Big Money

Charley Anderson

“You watch, Cliff… We’ll knock ’em higher than a kite,” Charley said to his secretary, as they came out of the crowded elevator into the humming lobby of the Woolworth Building. “Yessiree,” said Cliff, nodding wisely. He had a long face with a thin parchment skin drawn tightly from under his brown felt hat over high cheekbones and thin nose. The lipless mouth never opened very wide above the thin jaw. He repeated out of the corner of his mouth, “Yessiree, bobby… higher than a kite.”

They went through the revolving doors into the fiveo’clock crowd that packed the lower Broadway sidewalks to the curbs in the drizzly dusk of a raw February day. Charley pulled a lot of fat envelopes out of the pockets of his English waterproof and handed them to Cliff. “Take these up to the office and be sure they get into Nat Benton’s personal safe. They can go over to the bank in the mornin’… then you’re through. Call me at nine, see? You were a little late yesterday… I’m not goin’ to worry about anythin’ till then.” “Yessir, get a good night’s sleep, sir,” said Cliff and slid out of sight in the crowd.

Charley stopped a cruising taxicab and let himself drop into the seat. Weather like this his leg still ached. He swallowed a sigh; what the hell was the number? “Go on uptown up Park Avenue,” he yelled at the driver. He couldn’t think of the number of the damn place… “To East Fiftysecond Street. I’ll show you the house.” He settled back against the cushions. Christ, I’m tired, he whispered to himself. As he sat slumped back jolted by the stopping and starting of the taxi in the traffic his belt cut into his belly. He loosened the belt a notch, felt better, brought a cigar out of his breastpocket and bit the end off.

It took him some time to light the cigar. Each time he had the match ready the taxi started or stopped. When he did light it it didn’t taste good. “Hell, I’ve smoked too much today… what I need’s a drink,” he muttered aloud.

The taxi moved jerkily uptown. Now and then out of the corner of his eye he caught grey outlines of men in other taxis and private cars. As soon as he’d made out one group of figures another took its place. On Lafayette Street the traffic was smoother. The whole stream of metal, glass, upholstery, overcoats, haberdashery, flesh and blood was moving uptown. Cars stopped, started, shifted gears in unison as if they were run by one set of bells. Charley sat slumped in the seat feeling the layer of fat on his belly against his trousers, feeling the fat of his jowl against his stiff collar. Why the hell couldn’t he remember that number? He’d been there every night for a month. A vein in his left eyelid kept throbbing.

“Bonjour, monsieur,” said the plainclothes doorman. “How do you do, mon capitaine,” said Freddy the rattoothed proprietor, nodding a sleek black head. “Monsieur dining with Mademoiselle tonight?” Charley shook his head. “I have a feller coming to dinner with me at seven.” “Bien, monsieur.” “Let’s have a scotch and soda while I’m waitin’ and be sure it ain’t that rotgut you tried to palm off on me yesterday.”

Freddy smiled wanly. “It was a mistake, Mr. Anderson. We have the veritable pinchbottle. You see the wrappings. It is still wet from the saltwater.” Charley grunted and dropped into an easychair in the corner of the bar.

He drank the whiskey off straight and sipped the soda afterwards. “Hay, Maurice, bring me another,” he called to the greyhaired old wrinklefaced Swiss waiter. “Bring me another. Make it double, see?… in a regular highball glass. I’m tired this evenin’.”

The shot of whiskey warmed his gut. He sat up straighter. He grinned up at the waiter. “Well, Maurice, you haven’t told me what you thought about the market today.” “I’m not so sure, sir… But you know, Mr. Anderson… If you only wanted to you could tell me.”

Charley stretched his legs out and laughed. “Flyin’ higher than a kite, eh… Oh, hell, it’s a bloody chore. I want to forget it.”

By the time he saw Eddy Sawyer threading his way towards him through the faces, the business suits, the hands holding glasses in front of the cocktailbar, he felt good. He got to his feet. “How’s the boy, Eddy? How’s things in little old Deetroit? They all think I’m pretty much of a sonofabitch, don’t they? Give us the dirt, Eddy.”

Eddy sighed and sank into the deep chair beside him. “Well, it’s a long story, Charley.”

“What would you say to a bacardi with a touch of absinthe in it?… All right, make it two, Maurice.”

Eddy’s face was yellow and wrinkled as a summer apple that’s hung too long on the tree. When he smiled the deepening wrinkles shot out from his mouth and eyes over his cheeks. “Well, Charley old man, it’s good to see you… You know they’re calling you the boy wizard of aviation financing?”

“Is that all they’re callin’ me?” Charley tapped his dead cigar against the brass rim of the ashtray. “I’ve heard worse things than that.”

By the time they’d had their third cocktail Charley got so he couldn’t stop talking. “Well, you can just tell J. Y. from me that there was one day I could have put him out on his ass and I didn’t do it. Why didn’t I do it? Because I didn’t give a goddam. I really owned my stock. They’d hocked everythin’ they had an’ still they couldn’t cover, see… I thought, hell, they’re friends of mine. Good old J. Y. Hell, I said to Nat Benton when he wanted me to clean up while the cleanin’ was good… they’re friends of mine. Let ’em ride along with us. An’ now look at ’em gangin’ up on me with Gladys. Do you know how much alimony Gladys got awarded her? Four thousand dollars a month. Judge is a friend of her old man… probably gets a rakeoff. Stripped me of my children… every damn thing I’ve got they’ve tied upon me… Pretty, ain’t it, to take a man’s children away from him? Well, Eddy, I know you had nothin’ to do with it, but when you get back to Detroit and see those yellow bastards who had to get behind a woman’s skirts because they couldn’t outsmart me any other way… you tell ’em from me that I’m out to strip ’em to their shirts every last one of ’em… I’m just beginnin’ to get the hang of this game. I’ve made some dust fly… the boy wizard, eh?… Well, you just tell ’em they ain’t seen nothin’ yet. They think I’m just a dumb cluck of an inventor… just a mechanic like poor old Bill Cermak… Hell, let’s eat.”

They were sitting at the table and the waiter was putting different-colored horsd’œuvres on Charley’s plate. “Take it away… I’ll eat a piece of steak, nothing else.” Eddy was eating busily. He looked up at Charley and his face began to wrinkle into a wisecrack. “I guess it’s another case of the woman always pays.”

Charley didn’t laugh. “Gladys never paid for anythin’ in her life. You know just as well as I do what Gladys was like. All of those Wheatleys are skinflints. She takes after the old man… Well, I’ve learned my lesson… No more rich bitches… Why, a goddam whore wouldn’t have acted the way that bitch has acted… Well, you can just tell ’em, when you get back to your employers in Detroit… I know what they sent you for… To see if the old boy could still take his liquor… Drinkin’ himself to death, so that’s the story, is it? Well, I can still drink you under the table, good old Eddy, ain’t that so? You just tell ’em, Eddy, that the old boy’s as good as ever, a hell of a lot wiser… They thought they had him out on his can after the divorce, did they, well, you tell ’em to wait an’ see. An’ you tell Gladys the first time she makes a misstep… just once, she needn’t think I haven’t got my operatives watchin’ her… Tell her I’m out to get the kids back, an’ strip her of every goddam thing she’s got… Let her go out on the streets, I don’t give a damn.”

Eddy was slapping him on the back. “Well, oldtimer, I’ve got to run along… Sure good to see you still riding high, wide and handsome.”

“Higher than a kite,” shouted Charley, bursting out laughing. Eddy had gone. Old Maurice was trying to make him eat the piece of steak he’d taken out to heat up. Charley couldn’t eat. “Take it home to the wife and kiddies,” he told Maurice. The speak had cleared for the theatertime lull. “Bring me a bottle of champagne, Maurice old man, and then maybe I can get the steak down. That’s how they do it in the old country, eh? Don’t tell me I been drinkin’ too much… I know it… When everybody you had any confidence in has rooked you all down the line you don’t give a damn, do you, Maurice?”

A man with closecropped black hair and a closecropped black mustache was looking at Charley, leaning over a cocktailglass on the bar. “I say you don’t give a damn,” Charley shouted at the man when he caught his eye. “Do you?”

“Hell, no, got anything to say about it?” said the man, squaring off towards the table.

“Maurice, bring this gentleman a glass.” Charley got to his feet and swayed back and forth bowing politely across the table. The bouncer, who’d come out from a little door in back wiping his red hands on his apron, backed out of the room again. “Anderson my name is… Glad to meet you, Mr…” “Budkiewitz,” said the blackhaired man who advanced scowling and swaying a little to the other side of the table.

Charley pointed to a chair. “I’m drunk… beaucoup champagny water… have a glass.”

“With pleasure if you put it that way… Always rather drink than fight… Here’s to the old days of the Rainbow Division.”

“Was you over there?”

“Sure. Put it there, buddy.”

“Those were the days.”

“And now you come back and over here there’s nothin’ but a lot of doublecrossin’ bastards.”

“Businessmen… to hell wid ’em… doublecrossin’ bastards I call ’em.”

Mr. Budkiewitz got to his feet, scowling again. “To what kind of business do you refer?”

“Nobody’s business. Take it easy, buddy.” Mr. Budkiewitz sat down again. “Oh, hell, bring out another bottle, Maurice, and have it cold. Ever drunk that wine in Saumur, Mr. Budkibbitzer?”

“Have I drunk Saumur? Why shouldn’t I drink it? Trained there for three months.”

“That’s what I said to myself. That boy was overseas,” said Charley.

“I’ll tell the cockeyed world.”

“What’s your business, Mr. Buchanan?”

“I’m an inventor.”

“Just up my street. Ever heard of the Askew-Merritt starter?”

He’d never heard of the Askew-Merritt starter and Charley had never heard of the Autorinse washingmachine but soon they were calling each other Charley and Paul. Paul had had trouble with his wife too, said he was going to jail before he’d pay her any more alimony. Charley said he’d go to jail too.

Instead they went to a nightclub where they met two charming girls. Charley was telling the charming girls how he was going to set Paul, good old Paul, up in business, in the washingmachine business. They went places in taxicabs under the el with the girls. They went to a place in the Village. Charley was going to get all the girls the sweet pretty little girls jobs in the chorus. Charley was explaining how he was going to take the shirts off those bastards in Detroit. He’d get the girls jobs in the chorus so that they could take their shirts off. It was all very funny.

In the morning light he was sitting alone in a place with torn windowshades. Good old Paul had gone and the girls had gone and he was sitting at a table covered with cigarettestubs and spilt dago red looking at the stinging brightness coming through the worn places in the windowshade. It wasn’t a hotel or a callhouse, it was some kind of a dump with tables and it stank of old cigarsmoke and last night’s spaghetti and tomatosauce and dago red. Somebody was shaking him. “What time is it?” A fat wop and a young slickhaired wop in their dirty shirtsleeves were shaking him. “Time to pay up and get out. Here’s your bill.”

A lot of things were scrawled on a card. Charley could only read it with one eye at a time. The total was seventyfive dollars. The wops looked threatening.

“You tell us give them girls twentyfive dollar each on account.”

Charley reached for his billroll. Only a dollar. Where the hell had his wallet gone? The young wop was playing with a small leather blackjack he’d taken out of his back pocket. “A century ain’t high for what you spent an’ the girls an’ all… If you f — k around it’ll cost you more… You got your watch, ain’t you? This ain’t no clipjoint.”

“What time is it?”

“What time is it, Joe?”

“Let me call up the office. I’ll get my secretary to come up.” “What’s the number? What’s his name?” The young wop tossed up the blackjack and caught it. “I’ll talk to him. We’re lettin’ you out of this cheap. We don’t want no hard feelin’s.”

After they’d called up the office and left word that Mr. Anderson was sick and to come at once, they gave him some coffee with rum in it that made him feel sicker than ever. At last Cliff was standing over him looking neat and wellshaved. “Well, Cliff, I’m not the drinker I used to be.”

In the taxicab he passed out cold.

He opened his eyes in his bed at the hotel. “There must have been knockout drops in the coffee,” he said to Cliff who sat by the window reading the paper. “Well, Mr. Anderson, you sure had us worried. A damn lucky thing it was they didn’t know who they’d bagged in that clipjoint. If they had it would have cost us ten grand to get out of there.”

“Cliff, you’re a good boy. After this you get a raise.”

“Seems to me I’ve heard that story before, Mr. Anderson.”

“Benton know?”

“I had to tell him some. I said you’d eaten some bad fish and had ptomaine poisoning.”

“Not so bad for a young feller. God, I wonder if I’m gettin’ to be a rummy… How are things downtown?”

“Lousy. Mr. Benton almost went crazy trying to get in touch with you yesterday.”

“Christ, I got a head… Say, Cliff, you don’t think I’m gettin’ to be a rummy, do you?”

“Here’s some dope the sawbones left.”

“What day of the week is it?” “Saturday” “Jesus Christ, I thought it was Friday.”

The phone rang. Cliff went over to answer it. “It’s the massageman.”

“Tell him to come up… Say, is Benton stayin’ in town?”

“Sure he’s in town, Mr. Anderson, he’s trying to get hold of Merritt and see if he can stop the slaughter… Merritt…”

“Oh, hell, I’ll hear about it soon enough. Tell this masseur to come in.”

After the massage, that was agony, especially the cheerful German-accent remarks about the weather and the hockey season made by the big curlyhaired Swede who looked like a doorman, Charley felt well enough to go to the toilet and throw up some green bile. Then he took a cold shower and went back to bed and shouted for Cliff, who was typing letters in the drawingroom, to ring for the bellhop to get cracked ice for a rubber icepad to put on his head.

He lay back on the pillows and began to feel a little better.

“Hey, Cliff, how about lettin’ in the light of day? What time is it?”

“About noon.” “Christ… Say, Cliff, did any women call up?” Cliff shook his head. “Thank god.”

“A guy called up said he was a taxidriver, said you’d told him you’d get him a job in an airplane factory… I told him you’d left for Miami.”

Charley was beginning to feel a little better. He lay back in the soft comfortable bed on the crisplylaundered pillows and looked around the big clean hotel bedroom. The room was high up. Silvery light poured in through the broad window. Through the A between the curtains in the window he could see a piece of sky bright and fleecy as milkweed silk. Charley began to feel a vague sense of accomplishment, like a man getting over the fatigue of a long journey or a dangerous mountainclimb.

“Say, Cliff, how about a small gin and bitters with a lot of ice in it?… I think that ’ud probably be the makin’ of me.” “Mr. Anderson, the doc said to swear off and to take some of that dope whenever you felt like taking a drink.” “Every time I take it that stuff makes me puke. What does he think I am, a hophead?” “All right, Mr. Anderson, you’re the boss,” said Cliff, screwing up his thin mouth. “Thataboy, Cliff… Then I’ll try some grapefruitjuice and if that stays down I’ll take a good breakfast and to hell wid ’em… Why aren’t the papers here?”

“Here they are, Mr. Anderson… I’ve got ’em all turned to the financial section.” Charley looked over the reports of trading. His eyes wouldn’t focus very well yet. He still did better by closing one eye. A paragraph in News and Comment made him sit up.

“Hey, Cliff,” he yelled, “did you see this?”

“Sure,” said Cliff. “I said things were bad.”

“But if they’re goin’ ahead it means Merritt and Farrell have got their proxies sure.”

Cliff nodded wisely with his head a little to one side.

“Where the hell’s Benton?” “He just phoned, Mr. Anderson, he’s on his way uptown now.” “Hey, give me that drink before he comes and then put all the stuff away and order up a breakfast.”

Benton came in the bedroom behind the breakfast tray. He wore a brown suit and a derby. His face looked like an old dishcloth in spite of his snappy clothes. Charley spoke first, “Say, Benton, am I out on my fanny?”

Benton carefully and slowly took off his gloves and hat and overcoat and set them on the mahogany table by the window.

“The sidewalk is fairly well padded,” he said.

“All right, Cliff… Will you finish up that correspondence?” Cliff closed the door behind him gently. “Merritt outsmarted us?”

“He and Farrell are playing ball together. All you can do is take a licking and train up for another bout.”

“But damn it, Benton…”

Benton got to his feet and walked up and down the room at the foot of the bed. “No use cussing at me… I’m going to do the cussing today. What do you think of a guy who goes on a bender at a critical moment like this? Yellow, that’s what I call it… You deserved what you got… and I had a hell of a time saving my own hide, I can tell you. Well, I picked you for a winner, Anderson, and I still think that if you cut out the funny business you could be in the real money in ten years. Now let me tell you something, young man, you’ve gone exactly as far as you can go on your record overseas, and that was certainly a hell of a lot further than most. As for this invention racket… you know as well as I do there’s no money in it unless you have the genius for promotion needed to go with it. You had a big initial success and thought you were the boy wizard and could put over any damn thing you had a mind to.”

“Hey, Nat, for Pete’s sake don’t you think I’ve got brains enough to know that?… This darn divorce and bein’ in hospital so long kinder got me, that’s all.”

“Alibis.”

“What do you think I ought to do?”

“You ought to pull out of this town for a while… How about your brother’s business out in Minnesota?” “Go back to the sticks and sell tin lizzies… that’s a swell future.” “Where do you think Henry Ford made his money?” “I know. But he keeps his dealers broke… What I need’s to get in good physical shape. I always have a good time in Florida. I might go down there and lay around in the sun for a month.”

“O.K. if you keep out of that landboom.”

“Sure, Nat, I won’t even play poker… I’m goin’ down there for a rest. Get my leg in real good shape. Then when I come back we’ll see the fur fly. After all there’s still that Standard Airparts stock.”

“No longer listed.”

“Check.”

“Well, optimist, my wife’s expecting me for lunch… Have a good trip.”

Benton went out. “Hey, Cliff,” Charley called through the door. “Tell ’em to come and get this damn breakfast tray. It didn’t turn out so well. And phone Parker to get the car in shape. Be sure the tires are all O.K. I’m pullin’ out for Florida Monday.”

In a moment Cliff stuck his head in the door. His face was red. “Are you… will you be needing me down there, sir?” “No, I’ll be needin’ you here to keep an eye on the boys downtown… I got to have somebody here I can trust… I’ll tell you what I will have you do though… go down to Trenton and accompany Miss Dowlin’ down to Norfolk. I’ll pick her up there. She’s in Trenton visitin’ her folks. Her old man just died or somethin’. You’d just as soon do that, wouldn’t you? It’ll give you a little trip.”

Charley was watching Cliff’s face. He screwed his mouth further to one side and bowed like a butler. “Very good, sir,” he said.

Charley lay back on the pillows again. His head was throbbing, his stomach was still tied up in knots. When he closed his eyes dizzy red lights bloomed in front of them. He began to think about Jim and how Jim had never paid over his share of the old lady’s money he’d put into the business. Anyway he ain’t got a plane, two cars, a suite at the Biltmore and a secretary that’ll do any goddam thing in the world for you, and a girl like Margo. He tried to remember how her face looked, the funny amazed way she opened her eyes wide when she was going to make a funny crack. He couldn’t remember a damn thing, only the sick feeling he had all over and the red globes blooming before his eyes. In a little while he fell asleep.

He was still feeling so shaky when he started south that he took Parker along to drive the car. He sat glumly in his new camelshair coat with his hands hanging between his knees staring ahead through the roaring blank of the Holland Tunnel, thinking of Margo and Bill Edwards the patent lawyer he had to see in Washington about a suit, and remembering the bills in Cliff’s desk drawer and wondering where the money was coming from to fight this patent suit against Askew-Merritt. He had a grand in bills in his pocket and that made him feel good anyway. Gosh, money’s a great thing, he said to himself.

They came out of the tunnel into a rainygrey morning and the roar and slambanging of trucks through Jersey City. Then the traffic gradually thinned and they were going across the flat farmlands of New Jersey strawcolored and ruddy with winter. At Philadelphia Charley made Parker drive him to Broad Street. “I haven’t got the patience to drive, I’ll take the afternoon train. Come to the Waldman Park when you get in.”

He hired a drawingroom in the parlorcar and went and lay down to try to sleep. The train clattered and roared so and the grey sky and the lavender fields and yellow pastures and the twigs of the trees beginning to glow red and green and paleyellow with a foretaste of spring made him feel so blue, so like howling like a dog, that he got fed up with being shut up in the damn drawingroom and went back to the clubcar to smoke a cigar.

He was slumped in the leather chair fumbling for the cigarclipper in his vest pocket when the portly man in the next chair looked up from a bluecovered sheaf of lawpapers he was poring over. Charley looked into the black eyes and the smooth bluejowled face and at the bald head still neatly plastered with a patch of black hair shaped like a bird’s wing, without immediately recognizing it.

“Why, Charley ma boy, I reckon you must be in love.” Charley straightened up and put out his hand. “Hello, senator,” he said, stammering a little like he used to in the old days. “Goin’ to the nation’s capital?” “Such is my unfortunate fate.” Senator Planet’s eyes went searching all over him. “Charley, I hear you had an accident.”

“I’ve had a series of them,” said Charley, turning red, Senator Planet nodded his head understandingly and made a clucking noise with his tongue. “Too bad… too bad… Well, sir, a good deal of water has run under the bridge since you and young Merritt had dinner with me that night in Washington… Well, we’re none of us gettin’ any younger.” Charley got the feeling that the senator’s black eyes got considerable pleasure from exploring the flabby lines where his neck met his collar and the bulge of his belly against his vest. “Well, we’re none of us getting any younger,” the senator repeated. “You are, senator. I swear you look younger than you did the last time I saw you.”

The senator smiled. “Well, I hope you’ll forgive me for makin’ the remark… but it’s been one of the most sensational careers I have had the luck to witness in many years of public life.”

“Well, it’s a new industry. Things happen fast.”

“Unparalleled,” said the senator. “We live in an age of unparalleled progress… everywhere except in Washington… You should come down to our quiet little village more often… You have many friends there. I see by the papers, as Mr. Dooley used to say, that there’s been considerable reorganization out with you folks in Detroit. Need a broader capital base, I suppose.”

“A good many have been thrown out on their broad capital bases,” said Charley. He thought the senator would never quit laughing. The senator pulled out a large initialed silk handkerchief to wipe the tears from his eyes and brought his small pudgy hand down on Charley’s knee. “God almighty, we ought to have a drink on that.”

The senator ordered whiterock from the porter and mysteriously wafted a couple of slugs of good rye whiskey into it from a bottle he had in his Gladstone bag. Charley began to feel better. The senator was saying that some very interesting developments were to be expected from the development of airroutes. The need for subsidies was pretty generally admitted if this great nation was to catch up on its lag in air transportation. The question would be of course which of a number of competing concerns enjoyed the confidence of the Administration. There was more in this airroute business than there ever had been in supplying ships and equipment. “A question of the confidence of the Administration, ma boy.” At the word confidence, Senator Planet’s black eyes shone. “That’s why, ma boy, I’m glad to see you up here. Stick close to our little village on the Potomac, ma boy.”

“Check,” said Charley.

“When you’re in Miami, look up my old friend Homer Cassidy… He’s got an iceboat… he’ll take you out fishin’… I’ll write him, Charley. If I could get away I might spend a week down there myself next month. There’s a world of money bein’ made down there right now.”

“I sure will, senator, that’s mighty nice of you, senator.”

By the time they got into the Union station Charley and the senator were riding high. They were talking trunklines and connecting lines, airports and realestate. Charley couldn’t make out whether he was hiring Senator Planet for the lobbying or whether Senator Planet was hiring him. They parted almost affectionately at the taxistand.

Next afternoon he drove down through Virginia. It was a pretty, sunny afternoon. The judastrees were beginning to come out red on the sheltered hillsides. He had two bottles of that good rye whiskey Senator Planet had sent up to the hotel for him. As he drove he began to get sore at Parker the chauffeur. All the bastard did was get rakeoffs on the spare parts and gas and oil. Here he’d charged up eight new tires in the last month, what did he do with tires anyway, eat them? By the time they were crossing the tollbridge into Norfolk Charley was sore as a crab. He had to hold himself in to keep from hauling off and giving the bastard a crack on the sallow jaw of his smooth flunkey’s face. In front of the hotel he blew up.

“Parker, you’re fired. Here’s your month’s wages and your trip back to New York. If I see your face around this town tomorrow I’ll have you run in for theft. You know what I’m referrin’ to just as well as I do. You damn chauffeurs think you’re too damn smart. I know the whole racket, see… I have to work for my dough just as hard as you do. Just to prove it I’m goin’ to drive myself from now on.” He hated the man’s smooth unmoving face.

“Very well, sir,” Parker said coolly. “Shall I return you the uniform?”

“You can take the uniform and shove it up your…” Charley paused. He was stamping up and down red in the face on the pave ment at the hotel entrance in a circle of giggling colored bellboys. “Here, boy, take those bags in and have my car taken around to the garage… All right, Parker, you have your instructions.”

He strode into the hotel and ordered the biggest double suite they had. He registered in his own name. “Mrs. Anderson will be here directly.” Then he called up the other hotels to find out where the hell Margo was. “Hello, kid,” he said when at last it was her voice at the end of the wire. “Come on over. You’re Mrs. Anderson and no questions asked. Aw, to hell with ’em; nobody’s goin’ to dictate to me what I’ll do or who I’ll see or what I’m goin’ to do with my money. I’m through with all that. Come right around. I’m crazy to see you…”

When she came in, followed by the bellhop with the bags, she certainly looked prettier than ever. “Well, Charley,” she said, when the bellhop had gone out, “this sure is the cream de la cream… You must have hit oil.” After she’d run all around the rooms she came back and snuggled up to him. “I bet you been giving ’em hell on the market.” “They tried to put somethin’ over on me, but it can’t be done. Take it from me… Have a drink, Margo… Let’s geta little bit cockeyed you and me, Margo… Christ, I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”

She was doing her face in the mirror. “Me? Why I’m only a pushover,” she said in that gruff low tone that made him shiver all up his spine.

“Say, where’s Cliff?”

“Our hatchetfaced young friend who was kind enough to accompany me to the meeting with the lord and master? He pulled out on the six o’clock train.”

“The hell he did. I had some instructions for him.”

“He said you said be in the office Tuesday morning and he’d do it if he had to fly. Say, Charley, if he’s a sample of your employees they must worship the ground you walk on. He couldn’t stop talking about what a great guy you were.”

“Well, they know I’m regular, been through the mill… understand their point of view. It wasn’t so long ago I was workin’ at a lathe myself.”

Charley felt good. He poured them each another drink. Margo took his and poured half of the rye back into the bottle. “Don’t want to get too cockeyed, Mr. A,” she said in that new low caressing voice.

Charley grabbed her to him and kissed her hard on the mouth. “Christ, if you only knew how I’ve wanted to have a really swell woman all to myself. I’ve had some awful bitches… Gladys, God, what a bitch she was. She pretty near ruined me… tried to strip me of every cent I had in the world… ganged up on me with guys I thought were my friends… But you just watch, little girl. I’m goin’ to show ’em. In five years they’ll come crawlin’ to me on their bellies. I don’t know what it is, but I got a kind of feel for the big money… Nat Benton says I got it… I know I got it. I can travel on a hunch, see. Those bastards all had money to begin with.”

After they’d ordered their supper and while they were having just one little drink waiting for it, Margo brought out some bills she had in her handbag. “Sure, I’ll handle ’em right away.” Charley shoved them into his pocket without looking at them. “You know, Mr. A, I wouldn’t have to worry you about things like that if I had an account in my own name.” “How about ten grand in the First National Bank when we get to Miami?”

“Suit yourself, Charley… I never did understand more money than my week’s salary, you know that. That’s all any real trouper understands. I got cleaned out fixing the folks up in Trenton. It certainly costs money to die in this man’s country.”

Charley’s eyes filled with tears. “Was it your dad, Margery?”

She made a funny face. “Oh, no. The old man bumped off from too much Keeley cure when I was a little twirp with my hair down my back… This was my stepmother’s second husband. I’m fond of my stepmother, believe it or not… She’s been the only friend I had in this world. I’ll tell you about her someday. It’s quite a story.”

“How much did it cost? I’ll take care of it.”

Margo shook her head. “I never loaded my relations on any man’s back,” she said.

When the waiter came in with a tray full of big silver dishes followed by a second waiter pushing in a table already set, Margo pulled apart from Charley. “Well, this is the life,” she whispered in a way that made him laugh.

Driving down was a circus. The weather was good. As they went further south there began to be a green fuzz of spring on the woods. There were flowers in the pinebarrens. Birds were singing. The car ran like a dream. Charley kept her at sixty on the concrete roads, driving carefully, enjoying the driving, the good fourwheel brakes, the easy whir of the motor under the hood. Margo was a smart girl and crazy about him and kept making funny cracks. They drank just enough to keep them feeling good. They made Savannah late that night and felt so good they got so tight there the manager threatened to run them out of the big old hotel. That was when Margo threw an ashtray through the transom.

They’d been too drunk to have much fun in bed that night and woke up with a taste of copper in their mouths and horrible heads. Margo looked haggard and green and saggy under the eyes before she went in to take her bath. Charley made her a prairie oyster for breakfast like he said the English aviators used to make over on the other side, and she threw it right up without breaking the eggyolk. She made him come and look at it in the toilet before she pulled the chain. There was the raw eggyolk looking up at them like it had just come out of the shell. They couldn’t help laughing about it in spite of their heads.

It was eleven o’clock when they pulled out. Charley drove kind of easy along the winding road through the wooded section of southern Georgia, cut with inlets and saltmarshes from which cranes flew up and once a white flock of egrets. They felt pretty pooped by the time they got to Jacksonville. Neither of them could eat anything but a lambchop washed down with some lousy gin they paid eight dollars a quart for to the colored bellboy who claimed it was the best English gin imported from Nassau the night before. They drank the gin with bitters and went to bed.

Driving down from Jax to Miami the sun was real hot. Charley wanted to have the top down to get plenty of air but Margo wouldn’t hear of it. She made him laugh about it. “A girl’ll sacrifice anything for a man except her complexion.” They couldn’t eat on the way down, though Charley kept tanking up on the gin. When they got into Miami they went right to the old Palms where Margo used to work and got a big ovation from Joe Kantor and Eddy Palermo and the boys of the band. They all said it looked like a honeymoon and kidded about seeing the marriagelicense. “Merely a chance acquaintance… something I picked up at the busstation in Jax,” Margo kept saying. Charley ordered the best meal they had in the house and drinks all around and champagne. They danced all evening in spite of his game leg. When he passed out they took him upstairs to Joe and Mrs. Kantor’s own room. When he began to wake up Margo was sitting fully dressed looking fresh as a daisy on the edge of the bed. It was late in the morning. She brought him up breakfast on a tray herself.

“Look here, Mr. A,” she said. “You came down here for a rest. No more nightclubs for a while. I’ve rented us a little bungalow down on the beach and we’ll put you up at the hotel to avoid the breath of scandal and you’ll like it. What we need’s the influence of the home… And you and me, Mr. A, we’re on the wagon.”

The bungalow was in Spanishmission style, and cost a lot, but they sure had a good time at Miami Beach. They played the dograces and the roulettewheels and Charley got in with a bunch of allnight pokerplayers through Homer Cassidy, Senator Planet’s friend, a big smiling cultured whitehaired southerner in a baggy linen suit, who came round to the hotel to look him up. After a lot of talking about one thing and another, Cassidy got around to the fact that he was buying up options on property for the new airport and would let Charley in on it for the sake of his connections, but he had to have cash right away. At poker Charley’s luck was great, he always won enough to have a big roll of bills on him, but his bankaccount was a dog of a different stripe. He began burning up the wires to Nat Benton’s office in New York.

Margo tried to keep him from drinking; the only times he could really get a snootful were when he went out fishing with Cassidy. Margo wouldn’t go fishing, she said she didn’t like the way the fish looked at her when they came up out of the water. One day he’d gone down to the dock to go fishing with Cassidy but found that the norther that had come up that morning was blowing too hard. It was damn lucky because just as Charley was leaving the dock a Western Union messengerboy came up on his bike. The wind was getting sharper every minute and blew the chilly dust in Charley’s face as he read the telegram. It was from the senator: ADMINISTRATION PREPARES OATS FOR PEGASUS. As soon as he got back to the beach Charley talked to Benton over longdistance. Next day airplane stocks bounced when the news came over the wires of a bill introduced to subsidize airlines. Charley sold everything he had at the top, covered his margins and was sitting pretty when the afternoon papers killed the story.

A week later he started to rebuy at twenty points lower. Anyway he’d have the cash to refinance his loans and go in with Cassidy on the options. When he told Cassidy he was ready to go in with him they went out on the boat to talk things over. A colored boy made them mintjuleps. They sat in the stern with their rods and big straw hats to keep the sun out of their eyes and the juleps on a table behind them. When they got to the edge of the blue water they began to troll for sailfish.

It was a day of blue sky with big soft pinkishwhite clouds lavender underneath drifting in the sun. There was enough wind blowing against the current out in the Gulf Stream to make sharp choppy waves green where they broke and blue and purple in the trough. They followed the long streaks of mustardcolored weed but they didn’t see any sailfish. Cassidy caught a dolphin and Charley lost one. The boat pitched so that Charley had to keep working on the juleps to keep his stomach straight.

Most of the morning they cruised back and forth in front of the mouth of the Miami River. Beyond the steep dark waves they could see the still sunny brown water of the bay and against the horizon the new buildings sparkling white among a red web of girder construction. “Buildin’, that’s what I like to see,” said Homer Cassidy, waving a veined hand that had a big old gold sealring on it towards the city. “And it’s just beginnin’… Why, boy, I kin remember when Miamah was the jumpin’ off place, a little collection of brokendown shacks between the railroad and the river, and I tell you the mosquitoes were fierce. There were a few crackers down here growin’ early tomatoes and layin’ abed half the time with chills and fever… and now look at it… an’ up in New York they try to tell you the boom ain’t sound.” Charley nodded without speaking. He was having a tussle with a fish on his line. His face was getting red and his hand was cramped from reeling. “Nothin’ but a small bonito,” said Cassidy. “… The way they try to tell you the fishin’ ain’t any good… that’s all propaganda for the West Coast… Boy, I must admit that I saw it comin’ years ago when I was workin’ with old Flagler. There was a man with vision… I went down with him on the first train that went over the overseas extension into Key West… I was one of the attorneys for the road at the time. Schoolchildren threw roses under his feet all the way from his private car to the carriage… We had nearly a thousand men carried away in hurricanes before the line was completed… and now the new Miamah… an’ Miamah Beach, what do you think of Miamah Beach? It’s Flagler’s dream come true.”

“Well, what I’d like to do,” Charley began and stopped to take a big swig of the new julep the colored boy had just handed him. He was beginning to feel wonderful now that the little touch of seasickness had gone. Cassidy’s fishing guide had taken Charley’s rod up forward to put a new hook on it, so Charley was sitting there in the stern of the motorboat feeling the sun eat into his back and little flecks of salt spray drying on his face with nothing to do but sip the julep, with nothing to worry about. “Cassidy, this sure is the life… why can’t a guy do what he wants to with his life? I was just goin’ to say what I want to do is get out of this whole racket… investments, all that crap… I’d like to get out with a small pile and get a house and settle down to monkeyin’ around with motors and designin’ planes and stuff like that… I always thought if I could pull out with enough jack I’d like to build me a windtunnel all my own… you know that’s what they test out model planes in.” “Of course,” said Cassidy, “it’s aviation that’s goin’ to make Miami… Think of it, eighteen, fourteen, ten hours from New York… I don’t need to tell you… and you and me and the Senator… we’re right in among the foundin’ fathers with that airport… Well, boy, I’ve waited all ma life to make a real killin’. All ma life I been servin’ others… on the bench, railroad lawyer, all that sort of thing… Seems to me about time to make a pile of ma own.”

“Suppose they pick some other place, then we’ll be holdin’ the bag. After all it’s happened before,” said Charley.

“Boy, they can’t do it. You know yourself that that’s the ideal location and then… I oughtn’t to be tellin’ you this but you’ll find it out soon anyway… well, you know our Washington friend, well, he’s one of the forwardestlooking men in this country… That money I put up don’t come out of Homer Cassidy’s account because Homer Cassidy’s broke. That’s what’s worryin’ me right this minute. I’m merely his agent. And in all the years I’ve been associated with Senator Planet upon ma soul and body I’ve never seen him put up a cent unless it was a sure thing.”

Charley began to grin. “Well, the old sonofabitch.” Cassidy laughed. “You know the one about a nod’s as good as a wink to a blind mule. How about a nice Virginia ham sandwich?”

They had another drink with the sandwiches. Charley got to feeling like talking. It was a swell day. Cassidy was a prince. He was having a swell time. “Funny,” Charley said, “when I first saw Miami it was from out at sea like this. I never would have thought I’d be down here shovelin’ in the dough… There weren’t all those tall buildin’s then either. I was goin’ up to New York on a coastin’ boat. I was just a kid and I’d been down to New Orleans for the Mardi Gras and I tell you I was broke. I got on the boat to come up to New York and got to pallin’ with a Florida cracker… he was a funny guy… We went upto New York together. He said the thing to do was get over an’ see the war, so him and me like a pair of damn fools we enlisted in one of those volunteer ambulance services. After that I switched to aviation. That’s how I got started in my line of business. Miami didn’t mean a thing to me then.”

“Well, Flagler gave me ma start,” said Cassidy. “And I’m not ashamed to admit it… buyin’ up rightofway for the Florida East Coast… Flagler started me and he started Miamah.”

That night when they got in sunburned and a little drunk from the day on the Gulf Stream they tucked all the options away in the safe in Judge Cassidy’s office and went over to the Palms to relax from business cares. Margo wore her silver dress and she certainly looked stunning. There was a thin dark Irishlooking girl there named Eileen who seemed to know Cassidy from way back. The four of them had dinner together, Cassidy got good and tight and opened his mouth wide as a grouper’s talking about the big airport and saying how he was going to let the girls in on some lots on the deal. Charley was drunk, but he wasn’t too drunk to know Cassidy ought to keep his trap shut. When he danced with Eileen he talked earnestly in her ear telling her she ought to make the boyfriend keep his trap shut until the thing was made public from the proper quarters. Margo saw them with their heads together and acted the jealous bitch and started making over Cassidy to beat the cars. When Charley got her to dance with him she played dumb and wouldn’t answer when he spoke to her.

He left her at the table and went over to have some drinks at the bar. There he got into an argument with a skinny guy who looked like a cracker. Eddy Palermo, with an oily smile on his face the shape and color of an olive, ran over and got between them. “You can’t fight this gentleman, Mr. Anderson, he’s our county attorney… I know you gentlemen would like each other… Mr. Pappy, Mr. Anderson was one of our leading war aces.”

They dropped their fists and stood glaring at each other with the little wop nodding and grinning between them. Charley put out his hand. “All right, put it there, pal,” he said. The county attorney gave him a mean look and put his hands in his pockets. “County attorney s — t,” said Charley. He was reeling. He had to put his hand against the wall to steady himself. And he turned and walked out the door. Outside he found Eileen who’d just come out of the ladies’ room and was patting back her sleek hair in front of the mirror by the hatchecking stand. He felt choked with the whiskey and the cigarsmoke and the throbbing hum of the band and the shuffle of feet. He had to get outdoors. “Come on, girlie, we’re goin’ for a ride, get some air.” Before the girl could open her mouth he’d dragged her out to the parkinglot. “Oh, but I don’t think we ought to leave the others,” she kept saying. “They’re too goddam drunk to know. I’ll bring you back in five minutes. A little air does a little girl good, especially a pretty little girl like you.”

The gears shrieked because he didn’t have the clutch shoved out. The car stalled; he started the motor again and immediately went into high. The motor knocked for a minute but began to gather speed. “See,” he said, “not a bad little bus.” As he drove he talked out of the corner of his mouth to Eileen. “That’s the last time I go into that dump… Those little cracker politicians fresh out of the turpentine camps can’t get fresh with me. I can buy and sell ’em too easy like buyin’ a bag of peanuts. Like that bastard Farrell. I’ll buy and sell him yet. You don’t know who he is but all you need to know is he’s a crook, one of the biggest crooks in the country, an’ he thought, the whole damn lot of ’em thought, they’d put me out like they did poor old Joe Askew. But the man with the knowhow, the boy who thinks up the gadgets, they can’t put him out. I can outsmart ’em at their own game too. We got somethin’ bigger down here than they ever dreamed of. And the Administration all fixed up. This is goin’ to be big, little girl, the biggest thing you ever saw and I’m goin’ to let you in on it. We’ll be on easystreet from now on. And when you’re on easystreet you’ll all forget poor old Charley Anderson the boy that put you wise.”

“Oh, it’s so cold,” moaned Eileen. “Let’s go back. I’m shivering.” Charley leaned over and put his arm round her shoulders. As he turned the car swerved. He wrenched it back onto the concrete road again. “Oh, please do be careful, Mr. Anderson… You’re doing eightyfive now… Oh, don’t scare me, please.”

Charley laughed. “My, what a sweet little girl. Look, we’re down to forty just bowlin’ pleasantly along at forty. Now we’ll turn and go back, it’s time little chickens were in bed. But you must never be scared in a car when I’m driving. If there’s one thing I can do it’s drive a car. But I don’t like to drive a car. Now if I had my own ship here. How would you like to take a nice trip in a plane? I’d a had it down here before this but it was in hock for the repair bills. Had to put a new motor in. But now I’m on easystreet. I’ll get one of the boys to fly it down to me. Then we’ll have a real time. You an’ me an’ Margo. Old Margo’s a swell girl, got an awful temper though. That’s one thing I can do, I know how to pick the women.”

When they turned to run back towards Miami they saw the long streak of the dawn behind the broad barrens dotted with dead pines and halfbuilt stucco houses and closed servicestations and dogstands.

“Now the wind’s behind us. We’ll have you back before you can say Jack Robinson.” They were running along beside a railroad track. They were catching up on two red lights. “I wonder if that’s the New York train.” They were catching up on it, past the lighted observation car, past the sleepers with no light except through the groundglass windows of the dressingrooms at the ends of the cars. They were creeping up on the baggagecar and mailcars and the engine, very huge and tall and black with a little curling shine from Charley’s headlights in the dark. The train had cut off the red streak of the dawn. “Hell, they don’t make no speed.” As they passed the cab the whistle blew. “Hell, I can beat him to the crossin’.” The lights of the crossing were ahead of them and the long beam of the engine’s headlight, that made the red and yellow streak of the dawn edging the clouds very pale and far away. The bar was down at the crossing. Charley stepped on the gas. They crashed through the bar, shattering their headlights. The car swerved around sideways. Their eyes were full of the glare of the locomotive headlight and the shriek of the whistle. “Don’t be scared, we’re through,” Charley yelled at the girl. The car swerved around on the tracks and stalled.

He was jabbing at the starter with his foot. The crash wasn’t anything. When he came to he knew right away he was in a hospital. First thing he began wondering if he was going to have a hangover. He couldn’t move. Everything was dark. From way down in a pit he could see the ceiling. Then he could see the peak of a nurse’s cap and a nurse leaning over him. All the time he was talking. He couldn’t stop talking.

“Well, I thought we were done for. Say, nurse, where did we crack up? Was it at the airport? I’d feel better if I could remember. It was this way, nurse… I’d taken that little girl up to let her get the feel of that new Boeing ship… you know the goldarned thing… I was sore as hell at somebody, must have been my wife, poor old Gladys, did she give me a dirty deal? But now after this airport deal I’ll be buyin’ an’ sellin’ the whole bunch of them. Say, nurse, what happened? Was it at the airport?”

The nurse’s face and her hair were yellow under the white cap. She had a thin face without lips and thin hands that went past his eyes to smooth the sheet under his chin.

“You must try and rest,” she said. “Or else I’ll have to give you another hypodermic.”

“Say, nurse, are you a Canadian? I bet you’re a Canadian.”

“No, I’m from Tennessee… Why?”

“My mistake. You see always when I’ve been in a hospital before the nurses have been Canadians. Isn’t it kinder dark in here? I wish I could tell you how it happened. Have they called the office? I guess maybe I drink too much. After this I attend strictly to business. I tell you a man has to keep his eyes open in this game… Say, can’t you get me some water?”

“I’m the night nurse. It isn’t day yet. You try and get some sleep.”

“I guess they’ve called up the office. I’d like Stauch to take a look at the ship before anything’s touched. Funny, nurse. I don’t feel much pain, but I feel so terrible.”

“That’s just the hypodermics,” said the nurse’s brisk low voice. “Now you rest quietly and in the morning you’ll wake up feeling a whole lot better. You can only rinse out your mouth with this.”

“Check.”

He couldn’t stop talking. “You see it was this way. I had some sort of a wrangle with a guy. Are you listenin’, nurse? I guess I’ve got a kind of a chip on my shoulder since they’ve been gangin’ up on me so. In the old days I used to think everybody was a friend of mine, see. Now I know they’re all crooks… even Gladys, she turned out the worst crook of the lot… I guess it’s the hangover makes me so terribly thirsty.”

The nurse was standing over him again. “I’m afraid we’ll have to give you a little of the sleepy stuff, brother… Now just relax. Think of somethin’ nice. That’s a good boy.”

He felt her dabbing at his arm with something cold and wet. He felt the prick of the needle. The hard bed where he lay awake crumbled gradually under him. He was sinking, without any sweetness of sleep coming on, he was sinking into dark.

This time it was a stout starched woman standing over him. It was day. The shadows were different. She was poking some papers under his nose. She had a hard cheerful voice. “Good morning, Mr. Anderson, is there anything I can do for you?”

Charley was still down in a deep well. The room, the stout starched woman, the papers were far away above him somewhere. All around his eyes were stinging hot.

“Say, I don’t feel as if I was all there, nurse.”

“I’m the superintendent. There are a few formalities if you don’t mind… if you feel well enough.”

“Did you ever feel like it had all happened before?… Say, where, I mean what town…? Never mind, don’t tell me, I remember it all now.”

“I’m the superintendent. If you don’t mind, the office would like a check for your first week in advance and then there are some other fees.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve got money… For God’s sake get me a drink.”

“It’s just the regulations.”

“There must be a checkbook in my coat some where… Or get hold of Cliff… Mr. Wegman, my secretary… He can make out a check for you.”

“Now don’t you bother about anything, Mr. Anderson… The office has made out a blank check. I’ll fill in the name of the bank. You sign it. That will be two hundred and fifty dollars on account.”

“Bankers’ Trust, New York… Gosh, I can just about sign my name.”

“The questionnaire we’ll get the nurse to fill out later… for our records… Well, good by, Mr. Anderson, I hope you have a very pleasant stay with us and wishing you a quick recovery.” The stout starched woman had gone.

“Hey, nurse,” called Charley. He suddenly felt scared. “What is this dump anyway? Where am I? Say, nurse, nurse.” He shouted as loud as he could. The sweat broke out all over his face and neck and ran into his ears and eyes. He could move his head and his arms but the pit of his stomach was gone. He had no feeling in his legs. His mouth was dry with thirst.

A new pretty pink nurse was leaning over him. “What can I do for you, mister?” She wiped his face and showed him where the bell was hanging just by his hand. “Nurse, I’m terribly thirsty,” he said in a weak voice.

“Now you must just rinse out your mouth. The doctor doesn’t want you to eat or drink anything until he’s established the drainage.”

“Where is this doctor?… Why isn’t he here now?… Why hasn’t he been here right along? If he isn’t careful I’ll fire him and get another.”

“Here’s Dr. Snyder right now,” said the nurse in an awed whisper.

“Well, Anderson, you surely had a narrow squeak. You probably thought you were in a plane all the time… Funny, I’ve never known an airplane pilot yet who could drive a car. My name’s Snyder. Dr. Ridgely Snyder of New York. Dr. Booth the housephysician here has called me in as a consultant. It’s possible we may have to patch up your inside a little. You see when they picked you up, as I understand it, a good deal of the car was lying across your middle… a very lucky break that it didn’t finish you right there… You understand me, don’t you?”

Dr. Snyder was a big man with flat closeshaven cheeks and square hands ending in square nails. A song old man Vogel used to sing ran across Charley’s faint mind as he looked at the doctor standing there big and square and paunchy in his white clothes: he looked like William Kaiser the butcher but they don’t know each other.

“I guess it’s the dope but my mind don’t work very good… You do the best you can, doc… and don’t spare any expense. I just fixed up a little deal that’ll make their ears ring… Say, doctor, what about that little girl? Wasn’t there a little girl in the car?”

“Oh, don’t worry about her. She’s fine. She was thrown absolutely clear. A slight concussion, a few contusions, she’s coming along splendidly.”

“I was scared to ask.”

“We’ve got to do a little operating… suture of the intestine, a very interesting problem. Now I don’t want you to have anything on your mind, Mr. Anderson… It’ll just be a stitch here and a stitch there… we’ll see what we can do. This was supposed to be my vacation but of course I’m always glad to step in in an emergency.”

“Well, thank you, doc, for whatever you can do… I guess I ought not to drink so much… Say, why won’t they let me drink some water?… It’s funny, when I first came to in here I thought I was in an other of them clipjoints. Now Doris, she wouldn’ta liked me to talk like that, you know, bad grammar, conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. But you know, doc, when you get so you can buy ’em and sell ’em like an old bag of peanuts, a bag of stale goobers, you don’t care what they think. You know, doc, it may be a great thing for me bein’ laid up, give me a chance to lay off the liquor, think about things… Ever thought about things, doc?”

“What I’m thinking right now, Mr. Anderson, is that I’d like you to be absolutely quiet.”

“All right, you do your stuff, doc… you send that pretty nurse in an’ lemme talk to her. I want to talk about old Bill Cermak… He was the only straight guy I ever knew, him an’ Joe Askew… I wonder how he felt when he died… You see the last time I was, well, call it constitutionally damaged… him and me smashed up in a plane… the new Mosquito… there’s millions in it now but the bastards got the stock away from me… Say, doc, I don’t suppose you ever died, did you?”

There was nothing but the white ceiling above him, brighter where the light came from the window. Charley remembered the bell by his hand. He rang and rang it. Nobody came. Then he yanked at it until he felt the cord pull out somewhere. The pretty pink nurse’s face bloomed above him like a closeup in a movie. Her young rarelykissed mouth was moving. He could see it making clucking noises, but a noise like longdistance in his ears kept him from hearing what she said. It was only when he was talking he didn’t feel scared. “Look here, young woman…” he could hear himself talking. He was enjoying hearing himself talking. “I’m payin’ the bills in this hospital and I’m goin’ to have everythin’ just how I want it… I want you to sit here an’ listen while I talk, see. Let’s see, what was I tellin’ that bird about? He may be a doctor but he looks like William Kaiser the butcher to me. You’re too young to know that song.”

“There’s somebody to see you, Mr. Anderson. Would you like me to freshen your face up a little?”

Charley turned his eyes. The screen had been pushed open. In the grey oblong of the door there was Margo. She was in yellow. She was looking at him with eyes round as a bird’s.

“You’re not mad, Margery, are you?”

“I’m worse than mad, I’m worried.”

“Everythin’s goin’ to be oke, Margo. I got a swell sawbones from New York. He’ll patch me up. He looks like William Kaiser the butcher all except the mustaches… what do you know about that, I forgot the mustaches… Don’t look at me funny like that. I’m all right, see. I just feel better if I talk, see. I bet I’m the talkin’est patient they ever had in this hospital… Margo, you know I might a gotten to be a rummy if I’d kept on drinkin’ like that. It’s just as well to be caught up short.”

“Say, Charley, are you well enough to write out a check? I’ve got to have some jack. You know you were goin’ to give me a commission on that airport deal. And I’ve got to hire a lawyer for you. Eileen’s folks are going to sue. That county attorney’s sworn out a warrant. I brought your New York checkbook.”

“Jesus, Margo, I’ve made a certain amount of jack but I’m not the Bank of England.”

“But, Charley, you said you’d open an account for me.”

“Gimme a chance to get out of the hospital.”

“Charley, you poor unfortunate Mr. A… you don’t think it’s any fun for me to worry you at a timelike this… but I’ve got to eat like other people… an’ if I had some jack I could fix that county attorney up… and keep the stuff out of the papers and everything. You know the kind of story they’ll make out of it… but I got to have money quick.”

“All right, make out a check for five thousand… Damn lucky for you I didn’t break my arm.”

The pretty pink nurse had come back. Her voice was cold and sharp and icy. “I’m afraid it’s time,” she said.

Margo leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. Charley felt like he was in a glass case. There was the touch of her lips, the smell of her dress, her hair, the perfume she used, but he couldn’t feel them. Like a scene in a movie he watched her walk out, the sway of her hips under the tight dress, the little nervous way she was fluttering the check under her chin to dry the ink on it.

“Say, nurse, it’s like a run on a bank… I guess they think the old institution’s not so sound as it might be… I’m givin’ orders now, see, tell ’em down at the desk, no more visitors, see? You and me an’ Dr. Kaiser William there, that’s enough, see.”

“Anyway now it’s time for a little trip across the hall,” said the pretty pink nurse, in a cheerful voice like it was a show or a baseballgame they were going to.

An orderly came in. The room started moving away from the cot, a grey corridor was moving along, but the moving made blind spasms of pain rush up through his legs. He sank into sour puking blackness again. When it was light again it was very far away. His tongue was dry in his mouth he was so thirsty. Reddish mist was over everything. He was talking but way off somewhere. He could feel the talk coming out of his throat but he couldn’t hear it. What he heard was the doctor’s voice saying peritonitis like it was the finest party in the world, like you’d say Merry Christmas. There were other voices. His eyes were open, there were other voices. He must be delirious. There was Jim sitting there with a puzzled sour gloomy look on his face like he used to see him when he was a kid on Sunday afternoons going over his books.

“That you, Jim? How did you get here?”

“We flew,” answered Jim. It was a surprise to Charley that people could hear him, his voice was so far away. “Everything’s all right, Charley… you mustn’t exert yourself in the least way. I’ll attend to everything.”

“Can you hear me, Jim? It’s like a bum longdistance phone connection.”

“That’s all right, Charley… We’ll take charge of everything. You just rest quiet. Say, Charley, just as a precaution I want to ask you, did you make a will?”

“Say, was it peritonitis I heard somebody say? That’s bad, ain’t it?”

Jim’s face was white and long. “It’s… it’s just a little operation. I thought maybe you’d better give me power of attorney superseding all others, so that you won’t have anything on your mind, see. I have it all made out, and I have Judge Grey here as a witness and Hedwig’ll come in a minute… Tell me, are you married to this woman?”

“Me married? Never again… Good old Jim, always wantin’ people to sign things. Too bad I didn’t break my arm. Well, what do you think about planes now, Jim? Not practical yet… eh? But practical enough to make more money than you ever made sellin’ tin lizzies… Don’t get sore, Jim… Say, Jim, be sure to get plenty of good doctors… I’m pretty sick, do you know it?… It makes you so hoarse… make ’em let me have some water to drink, Jim. Don’t do to save on the doctors… I want to talk like we used to when, you know, up the Red River fishin’ when there wasn’t any. We’ll try the fishin’ out here… swell fishin’ right outside of Miami here… I feel like I was passin’ out again. Make that doctor give me somethin’. That was a shot. Thank you, nurse, made me feel fine, clears everythin’ up. I tell you, Jim, things are hummin’ in the air… mail subsidies… airports… all these new airlines… we’ll be the foundin’ fathers on all that… They thought they had me out on my ass but I fooled ’em… Jesus, Jim, I wish I could stop talkin’ and go to sleep. But this passin’ out’s not like sleep, it’s like a… somethin’ phony.”

He had to keep on talking but it wasn’t any use. He was too hoarse. His voice was a faint croak, he was so thirsty. They couldn’t hear him. He had to make them hear him. He was too weak. He was dropping spinning being sucked down into