Wheels

Everything else was on the dining table, which looked elegant.

As she brought a taper near the candles, Adam asked, "Is it worth lighting them?"

"Yes." She lit them all.

The candlelight revealed the wine which Erica had brought in again. Adam frowned. "I thought we were keeping that for a special occasion."

"Special like what?"

He reminded her, "The Hewitsons and Braithwaites are coming next month."

"Hub Hewitson doesn't know the difference between a Chateau Latour and Cold Duck, and couldn't care. Why can't we be special, just the two of us?"

Adam speared a piece of beef tenderloin and left it in the fondue pot while he began his salad. At length he said, "Why is it you never lose a chance to take a dig at the people I work with, or the work I do?"

"Do I?"

"You know you do. You have, ever since our marriage."

"Perhaps it's because I feel as if I fight for every private moment that we have."

But she conceded to herself: Sometimes she did throw needless slings and arrows, just as she had a moment ago about Hub Hewitson.

She filled Adam's wineglass and said gently, "I'm sorry. What I said about Hub was snobbish and unnecessary. If you'd like him to have Chateau Latour, I'll go shopping for some more." The thought occurred to her: Maybe I can get an extra bottle or two the way I got the perfume.

"Forget it," Adam said. "It doesn't matter."

During coffee, he excused himself and went to his upstairs study to telephone Teresa.

***

-Hi there, bigshot? Where were you? Counting your stock options?"

Teresa's voice came clearly across the two thousand miles between them, the big-sister contralto Adam remembered from their childhood long ago.

Teresa had been seven when Adam was born. Yet, for all their gap in ages, they had always been close and, strangely, from the time Adam was in his early teens, Teresa had sought her younger brother's advice and often heeded it.

"You know how it is, sis. I'm indispensable, which makes it hard to get home. Sometimes I wonder how they ever started this industry without me."

"We're all proud of you," Teresa said. "The kids often talk about Uncle Adam. They say he'll be company president someday." Another thing about Teresa was her unconcealed pleasure at her brother's success. She had always reacted to his progress and promotions that way, with far more enthusiasm - he admitted reluctantly - than Erica had ever shown.

He asked, "How have you been, sis?"

"Lonely." A pause. "You were expecting some other answer?"

"Not really. I wondered if, by now..."

"Somebody else had shown up?"

"Something like that."

"A few have. I'm still not a bad-looking broad for a widow lady."

"I know that." It was true. Though she would be fifty in a year or so, Teresa was statuesque, classically beautiful, and sexy.

"The trouble is, when you've had a man - a real one - for twenty-two years, you start comparing others with him. They don't come out of it well."

Teresa's husband, Clyde, had been an accountant with wide-ranging interests. He had died tragically in an airplane accident a year ago, leaving his widow with four young children, adopted late in their marriage. Since then, Teresa had had to make major adjustments both psychologically and in financial management, the latter an area she had never bothered with before.

Adam asked, "Is the money end all right?"

"I think so. But it's that I called you about. Sometimes I wish you were closer."

Though Adam's late brother-in-law had left adequate provision for his family, his financial affairs had been untidy at the time of his death.

As best he could from a distance, Adam had helped Teresa unravel them.

"If you really need me," Adam said, "I can fly out for a day or two."

"No. You're already where I need you - in Detroit. I get concerned about that investment Clyde made in Stephensen Motors. It earns money, but it represents a lot of capital - most of what we have - and I keep asking myself: Should I leave it where it is, or sell out and put the money into something safer?"

Adam already knew the background. Teresa's husband had been an auto-racing buff who haunted tracks in Southern California, so that he came to know many racing drivers well. One had been Smokey Stephensen, a consistent winner over the years who, unusually for his kind, had shrewdly held on to his prize money and eventually quit with most of his winnings intact.

Later, using his name and prestige, Smokey Stephensen obtained an auto dealership franchise in Detroit, marketing the products of Adam's company.

Teresa's husband had gone into silent partnership with the ex-race driver and contributed almost one-half of needed capital. The shares in the business were now owned by Teresa who received them under Clyde's will.

"Sis, you say you're getting money from Detroit - from Stephensen?"

"Yes. I haven't the figures, though I can send them to you, and the accountants who took over Clyde's office say it's a fair return. What worries me is all I read about car dealerships being risky investments, and some of them failing. If it happened to Stephensen's, the kids and I could be in trouble."

"It can happen," Adam acknowledged. "But if you're lucky enough to have shares in a good dealership, you might make a big mistake by pulling out."

"I realize that. It's why I need someone to advise me, someone I can trust. Adam, I hate to ask this because I know you're working hard already. But do you think you could spend some time with Smokey Stephensen, find out what's going on, form your own opinion about how things look, then tell me what I ought to do? If you remember, we talked about this once before."

"I remember. And I think I explained then, it could be a problem. Auto companies don't allow their staff to be involved with auto dealerships. Before I could do anything, it would have to go before the Conflict of Interest Committee."

"Is that a big thing? Would it embarrass you?"

Adam hesitated. The answer was: It would embarrass him. To do what Teresa asked would involve a close study of the Stephensen dealership, which meant looking into its books and reviewing operating methods. Teresa, of course, would provide Adam with authority from her point of view, but the point of view of Adam's company - his employers - was something else again.

Before Adam could cozy up with a car dealer, for whatever purpose, he would have to declare what he was doing, and why. Elroy Braithwaite would need to know; so would Hub Hewitson, probably, and it was a safe bet that neither would like the idea. Their reasoning would be simple. A senior executive of Adam's status was in a position to do financial favors for a dealer, hence the strict rules which all auto companies had about outside business interests in this and other areas. A standing Conflict of Interest Committee reviewed such matters, including personal investments of company employees and their families, reported yearly on a form resembling an income tax return. A few people who resented this put investments in their wives' or children's names, and kept them secret. But mostly the rules made sense, and executives observed them.

Well, he would have to go to the committee, Adam supposed, and state his arguments. After all, he had nothing to gain personally; he would merely be protecting the interest of a widow and young children, which gave the request a compassionate overtone. In fact, the more he thought about it, the less trouble he anticipated.

"I'll see what I can work out, sis," Adam said into the telephone.

"Tomorrow I'll start things moving in the company, then it may be a week or two before I get approval to go ahead. You do understand I can't do anything without that?"

"Yes, I do. And the delay doesn't matter. As long as I know you're going to be looking out for us, that's the important thing," Teresa sounded relieved. He could picture her now, the small concentrated frown she had when dealing with something difficult had probably gone, replaced by a warm smile, the kind which made a man feel good. Adam's sister was a woman who liked to rely on a male and have him handle decisions, though during the past year she had been forced to make an unaccustomed number on her own.

Adam asked, "How much of the Stephensen Motors stock did Clyde have?"

"It was forty-nine percent, and I still have all of it. Clyde put up about two hundred and forty thousand dollars. That's why I've been so concerned."

"Was Clyde's name on the franchise?"

"No. Just Smokey Stephensen's."

He instructed, "You'd better send me all the papers, including a record of payments you've had as dividends. Write to Stephensen, too. Tell him he'll probably be hearing from me, and that I have your authority to go in and look things over. Okay?"

"I'll do all that. And thank you, Adam dear; thank you very much. Please give my love to Erica. How is she?"

"Oh, she's fine."

Erica had cleared away their meal and was on the sofa in the living room, feet curled beneath her, when Adam returned.

She motioned to an end table. "I made more coffee."

"Thanks." He poured a cup for himself, then went to the hallway for his briefcase. Returning, he sank into an armchair by the fire, which had now burned low, opened his briefcase and began to take out papers.

Erica asked, "What did Teresa want?"