Category: A Two Part Story
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OH GOD. WHAT HAVE WE DONE?, PART II: The Grass Is Always Greener
Elwood Engel eventually settled into his new position as Chrysler’s styling chief, bringing with him the clean, disciplined design philosophy that had helped produce the 1961 Lincoln Continental. Engel believed that automobiles should possess coherent proportions, restrained ornamentation, and an appearance suggesting that all their components had been designed at approximately the same time. This…
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OH GOD. WHAT HAVE WE DONE? Part I: How Detroit Nearly Killed the Full Sized Dodge
The story of how Detroit nearly destroyed the full-sized Dodge, how a young man from Fort Stockton helped save it, and how the whole business eventually went to grass. There is a particular kind of silence that occurs in the executive offices of an automobile manufacturer when several hundred million dollars have been spent developing…
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TESTIGO DEL ASESINATO, Part II
Rusty walked back over to the bar and lowered himself onto the same stool he’d been sitting on when he realized the bartender was Parker McHale. The jukebox still glowed softly in the corner like it had been waiting years for this exact conversation. Outside, somewhere beyond the dark windows, the Arkansas River kept sliding…
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TESTIGO DEL ASESINATO, Part I
In the middle of Kansas, Rusty took a left. There was no ceremony to it. No sign from heaven. No sudden realization. Just a highway making a suggestion, and Rusty Hammer, being in the mental condition of a man traveling alone with too much road and too much unresolved marriage behind him, accepted. Maybe Nebraska…
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KITTY MAKES HER PLAY, Part II
PART II OF A TWO PART STORY Kitty woke Chuck up in a way that reached back ten years and tapped him on the shoulder like an old friend who still knew all the good stories. It had been Amarillo the first time. Honeymoon suite. Curtains that didn’t quite close and a bed that squeaked…
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KITTY MAKES HER PLAY, Part I
PART ONE OF A TWO PART STORY Kitty and Chuck Childress were the Rob and Laura Petrie of Road Runner Estates in 1964, which in Fort Stockton was about the highest compliment you could give a couple without inviting a visit from the Baptists. Chuck wasn’t writing jokes for television, but he did something arguably…
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BOONE DANIELS, PART II: The Trojan Pony
PART II OF A TWO PART STORY Boone Daniels moved into the Lincoln-Mercury Division with near-mythical status, the kind of reputation that got whispered about in elevators and cited in meetings by men who weren’t there but wished they had been. He was the architect behind a maneuver that laid bare General Motors’ greatest weakness…
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BOONE DANIELS, PART I: Mustangs and Buffaloes
PART I OF A TWO PART STORY “Are you sure we can trust this kid? He sounds like a hayseed.” The question came from the man in the darker blue suit, the one with the heavy watchband and the habit of asking questions only after he already knew the answer. He leaned back in his…
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NUTS & BOLTS, Part II
In a trifecta of fate that felt less like coincidence and more like a personal audit, Bolts Beaumont’s life came apart all at once. First came the sales reports. They arrived quietly, as bad news often does, buried inside routine emails and politely worded summaries. The Chevy SSRs were lingering. Not moving. Not selling. Sitting…
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NUTS & BOLTS, Part I
Detroit, early 2000s, had perfected the art of looking busy without appearing curious. The General Motors boardroom was a master class in that discipline. The African mahogany table dominated the room, long enough to suggest authority and wide enough to discourage intimacy. It had been polished so thoroughly over the decades that it reflected overhead…