Big Money (29 page)

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.”