Big Money (12 page)

The lights went on and the windows got dark with a stuffy late-summer night. When he'd paid for the beer he only had a quarter left in his pocket. “Damn it, this is the last time I let myself get in a jam like this,” he kept muttering as he wandered round the downtown streets. He sat for a long time in Washington Square, thinking about what kind of a salestalk he could give the manager of that usedcar dump.

A light rain began to fall. The streets were empty by this time. He
turned up his collar and started to walk. His shoes had holes in them and with each step he could feel the cold water squish between his toes. Under an arclight he took off his straw hat and looked at it. It was already gummy and the rim had a swollen pulpy look. “Now how in Christ's name am I goin' to go around to get me a job tomorrow?”

He turned on his heel and walked straight uptown towards the Johnsons' place. Every minute it rained harder. He rang the bell under the card Paul Johnson—Eveline Hutchins until Paul came to the door in pyjamas looking very sleepy.

“Say, Paul, can I sleep on your couch?” “It's pretty hard. . . . Come in. . . . I don't know if we've got any clean sheets.” “That's all right . . . just for tonight. . . . You see I got cleaned out in a crapgame. I got jack comin' tomorrow. I thought I'd try the benches but the sonofabitch started to rain on me. I got business to attend to tomorrow an' I got to keep this suit good, see?” “Sure. . . . Say, you look wet . . . I'll lend you a pair of pyjamas and a bathrobe. Better take those things off.”

It was dry and comfortable on the Johnsons' couch. After Paul had gone back to bed Charley lay there in Paul's bathrobe looking up at the ceiling. Through the tall window he could see the rain flickering through the streetlights outside and hear its continuous beat on the pavement. The baby woke up and cried, there was a light in the other room. He could hear Paul's and Eveline's sleepy voices and the rustle of them stirring around. Then the baby quieted down, the light went out. Everything was quiet in the beating rain again. He went off to sleep.

Getting up and having breakfast with them was no picnic nor was borrowing twentyfive dollars from Paul though Charley knew he could pay it back in a couple of days. He left when Paul left to go to the office without paying attention to Eveline's sidelong kidding glances. Never get in a jam like this again, he kept saying to himself.

First he went to a tailor's and sat there behind a curtain reading the
American
while his suit was pressed. Then he bought himself a new straw hat, went to a barbershop and had a shave, a haircut, a facial massage and a manicure and went to a cobbler's to get his shoes shined and soled.

By that time it was almost noon. He went uptown on the subway and talked himself into a job as salesman in the secondhand autosales place above Columbus Circle where the manager was a friend of Jim's. When the guy asked Charley about how the folks out in Minne
apolis were getting on, he had to make up a lot of stuff. That evening he got his laundry from the Chinaman and his things out of hock and went back to a room, with brown walls this time, at the Chatterton House. He set himself up to a good feed and went to bed early deadtired.

A few days later a letter came from Joe Askew with the twentyfive bucks and the news that he was getting on his feet and would be down soon to get to work. Meanwhile Charley was earning a small amount on commissions but winning or losing up to a century a night in a pokergame on Sixtythird Street one of the salesmen took him up to. They were mostly automobile salesmen and advertising men in the game and they were free spenders and rolled up some big pots. Charley mailed the twentyfive he owed him down to Paul, and when Eveline called him up on the telephone always said he was terribly busy and would call her soon. No more of that stuff, nosiree. Whenever he won, he put half of his winnings in a savings-bank account he'd opened. He carried the bankbook in his inside pocket. When he noticed it there it always made him feel like a wise guy.

He kept away from Eveline. It was hard for him to get so far downtown and he didn't need to anyway because one of the other salesmen gave him the phonenumber of an apartment in a kind of hotel on the West Side, where a certain Mrs. Darling would arrange meetings with agreeable young women if she were notified early enough in the day. It cost twentyfive bucks a throw but the girls were clean and young and there were no followups of any kind. The fact that he could raise twentyfive bucks to blow that way made him feel pretty good, but it ate into his poker winnings. After a session with one of Mrs. Darling's telephone numbers, he'd go back to his room at the Chatterton House feeling blue and disgusted. The girls were all right, but it wasn't fun like it had been with Eveline or even with Emiscah. He'd think of Doris and say to himself goshdarn it, he had to get him a woman of his own.

He took to selling fewer cars and playing more poker as the weeks went on and by the time he got a wire from Joe Askew saying he was coming to town next day his job had just about petered out. He could tell that it was only because the manager was a friend of Jim's that he hadn't fired him already. He'd hit a losing streak and had to draw all the money out of the savingsaccount. When he went down to the sta
tion to meet Joe he had a terrible head and only a dime in his pocket. The night before they'd cleaned him out at red dog.

Joe looked the same as ever only he was thinner and his mustache was longer. “Well, how's tricks?” Charley took Joe's other bag as they walked up the platform.

“Troubled with low ceilin's, air full of holes.”

“I bet it is. Say, you look like you'd been hitting it up, Charley. I hope you're ready to get to work.”

“Sure. All depends on gettin' the right C.O. . . . Ain't I been to nightschool every night?”

“I bet you have.”

“How are you feelin' now, Joe?”

“Oh, I'm all right now. I just about fretted myself into a nuthouse. What a lousy summer I've had. . . . What have you been up to, you big bum?”

“Well, I've been gatherin' information about the theory of the straight flush. And women . . . have I learned about women? Say, how's the wife and kids?”

“Fine. . . . You'll meet 'em. I'm goin' to take an apartment here this winter. . . . Well, boy, it's a case of up and at 'em. We are goin' in with Andy Merritt. . . . You'll meet him this noon. Where can I get a room?” “Well, I'm stayin' at that kind of glorified Y over on Thirty-eighth Street.” “That's all right.”

When they got into the taxi, Joe tapped him on the knee and leaned over and asked with a grin, “When are you ready to start to manufacture?” “Tomorrow mornin' at eight o'clock. Old Bigelow just failed over in Long Island City. I seen his shop. Wouldn't cost much to get it in shape.”

“We'll go over there this afternoon. He might take a little stock.”

Charley shook his head. “That stock's goin' to be worth money, Joe . . . give him cash or notes or anythin'. He's a halfwit anyway. Last time I went over there it was to try to get a job as a mechanic. . . . Jeez, I hope those days are over. . . . The trouble with me is, Joe, I want to get married and to get married like I want I got to have beaucoup kale. . . . Believe it or not, I'm in love.”

“With the entire chorus at the Follies, I'll bet. . . . That's a hot one . . . you want to get married.” Joe laughed like he'd split. While Joe went up to his room to clean up, Charley went round to the corner drugstore to get himself a bromoseltzer.

They had lunch with Merritt, who turned out to be a grey-faced young man with a square jaw, at the Yale Club. Charley still had a pounding headache and felt groggily that he wasn't making much of an impression. He kept his mouth shut and let Joe do the talking. Joe and Merritt talked Washington and War Department and Navy Department and figures that made Charley feel he ought to be pinching himself to see if he was awake.

After lunch Merritt drove them out to Long Island City in an open Pierce Arrow touringcar. When they actually got to the plant, walking through the long littered rooms looking at lathes and electric motors and stamping and dyemaking machines, Charley felt he knew his way around better. He took out a piece of paper and started making notes. As that seemed to go big with Merritt he made a lot more notes. Then Joe started making notes too. When Merritt took out a little book and started making notes himself, Charley knew he'd done the right thing.

They had dinner with Merritt and spent the evening with him. It was heavy sledding because Merritt was one of those people who could size a man up at a glance, and he was trying to size up Charley. They ate at an expensive French speakeasy and sat there a long time afterwards drinking cognac and soda. Merritt was a great one for writing lists of officers and salaries and words like capitalization, depreciation, amortization down on pieces of paper, all of them followed by big figures with plenty of zeros. The upshot of it seemed to be that Charley Anderson would be earning two hundred and fifty a week (payable in preferred stock) starting last Monday as supervising engineer and that the question of the percentage of capital stock he and Joe would have for their patents would be decided at a meeting of the board of directors next day. The top of Charley's head was floating. His tongue was a little thick from the cognac. All he could think of saying, and he kept saying it, was, “Boys, we mustn't go off halfcocked.”

When he and Joe finally got Merritt and his Pierce Arrow back to the Yale Club they heaved a deep breath. “Say, Joe, is that bird a financial wizard or is he a nut? He talks like greenbacks grew on trees.”

“He makes 'em grow there. Honestly . . .” Joe Askew took his arm and his voice sunk to a whisper, “that bird is going to be the Durant of aviation financing.” “He don't seem to know a Liberty motor from
the hind end of a blimp.” “He knows the Secretary of the Interior, which is a hell of a lot more important.”

Charley got to laughing so he couldn't stop. All the way back to the Chatterton House he kept bumping into people walking along the street. His eyes were full of tears. He laughed and laughed. When they went to the desk to ask for their mail and saw the long pale face of the clerk Charley nudged Joe. “Well, it's our last night in this funeral parlor.”

The hallway to their rooms smelt of old sneakers and showers and lockerrooms. Charley got to laughing again. He sat on his bed a long time giggling to himself. “Jesus, this is more like it; this is better than Paree.” After Joe had gone to bed Charley stuck his head in the door still giggling. “Rub me, Joe,” he yelled. “I'm lucky.”

Next morning they went and ate their breakfast at the Belmont. Then Joe made Charley go to Knox's and buy him a derby before they went downtown. Charley's hair was a little too wiry for the derby to set well, but the band had an expensive englishleathery smell. He kept taking it off and sniffing it on the way downtown in the subway. “Say, Joe, when my first paycheck comes I want you to take me round and get me outfitted in a soup an' fish. . . . This girl, she likes a feller to dress up.” “You won't be out of overalls, boy,” growled Joe Askew, “night or day for six months if I have anything to say about it. We'll have to live in that plant if we expect the product to be halfway decent, don't fool yourself about that.” “Sure, Joe, sure, I was only kiddin'.”

They met at the office of a lawyer named Lilienthal. From the minute they gave their names to the elegantlyupholstered blonde at the desk Charley could feel the excitement of a deal in the air. The blonde smiled and bowed into the receiver. “Oh, yes, of course. . . . Mr. Anderson and Mr. Askew.” A scrawny officeboy showed them at once into the library, a dark long room filled with calfbound lawbooks. They hadn't had time to sit down before Mr. Lilienthal himself appeared through a groundglass door. He was a dark oval neckless man with a jaunty manner. “Well, here's our pair of aces right on time.” When Joe introduced them he held Charley's hand for a moment in the smooth fat palm of his small hand. “Andy Merritt has just been singing your praises, young fellah, he says you are the coming contactman.” “And here I was just telling him I wouldn't let him out
of the factory for six months. He's the bird who's got the feel for the motors.” “Well, maybe he meant you birdmen's kind of contact,” said Mr. Lilienthal, lifting one thin black eyebrow.

The lawyer ushered them into a big office with a big empty mahogany desk in the middle of it and a blue Chinese rug on the floor. Merritt and two other men were ahead of them. To Charley they looked like a Kuppenheimer ad standing there amid the blue crinkly cigarettesmoke in their neatlycut dark suits with the bright grey light coming through the window behind them. George Hollis was a pale young man with his hair parted in the middle and the other was a lanky darkfaced Irish lawyer named Burke, who was an old friend of Joe Askew's and would put their patents through Washington for them, Joe explained. They all seemed to think Charley was a great guy, but he was telling himself all the time to keep his mouth shut and let Joe do the talking.

They sat round that lawyer's mahogany desk all morning smoking cigars and cigarettes and spoiling a great deal of yellow scratchpaper until the desk looked like the bottom of an uncleaned birdcage and the Luckies tasted sour on Charley's tongue. Mr. Lilienthal was all the time calling in his stenographer, a little mouselike girl with big grey eyes, to take notes and then sending her out again. Occasionally the phone buzzed and each time he answered it in his bored voice, “My dear young lady, hasn't it occurred to you that I might be in conference?”

The concern was going to be called the Askew-Merritt Company. There was a great deal of talk about what state to incorporate in and how the stock was to be sold, how it was going to be listed, how it was going to be divided. When they finally got up to go to lunch it was already two o'clock and Charley's head was swimming. Several of them went to the men's room on their way to the elevator and Charley managed to get into the urinal beside Joe and to whisper to him, “Say, for crissake, Joe, are we rookin' those guys or are they rookin' us?” Joe wouldn't answer. All he did was to screw his face up and shrug his shoulders.