the Seth Thomas in the living room, put on something hoarse and smoky by Anita O’Day, and sat down in front of the speakers to wait for the mellow. Some men need a drink to wind down after a lively couple of days. I get along just fine on music and a drink.
Two issues of the News had been waiting for me on the doorstep. I’d forgotten to suspend delivery, which was why my would-be burglar had thought the place worth a try. That day’s, Thursday’s, had a front-page piece on Marianne Motors, which was seldom absent from the headlines now that production had begun on the Stiletto, a gunmetal sportabout designed for middle-aging men and women for whom the Corvette was too much car. An insert in the photograph that ran with the article showed the vehicle parked in the middle of a barren proving ground with gull wings raised, looking like a fiberglass bird of prey. The main picture featured a grinning Timothy Marianne accepting a check from a heavy dark-suited bald man who looked like he’d rather be anyplace else. The caption identified him as Hector Stutch, president and chairman of the board of Stutch Petrochemicals and one of the grandsons of Leland Stutch, who in 1901 had mounted an internal combustion engine on a carriage body in his father’s barn and thirty years later sold the Stutch Motor Corporation to General Motors for eighty-five million Depression dollars. The Commodore, as old Leland had been known since retooling to produce minesweepers for the navy during the First World War, was reported in good health and semiretirement as Hector’s consultant in the family mansion in Grosse Pointe, having observed his one hundredth birthday in February of that year. The photograph had been taken to commemorate Stutch Petrochemicals’ investment of seven hundred and fifty million dollars in Marianne Motors.
The check was a dummy. Barons the likes of Stutch and Marianne didn’t get ink on their hands or stand in line at the bank. Someone who made twenty thousand a year tapped some keys and a number followed by a flock of zeroes flew through the ether from one corporate account into another. But that didn’t make as good a picture.
The story that accompanied it was more of the same. With his customary flamboyance Marianne had acquired a bankrupt tractor plant downriver, razed most of it, put up a new building, and installed state-of-the-art equipment at a cost far exceeding what would have been needed to start from scratch. This had drawn plenty of criticism from the rest of the industry, but the local economy had benefited from the increased demand for labor and the energetic new magnate was a popular speaker on the chicken-and-peas circuit. He had used his considerable personal charm to wangle large investments at home and abroad, although none was as big as Stutch’s. The reclusive Commodore was an unknown factor because of his age, but his grandsons were careful businessmen and speculation ran high that the financial vote of confidence would loosen a great many purse strings on Wall Street. In workingmen’s bars throughout Detroit and its suburbs the patrons were singing “All day, all night, Marianne,” referring to production at the Stiletto plant.
The media had fallen in love with him, the way they will with good-looking men who speak well and spend a lot of money and glitter when they walk. He had been consulted on everything from presidential candidacy to his favorite Christmas carol and always offered up something quotable that would offend nobody the public didn’t want offended. Those editorialists and market analysts who counseled caution were trampled under the same stampede that had swept several local mediocre boxers and clownish ballplayers toward their inevitable Waterloos. It played hell with your faith in the basic wisdom of mankind.
I turned to the box scores to see where the Tigers stood, then read the funnies and my horoscope. I was warned to approach new ventures warily. I bought myself
Two issues of the News had been waiting for me on the doorstep. I’d forgotten to suspend delivery, which was why my would-be burglar had thought the place worth a try. That day’s, Thursday’s, had a front-page piece on Marianne Motors, which was seldom absent from the headlines now that production had begun on the Stiletto, a gunmetal sportabout designed for middle-aging men and women for whom the Corvette was too much car. An insert in the photograph that ran with the article showed the vehicle parked in the middle of a barren proving ground with gull wings raised, looking like a fiberglass bird of prey. The main picture featured a grinning Timothy Marianne accepting a check from a heavy dark-suited bald man who looked like he’d rather be anyplace else. The caption identified him as Hector Stutch, president and chairman of the board of Stutch Petrochemicals and one of the grandsons of Leland Stutch, who in 1901 had mounted an internal combustion engine on a carriage body in his father’s barn and thirty years later sold the Stutch Motor Corporation to General Motors for eighty-five million Depression dollars. The Commodore, as old Leland had been known since retooling to produce minesweepers for the navy during the First World War, was reported in good health and semiretirement as Hector’s consultant in the family mansion in Grosse Pointe, having observed his one hundredth birthday in February of that year. The photograph had been taken to commemorate Stutch Petrochemicals’ investment of seven hundred and fifty million dollars in Marianne Motors.
The check was a dummy. Barons the likes of Stutch and Marianne didn’t get ink on their hands or stand in line at the bank. Someone who made twenty thousand a year tapped some keys and a number followed by a flock of zeroes flew through the ether from one corporate account into another. But that didn’t make as good a picture.
The story that accompanied it was more of the same. With his customary flamboyance Marianne had acquired a bankrupt tractor plant downriver, razed most of it, put up a new building, and installed state-of-the-art equipment at a cost far exceeding what would have been needed to start from scratch. This had drawn plenty of criticism from the rest of the industry, but the local economy had benefited from the increased demand for labor and the energetic new magnate was a popular speaker on the chicken-and-peas circuit. He had used his considerable personal charm to wangle large investments at home and abroad, although none was as big as Stutch’s. The reclusive Commodore was an unknown factor because of his age, but his grandsons were careful businessmen and speculation ran high that the financial vote of confidence would loosen a great many purse strings on Wall Street. In workingmen’s bars throughout Detroit and its suburbs the patrons were singing “All day, all night, Marianne,” referring to production at the Stiletto plant.
The media had fallen in love with him, the way they will with good-looking men who speak well and spend a lot of money and glitter when they walk. He had been consulted on everything from presidential candidacy to his favorite Christmas carol and always offered up something quotable that would offend nobody the public didn’t want offended. Those editorialists and market analysts who counseled caution were trampled under the same stampede that had swept several local mediocre boxers and clownish ballplayers toward their inevitable Waterloos. It played hell with your faith in the basic wisdom of mankind.
I turned to the box scores to see where the Tigers stood, then read the funnies and my horoscope. I was warned to approach new ventures warily. I bought myself
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