The Detroit Electric Scheme (40 page)

The UADA show was impressive, particularly considering they'd had only ten days to put it together. Red, white, and blue bunting hung from the support pillars and between booths, which packed the cavernous building, giving the factory the ambiance of a county fair. I wandered through the show for three hours, though I could have easily spent the entire day drooling over the displays of cars and accessories—horns, odometers, wheels, taillights, tops—that went on and on.

The automobile business had certainly arrived.

The trip back to Wayne Gardens took considerably longer than I expected. Fog was beginning to settle in, adding an ethereal quality to the city. The temperature was at least in the midfifties now, and water from all the melting snow was backing up the storm sewers, with brackish ponds deepening at street corners. Traffic was nearly at a standstill, and the streetcars weren't faring much better. I had to change cars four times. When I finally arrived at our booth, my father and Mr. Wilkinson were waiting for me. I apologized for being late.

My father waved it off and clapped me on the back. “The way this
show is turning out I wouldn't mind if you took the rest of it off. That said, I have one more thing for you to do. Henry Leland is going to be speaking with newspapermen in Conference Room A at three o'clock. It's about the self-starter. I'd like you to take a look at it.”

“Me? Why?”

“We've got dealer meetings all day. I'd like your opinion.”

I reached the conference room at two forty-five and could barely squeeze inside. Reporters, photographers, and automobile men packed the smoke-filled room. Henry Leland was bent over the stripped chassis of a Cadillac with another man, who was checking the wiring that connected the car to an electrical contraption about the size of a shoebox. Another wire ran from the other end of the device to a battery.

Over the sound of a hundred loud voices, I heard, “Will! Hey!”

Edsel stood about ten feet away from me. I shouldered through the crowd to his side. He smiled and shouted in my ear. “Come to see how the other half lives, eh?”

“Sort of. My father wants to know what I think of Leland's baby.”

Edsel grimaced. “My father doesn't want anything to do with it. He said he won't touch it until it's the same price as a hand crank. It's all about price to him.”

“Seems to be working.” Unlike Henry Ford's two previous efforts, Ford Motor Company's sales growth was astronomical.

Henry Leland, a grandfatherly man with wavy silver hair and a long Vandyke beard, cleared his throat a few times, politely asked for everyone's attention, and finally blew out an ear-splitting whistle. Everyone quieted and turned their attention to him.

“Like many other men,” he said, “I've been working on a self-starter for years. Until now, I've never had any better results than anyone else. But,” he held up a finger, “I am intelligent enough to look outside our company when the need presents itself.

“Gentlemen, I'd like to introduce Charles Kettering, the man who not only invented the electric cash register, but also the electricity generator you know as the Delco. He's got something to show you.”

Kettering was a thin, hatchet-faced man in his midthirties, with thick black hair, a long chin, and a hooked nose. “The only self-starters
that have worked up until now, at least with any regularity,” he said, “are half the size of an automobile. So I started with the size. It was really a short step from the work I've done previously. It's near completion, and it will add less than a hundred dollars to the retail price of an automobile.” After he gave a brief summary of how the starter worked, he turned to Leland. “Should we show them?”

Leland smiled and looked out at the crowd. “Would you like to see it?”

A weak chorus of affirmation answered him. One man called out, “Show it already.”

“Can't argue with that enthusiasm,” Kettering said. He held up a key before sticking it into a slot and flipping a switch. The engine turned over, and again.

Then it roared to life.

 

When I returned to the booth, my father, Mr. Wilkinson, and Mr. McFarlane were in the annex with a dealer, huddled at the front of the 601 truck. The room was filled with the background rumble of many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of voices. A few minutes later, the other man left, and my father greeted me effusively. His demeanor was jovial, but I could see the concern in the intensity of his eyes and the tightness of his jaw.

“Well?” he said. “Did it work?”

I shrugged. “The demos always do. That doesn't mean anything.”

Mr. Wilkinson pulled on his beard. “It was Kettering, correct?”

“Yes. Charles Kettering.”

Mr. McFarlane grunted. “How big was it?”

I showed them with my hands. “Shoebox, give or take.”

They all exchanged looks, but McFarlane waved a hand in front of him. “Ach, an automobile's not a store, and a self-starter's no cash register. It'll shake to pieces, freeze, or short, just like all the rest.”

“I don't know,” my father said. “Kettering has impressive credentials. If it works . . .” He glanced at McFarlane with a shrug.

“Do you really think it's going to be such a problem?” I asked.

“Well . . .” My father grimaced. “It's no secret that our greatest competitive
advantage is easy starting. But we've got lots more going for us.” He forced a smile onto his face. “We'll be fine.”

“Either way,” I said, “we own the high end, right?”

“Right.” My father clapped me on the back, and I went up front to help the salespeople.

At five, the general public was herded out of Wayne Gardens so preparations could be made for Society Night. I snuck outside for a break and some fresh air. The river wasn't fifty feet from me, yet when I opened the door all I could see was a misty white cloud. A heavy blanket of fog had dropped over the city.

After a smoke, I helped our men straighten up the booth and then changed into black tie for the evening. I checked myself in the mirror half a dozen times, making sure I looked my best for Elizabeth. At seven the orchestra began to play Mozart's “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,” and the society crowd started to trickle in.

I leaned against a trellis, watching the crowd. This was my first real reintroduction into automotive society since the murder, and I was nervous about what sort of welcome I would receive. Red and green lights peeked through the rose-covered trellises in a soft mimicry of the night sky. Every car shone—brilliant reds, burgundies, greens, blues, and blacks—reflecting the spotlights into the eyes of the spectators, who were now crowding the hall. The men all wore black top hats and tuxedoes with tails, and many of them carried jeweled or gilt canes. The women sported dazzling evening dresses in a rainbow of colors, sparkling with rhinestones. Elaborate chapeaus bedecked with ribbons, jewels, and feathers topped their heads. Though the price of admission had been doubled to a dollar for Society Night, price wasn't the real barrier to entry. It was clothing that kept out the less fortunate.

The royalty of automobiledom strolled past me, unaware of my presence. In scarcely five minutes, I saw Commodore A. L. McLeod of the United States Motor Company, W. V. Macy of Locomobile, Clarence Smith of Stevens-Duryea, and A. W. Shafer of Alco.

I was thinking about going back to the booth when, behind me, a man said, “Hey, Anderson.”

I knew that voice. I spun around, fists clenched.

John Dodge stood next to his brother, both in ill-fitting monkey suits. He smiled at me. “Listen, I'm really sorry about what happened before.” He reached out toward me.

I almost punched him but held back when all he did was tuck something into the chest pocket of my tuxedo.

“Sometimes, me and Horace, well . . .” He looked at his brother, then down at the floor, bashful. “Sometimes we get a little carried away, you know?”

I reached into my pocket to see what he had given me. It was a hundred-dollar bill. I held it out to him. “I don't want your money.”

He held up his hands in front of him, a gesture of surrender. A vague smell of grease wafted up to my nose. “Nope. That's yours. I'm a big enough man to admit when I'm wrong.”

I slipped the bill into the pocket of his bulging waistcoat. “If you want to make it up to me, give this to charity.”

His eyes narrowed, and his head tilted a bit to the side while he appraised me. Finally he grinned. “Fair enough.” He held out his hand. “Friends?”

I smiled back, but left my hand at my side. “Let's not get carried away.”

He broke eye contact first.

I returned to the Detroit Electric booth. An older man with a monocle was leaning forward in the driving seat of the roadster, gripping the steering lever like an oar. Next to him, his wife sat back with her arms crossed. Couples were seated in our other automobiles, these with the wives in the driving seats. The husbands assumed the air of experts, and our salesmen explained the intricacies of driving an electric, such as they were, given that turning a key and pushing a lever forward were all that was needed to make the cars work.

I helped the salesmen, though I'm sure I checked my watch a dozen times before it was finally eight, and at least twenty more times by nine thirty, when I decided to phone Elizabeth. Although it hadn't been a rock-solid commitment, she said she was coming. It wasn't like her to just not show up without an explanation. I excused myself and hurried to a pay phone at the front of the pavilion.

Alberts answered. I asked to speak with Elizabeth.

“Mr. Anderson?”

I assumed this was the signal to hang up, but I tried anyway. “Yes, it's me. Will.”

“But . . . Miss Hume said she was meeting you at the car show. She took out the automobile at seven o'clock.”

 

I hurried back through the crowd to our booth, hoping I'd find Elizabeth laughing about some traffic hitch or car problem that had delayed her. She wasn't there. Panic began to tickle at my mind.

I pushed through the crowd and out the front door. Visibility was perhaps twenty feet, the fog even thicker now. I ran along the streets, looking for the Humes' black Baker Electric coupé. The curbs were lined with automobiles, more than I'd ever seen in one place, but none of them was the Humes'.

I ran back to Wayne Gardens and through the pavilion to our booth. My father and Mr. Wilkinson were chatting with a distinguished gentleman who was leaning his bulk on a cane.

“Father! Have you seen Elizabeth?”

He looked annoyed at the interruption until he saw my face. He asked the man to excuse him and pulled me aside. “No, I haven't seen her. Why?”

“She was supposed to meet me here. I'm afraid something's gone wrong.”

He put a hand on my shoulder. “Calm yourself. Perhaps she just got delayed.”

“No. She left the house three hours ago to meet me here. Something's happened.”

“Mm.” He turned to Wilkinson. “Why don't you make some telephone calls—police, hospitals, et cetera. I'll take a lap around the show with Will and see if we can find her.”

He waved over a salesman to speak with the gentleman, and we hurried through the pavilion, looking into every booth, even shouting into the ladies' rooms. She simply wasn't here. Not sure what to do, we returned to the booth to wait for Wilkinson.

My father tried to reassure me. So many things could have delayed her, he said, though he ran out of ideas once he'd offered car trouble and traffic tie-ups, neither of which would have kept her from both her home and the show for three hours.

Wilkinson soon returned. He hadn't gotten any information. He'd left the telephone number of the Wayne Gardens office with the police and hospitals in case she did turn up.

I wandered the area around the convention center and phoned the Humes' house twice more before finally leaving Wayne Gardens near midnight. Alberts had the police out looking for her, though he hadn't said anything yet to Mrs. Hume. He was afraid that, after all that had already happened to their family, it might be too much for her. I promised to phone him if I found Elizabeth, and he said he'd try to get word to both my father and me if she came home.

I trotted perhaps a mile along Jefferson from Wayne Gardens to the Humes' house, the path she would have taken to get to the auto show. The fog made it difficult to see, but I could discern no trace of Elizabeth or her car. Finally I caught a streetcar back to my apartment and phoned every hospital and police station in Detroit. She wasn't at any of the hospitals. The police had no information. I phoned Alberts again, and then my father. Neither had heard anything.

Though I said nothing to either of them, there seemed to be only two possibilities as to why Elizabeth had disappeared for this long. The first was heroin. The second was Frank.

I wasn't sure which would be worse.

 

Wesley got home from the Palace Gardens Ballroom around two, saw my lights on, and stopped by. When the telephone rang, we were arguing about which of us would stay by the phone while the other searched for Elizabeth.

I ran from the parlor into the den, grabbed the phone, and shouted, “Hello!”

Music played in the background—brassy, wild music—but no one said anything.

“Elizabeth! Is that you?”

“Will?” The woman's voice was muffled, the sound throaty and lazy.

“Elizabeth?”

I heard breathing.

“Are you at the Bucket?”

No reply.

“Elizabeth, where are you?”

The receiver clunked onto the hook.

I hung up and again raised the phone. Wesley had followed me into the den. I glanced up at him. “Get your gun.” He ran from the room. When the operator came on, I shouted, “Police headquarters! It's an emergency!” Wesley was back standing in the doorway before the call was answered. I told him what I'd heard.