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Chapter 8 Screwballs, Phonies and Characters Book: The Indomitable Tin Goose Subtitle: The True Story of Preston Tucker and His Car Author: Charles T. Pearson Publisher: Abelard-Schuman Year: 1960 |
8 SCREWBALLS, PHONIES AND CHARACTERS
IT WAS INEVITABLE that an operation with the glamour and possibilities of the Tucker deal would attract a lot of characters, five per centers and opportunists who saw a chance for a fast buck.
It must have been some form of tropism. Screwballs and phonies had only to sniff the air, and then they would flutter their wings, check their gas and oil gauges and, with unerring instinct, head straight for Tucker. They came so fast there wasn't time to sort them out. For every legitimate operator who managed to reach Tucker there must have been twenty oddballs, each with connections or deals that would solve all his problems.
Here are a few of the oddballs who showed up:
There was J. Worthington Clump, a millionaire from Cleveland who had been introduced to Tucker as a potential “angel.” J. Worthington Clump wasn't his name, of course, and the Cleveland millionaire was a bad investment for Tucker Corporation long before there were either stockholders or dealers. Headquarters at the time were in the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago, where Tucker was working around the clock trying to put a deal together which wouldn't require a stock issue.
Clump had a beard that partly covered a dirty white shirt, baggy clothes and holes in the soles of his shoes. But before he left Chicago he went to one of the big banks and cashed a check that proved he could dress like Gandhi if he felt like it. Among his various holdings, which included assorted public utilities and such, was the distillery that made Old Glockenspiel, which Clump said reverently was as fine a whiskey as ever caressed a man's tonsils.
“You don't just drink Old Glockenspiel,” he said, with a faraway look in his eyes, like a man thinking of his mistress.
To savor Old Glockenspiel fully, it seemed, you sniffed its bouquet like a fine brandy, and rolled it around in your mouth to appreciate the sublime perfection of its gentle author-ity. Finally, you allowed a few drops to trickle sensuously down your throat.
With all this buildup, the next step obviously was to sample some Old Glockenspiel. The problem was how to get it, and nobody had the temerity to suggest they send down to the liquor store in the hotel.
So Clump got on the phone and called Cleveland. Night had fallen, so he must have routed some executive out of bed to explain that he must exert every effort to get some Old Glockenspiel to Tucker and his associates in the Blackstone Hotel. After a time whoever was at the other end called back—collect—and after a couple of more calls it was established that a certain liquor store in the Loop could supply this fine whiskey. He must have run up $40 or $50 in long distance calls, all on Tucker's bill. When the sample arrived it wasn't a case. It wasn't a fifth.
It was a pint.
Then there was Mustafa el-Hasim, who was in the rug business in Chicago and decided that a logical extension of his Operation was Tucker distributorships in Iran, Cook County, Illinois, and a large portion of the Eastern Seaboard. El-Hasim reportedly had made his money in Iran during the war, building roads for the British who rewarded him handsomely with lend-lease money from the United States. The only way he could get it out of Iran in any sizable chunks was in the form of rugs, which he imported into the United States.
It was on a Friday, when Tucker had been in the plant only a few months, that someone connected with the United Nations in New York called Max Garavito, head of the Tucker Export Corporation in New York, to arrange a meeting with some friends who wanted to know more about Tucker. After dinner at the Waldorf they went to a Park Avenue apartment crammed with Persian rugs and Oriental furnishings, and arranged to fly to Chicago the following day.
“This fellow el-Hasim wasn't supposed to understand English,” said Garavito, “but he understood everything, In the export business you learn a lot about people, and if you ever meet a man who's sharper than a Persian, he'll be another Persian. The whole week-end went so fast we didn't even have time to think. I never did know the name of that man from the United Nations. Everybody called him 'Your Excellency.'” In Chicago they joined Tucker and some of his associates and were entertained lavishly in el-Hasim's home, where they met his brother, a professor who taught physics or something in one of the universities there. From there they went to the rug store on Wabash Avenue, under the elevated, where el-Hasim gave rugs to both Tucker and Garavito and wrote a check for $50,000 and signed three notes for $50,000 each.
Monday, Garavito and the people from New York went back on the Century, and when Garavito reached his office Tucker was calling to say el-Hasim had stopped payment on the check. Garavito and Tucker agreed there was no point arguing about it, and the best thing they could do was charge their time and expenses against the rugs and forget it, and be thankful they got off that easy.
Next morning, driving out to the plant, Tucker stopped at the rug store where el-Hasim didn't understand English again and sat to one side looking dumb, while his brother from the university carried the ball.
The professor explained it was all a big mistake.
“My brother, he not understand money,” he said.
“For example, one day I say to him, 'I want to borrow twenty-five hundred dollars.' My brother say, 'Okay, you sign note.' I say, 'What, I sign note for lousy twenty-five hundred dollars? No! I not sign note!'
“My brother think is twenty-five thousand dollars. Ha ha! My brother not understand money.”
“Ha ha,” echoed el-Hasim, still looking like a poor immigrant who didn't understand the joke but wanted to be congenial.
So Tucker canceled the contracts and gave el-Hasim back his notes.
The wedding of Kevin O'Connell and a pretty little girl named Felice wasn't a major social event on the Tucker calendar, but it was an incident that added to the picture of an informal, friendly organization in which the president took a personal interest in the happiness and welfare of his employees. It made everybody who had a part in it feel good.
O'Connell worked in sales, where he had an excellent record and was considered one of the best men in the department. The wedding was held at the home of his immediate superior, Jack Grimes, who lived in Wheaton. According to O'Connell, it was love at first sight, and a whirlwind romance. Tucker and Grimes were both pleased that he was going to get married and settle down. They felt it would have a steadying effect.
The wedding ceremony was modest but impressive, and the bride—an attractive redhead—was completely charming with just the right degree of dewy happiness in her eyes. The groom was tall and handsome, with the traditionally distinguished look that goes with a touch of gray at the temples. Tucker gave the bride away, or maybe he was best man.
A slightly ribald touch was an impromptu duet on the front porch, just as the ceremony ended, when a couple of characters from the plant played “I Love You Truly” on a clarinet and baritone horn. When the minister left he hesitated briefly to give the pair a dirty look, and stamped out to his car. Maybe he didn't like music.
Some months later a magazine representative came through town and happened to mention that he knew O'Connell. Tucker told him about the wedding.
“What, again?” asked the man. “Hell, they've been married twice before that I know of, once in Cincinnati and once in San Antonio.”
“Well, lots of people get divorced and then get married again,” said Tucker.
“Yeah, sure,” said the man,“But they didn't get divorced. They just got married again. It's a gimmick.”
The magazine rep explained that O'Connell, a former advertising man and something of a psychologist, had developed getting married into a special tool to be used for emergencies, when his job might have been getting shaky or he needed a new angle to strengthen an account. You don't ordinarily fire a man who just got married, is still starry eyed and has a new bride to support.
Tucker didn't spread the story. O'Connell's succeeding marriages to the same wife seemed a bit unusual, but as far as anybody knew they weren't illegal, or even necessarily unethical. O'Connell was still one of the best men in the department, and as far as Tucker was concerned he didn't need the boost of a romance, whether it was a premiere or a re-run. If he hadn't been good, his getting married wouldn't have helped him much anyway.
O'Connell, unaware that his secret was out, kept on talking about his Chicago romance two years later. And some years later we found out that at least part of Felice's starry-eyed charm derived from the fact that she didn't have on her bifocals, and could just barely see where she was going.
Mr. Wu lived in Shanghai and he came through Chicago on the way to visit his daughter, who was studying to be a missionary in a school somewhere in Michigan. He wanted to see just two things in Chicago—the Tucker car and the girlie shows. With a healthy supply of yen stashed away in British banks in Hong Kong, he was interested in a distributorship for China, and he spent the day looking over the plant. The night he reserved for relaxation.
Planning a visual feast, an experienced guide starts with an appetizer and a salad, working up gradually to the main course. The tour started on West Madison Street, where Mr. Wu worked up an appetite in the lower- and middle-class strip joints. In one, where a statuesque lovely displayed particularly outstanding charms, Mr. Wu's guides were afraid for a moment that he was going to vault over the intervening tables and climb up on the stage. There was some speculation on what he would do if he made it.
Mr. Wu was 86 years old.
The last spot was the 606 Club on South Wabash. The star of the show was a supple siren who finished her act with whirling lights on the darkened stage, and the effect was something like a planetarium running in overdrive. Mr. Wu was fascinated.
Next morning, as we drove him to catch his train, traffic was heavy and it looked for a while as if he wouldn't make it.
“Do not worry,” said Mr. Wu. “If I miss the train I go back to the 606 Club?”