of Arks. In the blistering July heat, a haze of teak dust, steel and brass filings, and pulverized concrete hung over the river, a man-made fog. The fishy stench of the water, combined with rank sweat and lubricating grease, clawed at the protective lining of milk in Abner’s stomach as he entered the plant through a side door and boarded the freight elevator. The operator was a squat Indian in overalls, whose brick-colored features betrayed no recognition of Detroit’s wealthiest citizen; nevertheless he knew where his passenger was headed. The car started moving before Abner had time to ask for the top floor.

Cork baffles must have been inserted in the crawlspace between the ceiling of the plant proper and the offices beneath the roof. As suddenly as if a switch had been thrown, the cacophony of construction ceased the moment he stepped off the elevator. He crossed a narrow hallway with a thick Brussels carpet and opened a door with a pebbled-glass window bearing the number 300 in black numerals flecked with gold.

Beyond was an ordinary reception room, equipped with a female secretary in a starched blouse and pince-nez glasses behind a golden oak desk with a brass upright telephone on top. Five wooden file cabinets lined the wall to the left, opposite an upholstered bench upon which sat a small, balding man in an unpressed suit. The man looked up as Abner entered, but made no attempt at conversation. Abner in turn ignored him for the secretary, who left her black box of a Remington typewriter to knock at a door at the back and announce Mr. Crownover’s arrival to whoever opened it from the other side. Immediately the door was flung wide and Jim Dolan beckoned Abner to enter.

Today the big man wore immaculate gray gabardine, with a platinum watch chain across his vast middle and an emerald stickpin in his tie. His left hand was wrapped around a thick glass with amber liquid in it. Abner, a rigid “sundowner” during his own drinking days, kept from scowling through an effort of will. The man seemed determined to underscore his Irishness.

“It was good of you to make time for us.” Dolan stood aside.

The room was reminiscent of the library in a gentlemen’s club. The desk, where presumably the plant manager conducted business, was mounted on massive cherry-wood legs carved into the likenesses of seated lions, tucked away in a corner darkened by wooden slats covering the window. Leather-bound books with titles stamped in gold on their spines gleamed on walnut shelves built into the walls. A good painting of
Walkin-the-Water,
the first steamboat to navigate the Upper Great Lakes in 1818, leaned out in a giltwood frame from the wall above a fireplace with a gray marble surround and a bearskin on the hearth, its fur singed in several places by wandering sparks from the grate. Morsels of white ash clung to the scorched iron, undoubtedly cold since March. A small library table supported not books but a set of four cut-crystal decanters in a portable lock rack, labeled
Scotch, Gin, Bourbon,
and
Rye.
Another decanter of polished glass with a long narrow neck and a flat base as big around as a dinner plate contained a molasses-colored liquid, as black a port as Abner had ever seen. There were in addition a tray of sparkling glasses, a leather pipe humidor, a deep carved-ash box with its lid propped open to reveal cigars stacked inside, and a brass lighter of a type popular with executives too old to have served in the war with Spain, fashioned from a machine-gun cartridge case recovered from the fighting in Cuba. The room was, even to Abner’s mind, suffocatingly masculine; he thought that if a woman were to enter it unannounced, it would crack apart with a loud report, like a warm glass pitcher into which ice water was poured suddenly. He might as well have been in a barbershop or a Turkish bath.