Big Money

Charley Anderson

It was a bright metalcolored January day when Charley went downtown to lunch with Nat Benton. He got to the broker’s office a little early, and sat waiting in an empty office looking out through the broad steelframed windows at the North River and the Statue of Liberty and the bay beyond all shiny ruffled green in the northwest wind, spotted with white dabs of smoke from tugboats, streaked with catspaws and the churny wakes of freighters bucking the wind, checkered with lighters and flatboats, carferries, barges and the red sawedoff passengerferries. A schooner with grey sails was running out before the wind.

Charley sat at Nat Benton’s desk smoking a cigarette and being careful to get all his ashes in the polished brass ashreceiver that stood beside the desk. The phone buzzed. It was the switchboard girl. “Mr. Anderson… Mr. Benton asked me to beg you to excuse him for a few more minutes. He’s out on the floor. He’ll be over right away.” A little later Benton stuck in the crack of the door his thin pale face on a long neck like a chicken’s. “Hullo, Charley… be right there.” Charley had time to smoke one more cigarette before Benton came back. “I bet you’re starved.” “That’s all right, Nat, I been enjoyin’ the view.”

“View?… Sure… Why, I don’t believe I look out of that window from one week’s end to the other… Still it was on one of those darned red ferries that old Vanderbilt got his start… I guess if I took my nose out of the ticker now and then I’d be better off… Come along, let’s get something to eat.” Going down in the elevator Nat Benton went on talking. “Why, you are certainly a difficult customer to get hold of.”

“The first time I’ve had my overalls off in a year,” said Charley, laughing.

The cold stung when they stepped out of the revolving doors. “You know, Charley, there’s been quite a little talk about you fellers on the street… Askew-Merritt went up five points yesterday. The other day there was a feller from Detroit, a crackerjack feller… you know the Tern outfit… looking all over for you. We’ll have lunch together next time he’s in town.”

When they got to the corner under the el an icy blast of wind lashed their faces and brought tears to their eyes. The street was crowded; men, errandboys, pretty girl stenographers, all had the same worried look and pursed lips Nat Benton had. “Plenty cold today.” Benton was gasping, tugging at his coatcollar. “These steamheated offices soften a feller up.” They ducked into a building and went down into the warm hotrolls smell of a basement restaurant. Their faces were still tingling from the cold when they had sat down and were studying the menucards.

“Do you know,” Benton said, “I’ve got an idea you boys stand in the way of making a little money out there.” “It’s sure been a job gettin’ her started,” said Charley as he put his spoon into a plate of peasoup. He was hungry. “Every time you turn your back somethin’ breaks down and everythin’ goes cockeyed. But now I’ve got a wonderful guy for a foreman. He’s a Heinie used to work for the Fokker outfit.”

Nat Benton was eating rawroastbeef sandwiches and buttermilk. “I’ve got no more digestion than…” “Than John D. Rockefeller,” put in Charley. They laughed.

Benton started talking again. “But as I was saying, I don’t know anything about manufacturing but it’s always been my idea that the secret of moneymaking in that line of business was discovering proper people to work for you. They work for you or you work for them. That’s about the size of it. After all you fellers turn out the product out there in Long Island City, but if you want to make the money you’ve got to come down here to make it… Isn’t that true?”

Charley looked up from the juicy sirloin he was just about to cut. He burst out laughing. “I guess,” he said. “A man’ud be a damn fool to keep his nose on his draftin’board all his life.” They talked about golf for a while, then when they were having their coffee, Nat Benton said, “Charley, I just wanted to pass the word along, on account of you being a friend of old Ollie’s and the Humphries and all that sort of thing… don’t you boys sell any of your stock. If I were you I’d scrape up all the cash you could get ahold of for a margin and buy up any that’s around loose. You’ll have the chance soon.”

“You think she’ll keep on risin’?”

“Now you keep this under your hat… Merritt and that crowd are worried. They’re selling, so you can expect a drop. That’s what these Tern people in Detroit are waiting for to get in cheap, see, they like the looks of your little concern… They think your engine is a whiz… If it’s agreeable to you I’d like to handle your brokerage account, just for old times’ sake, you understand.”

Charley laughed. “Gosh, I hadn’t pictured myself with a brokerage account… but by heck, you may be right.”

“I wouldn’t like to see you wake up one morning and find yourself out on the cold cold pavement, see, Charley.”

After they’d eaten Nat Benton asked Charley if he’d ever seen the stockexchange operating. “It’s interesting to see if a feller’s never seen it,” he said and led Charley across Broadway where the lashing wind cut their faces and down a narrow street shaded by tall buildings into a crowded vestibule. “My, that cold nips your ears,” he said. “You ought to see it out where I come from,” said Charley. They went up in an elevator and came out in a little room where some elderly parties in uniform greeted Mr. Benton with considerable respect. Nat signed in a book and they were let out through a small door into the visitors’ gallery and stood a minute looking down into a great greenish hall like a railroadstation onto the heads of a crowd of men, some in uniform, some with white badges, slowly churning around the tradingposts. Sometimes the crowd knotted and thickened at one booth and sometimes at another. The air was full of shuffle and low clicking machinesounds in which voices were lost. “Don’t look like much,” said Nat, “but that’s where it all changes hands.” Nat pointed out the booths where different classes of stocks were traded. “I guess they don’t think much about aviation stocks,” said Charley. “No, it’s all steel and oil and the automotive industries,” said Nat. “We’ll give ’em a few years… what do you say, Nat?” said Charley boisterously.

Charley went uptown on the Second Avenue el and out across the Queensboro Bridge. At Queens Plaza he got off and walked over to the garage where he kept his car, a Stutz roadster he’d bought secondhand. The traffic was heavy and he was tired and peevish before he got out to the plant. The sky had become overcast and dry snow drove on the wind. He turned in and jammed on his brakes in the crunching ash of the yard in front of the office, then he pulled off his padded aviator’s helmet and sat there a minute in the car after he’d switched off the motor listening to the hum and whir and clatter of the plant. “The sonsabitches are slackenin’ up,” he muttered under his breath.

He stuck his head in Joe’s office for a moment but Joe was busy talking to a guy in a coonskin coat who looked like a bond salesman. So he ran down the hall to his own office, said, “Hello, Ella, get me Mr. Stauch,” and sat down at his desk which was covered with notes on blue and yellow sheets. “A hell of a note,” he was thinking, “for a guy to be glued to a desk all his life.”

Stauch’s serious square pale face topped by a brush of colorless hair sprouting from a green eyeshade was leaning over him. “Sit down, Julius,” he said. “How’s tricks?… Burnishin’ room all right?” “Ach, yes, but we haf two stampingmachines broken in one day.” “The hell you say. Let’s go look at them.”

When Charley got back to his office he had a streak of grease on his nose. He still had an oily micrometer in his hand. It was six o’clock. He called up Joe. “Hello, Joe, goin’ home?” “Sure, I was waiting for you; what was the trouble?” “I was crawlin’ around on my belly in the grease as usual.”

Charley washed his hands and face in the lavatory and ran down the rubbertreaded steps. Joe was waiting for him in the entry. “My wife’s got my car, Charley, let’s take yours,” said Joe. “It’ll be a bit drafty, Joe.” “We can stand it.” “Goodnight, Mr. Askew, goodnight, Mr. Anderson,” said the old watchman in his blue cap with earflaps, who was closing up behind them.

“Say, Charley,” Joe said when they’d turned into the stream of traffic at the end of the alley. “Why don’t you let Stauch do more of the routine work? He seems pretty efficient.” “Knows a hell of a lot more than I do,” said Charley, squinting through the frosted windshield. The headlights coming the other way made big sparkling blooms of light in the driving snow. On the bridge the girders were already all marked out with neat streaks of white. All you could see of the river and the city was a shadowy swirl, now dark, now glowing. Charley had all he could do to keep the car from skidding on the icy places on the bridge. “Attaboy, Charley,” said Joe as they slewed down the ramp into the crosstown street full of golden light.

Across Fiftyninth they had to go at a snail’s pace. They were stiff with cold and it was seven thirty before they drove up to the door of the apartmenthouse on Riverside Drive where Charley had been living all winter with the Askews. Mrs. Askew and two yellowhaired little girls met them at their door.

Grace Askew was a bleachedlooking woman with pale hair and faint crowsfeet back of her eyes and on the sides of her neck that gave her a sweet crumpled complaining look. “I was worried,” she said, “about your not having the car in this blizzard.”

Jean, the oldest girl, was jumping up and down singing, “Snowy snowy snowy, it’s going to be snowy.”

“And, Charles,” said Grace in a teasing voice as they went into the parlor, that smelt warm of dinner cooking, to spread their hands before the gaslogs, “if she called up once she called up twenty times. She must think I’m trying to keep you away from her.”

“Who… Doris?”

Grace pursed up her lips and nodded. “But, Charles, you’d better stay home to dinner. I’ve got a wonderful leg of lamb and sweetpotatoes. You know you like our dinners better here than all those fancy fixin’s over there…”

Charley was already at the phone. “Oh, Charley,” came Doris’s sweet lisping voice, “I was afraid you’d been snowed in over on Long Island. I called there but nobody answered… I’ve got an extra place… I’ve got some people to dinner you’d love to meet… He was an engineer under the Czar. We’re all waiting for you.” “But honestly, Doris, I’m all in.” “This’ll be a change. Mother’s gone south and we’ll have the house to ourselves. We’ll wait…”

“It’s those lousy Russians again,” muttered Charley as he ran to his room and hopped into his dinnerclothes. “Why, look at the loungelizard,” kidded Joe from the easychair where he was reading the evening paper with his legs stretched out towards the gaslogs. “Daddy, what’s a loungelizard?” intoned Jean. “Grace, would you mind?” Charley went up to Mrs. Askew blushing, with the two ends of his black tie hanging from his collar.

“Well, it’s certainly devotion,” Grace said, getting up out of her chair — to tie the bow she had to stick the tip of her tongue out of the corner of her mouth—“on a night like this.” “I’d call it dementia if you asked me,” said Joe. “Daddy, what’s dementia?” echoed Jean, but Charley was already putting on his overcoat as he waited for the elevator in the fakemarble hall full of sample whiffs of all the dinners in all the apartments on the floor.

He pulled on his woolly gloves as he got into the car. In the park the snow hissed under his wheels. Turning out of the driveway at Fiftyninth he went into a skid, out of it, into it again. His wheels gripped the pavement just beside a cop who stood at the corner beating his arms against his chest. The cop glared. Charley brought his hand up to his forehead in a snappy salute. The cop laughed. “Naughty naughty,” he said and went on thrashing his arms.

When the door of the Humphries’ apartment opened Charley’s feet sank right away into the deep nap of a Beluchistan rug. Doris came out to meet him. “Oh, you were a darling to come in this dreadful weather,” she cooed. He kissed her. He wished she didn’t have so much greasy lipstick on. He hugged her to him so slender in the palegreen eveninggown. “You’re the darling,” he whispered.

From the drawingroom he could hear voices, foreign accents, and the clink of ice in a shaker. “I wish we were goin’ to be alone,” he said huskily. “Oh, I know, Charley, but they were some people I just had to have. Maybe they’ll go home early.” She straightened his necktie and patted down his hair and pushed him before her into the drawingroom.

When the last of Doris’s dinnerguests had gone the two of them stood in the hall facing each other. Charley drew a deep breath. He had drunk a lot of cocktails and champagne. He was crazy for her. “Jesus, Doris, they were pretty hard to take.” “It was sweet of you to come, Charley.” Charley felt bitter smoldering anger swelling inside him. “Look here, Doris, let’s have a talk…” “Oh, now we’re going to be serious.” She made a face as she let herself drop on the settee. “Now look here, Doris… I’m crazy about you, you know that…”

“Oh, but, Charley, we’ve had such fun together… we don’t want to spoil it yet… You know marriage isn’t always so funny… Most of my friends who’ve gotten married have had a horrid time.”

“If it’s a question of jack, don’t worry. The concern’s goin’ to go big… I wouldn’t lie to you. Ask Nat Benton. Just this after’ he was explainin’ to me how I could start gettin’ in the money right away.”

Doris got up and went over to him and kissed him. “Yes, he was a poor old silly… You must think I’m a horrid mercenary little bitch. I don’t see why you’d want to marry me if you thought I was like that. Honestly, Charley, what I’d love more than anything in the world would be to get out and make my own living. I hate this plushhorse existence.” He grabbed her to him. She pushed him away. “It’s my dress, darling, yes, that costs money, not me… Now you go home and go to bed like a good boy. You look all tired out.”

When he got down to the street, he found the snow had drifted in over the seat of the car. The motor would barely turn over. No way of getting her to start. He called his garage to send somebody to start the car. Since he was in the phonebooth he might as well call up Mrs. Darling. “What a dreadful night, dearie. Well, since it’s Mr. Charley, maybe we can fix something up but it’s dreadfully short notice and the end of the week too. Well… in about an hour.”

Charley walked up and down in the snow in front of the apartmenthouse waiting for them to come round from the garage. The black angry bile was still rising in him. When they finally came and got her started he let the mechanic take her back to the garage. Then he walked around to a speak he knew.

The streets were empty. Dry snow swished in his face as he went down the steps to the basement door. The bar was full of men and girls halftight and bellowing and tittering. Charley felt like wringing their goddam necks. He drank off four whiskies one after another and went around to Mrs. Darling’s. Going up in the elevator he began to feel tight. He gave the elevatorboy a dollar and caught out of the corner of his eye the black boy’s happy surprised grin when he shoved the bill into his pocket. Once inside he let out a whoop. “Now, Mr. Charley,” said the colored girl in starched cap and apron who had opened the door, “you know the missis don’t like no noise… and you’re such a civilspoken young gentleman.”

“Hello, dearie.” He hardly looked at the girl. “Put out the light,” he said. “Remember your name’s Doris. Go in the bathroom and take your clothes off and don’t forget to put on lipstick, plenty lipstick.” He switched off the light and tore off his clothes. In the dark it was hard to get the studs out of his boiled shirt. He grabbed the boiled shirt with both hands and ripped out the buttonholes. “Now come in here, goddam you. I love you, you bitch Doris.” The girl was trembling. When he grabbed her to him she burst out crying.

He had to get some liquor for the girl to cheer her up and that started him off again. Next day he woke up late feeling too lousy to go out to the plant, he didn’t want to go out, all he wanted to do was drink so he hung around all day drinking gin and bitters in Mrs. Darling’s draperychoked parlor. In the afternoon Mrs. Darling came in and played Russian bank with him and told him about how an opera singer had ruined her life, and wanted to get him to taper off on beer. That evening he got her to call up the same girl again. When she came he tried to explain to her that he wasn’t crazy. He woke up alone in the bed feeling sober and disgusted.

The Askews were at breakfast when he got home Sunday morning. The little girls were lying on the floor reading the funny papers. There were Sunday papers on all the chairs. Joe was sitting in his bathrobe smoking a cigar over his last cup of coffee. “Just in time for a nice cup of fresh coffee,” he said. “That must have been quite a dinnerparty,” said Grace, giggling. “I got in on a little pokergame,” growled Charley. When he sat down his overcoat opened and they saw his torn shirtfront. “I’d say it was quite a pokergame,” said Joe. “Everything was lousy,” said Charley. “I’ll go and wash my face.”

When he came back in his bathrobe and slippers he began to feel better. Grace got him some country sausage and hot cornbread. “Well, I’ve heard about these Park Avenue parties before but never one that lasted two days.” “Oh, lay off, Grace.”

“Say, Charley, did you read that article in the financial section of the Evening Post last night tipping off about a boom in airplane stocks?” “No… but I had a talk with Nat Benton, you know he’s a broker I told you about, a friend of Ollie Taylor’s… Well, he said…”

Grace got to her feet. “Now you know if you boys talk shop on Sundays I leave the room.” Joe took his wife’s arm and gently pulled her back into her chair. “Just let me say one thing and then we’ll shut up… I hope we keep out of the hands of the operators for at least five years. I’m sorry the damned stuff’s listed. I wish I trusted Merritt and them as much as I do you and me.” “We’ll talk about that,” said Charley. Joe handed him a cigar. “All right, Gracie,” he said. “How about a selection on the victrola?”

Charley had been planning all winter to take Doris with him to Washington when he flew down one of the sample planes to show off some of his patents to the experts at the War Department, but she and her mother sailed for Europe the week before. That left him with nothing to do one springy Saturday night, so he called up the Johnsons. He’d met Paul on the subway during the winter and Paul had asked him in a hurt way why he never came down any more. Charley had answered honestly he hadn’t stuck his nose out of the plant in months. Now it made him feel funny calling up, listening to the phone ring and then Eveline’s teasing voice that always seemed to have a little jeer in it: What fun, he must come down at once and stay to supper, she had a lot of funny people there, she said.

Paul opened the door for him. Paul’s face had a tallowy look Charley hadn’t noticed before. “Welcome, stranger,” he said in a forced boisterous tone and gave him a couple of pats on the back as he went into the crowded room. There were some very pretty girls, and young men of different shapes and sizes, cocktailglasses, trays of little things to eat on crackers, cigarettesmoke. Everybody was talking and screeching like a lot of lathes in a turningplant. At the back of the room Eveline, looking tall and pale and beautiful, sat on a marbletopped table beside a small man with a long yellow nose and pouches under his eyes. “Oh, Charley, how prosperous you look… Meet Charles Edward Holden… Holdy, this is Charley Anderson; he’s in flyingmachines… Why, Charley, you look filthy rich.” “Not yet,” said Charley. He was trying to keep from laughing. “Well, what are you looking so pleased about? Everybody is just too dreary about everything this afternoon.”

“I’m not dreary,” said Holden. “Now don’t tell me I’m dreary.”

“Of course, Holdy, you’re never dreary but your remarks tend towards murder and suicide.”

Everybody laughed a great deal. Charley found himself pushed away from Eveline by people trying to listen to what Charles Edward Holden was saying. He found himself talking to a plain young woman in a shiny grey hat that had a big buckle set in it like a headlight. “Do tell me what you do,” she said. “How do you mean?” “Oh, I mean almost everybody here does something, writes or paints or something.” “Me? No, I don’t do anything like that… I’m in airplane motors.” “A flyer, oh, my, how thrilling… I always love to come to Eveline’s, you never can tell who you’ll meet… Why, last time I was here Houdini had just left. She’s wonderful on celebrities. But I think it’s hard on Paul, don’t you?… Paul’s such a sweet boy. She and Mr. Holden… it’s all so public. He writes about her all the time in his column… Of course I’m very oldfashioned. Most people don’t seem to think anything of it… Of course it’s grand to be honest… Of course he’s such a celebrity too… I certainly think people ought to be honest about their sexlife, don’t you? It avoids all those dreadful complexes and things… But it’s too bad about Paul, such a nice cleancut young fellow…”

When the guests had thinned out a little a Frenchspeaking colored maid served a dinner of curry and rice with lots of little fixings. Mr. Holden and Eveline did all the talking. It was all about people Charley hadn’t ever heard of. He tried to break it up by telling about how he’d been taken for Charles Edward Holden in that saloon that time, but nobody listened, and he guessed it was just as well anyway. They had just come to the salad when Holden got up and said, “My dear, my only morals consist in never being late to the theater, we must run.” He and Eveline went out in a hurry leaving Charley and Paul to talk to a quarrelsome middleaged man and his wife that Charley had never been introduced to. It wasn’t much use trying to talk to them because the man was too tight to listen to anything anybody said and the woman was set on some kind of a private row with him and couldn’t be got off it. When they staggered out Charley and Paul were left alone. They went out to a movingpicture house for a while but the film was lousy so Charley went uptown glum and tumbled into bed.

Next day Charley went by early for Andy Merritt and sat with him in the big antisepticlooking diningroom at the Yale Club while he ate his breakfast. “Will it be bumpy?” was the first thing he asked. “Weather report was fine yesterday.” “What does Joe say?” “He said for us to keep our goddam traps shut an’ let the other guys do the talkin’.”

Merritt was drinking his last cup of coffee in little sips. “You know Joe’s a little overcautious sometimes… He wants to have a jerkwater plant to run himself and hand down to his grandchildren. Now that was all very well in upstate New York in the old days… but now if a business isn’t expanding it’s on the shelf.” “Oh, we’re expandin’ all right,” said Charley, getting to his feet to follow Merritt’s broadshouldered tweed suit to the door of the diningroom. “If we weren’t expandin’, we wouldn’t be at all.”

While they were washing their hands in the lavatory Merritt asked Charley what he was taking along for clothes. Charley laughed and said he probably had a clean shirt and a toothbrush somewhere. Merritt turned a square serious face to him: “But we might have to go out… I’ve engaged a small suite for us at the Waldman Park. You know in Washington those things count a great deal.” “Well, if the worst comes to the worst I can rent me a soup an’ fish.”

As the porter was putting Merritt’s big pigskin suitcase and his hatbox into the rumbleseat of the car, Merritt asked with a worried frown if Charley thought it would be too much weight. “Hell, no, we could carry a dozen like that,” said Charley, putting his foot on the starter. They drove fast through the empty streets and out across the bridge and along the wide avenues bordered by low gimcrack houses out towards Jamaica. Bill Cermak had the ship out of the hangar and all tuned up.

Charley put his hand on the back of Bill’s greasy leather jerkin. “Always on the dot, Bill,” he said. “Meet Mr. Merritt… Say, Andy… Bill’s comin’ with us, if you don’t mind… he can rebuild this motor out of old hairpins and chewin’gum if anythin’ goes wrong.”

Bill was already hoisting Merritt’s suitcase into the tail. Merritt was putting on a big leather coat and goggles like Charley had seen in the windows of Abercrombie and Fitch. “Do you think it will be bumpy?” Merritt was asking again. Charley gave him a boost. “May be a little bumpy over Pennsylvania… but we ought to be there in time for a good lunch… Well, gents, this is the first time I’ve ever been in the Nation’s Capital.” “Me neither,” said Bill. “Bill ain’t never been outside of Brooklyn,” said Charley, laughing.

He felt good as he climbed up to the controls. He put on his goggles and yelled back at Merritt, “You’re in the observer’s seat, Andy.”

The Askew-Merritt starter worked like a dream. The motor sounded smooth and quiet as a sewingmachine. “What do you think of that, Bill?” Charley kept yelling at the mechanic behind him. She taxied smoothly across the soft field in the early spring sunshine, bounced a couple of times, took the air and banked as he turned out across the slatecolored squares of Brooklyn. The light northwest wind made a million furrows on the opaque green bay. Then they were crossing the gutted factory districts of Bayonne and Elizabeth. Beyond the russet saltmeadows, Jersey stretched in great flat squares, some yellow, some red, some of them misted with the green of new crops.

There were ranks of big white cumulus clouds catching the sunlight beyond the Delaware. It got to be a little bumpy and Charley rose to seven thousand feet where it was cold and clear with a fifty-mile wind blowing from the northwest. When he came down again it was noon and the Susquehanna shone bright blue in a rift in the clouds. Even at two thousand feet he could feel the warm steam of spring from the plowed land. Flying low over the farms he could see the white fluff of orchards in bloom. He got too far south, avoiding a heavy squall over the head of the Chesapeake, and had to follow the Potomac north up towards the glinting white dome of the Capitol and the shining silver of the Washington Monument. There was no smoke over Washington. He circled around for a half an hour before he found the flyingfield. There was so much green it all looked like flyingfield.

“Well, Andy,” said Charley when they were stretching their legs on the turf, “when those experts see that starter their eyes’ll pop out of their heads.”

Merritt’s face looked pale and he tottered a little as he walked. “Can’t hear,” he shouted. “I got to take a leak.”

Charley followed him to the hangar, leaving Bill to go over the motor. Merritt was phoning for a taxi. “Christ amighty, am I hungry?” roared Charley. Merritt winced. “I got to get a drink to settle my stomach first.”

When they got into the taxi with their feet on Merritt’s enormous pigskin suitcase, “I’ll tell you one thing, Charley,” Merritt said, “we’ve got to have a separate corporation for that starter… might need a separate productionplant and everything. Standard Airparts would list well.”

They had two rooms and a large parlor with pink easychairs in it at the huge new hotel. From the windows you could look down into the fresh green of Rock Creek Park. Merritt looked around with considerable satisfaction. “I like to get into a place on Sunday,” he said. “It gives you a chance to get settled before beginning work.” He added that he didn’t think there’d be anybody in the diningroom he knew, not on a Sunday, but as it turned out it took them quite a while to get to their table. Charley was introduced on the way to a senator, a corporation lawyer, the youngest member of the House of Representatives and a nephew of the Secretary of the Navy. “You see,” explained Merritt, “my old man was a senator once.”

After lunch Charley went out to the field again to take a look at the ship. Bill Cermak had everything bright as a jeweler’s window. Charley brought Bill back to the hotel to give him a drink. There were waiters in the hall outside the suite and cigarsmoke and a great sound of social voices pouring out the open door. Bill laid a thick finger against his crooked nose and said maybe he’d better blow. “Gee, it does sound like the socialregister. Here, I’ll let you in my bedroom an’ I’ll bring you a drink if you don’t mind waiting a sec.” “Sure, it’s all right by me, boss.” Charley washed his hands and straightened his necktie and went into the sittingroom all in a rush like a man diving into a cold pool.

Andy Merritt was giving a cocktailparty with dry martinis, chickensalad, sandwiches, a bowl of caviar, strips of smoked fish, two old silverhaired gentlemen, three huskyvoiced southern belles with too much makeup on, a fat senator and a very thin senator in a high collar, a sprinkling of pale young men with Harvard accents and a sallow man with a gold tooth who wrote a syndicated column called Capitol Small Talk. There was a young publicityman named Savage he’d met at Eveline’s. Charley was introduced all around and stood first on one foot and then on the other until he got a chance to sneak into the bedroom with two halftumblers of rye and a plate of sandwiches. “Gosh, it’s terrible in there. I don’t dare open my mouth for fear of puttin’ my foot in it.”

Charley and Bill sat on the bed eating the sandwiches and listening to the jingly babble that came in from the other room. When he’d drunk his whiskey Bill got to his feet, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and asked what time Charley wanted him to report in the morning. “Nine o’clock will do. You sure you don’t want to stick around?… I don’t know what to say to those birds… we might fix you up with a southern belle.” Bill said he was a quiet family man and would get him a flop and go to bed. When he left it meant Charley had to go back to the cocktailparty.

When Charley went back into Merritt’s room he found the black eyes of the fat senator fixed on him from between the two cute bobbing hats of two pretty girls. Charley found himself saying goodby to them. The browneyed one was a blonde and the blueeyed one had very black hair. A little tang of perfume and kid gloves lingered after them when they left. “Now which would you say was the prettiest, young man?” The fat senator was standing beside him looking up at him with a tooconfidential smile. Charley felt his throat stiffen, he didn’t know why. “They’re a couple of beauties,” he said. “They leave you like the ass between two bundles of hay,” said the fat senator with a soft chuckle that played smoothly in and out of the folds of his chin.

“Buridan’s ass died of longing, senator,” said the thin senator putting the envelope back in his pocket on which he and Andy Merritt had been doping out figures of some kind. “And so do I, senator,” said the fat one, pushing back the streak of black hair from his forehead, his loose jowls shaking. “I die daily… Senator, will you dine with me and these young men? I believe old Horace is getting us up a little terrapin.” He put a small plump hand on the thin senator’s shoulder and another on Charley’s. “Sorry, senator, the missis is having some friends out at the Chevy Chase Club.” “Then I’m afraid these youngsters will have to put up with eating dinner with a pair of old fogies. I’d hoped you’d bridge the gap between the generations… General Hicks is coming.” Charley saw a faint pleased look come over Andy Merritt’s serious wellbred face. The fat senator went on with his smooth ponderous courtroom voice. “Perhaps we had better be on ourway… He’s coming at seven and those old warhorses tend to be punctual.”

A great black Lincoln was just coming to a soundless stop at the hotel entry when the four of them, Charley and Andy Merritt and Savage and the fat senator, came out into the Washington night that smelt of oil on asphalt and the exhausts of cars and of young leaves and of wisteriablossoms. The senator’s house was a continuation of his car, big and dark and faintly gleaming and soundless. They sprawled in big blackleather chairs and an old whitehaired mulatto brought around manhattans on an engraved silver tray.

The senator took each of the men separately to show them where to wash up. Charley didn’t much like the little pats on the back he got from the senator’s small padded hands as he was ushered into a big oldfashioned bathroom with a setin marble tub. When he came back from washing his hands the folding doors were open to the diningroom and a halelooking old gentleman with a white mustache and a slight limp was walking up and down in front of them impatiently. “I can smell that terrapin, Bowie,” he was saying. “Ole Horace is still up to his tricks.”

With the soup and the sherry the general began to talk from the head of the table. “Of course all this work with flyin’machines is very interestin’ for the advancement of science… I tell you, Bowie, you’re one of the last people in this town who sets a decent table… perhaps it points to vast possibilities in the distant future… But speakin’ as a military man, gentlemen, you know some of us don’t feel that they have proved their worth… The terrapin is remarkable, Bowie… I mean we don’t put the confidence in the flyin’machine that they seem to have over at the Navy Department… A good glass of burgundy, Bowie, nothin’ I like so much… Experiment is a great thing, gentlemen, and I don’t deny that perhaps in the distant future…”

“In the distant future,” echoed Savage, laughing, as he followed Merritt and Charley out from under the stone portico of Senator Planet’s house. A taxi was waiting for him. “Where can I drop you, gentlemen?… The trouble with us is we are in the distant future and don’t know it.”

“They certainly don’t know it in Washington,” said Merritt as they got into the cab. Savage giggled. “The senator and the general were pricelessly archaic… like something dug up… But don’t worry about the general… once he know she’s dealing with… you know… presentable people, he’s gentle as Santa Claus… He believes in a government of gentlemen, for gentlemen and by gentlemen.”

“Well, don’t we all?” said Merritt sternly.

Savage let out a hooting laugh. “Nature’s gentlemen… been looking for one for years.” Then he turned his bulging alcoholic eyes and his laughing pugface to Charley. “The senator thinks you’re the whiteheaded boy… He asked me to bring you around to see him… the senator is very susceptible, you know.” He let out another laugh.

The guy must be pretty tight, thought Charley. He was a little woozy himself from the Napoleon brandy drunk out of balloon-shaped glasses they’d finished off the dinner with. Savage let them out at the Waldman Park and his taxi went on. “Say, who is that guy, Andy?” “He’s a wild man,” said Merritt. “He is one of Moorehouse’s bright young men. He’s bright enough, but I don’t like the stories I hear about him. He wants the Askew-Merritt contract but we’re not in that class yet. Those publicrelations people will eat you out of house and home.”

As they were going up in the elevator Charley said, yawning, “Gee, I hoped those pretty girls were comin’ to dinner.” “Senator Planet never has women to dinner… He’s gota funny reputation… There are some funny people in this town.” “I guess there are,” said Charley. He was all in, he’d hardly got his clothes off before he was asleep.

At the end of the week Charley and Bill flew back to New York leaving Andy Merritt to negotiate contracts with the government experts. When they’d run the ship into the hangar Charley said he’d wheel Bill home to Jamaica in his car. They stopped off in a kind of hofbrau for a beer. They were hungry and Bill thought his wife would be through supper so they ate noodlesoup and schnitzels. Charley found they had some fake rhinewine and ordered it. They drank the wine and ordered another set of schnitzels. Charley was telling Bill how Andy Merritt said the government contracts were going through and Andy Merritt was always right and he’d said it was a patriotic duty to capitalize production on a broad base. “Bill, goddam it, we’ll be in the money. How about another bottle?… Good old Bill, the pilot’s nothin’ without his mechanic, the promotor’s nothin’ without production… You and me, Bill, we’re in production, and by God I’m goin’ to see we don’t lose out. If they try to rook us we’ll fight, already I’ve had offers, big offers from Detroit… in five years now we’ll be in the money and I’ll see you’re in the big money too.”

They ate applecake and then the proprietor brought out a bottle of kummel. Charley bought the bottle. “Cheaper than payin’ for it drink by drink, don’t you think so, Bill?” Bill began to start saying he was a family man and had better be getting along home. “Me,” said Charley, pouring out some kummel into a tumbler, “I haven’t got no home to go to… If she wanted she could have a home. I’d make her a wonderful home.”

Charley discovered that Bill Cermak had gone and that he was telling all this to a stout blonde lady of uncertain age with a rich German accent. He was calling her Aunt Hartmann and telling her that if he ever had a home she’d be his housekeeper. They finished up the kummel and started drinking beer. She stroked his head and called him her vandering yunge. There was an orchestra in Bavarian costume and a thicknecked man that sang. Charley wanted to yodel for the company but she pulled him back to the table. She was very strong and pushed him away with big red arms when he tried to get friendly, but when he pinched her seat she looked down into her beer and giggled. It was all like back home in the old days, he kept telling her, only louder and funnier. It was dreadfully funny until they were sitting in the car and she had her head on his shoulder and was calling him schatz and her long coils of hair had come undone and hung down over the wheel. Somehow he managed to drive.

He woke up next morning in a rattletrap hotel in Coney Island. It was nine o’clock, he had a frightful head and Aunt Hartmann was sitting up in bed looking pink, broad and beefy and asking for kaffee und schlagsahne. He took her out to breakfast at a Vienna bakery. She ate a great deal and cried a great deal and said he mustn’t think she was a bad woman, because she was just a poor girl out of work and she’d felt so badly on account of his being a poor homeless boy. He said he’d be a poor homeless boy for fair if he didn’t get back to the office. He gave her all the change he had in his pocket and a fake address and left her crying over a third cup of coffee in the Vienna bakery and headed for Long Island City. About Ozone Park he had to stop to upchuck on the side of the road. He just managed to get into the yard of the plant with his last drop of gas. He slipped into his office. It was ten minutes of twelve.

His desk was full of notes and letters held together with clips and blue papers marked IMMEDIATE ATTENTION. He was scared Miss Robinson or Joe Askew would find out he was back. Then he remembered he had a silver flask of old bourbon in his desk drawer that Doris had given him the night before she sailed, to forget her by she’d said, kidding him. He’d just tipped his head back to take a swig when he saw Joe Askew standing in front of his desk.

Joe stood with his legs apart with a worn frowning look on his face. “Well, for Pete’s sake, where have you been? We been worried as hell about you… Grace waited dinner an hour.”

“Why didn’t you call up the hangar?”

“Everybody had gone home… Stauch’s sick. Everything’s tied up.”

“Haven’t you heard from Merritt?”

“Sure… but that means we’ve got to reorganize production… And frankly, Charley, that’s a hell of an example to set the employees… boozing around the office. Last time I kept my mouth shut, but my god…”

Charley walked over to the cooler and drew himself a couple of papercupfuls of water. “I got to celebratin’ that trip to Washington last night… After all, Joe, these contracts will put us on the map… How about havin’ a little drink?” Joe frowned. “You look like you’d been having plenty… and how about shaving before you come into the office? We expect our employees to do it, we ought to do it too… For craps’ sake, Charley, remember that the war’s over.” Joe turned on his heel and went back to his own office.

Charley took another long pull on the flask. He was mad. “I won’t take it,” he muttered, “not from him or anybody else.” Then the phone rang. The foreman of the assemblyroom was standing in the door. “Please, Mr. Anderson,” he said.

That was the beginning of it. From then everything seemed to go haywire. At eight o’clock that night Charley hadn’t yet had a shave. He was eating a sandwich and drinking coffee out of a carton with the mechanics of the repaircrew over a busted machine. It was midnight and he was all in before he got home to the apartment. He was all ready to give Joe a piece of his mind but there wasn’t an Askew in sight.

Next morning at breakfast Grace’s eyebrows were raised when she poured out the coffee. “Well, if it isn’t the lost battalion,” she said.

Joe Askew cleared his throat. “Charley,” he said nervously, “I didn’t have any call to bawl you out like that… I guess I’m getting cranky in my old age. The plant’s been hell on wheels all week.”

The two little girls began to giggle.

“Aw, let it ride,” said Charley.

“Little pitchers, Joe,” said Grace, rapping on the table for order. “I guess we all need a rest. Now this summer, Joe, you’ll take a vacation. I need a vacation in the worst way myself, especially from entertaining Joe’s dead cats. He hasn’t had anybody to talk to since you’ve been away, Charley, and the house has been full of dead cats.” “That’s just a couple of guys I’ve been trying to fix up with jobs. Grace thinks they’re no good because they haven’t much social smalltalk.” “I don’t think, I know they are dead cats,” said Grace. The little girls started to giggle some more. Charley got to his feet and pushed back his chair.

“Comin’, Joe?” he said. “I’ve got to get back to my wreckin’crew.”

It was a couple of weeks before Charley got away from the plant except to sleep. At the end of that time Stauch was back with his quiet regretful manner like the manner of an assisting physician in a hospital operatingroom, and things began to straighten out. The day Stauch finally came to Charley’s office door saying, “Production is now again smooth, Mr. Anderson,” Charley decided he’d knock off at noon. He called up Nat Benton to wait for him for lunch and slipped out by the employees’ entrance so that he wouldn’t meet Joe in the entry.

In Nat’s office they had a couple of drinks before going out to lunch. At the restaurant after they’d ordered, he said, “Well, Nat, how’s the intelligence service going?”

“How many shares have you got?”

“Five hundred.”

“Any other stock, anything you could put up for margin?”

“A little… I got a couple of grand in cash.”

“Cash,” said Nat scornfully. “For a rainy day… stuff and nonsense… Why not put it to work?”

“That’s what I’m talkin’ about.”

“Suppose you try a little flyer in Auburn just to get your hand in.”

“But how about Merritt?”

“Hold your horses… What I want to do is get you a little capital so you can fight those birds on an equal basis… If you don’t they’ll freeze you out sure as fate.”

“Joe wouldn’t,” said Charley.

“I don’t know the man personally but I do know men and there are darn few who won’t look out for number one first.”

“I guess they’ll all rook you if they can.”

“I wouldn’t put it just that way, Charley. There are some magnificent specimens of American manhood in the business world.” That night Charley got drunk all by himself at a speak in the Fifties

By the time Doris landed from Europe in the fall Charley had made two killings in Auburn and was buying up all the Askew-Merritt stock he could lay his hands on. At the same time he discovered he had credit, for a new car, for suits at Brooks Brothers, for meals at speakeasies. The car was a Packard sport phaeton with a long low custombody upholstered in red leather. He drove down to the dock to meet Doris and Mrs. Humphries when they came in on the Leviathan. The ship had already docked when Charley got to Hoboken. Charley parked his car and hurried through the shabby groups at the thirdclass to the big swirl of welldressed people chattering round piles of pigskin suitcases, patentleather hatboxes, wardrobetrunks with the labels of Ritz hotels on them, in the central part of the wharfbuilding. Under the H he caught sight of old Mrs. Humphries. Above the big furcollar her face looked like a faded edition of Doris’s, he had never before noticed how much.

She didn’t recognize him for a moment. “Why, Charles Anderson, how very nice.” She held her hand out to him without smiling. “This is most trying. Doris of course had to leave her jewelcase in the cabin… You are meeting someone, I presume.” Charley blushed. “I thought I might give you a lift… I got a big car now. I thought it would take your bags better than a taxi.” Mrs. Humphries wasn’t paying much attention.” There she is…” She wave dag loved hand with an alligatorskin bag in it. “Here I am.”

Doris came running through the crowd. She was flushed and her lips were very red. Her little hat and her fur were just the color of her hair. “I’ve got it, Mother… what a silly girl.” “Every time I go through this,” sighed Mrs. Humphries, “I decide I’ll never go abroad again.”

Doris leaned over to tuck a piece of yellow something into a handbag that had been opened.

“Here’s Mr. Anderson, Doris,” said Mrs. Humphries.

Doris turned with a jump and ran up to him and threw her arms round his neck and kissed him on the cheek. “You darling to come down.” Then she introduced him to a redfaced young Englishman in an English plaid overcoat who was carrying a big bag of golfclubs. “I know you’ll like each other.”

“Is this your first visit to this country?” asked Charley.

“Quite the contrary,” said the Englishman, showing his yellow teeth in a smile. “I was born in Wyoming.”

It was chilly on the wharf. Mrs. Humphries went to sit in the heated waitingroom. When the young man with the golfsticks went off to attend to his own bags, Doris said, “How do you like George Duquesne? He was born here and brought up in England. His mother comes from people in the Doomsday Book. I went to stay with them at the most beautiful old abbey… I had the time of my life in England. I think George is a duck. The Duquesnes have copper interests. They are almost like the Guggenheims except of course they are not Jewish… Why, Charley, I believe you’re jealous… Silly… George and I are just like brother and sister, really… It’s not like you and me at all, but he’s such fun.”

It took the Humphries family a couple of hours to get through the customs. They had a great many bags and Doris had to pay duty on some dresses. When Mrs. Humphries found she was to drive uptown in an open car with the top down she looked black indeed, the fact that it was a snakylooking Packard didn’t seem to help. “Why, it’s a regular rubberneck wagon,” said Doris. “Mother, this is fun… Charley’ll point out all the tall buildings.” Mrs. Humphries was grumbling as, surrounded by handbaggage, she settled into the back seat, “Your dear father, Doris, never liked to see a lady riding in an open cab, much less in an open machine.”

When he’d taken them uptown Charley didn’t go back to the plant. He spent the rest of the day till closing at the Askews’ apartment on the telephone talking to Benton’s office. Since the listing of Standard Airparts there’d been a big drop in Askew-Merritt. He was hocking everything and waiting for it to hit bottom before buying. Every now and then he’d call up Benton and say, “What do you think, Nat?”

Nat still had no tips late that afternoon, so Charley spun a coin to decide; it came heads. He called up the office and told them to start buying at the opening figure next day. Then he changed his clothes and cleared out before Grace brought the little girls home from school; he hardly spoke to the Askews these days. He was fed up out at the plant and he knew Joe thought he was a slacker.

When he changed his wallet from one jacket to the other he opened it and counted his cash. He had four centuries and some chickenfeed. The bills were crisp and new, straight from the bank. He brought them up to his nose to sniff the new sweet sharp smell of the ink. Before he knew what he’d done he’d kissed them. He laughed out loud and put the bills back in his wallet. Jesus, he was feeling good. His new blue suit fitted nicely. His shoes were shined. He had clean socks on. His belly felt hard under his belt. He was whistling as he waited for the elevator.

Over at Doris’s there was George Duquesne saying how ripping the new buildings looked on Fifth Avenue. “Oh, Charley, wait till you taste one of George’s alexanders, they’re ripping,” said Doris. “He learned to make them out in Constant after the war… You see he was in the British army… Charley was one of our star aces, George.”

Charley took George and Doris to dinner at the Plaza and to a show and to a nightclub. All the time he was feeding highpower liquor into George in the hope he’d pass out, but all George did was get redder and redder in the face and quieter and quieter, and he hadn’t had much to say right at the beginning. It was three o’clock and Charley was sleepy and pretty tight himself before he could deliver George at the St. Regis where he was staying. “Now what shall we do?” “But, darling, I’ve got to go home.” “I haven’t had a chance to talk to you… Jeez, I haven’t even had a chance to give you a proper hug since you landed.” They ended up going to the Columbus Circle Childs and eating scrambled eggs and bacon.

Doris was saying there ought to be beautiful places where people in love could go where they could find privacy and bed in beautiful surroundings. Charley said he knew plenty of places but they weren’t so beautiful. “I’d go, Charley, honestly, if I wasn’t afraid it would be sordid and spoil everything.” Charley squeezed her hand hard. “I wouldn’t have the right to ask you, kid, not till we was married.” As they walked up the street to where he’d parked his car she let her head drop on his shoulder. “Do you want me, Charley?” she said in a little tiny voice. “I want you too… but I’ve got to go home or Mother’ll be making a scene in the morning.”

Next Saturday afternoon Charley spent looking for a walkup furnished apartment. He rented a livingroom kitchenette and bath all done in grey from a hennahaired artist lady in flowing batiks who said she was going to Capri for six months of sheer beauty, and called up an agency for a Japanese houseboy to take care of it. Next day at breakfast he told the Askews he was moving.

Joe didn’t say anything at first, but after he’d drunk the last of his cup of coffee he got up frowning and walked a couple of times across the livingroom. Then he went to the window saying quietly, “Come here, Charley, I’ve got something to show you.” He put a hand on Charley’s arm… “Look here, kid, it isn’t on account of me being so sour all the time, is it? You know I’m worried about the damn business… seems to me we’re getting in over our heads… but you know Grace and I both think the world of you… I’ve just felt that you were putting in too much time on the stockmarket… I don’t suppose it’s any of my damn business… Anyway us fellows from the old outfit, we’ve got to stick together.”

“Sure, Joe, sure… Honestly, the reason I want this damn apartment has nothin’ to do with that… You’re a married man with kids and don’t need to worry about that sort of thing… but me, I got woman trouble.”

Joe burst out laughing. “The old continental sonofagun, but for crying out loud, why don’t you get married?”

“God damn it, that’s what I want to do,” said Charley. He laughed and so did Joe.

“Well, what’s the big joke?” said Grace from behind the coffeeurn. Charley nodded his head towards the little girls. “Smokin’room stories,” he said. “Oh, I think you’re mean,” said Grace.

One snowy afternoon before Christmas, a couple of weeks after Charley had moved into his apartment, he got back to town early and met Doris at the Biltmore. She said, “Let’s go somewhere for a drink,” and he said he had drinks all laid out and she ought to come up to see the funny little sandwiches Taki made all in different colors. She asked if the Jap was there now. He grinned and shook his head. It only took the taxi a couple of minutes to get them around to the con verted brownstone house. “Why, isn’t this cozy?” Doris panted a little breathless from the stairs as she threw open her furcoat. “Now I feel really wicked.” “But it’s not like it was some guy you didn’t know,” said Charley, “or weren’t fond of.” She let him kiss her. Then she took off her coat and hat and dropped down beside him on the windowseat warm from the steamheat.

“Nobody knows the address, nobody knows the phonenumber,” said Charley. When he put his arm around her thin shoulders and pulled her to him she gave in to him with a little funny shudder and let him pull her on his knee. They kissed for a long time and then she wriggled loose and said, “Charley darling, you invited me here for a drink.”

He had the fixings for oldfashioneds in the kitchenette and a plate of sandwiches. He brought them in and set them out on the round wicker table. Doris bit into several sandwiches before she decided which she liked best. “Why, your Jap must be quite an artist, Charley,” she said.

“They’re a clever little people,” said Charley.

“Everything’s lovely, Charley, except this light hurts my eyes.”

When he switched off the lights the window was brightblue. The lights and shadows of the taxis moving up and down the snowy street and the glare from the stores opposite made shifting orange oblongs on the ceiling. “Oh, it’s wonderful here,” said Doris. “Look how oldtimy the street looks with all the ruts in the snow.”

Charley kept refilling the oldfashioneds with whiskey. He got her to take her dress off. “You know you told me about how dresses cost money.” “Oh, you big silly… Charley, do you like me a little bit?” “What’s the use of talking… I’m absolutely cuckoo about you… you know I want us to be always together. I want us to get mar—” “Don’t spoil everything, this is so lovely, I never thought anything could be like this… Charley, you’re taking precautions, aren’t you?” “Sure thing,” said Charley through clenched teeth and went to his bureau for a condom.

At seven o’clock she got dressed in a hurry, said she had a dinner engagement and would be horribly late. Charley took her down and put her in a taxi. “Now, darling,” he said, “we won’t talk about what I said. We’ll just do it.” Walking back up the steep creaky stairs he could taste her mouth, her hair, his head was bursting with the perfume she used. A chilly bitter feeling was getting hold of him, like the feeling of seasickness. “Oh, Christ,” he said aloud and threw himself face down on the windowseat.

The apartment and Taki and the bootlegger and the payments on his car and the flowers he sent Doris every day all ran into more money than he expected every month. As soon as he made a deposit in the bank he drew it out again. He owned a lot of stock but it wasn’t paying dividends. At Christmas he had to borrow five hundred bucks from Joe Askew to buy Doris a present. She’d told him he mustn’t give her jewelry, so he asked Taki what he thought would be a suitable present for a very rich and beautiful young lady and Taki had said a silk kimono was very suitable, so Charley went out and bought her a mandarincoat. Doris made a funny face when she saw it, but she kissed him with a little quick peck in the corner of the mouth, because they were at her mother’s, and said in a singsongy tone, “Oh, what a sweet boy.”

Mrs. Humphries had asked him for Christmas dinner. The house smelt of tinsel and greens, there was a lot of tissuepaper and litter on the chairs. The cocktails were weak and everybody stood around, Nat and Sally Benton, and some nephews and nieces of Mrs. Humphries’, and her sister Eliza who was very deaf, and George Duquesne who would talk of nothing but wintersports, waiting for the midafternoon dinner to be announced. People seemed sour and embarrassed, except Ollie Taylor who was just home from Italy full of the Christmas spirit. He spent most of the time out in the pantry with his coat off manufacturing what he called an oldtime Christmas punch. He was so busy at it that it was hard to get him to the table for dinner. Charley had to spend all his time taking care of him and never got a word with Doris all day. After dinner and the Christmas punch he had to take Ollie back to his club. Ollie was absolutely blotto and huddled fat and whitefaced in the taxi, bubbling “Damn good Christmas” over and over again.

When he’d put Ollie in the hands of the doorman Charley couldn’t decide whether to go back to the Humphries’ where he’d be sure to find Doris and George with their heads together over some damnfool game or other or to go up to the Askews’ as he’d promised to. Bill Cermak had asked him out to take a look at the bohunks in Jamaica but he guessed it wouldn’t be the thing, he’d said. Charley said sure he’d come, anyplace to get away from the stuffedshirts. From the Penn station he sent a wire wishing the Askews a Merry Christmas. Sure the Askews would understand he had to spend his Christmas with Doris. On the empty train to Jamaica he got to worrying about Doris, maybe he oughtn’t to have left her with that guy.

Out in Jamaica Bill Cermak and his wife and their elderly inlaws and friends were all tickled and a little bit fussed by Charley’s turning up. It was a small frame house with a green papertile roof in a block of identical little houses with every other roof red and every other roof green. Mrs. Cermak was a stout blonde a little fuddled from the big dinner and the wine that had brought brightred spots to her cheeks. She made Charley eat some of the turkey and the plum-pudding they’d just taken off the table. Then they made hot wine with cloves in it and Bill played tunes on the pianoaccordion while everybody danced and the kids yelled and beat on drums and got underfoot.

When Charley said he had to go Bill walked to the station with him. “Say, boss, we sure do appreciate your comin’ out,” began Bill. “Hell, I ain’t no boss,” said Charley. “I belong with the mechanics… don’t I, Bill? You and me, Bill, the mechanics against the world… and when I get married you’re comin’ to play that damned accordeen of yours at the weddin’… get me, Bill… it may not be so long.” Bill screwed up his face and rubbed his long crooked nose. “Women is fine once you got ’em pinned down, boss, but when they ain’t pinned down they’re hell.” “I got her pinned down, I got her pinned down all right so she’s got to marry me to make an honest man of me.” “Thataboy,” said Bill Cermak. They stood laughing and shaking hands on the drafty station platform till the Manhattan train came in.

During the automobile show Nat called up one day to say Farrell who ran the Tern outfit was in town and wanted to see Charley and Charley told Nat to bring him around for a cocktail in the afternoon. This time he got Taki to stay.

James Yardly Farrell was a roundfaced man with sandygray hair and a round bald head. When he came in the door he began shouting, “Where is he? Where is he?” “Here he is,” said Nat Benton, laughing. Farrell pumped Charley’s hand. “So this is the guy with the knowhow, is it? I’ve been trying to get hold of you for months… ask Nat if I haven’t made his life miserable… Look here, how about coming out to Detroit… Long Is land City’s no place for a guy like you. We need your know how out there… and what we need we’re ready to pay for.”

Charley turned red. “I’m pretty well off where I am, Mr. Farrell.”

“How much do you make?”

“Oh, enough for a young feller.”

“We’ll talk about that… but don’t forget that in a new industry like ours the setup changes fast… We got to keep our eyes openor we’ll get left… Well, we’ll let it drop for the time being… But I can tell you one thing, Anderson, I’m not going to stand by and see this industry ruined by being broken up in a lot of little onehorse units all cutting each other’s throats. Don’t you think it’s better for us to sit around the table and cut the cake in a spirit of friendship and mutual service, and I tell you, young man, it’s going to be a whale of a big cake.” He let his voice drop to a whisper.

Taki, with his yellow face drawn into a thin diplomatic smile, came around with a tray of bacardi cocktails. “No, thanks, I don’t drink,” said Farrell. “Are you a bachelor, Mr. Anderson?”

“Well, something like that… I don’t guess I’ll stay that way long.”

“You’d like it out in Detroit, honestly… Benton tells me you’re from Minnesota.”

“Well, I was born in North Dakota.” Charley talked over his shoulder to the Jap. “Taki, Mr. Benton wants another drink.”

“We got a nice sociable crowd out there,” said Farrell.

After they’d gone Charley called up Doris and asked her right out if she’d like to live in Detroit after they were married. She gave a thin shriek at the other end of the line. “What a dreadful idea… and who said anything about that dreadful… you know, state… I don’t like even to mention the horrid word… Don’t you think we’ve had fun in New York this winter?” “Sure,” answered Charley. “I guess I’d be all right here if… things were different… I thought maybe you’d like a change, that’s all… I had an offer from a concern out there, see.” “Now, Charley, you must promise not to mention anything so silly again.” “Sure… if you’ll have dinner with me tomorrow night.” “Darling, tomorrow I couldn’t.” “How about Saturday then?” “All right, I’ll break an engagement. Maybe you can come by for me at Carnegie Hall after the concert.” “I’ll even go to the damn concert if you like.” “Oh, no, Mother’s asked a lot of old ladies.” She was talking fast, her voice twanging in the receiver. “There won’t be any room in the box. You wait for me at the little tearoom, the Russian place where you waited and got so cross the time before.” “All right, anyplace… Say, you don’t know how I miss you when you’re not with me.” “Do you? Oh, Charley, you’re a dear.” She rang off.

Charley put the receiver down and let himself slump back in his chair. He couldn’t help feeling all of a tremble when he talked to her on the telephone. “Hey, Taki, bring me that bottle of scotch… Say, tell me, Taki,” Charley went on, pouring himself a stiff drink, “in your country… is it so damn difficult for a guy to get married?” The Jap smiled and made a little bow. “In my country everything much more difficult.”

Next day when Charley got back from the plant he found a wire from Doris saying Saturday absolutely impossible. “Damn the bitch,” he said aloud. All evening he kept calling up on the phone and leaving messages, but she was never in. He got to hate the feel of the damn mouthpiece against his lips. Saturday he couldn’t get anyword to her either. Sunday morning he got Mrs. Humphries on the phone. The cold creaky oldwoman’s voice shrieked that Doris had suddenly gone to Southampton for the weekend. “I know she’ll come back with a dreadful cold,” Mrs. Humphries added. “Weekends in this weather.” “Well, goodby, Mrs. Humphries,” said Charley and rang off. Monday morning when Taki brought him a letter in Doris’s hand, a big blue envelope that smelt of her perfume, the minute he opened it he knew before he read it what it would say.

CHARLEY DEAR,

You are such a dear and I’m so fond of you and do so want you for a friend [underlined]. You know the silly life I lead, right now I’m on the most preposterous weekend and I’ve told everybody I have a splitting headache and have gone to bed just to write to you. But, Charley, please forget all about weddings and things like that. The very idea makes me physically sick and besides I’ve promised George I’d marry him in June and the Duquesnes have a publicrelations counsel — isn’t it just too silly — but his business is to keep the Duquesnes popular with the public and he’s given the whole story to the press, how I was courted among the Scotch moors and in the old medieval abbey and everything. And that’s why I’m in such a hurry to write to you, Charley darling, because you’re the best friend [twice underlined] I’ve got and the only one who lives in the real world of business and production and labor and everything like that, which I’d so love to belong to, and I wanted you to know first thing. Oh, Charley darling, please don’t think horrid things about me.

Your loving friend [three times underlined]

D

Be a good boy and burn up this letter, won’t you?

The buzzer was rattling. It was the boy from the garage with his car. Charley got on his hat and coat and went downstairs. He got in and drove out to Long Island City, walked up the rubbertreaded steps to his office, sat down at his desk, rustled papers, talked to Stauch over the phone, lunched in the employees’ lunchroom with Joe Askew, dictated letters to the new towhaired stenographer and suddenly it was six o’clock and he was jockeying his way through the traffic home.

Crossing the bridge he had an impulse to give a wrench to the wheel and step on the gas, but the damn car wouldn’t clear the rail anyway, it would just make a nasty scrapheap of piledup traffic and trucks.

He didn’t want to go home or to the speakeasy he and Doris had been having dinner in several times a week all winter, so he turned down Third Avenue. Maybe he’d run into somebody at Julius’s. He stood up at the bar. He didn’t want to drink any more than he wanted to do anything else. A few raw shots of rye made him feel better. To hell with her. Nothing like a few drinks. He was alone, he had money on him, he could do any goddam thing in the world.

Next to Charley at the bar stood a couple of fattish dowdylooking women. They were with a redfaced man who was pretty drunk already. The women were talking about clothes and the man was telling about Belleau Wood. Right away he and Charley were old buddies from the A.E.F. “The name is De Vries. Profession… bonvivant,” said the man and tugged at the two women until they faced around towards Charley. He put his arms around them with a flourish and shouted, “Meet the wife.”

They had drinks on Belleau Wood, the Argonne, the St. Mihiel salient, and the battle of Paree. The women said goodness, how they wanted to go to Hoboken to the hofbrau. Charley said he’d take them all in his car. They sobered up a little and were pretty quiet crossing on the ferry. At the restaurant in the chilly dark Hoboken street they couldn’t get anything but beer. After they’d finished supper De Vries said he knew a place where they could get real liquor. They circled round blocks and blocks and ended in a dump in Union City. When they’d drunk enough to start them doing squaredances the women said wouldn’t it be wonderful to go to Harlem. This time the ferry didn’t sober them up so much because they had a bottle of scotch with them. In Harlem they were thrown out of a dancehall and at last landed in a nightclub. The bonvivant fell down the redcarpeted stairs and Charley had a time laughing that off with the management. They ate fried chicken and drank some terrible gin the colored waiter sent out for, and danced. Charley kept thinking how beautifully he was dancing. He couldn’t make out why he didn’t have any luck picking up any of the highyallers.

Next morning he woke up in a room in a hotel. He looked around. No, there wasn’t any woman in the bed. Except that his head ached and his ears were burning, he felt good. Stomach all right. For a moment he thought he’d just landed from France. Then he thought of the Packard, where the hell had he left it? He reached for the phone. “Say, what hotel is this?” It was the McAlpin, goodmorning. He remembered Joe Turbino’s number and phoned him to ask what the best thing for a hangover was. When he was through phoning he didn’t feel so good. His mouth tasted like the floor of a chickencoop. He went back to sleep. The phone woke him. “A gentleman to see you.” Then he remembered all about Doris. The guy from Turbino’s brought a bottle of scotch. Charley took a drink of it straight, drank a lot of icewater, took a bath, ordered up some breakfast. But it was time to go out to lunch. He put the bottle of scotch in his overcoat pocket and went round to Frank and Joe’s for a cocktail.

That night he took a taxi up to Harlem. He went from joint to joint dancing with the highyallers. He got in a fight in a breakfastclub. It was day when he found himself in another taxi going downtown to Mrs. Darling’s. He didn’t have any money to pay the taximan and the man insisted on going up in the elevator while he got the money. There was nobody in the apartment but the colored maid and she shelled out five dollars. She tried to get Charley to lie down but he wanted to write her out a check. He could sign his name all right but he couldn’t sign it on the check. The maid tried to get him to take a bath and go to bed. She said he had blood all over his shirt.

He felt fine and was all cleaned up, had been asleep in a barberchair while the barber shaved him and put an icebag on his black eye, and he had gone back to Frank and Joe’s for a pickup when there was Nat Benton. Good old Nat was worried asking him about his black eye and he was showing Nat where he’d skinned his knuckles on the guy, but Nat kept talking about the business and Askew-Merritt and Standard Airparts and said Charley’d be out on the sidewalk if it wasn’t for him. They had some drinks but Nat kept talking about buttermilk and wanted Charley to come around to the hotel and meet Farrell. Farrell thought Charley was about the best guy in the world, and Farrell was the coming man in the industry, you could bet your bottom dollar on Farrell. And right away there was Farrell and Charley was showing him his knuckle and telling him he’d socked the guy in that lousy pokergame and how he’d have cleaned ’em all up if somebody hadn’t batted him back of the ear with a stocking full of sand. Detroit, sure. He was ready to go to Detroit any time, Detroit or anywhere else. Goddam it, a guy don’t like to stay in a town where he’s just been rolled. And that damn highyaller had his pocketbook with all his addresses in it. Papers? Sure. Sign anythin’ you like, anythin’ Nat says. Stock, sure. Swop every last share. What the hell would a guy want stock for in a plant in a town where he’d been rolled in a clipjoint. Detroit, sure, right away. Nat, call a taxi, we’re goin’ to Detroit.

Then they were back at the apartment and Taki was chattering and Nat attended to everything and Farrell was saying, “I’d hate to see the other guy’s eye,” and Charley could sign his name all right this time. First time he signed it on the table but then he got it on the contract, and Nat fixed it all up about swapping his Askew-Merritt stock for Tern stock and then Nat and Farrell said Charley must be sleepy and Taki kept squeaking about how he had to take right away a hot bath.

Charley woke up the next morning feeling sober and dead like a stiff laid out for the undertaker. Taki brought him orangejuice but he threw it right up again. He dropped back on the pillow. He’d told Taki not to let anybody in, but there was Joe Askew standing at the foot of the bed. Joe looked paler than usual and had a worried frown like at the office, and was pulling at his thin blond mustache. He didn’t smile. “How are you coming?” he said.

“Soso,” said Charley.

“So it’s the Tern outfit, is it?”

“Joe, I can’t stay in New York now. I’m through with this burg.”

“Through with a lot of other things, it looks like to me.”

“Joe, honest I wouldn’ta done it if I hadn’t had to get out of this town… and I put as much into this as you did, some people think a little more.”

Joe’s thin lips were clamped firmly together. He started to say something, stopped himself and walked stiffly out of the room.

“Taki,” called Charley, “try squeezin’ out half a grapefruit, will you?”