Arthur Hailey - Wheels

He pointed out, "A good many who are moving up in industry believe in rethinking old ideas and the effect is showing. But when you talk about a hand-operated machine - any kind of machine - that isn't a forward change; it's going backward to the way things were before the first Henry Ford." He added, "Anyway, I'm a car and truck man. This is farm machinery."

"Your company has a farm products division."

"I'm not involved with it, and don't expect to be."

"Your people at the top are. And you're involved with them. They listen to you."

"Tell me something," Adam said. "Did you put this up to our farm products people? Did they turn you down?"

The parts manufacturer nodded affirmatively. "Them and others. Need someone now to get me in a board room. So I can raise interest there.

Hoped you'd see it."

At last it was clear precisely what Hank Kreisel wanted: Adam's help in gaining access to the corporate summit of his company, and presumably the ear of the president or chairman of the board.

Erica said, "Can't you do it for him?"

Adam shook his head, but it was Hank Kreisel who told her, "He'd have to believe in the idea first."

They stood looking at the contraption with its handle, so alien to everything in Adam's own experience.

And yet, Adam knew, auto companies often did become involved in projects having little or nothing to do with their principal activity of producing cars. General Motors had pioneered a mechanical heart for use in surgery, and other medical devices. Ford was working on space satellite communication, Chrysler dabbling in planned communities. There were other examples, and the reason for such programs - as Hank Kreisel shrewdly knew - was that someone high in each company had taken a personal interest to begin with.

"Been down to Washington about this thresher," Kreisel said. "Sounded out a lot of guys in State. They go for this. Talk of ordering two hundred thousand machines a year for foreign aid. It'd mean a start. But State Department can't do manufacturing."

"Hank," Adam said, "why work through another company at all? If you're convinced, why not build and market this yourself?"

"Two reasons. One's prestige. I don't have the name. Big company like yours does. Has the marketing setup, too. I don't."

Adam nodded. That much made sense.

"Other reason is finance. I couldn't raise the dough. Not for big production."

"Surely, with your track record, the banks . . ."

Hank Kreisel chuckled. "I'm into the banks already. So deep, some days they think I held 'em up. Never had much cash of my own. Surprising what you can do without it."

Adam understood that, too. Plenty of individuals and companies operated that way, and almost certainly Hank Kreisel's plants, their equipment, inventories, this house, his place at Higgins Lake, were mortgaged heavily. If Kreisel ever sold his business, or a part of it, he could reap millions in cash. Until he did, like others he would continue month by month with cash flow problems.

Again the parts manufacturer turned the thresher handle. Inside, the mechanism moved, though accomplishing nothing now; what it needed was grain to bite on, fed into a quart-size hopper at the top.

"Sure this is offbeat. Could say it's been a dream with me. Had it a long time." Hank Kreisel hesitated, seeming embarrassed by the admission, but went on, "Got the idea in Korea. Watched guys 'n dames in villages, pounding grain with rocks. Primitive: lots of muscle, small results. Saw a need, so started figuring this gizmo. Worked on it, on and off, ever since."

Erica was watching Hank Kreisel's face intently. She, too, knew something of his background, having learned it partly from Adam, partly elsewhere. Suddenly a picture took shape in her mind: of a tough, hard-fighting United States Marine in an alien, hostile land, yet observing native villagers with such understanding and compassion that, years afterward, an idea born at that time could stay with him like a flame.

"Tell you something, Adam," Kreisel said. "You too, Erica. This country's not selling farm machinery overseas. Leastways, not much. Ours is too fancy, too sophisticated. It's like a religion with us - the way I said: everything has to be powered. Must be electric, or use an engine, or whatever. What's forgotten is, Eastern countries have unending labor. You call for a guy to turn a handle, fifty come hurrying like flies - or ants. But we don't like that idea. Don't like to see dams built by coolies carrying stones. Idea offends us. We figure it's inefficient, not American; we say it's the way the pyramids were built.

So what? Fact is: situation's there. Won't change for a long time, if ever. Another thing: out there, not many places to repair fancy machinery. So machines need to be simple." He took his hand away from the thresher whose handle he had continued turning. "This is."

Adam thought: Strangely, while Hank Kreisel had been speaking - eloquently for him - and demonstrating what he had built and believed in, he had a Lincolnesque quality which his tall, lean figure emphasized.

Would the idea work, Adam wondered? Was there a need, the way Hank Kreisel claimed? Was it a worthwhile project to which one of the Big Three auto companies might lend its world prestige?

Adam began firing questions based on his product planner's training in critical analysis. The questions embraced marketing, expected sales, distribution, local assembly, costs, parts, techniques for shipping, servicing, repair. Each point Adam raised, Kreisel seemed to have thought of and been prepared for, with the needed figures in his brain, and the responses showed why the parts manufacturer's own business had become the success it was.

Later, Hank Kreisel personally drove Adam and Erica to their car downtown.

Heading home, northward, on the John Lodge Freeway, Erica asked Adam,

"Will you do what Hank wants? Will you get him in to see the chairman and the others?"

"I don't know." His voice betrayed doubts. "I'm just not sure."

"I think you should."

He glanced sideways, half-amused. "Just like that?"

Erica said firmly, "Yes, just like that."

"Aren't you the one who's always telling me I'm involved with too much already?" Adam was remembering the Orion, its introduction nearing week by week, with demands on his own time increasing, as they would for months ahead. Yet Farstar, now in early phases, was also requiring his concentration and working hours, at the office and at home.

Another thing on his mind was Smokey Stephensen. Adam knew he must resolve soon the question of his sister Teresa's investment in the auto dealership where he was overdue for another visit and a showdown with Smokey over several issues. Somehow, next week, he must try to fit that in.

He asked himself: Did he really want to take on something more?

Erica said, "It wouldn't take time. All Hank's asking is for an introduction so he can demonstrate his machine."

Adam laughed. "Sorry! It doesn't work that way." He explained: Any idea passed on for consideration at the summit of the company must have exhaustive analysis and views appended because nothing was ever dumped casually on the president's or chairman's desk. Even working through Elroy Braithwaite and Hub Hewitson, the executive vice-president - as Adam would have to - the ground rules still applied. Neither would authorize approach to the next higher echelon until an entire proposal had been sifted, costs worked out, market potential mapped, specific recommendations made.

And rightly so. Otherwise hundreds of crackpot schemes would clog the policy making process.

In this instance - though other people might be involved later - Adam, initially, would have to do the work.

Something else: If farm products division had turned down Hank Kreisel's thresher scheme, as he admitted, Adam could make enemies by reviving it, whether success or failure followed. The farm products arm, though small by comparison with automotive operations, was still a part of the company, and making enemies anywhere was never a good idea.