Big Money (48 page)

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.”