Arthur Hailey - Wheels

Both comments had been from individuals, impatient with the smallness of accomplishment by groups - groups which included the city, state, and federal governments. Though the 1967 riots were now years away, nothing beyond sporadic tinkering had been done to remedy conditions which were the riots' cause.

Brett wondered: If so many, collectively, had failed, what could one person, an individual, hope to do?

Then he remembered: Someone had once asked that about Ralph Nader.

Brett sensed Barbara's eyes upon him and turned toward her. She smiled, but made no comment on his quietness; each knew the other well enough by now not to need explanations of moods, or reasons for them. Barbara looked her best tonight, Brett thought. During the discussion earlier her face had been animated, reflecting interest, intelligence, warmth.

No other girl of Brett's acquaintance rated quite as high with him, which was why he went on seeing her, despite her continued, obstinate refusal to join him in bed.

Brett knew that Barbara had gained a lot of satisfaction from her involvement with the film, and working with Wes Gropetti.

Now Gropetti pushed back his plate, dabbing a napkin around his mouth and beard. The little film director, still wearing his black beret, had been eating Beef Stroganoff with noodles, washed down generously with Chianti. He gave a grunt of satisfaction.

"Yes," Brett said, "do you ever want to get involved - really involved - with subjects you do films about?"

The director looked surprised. "You mean do crusading crap? Chivvy people up?"

"Yes," Brett acknowledged, "that's the kind of crap I mean."

"A pox on that! Sure, I get interested; I have to be. But after that I take pictures, kiddo. That's all." Gropetti rubbed his beard, removing a fragment of noodle which the napkin had missed. He added, "A buttercup scene or a sewer - once I know it's there, all I want axe the right lens, camera angle, lighting, sound sync. Nuts to involvement! Involvement's a full-time job."

Brett nodded. He said thoughtfully, "That's what I think, too."

In his car, driving Barbara home, Brett said, "It's going well, isn't it? The film."

"So well!" She was near the middle of the front seat, curled close beside him. If he moved his face sideways he could touch her hair, as he had already, several times.

"I'm glad for you. You know that."

"Yes," she said. "I know."

"I wouldn't want any woman I lived with not to do something special, something exclusively her own."

"If I ever live with you, I'll remember that."

It was the first time either of them had mentioned the possibility of living together since the night they had talked about it several months ago.

"Have you thought any more?"

"I've thought," she said. "That's all."

Brett waited while he threaded traffic at the Jefferson entrance to the Chrysler Freeway, then asked, "Want to talk about it?"

She shook her head negatively.

"How much longer will the film take?"

"Probably another month."

"You'll be busy?"

"I expect so. Why?"

"I'm taking a trip," Brett said. "To California."

But when she pressed him, he declined to tell her why.

The long, black limousine slowed, swung left, then glided smoothly, between weathered stone pillars, into the paved, winding driveway of Hank Kreisel's Grosse Pointe home.

Kreisel's uniformed chauffeur was at the wheel. Behind him, in the plush interior, were Kreisel and his guests, Erica and Adam Trenton. The car's interior contained - among other things - a bar, from which the parts manufacturer had served drinks as they drove.

It was late evening in the last week of July.

They had already dined - at the Detroit Athletic Club downtown. The Trentons had met Kreisel there, and a fourth at dinner had been a gorgeous girl, with flashing eyes and a French accent, whom Kreisel introduced merely as Zoe. He added that she was in charge of his recently opened export liaison office.

Zoe, who proved an engaging companion, excused herself after dinner and left. Then, at Hank Kreisel's suggestion, Adam and Erica accompanied him home, leaving their own car downtown.

This evening's arrangements had been an outcropping of Adam's weekend at Hank Kreisel's lakeside cottage. Following the cottage affair, the parts manufacturer telephoned Adam, as arranged, and they set a date. Inclusion of Erica in the invitation made Adam nervous at first, and he hoped Kreisel would make no references to the cottage weekend in detail, or Rowena in particular. Adam still remembered Rowena vividly, but she was in the past, and prudence and common sense dictated she remain there. He need not have worried. Hank Kreisel was discreet; they talked of other things - next season's prospects for the Detroit Lions, a recent scandal in city government, and later the Orion, some of whose parts Kreisel's company was now manufacturing in enormous quantities. After a while Adam relaxed, though he still wondered what, precisely, Hank Kreisel wanted of him.

That Kreisel wanted something he was sure, because Brett DeLosanto had told him so. Brett and Barbara had been invited tonight but couldn't make it - Barbara was busy at her job; Brett, who was leaving soon for the West Coast, had commitments to finish first. But Brett confided yesterday, "Hank told me what he's going to ask, and I hope you can do something because there's a lot more to it than just us." The air of mystery had irritated Adam, but Brett refused to say more.

Now, as the limousine stopped at Kreisel's sprawling, ivy-draped mansion, Adam supposed he would know soon.

The chauffeur came around to open the door and handed Erica out. With their host following, Erica and Adam moved onto the lawn nearby and stood together, the big house behind them, in the growing dusk.

The elegant garden, whose manicured lawn, well-trimmed trees and shrubs wore the patina of professional care, sloped downward to the uncluttered, boulevarded lanes of Lake Shore Road, the roadway offering no interruption - except for occasional traffic - to a panoramic view of Lake St. Clair.

The lake was still visible, though barely; a line of white wavelets marked its edge, and far out from shore, lights of lake freighters flickered. Closer at hand a tardy sailboat, using its outboard as a hurry-home, headed for a Grosse Pointe Yacht Club mooring.

"It's beautiful," Erica said, "though I always think, when I come to Grosse Pointe, it isn't really part of Detroit."

"If you lived here," Hank Kreisel answered,"you'd know it was. Plenty of us still smell of gasoline. Or had grease under our fingernails once."

Adam said dryly, "Most Grosse Pointe fingernails have been clean for a long time." But he knew what Kreisel meant. The Grosse Pointes, of which there were five - all separate fiefdoms and traditional enclaves of great wealth - were as much a part of the auto world as any other segment of Greater Detroit. Henry Ford II lived down the street in Grosse Pointe Farms, with other Fords sprinkled nearby like rich spices. Other auto company wealth was here too - Chrysler and General Motors fortunes, as well as those of industry suppliers: big, older names like Fisher, Anderson, Olson, Mullen, and newer ones like Kreisel. The money's current custodians hobnobbed in socially exclusive clubs - at the apex the creaking, overheated Country Club, with a waiting list so long that a new, young applicant without family ties could expect to be admitted at senility. Yet for all its exclusiveness, Grosse Pointe was a friendly place - a reason why a squadron of salaried auto executives made it their home, preferring its "family" scene to the more management-oriented Bloomfield Hills.

Once, older Grosse Pointers looked down patrician noses at automotive money. Now it dominated them, as it dominated all Detroit.