Thunder City (22 page)

“Harlan.” He offered no further greeting and made no move to close the book and rise.

“Father.”

The balding patriarchal head inclined an eighth of an inch in the direction of the door. Harlan pushed it shut behind him. In the silence that followed, he thought he could actually hear the house settling, one creaking micromillimeter closer to the setness of its builder’s mind.

“Your mother’s been asking about you. Have you seen her yet?”

“Before I leave,” he said again. “I wanted to talk to you first.”

Now the ledger’s cover tipped shut, expectorating a visible puff of paper fibers scratched loose by the pen of the clerk who had entered the totals. Abner pushed the book up and let it topple to the blotter, like a board being added to the top of a tall stack. Harlan was reminded of last spring’s altercation over how to dispose of the substandard mahogany from Nicaragua.

“Take a seat.” In the fading light sifting through the oaken slats that covered the room’s only window, a powder of dust showed clearly on the leather seat of the upright chair facing the desk. Abner received few visitors at home.

“I prefer to stand.”

“Napoleon.” It was barely a murmur.

“I’m sorry?”

“It was nothing. I forgot for a moment who I was talking to. You couldn’t know, but the Emperor Napoleon had some emphatic ideas about how to handle disgruntled guests. He persuaded them to sit down, on the theory that no one could make a convincing case for tragedy from his backside. People with grievances who have read or heard that always choose standing.”

“What makes you think I have a grievance?” Immediately he regretted asking the question. It had taken his father exactly two seconds to derail him. In this the Queen Anne itself was an accomplice. Harlan had, within the confines of that rabbit warren of narrow staircases, odd alcoves, and right-angled hallways, been considered the idiot of the family for so many years that he had only to reenter it to feel himself behaving as expected.

“You haven’t come to this house since Thanksgiving. Since you and I see each other every day at work, and since you didn’t stop to visit your mother, I assume it isn’t because you miss us. It’s interesting how far a person will walk to express his displeasure over some slight.”

“I rode a streetcar.” He felt rather than saw the exasperation this remark caused, and took petty satisfaction from it. Retreating into the family evaluation of his mental abilities had in the past provided Harlan with a weapon of retribution as well as a defense against stinging comments. The keenest barbs flattened against and slid harmlessly down the thick surface of his seeming incomprehension. His discovery of this advantage had given him his first taste of power, as well as the revelation that he could never take pride in his independent spirit. He was free from most of the conventions simply because no one thought he was worth the effort of forcing him to adhere to them.

His father changed directions, and uncannily—it could not have been accidental, however much it represented an almost supernatural understanding of Harlan’s mission—placed himself squarely in harm’s way. “I read of your friend Ford’s victory, a race of some kind. I suppose congratulations are in order.”

“He established a record for the mile. Again. No horse in creation could touch it.”

“No horse would be expected to. There are a good many more things to admire in this world than mere speed. The telegraph did not dismantle the United States Post Office.”

Harlan shook his head. He felt an ineffable sadness, the source of which he could not precisely identify, but which he suspected had something to do with the bleak gulf that separated fathers and sons. It did nothing to dampen his determination to go through with what he had started. “Neither of us is going to change his opinion. I didn’t come here to revive that old argument.”

“Why did you come?”

“I’m sure you’re aware of the trouble Mr. Ford is having with an organization that calls itself the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers.”

“I know something of it. I read the papers.”

“It’s a sham, of course. This man Selden, who claims he owns the patent, has never built an automobile. Mr. Ford insists that no working motorcar could be built from the plans Selden submitted to the U.S. Patent Office.”

“I wouldn’t know that.”

“Mr. Ford also says no one would ever have heard of George Selden or his patent unless someone powerful offered to back him with the finances and influence necessary to pursue the case in the courts.”

“That would be former secretary of the navy William C. Whitney.”

“You remembered that name quickly for someone who has only a casual interest in the story,” Harlan said.

“I have a good memory. Name a successful man who has not.”

“Mr. Ford says Selden is a wooden owl.”

“And what is that?”

“A decoy to frighten away squirrels. In this case customers. Whitney is using him, and you are using Whitney. Mr. Ford asked me to give you a message.”

“I see. So now it seems he has you running errands for him.”

“He asked me to tell you to call off your dogs.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“He said if you won’t do it, then go ahead and set them loose. It didn’t appear to make any difference to him which you did. He’s prepared to fight you all the way.”

“Aside from an unhealthy obsession with animals, I have no idea what any of that means.”

“Don’t insult me, Father. Henry Ford asked to join the A.L.A.M. soon after it was organized. He was turned down, the only automobile manufacturer who was not allowed to join. It’s clear he’s the target of this whole advertising campaign to frighten away his customers. Why should he be singled out among the hundreds of people who are making automobiles?”

“I suppose they thought someone had to be made an example of. Your man Ford is the fellow who’s getting all the headlines, buzzing about in races and giving interviews to the press. If they can smack down someone who’s that visible, all the other holdouts will fall into line. Any captain of industry knows that.”

Harlan saw the flicker in the old man’s eyes as soon as the last words had been said; the outside embodiment of the wish to turn back time and edit them out of the conversation. His son drew no warmth from the triumph.

He felt his face stiffening as in the cold on frozen Lake St. Clair. “William C. Whitney is no captain of industry. You are. You’re the A.L.A.M.”

His father, whose hands had been resting on the big ledger, drew them back and folded them on the near edge of the desk. No damp spots showed on the green buckram, although the room was overheated and Harlan’s own palms were sweating heavily. The old man was as dry as corn shocks tented in the sun. It was a wonder he didn’t rustle when he moved. “You’re overestimating my vision,” he said. “The association was up and running before I was invited to participate.”

“Then you admit you’re financing it.”

“I’m a contributor, just as I am to dozens of other funds and causes. The day of the robber barons is past. In this century, the wealthy and successful are expected to make certain gestures.”

“If that were true in this case, your name would appear in the advertisements.”

“I will not be induced to defend my actions.” Dim spots of color appeared on Abner’s sallow cheeks.

“Ford’s celebrity has nothing to do with why he was targeted,” Harlan said. “You only want to destroy him because I’m involved with his company.”

“The world doesn’t revolve around you. I blame your mother for giving you that impression. She has always doted on you.”

“You can’t stand having a son of Abner Crownover in the automobile business.”

“This interview is over.” Abner drew himself up against the desk and opened the ledger across it.

“It won’t work, Father. Even if you succeed and Ford collapses, I’ll raise the money again and invest it in another automobile company.”

“What makes you think you’ll be able to raise the money again?”

“This city is filled with people who would be honored to invest in the Crownover name.”

“That’s because I made it what it is.” A long dry finger followed a row of figures down a column. “You have the Crownover name because I gave it to you. And I can take it away just as easily.”

“If you’re threatening to disinherit me, I wish you’d make it clear.”

He shut the ledger. With a little shudder of effort—Harlan suspected the action was far more cataclysmic below the surface—he forced a flat calm into his tone. “You’re my son. That isn’t something to waste on the first shiny property to come along. Automobiles are loud, flashy things, tempting to a young man. When you’re older, you’ll realize the things that stay the course aren’t always exciting to look at the first time you see them. The foreman I worked under when I drew up my suspension idea couldn’t see the improvement even when I pointed it out; he told me to get back to work or he’d dock me for my time and his both. And he was a mechanical man, who should have understood what he was looking at. What makes you think the gasoline car is any better than the steamer or the electric? How do you know Ford is the man to back among all the rabble who are out there, chugging away and fouling the air with their stinking smoke? He’s failed twice before.”

“That’s exactly how I know he’s the man to back.” His son remained calm, and was more than a little surprised to observe he was the calmer of the two. Always before his father had won his point when Harlan lost his temper and any chance of making a reasonable argument. “He doesn’t give up. The fact that he’s lost everything twice and is willing to risk losing it all over again is the best point in his favor. That’s how I know your A.L.A.M. will fail. You can defeat Ford, even kill him, but you can’t destroy him.”

The silence that followed jangled like a brass bell. Muscles worked in Abner’s face; Harlan knew his father’s stomach had tied itself into burning knots. He did not speak until the spasm had subsided. “Is that what you came here to tell me?”

“Yes, sir, it is.”

“In that case you will do me the good service to leave.” He opened the ledger once again and bent his head to the columns.

Abner III was standing in the hallway when Harlan left the office. He shook his head in answer to the question on his brother’s handsome face. “Tell Mother I’m sorry I couldn’t see her. I have an appointment downtown.” He didn’t bother to make the lie convincing, a mistake. Ab had troubles, but he wasn’t stupid.

Ab touched Harlan’s arm. “She’s in the morning room. She told me not to let you leave before she spoke to you.”

“The morning room?” Although he knew it was past dark, Harlan glanced involuntarily toward me face of the grandfather clock at the end of the hall. Ab’s agitated expression confirmed the message. A change in anyone’s routine was enough to upset him.

Harlan climbed the stairs to the east room, tapped on a panel, and was invited inside. He had never been in the room in the evening—as far as he knew his mother had not either—and found it far less vapidly cheerful by the electric light of a small chandelier and tulip-shaped lamp on the spinet desk. The corn-fed mothers and their naked babies seemed to stare at him from the Cassatt prints on the walls with a speculative air, as if undecided whether this newcomer was welcome in their family circle. Edith Hampton Crownover was seated at the desk in a mauve dressing gown and matching suede slippers with her hair in a long braid over her left shoulder, the way she wore it to bed. Her son had not seen her thus since he had moved out, and felt a sharp pang of nostalgia at the sight. Her inkwell was capped and there was no stationery on the blotter. She appeared to have been doing nothing but sitting and waiting for her visitor, without so much as an open book for company. In that light, her son noticed for the first time the signs of age in her face. Shadows pooled in hollows beneath her eyes, and sharp lines bracketed her mouth nearly to the corners of her nostrils. He felt a cold flash of mortality then, as if the downstroke of a dark wing had inserted itself between him and the warmth of the sun.

“Your father spent a good deal of time debating the merits of steam heat with the contractor when he built this house,” she said in lieu of greeting. “In the end he decided in favor of ductwork, and there have been no secrets under this roof since that day.” She inclined her head toward the scrolled bars of the heating vent in the baseboard opposite the desk.

Responding to her unspoken instruction, Harlan bent and thumbed up the lever that closed the louvers behind the bars. “I’m sorry you had to be upset,” he said.

“People have tried not to upset me my entire life. You will never know how upsetting that is. I need to ask you something. Will you promise to answer without worrying about whether it will distress me?”

“I’ve never lied to you.”

“Of course you have. We raised you to be a gentleman. Will you promise?”

He nodded. He felt more intimidated in her presence than he had in his father’s. The novelty of the sensation was intriguing.

“Is your interest in Henry Ford’s automobile company genuine? By that I mean to say, have you involved yourself in that industry because you believe in it, or merely because you know it will anger your father? I know a little something about rebellion, you see. I’m just enough of a coward to understand its attraction.”

“Actually, it’s a little of both.” His response surprised him. Even as he gave it he realized he was speaking the truth.

“But not equal parts.”

After a long moment he said, “No.”

Her eyes searched his. Then she nodded, just as if he had told her in which direction the balance tipped. “I’ve heard a bit about Mr. Ford. He is no gentleman.”

“No, ma’am, he isn’t.”

“Good.” She appeared to think about her answer, then nodded again and slid a hand inside the pocket of her dressing gown. From it she drew a slim skeleton key attached to a ring with a tiny gold rose for a fob and inserted the key in the bottom drawer of the desk to the right of the kneehole. The drawer contained a large photograph album bound in black cloth with leather corners, and Harlan thought at first that this was the object of her search. But she transferred it from the drawer to the top of the desk without a second glance and took out from beneath it a sheaf of paper bound with a tasseled cord, which she lifted into her lap. The sheet on top, wider than it was long, with an ornate border and skirled lettering printed in green ink, was instantly familiar to Harlan. He kept a stack of his own in a safety deposit box at the Detroit Savings Bank, although his was much smaller. It was a stock certificate belonging to Crownover Coaches.