Moloch: Or, This Gentile World (7 page)

In conjunction with this frantic newspaper activity, roundup squads were inducted to canvass the schoolyards, playgrounds, lots, pool parlors, movie houses—any place and every place that a boy was likely to be encountered, buttonholed, and appealed to.

But none of these expedients relieved the deplorable mess. The hard labor of three years, the effective welfare and educational work that Moloch had introduced, the confidence in the integrity of the organization which he had gradually instilled—all this evaporated overnight. The Great American Telegraph Company became a good joke. You couldn’t pay the ordinary boy to work for it.

Naturally he was interested in any program of amelioration. But he was skeptical, too. “Can anyone supply that jackass up there in his swivel chair with a new set of brains?” That was the
thought which shot through his head as he listened to Prigozi.
That
seemed the only solution of any moment now. As for Prigozi, tethered as he was to a skein of psychoanalytical theories, what was he to expect from him? Some Freudian-Marx solution, no doubt, which required a categorical affirmative, a stout libido, and a box of Seidlitz powders.

The “revolution” which Prigozi broached with sound and fury turned out upon analysis to be about as radical as the constitution which the Czar Alexander threw to his groveling moujiks. His plan consisted of a string of half-baked ideas which, assuming their feasibility, required at least fifteen years to work out. His campaign of reform had for its object the education of the general public. His goal was the visionary hope of wiping out the stigma attached to the uniform. Even Matt had to smile as he took in Prigozi’s involved explanation for the origin of “these civilized taboos.”

“We’ve heard that junk before,” Matt started to say.

“Leave him be,” urged Moloch. “We’ll give Osawatomie ten more minutes to conclude.” Even Dave chuckled at this.

Prigozi appeared crestfallen. “There’s no sense in going on if that’s the way you feel. I’ll draw it up on paper and submit it to you....”

“Don’t submit it to me,” said Moloch caustically. “Take it up to Twilliger. Maybe he’ll make room for you on his staff.”

“Rub a little insect powder on it first,” jeered Matt. “By the way,” he added maliciously, “what’s that white stuff on your coat collar?”

Without giving Prigozi a chance to explode, Moloch declared: “I’m serious about that suggestion. I think your plan’s cockeyed, but that doesn’t make any difference. Go ahead and show it to Twilliger! Tell him I sent you....”

“Raspberries! You want him to give me a kick in the slats.”

Moloch suavely assured the latter that this was a highly fantastic idea. Twilliger had never been known to kick anybody downstairs. “On the contrary,” he said, “Twilliger may even consider the plan brilliant. You go ahead and present it. Anyway, I believe in letting every man be his own Jesus.”

“G’wan, you bastards! G’wan!” Prigozi was recovering his verve.

At this moment the telephone rang. Matt answered it gruffly, but changed his tone immediately. With his hand on the mouthpiece, he handed the instrument to Moloch, whispering as he did so: “It’s the old man—
Houghton
himself.
There’s a strike brewing.”

Moloch listened respectfully but with a growing irritation. He punctuated his silences with a subdued, resentful “Yes, sir. Yes sir!” Toward the end, realizing that his protests were ineffectual, he grew red and stammered a bit. He was trying desperately to control his anger. “Very well,” he said finally, “if you insist. But I think it’s a great mistake.” He slammed the receiver down with a growl.

“What’s the trouble?” asked Prigozi immediately.

Moloch looked perplexed, harassed.

“A fine muddle we’re in now,” he said gloomily. At which Prigozi became positively morose.

“What’s up?” piped Matt. Everytime Houghton rang up he thought it meant his job. Moloch was too damned stiff-necked to get along with a gang of polite crooks. He didn’t know how to play the game, that was Matt’s idea. They’d both be out in the street before long.

“We’ve got to fire the niggers—that’s what!” said Moloch.

“Niggers?” Matt repeated.

“Oh, the Hindus… the Egyptians, the whole flock of Oriental students we put on lately.”

Matt gave a long low whistle and screwed his face up like a gargoyle.

“I’d like to take Twilliger and hack his guts out!”

“Easy, Mister Moloch, easy now!” cried Prigozi, no longer alarmed over the situation, now that it proved to be nothing more than the dismissal of a few Hindus … “black buggers,” as he called them.

“What started the rumpus?” said Matt.

“It was that long-haired gazook in Chinatown. Seems he muffed a couple of death messages. Twilliger must have raised
hell with the old man. He was screeching mad. ‘I want every one of them out,’ he says. ‘Every damned shine you’ve got on the force.’ There was no telling him anything. Twilliger’s got the Indian sign on him. God, though, if I were in Houghton’s place I’d show a little fight. It’s indecent to back down that way.... The worst of it is, the old man’s in such a fury he won’t let me do a thing for the poor dubs. I haven’t got the heart to let them out like a lot of cattle.”

“I wouldn’t weep about it, if I were you,” Prigozi spoke up. “They won’t starve to death. Let Providence take care of ‘em. These black bastards are a lot of crybabies—
that’s what I think
.
”

There was more than a grain of truth in Prigozi’s indictment. The only ones who showed any guts were the Chinese students. The others were merely children for whom Moloch acted as a wet nurse.

Matt broke in suddenly. “Didn’t old man Houghton say something about a strike?”

“Christ, yes! I almost forgot about the strike. Grab your hat, Matt, and rush uptown to Carducci’s office—that’s where the trouble lies.”

Matt bolted to the door in a jiffy.

“Hold on a minute,” shouted Moloch. “The old man says …”

“Says what?” yelled Matt.

“You’re not to talk too much—get that?”

“Tell the old man to go crucify himself!” Matt dashed out.

“There’s a loyal servant,” sneered Prigozi. “He acts first and thinks about it later.”

At this juncture, the squat little figure at the switchboard got up and approached Moloch with mingled deference and humility.

“I’m going home now,” he said. He had been saying this every day for the last ten years at five o’clock sharp. His tone never varied. It was like a servant announcing “Dinner is ready, sir!”

“Did you take your cathartic pill?” asked Moloch.

Dave’s face lit up like a Halloween pumpkin. He enjoyed this five-o’clock raillery. For the best part of the day he was glued to
the switchboard, calling up the hundred or more offices in the city, throwing out reserve messengers which he called “waybills” after an old custom, and raising hell in general with the clerks and managers for their tardiness in telephoning the absentee and vacancy reports. Dave always kept a worksheet before him, on which he practiced the art of calligraphy. These sheets formed a chronological register of the daily happenings in the messenger department. In the upper right-hand corner of the worksheet he ruled off a little box wherein he made a faithful report of the weather. The inclusion of this meteorological report was no mere idiosyncrasy of Dave’s. It was the grand alibi of the messenger
department Dave preserved these sheets with the same fervor
that a lama cherishes his prayer wheel.

Another curious habit of Dave’s was his custom upon arriving in the morning of sharpening his lead pencils. No matter how many calls came in over the wire, Dave had to sharpen his pencils first. His contention was that if he were to postpone this important task the pencils would never be sharpened. And in Dave’s mind it was a matter of the utmost importance to inscribe his characters in a delicate, legible, ornate hand. That was his proud contribution to the messenger service, the record which would remain after he had gone and testify in golden symbols to his industry and thoroughness.

But in every other respect Dave was a rogue, a scalawag. Almost as unprepossessing as Prigozi, though infinitely more humorous, his one ambition was to parade as a Don Juan. There was never any telling on whom his fancy might fall. In his messenger days he had been known to consort with charwomen, burlesque stars, midwives—any woman, in fact, who was sufficiently declassee and repulsive to attract him. On one occasion his appetite had led him right up to the Vice-President’s sanctuary. He had been on the trail of a big Senegambian whose bust bewildered him. Such temerity can only be faintly apprehended when one realizes with what trepidation Dave usually listened to the Vice-President’s voice.

But of this, later. Now he was about to close shop, as he expressed it, and in accordance with time-honored tradition had
brought over the “slate” for Moloch to glance at.

“You know there’s a strike brewing, Dave?”

“I should worry,” he replied, grinning from ear to ear.

“But that means you won’t be able to take your wife to the hospital tomorrow morning, old man.”

“Just as you say, Mister Moloch. She can have it done next week.” He spoke as though it were a plumbing job and not an ovarian operation.

Prigozi’s professional ardor was aroused.

“What’s ailing your missus, Dave?”

Dave blushed, hemmed and hawed, looked confusedly at the two, and finally stuttered:

”
You
tell him, Mister Moloch. I can’t use those big words like you can. What did you call those tubes again?”

“You mean the Fallopian tubes?” snapped Prigozi.

“Yeah, that’s it. How do you spell that?”

“What do you want to know that for? You’d think your old woman was going to a spelling match instead of a hospital.”

“Aw, I know,” said Dave, grinning and blushing some more, “but I want to spring that word on Navarro.” He turned to Moloch. “You know how Navarro looks at you when you pull a jawbreaker on him?”

The three of them laughed heartily. The operation was a success in advance....

“You’d better be running along,” Moloch advised. He looked up at the clock with sly humor.

“That’s right,” said Dave. “I’m working overtime.”

He laughed uproariously at this feeble crack.

“Look here, Dave,” said Prigozi, collaring him forcefully, and shaking him as though he were a dead rat, “you go straight home tonight, understand? No chippy-chasing in the subway or I’ll break your neck. That wife of yours needs attention. Having your ovaries removed is no joke.”

Dave summoned a tragic air. “You said it!” he observed.

Dave was about to go.

“Oh, Dave… before you go!” Moloch made a few mysterious

passes. Dave sidled up to him with a sheepish expression.

“How many?” he said.

“Oh, five will do.”

“Here, take ten,” said Dave, hauling out a wad of filthy greenbacks.

“Don’t spoil the boss!” exclaimed Prigozi. “You’ll never get it back, you know.”

Concluding this ceremony, Dave paused and bowed his head. It was Dave’s way of registering profound thought. “I want to say something before I forget it,” he announced sententiously. “Between you and me, I think messenger 785 has an ‘effective’ mind.”

“What makes you think he’s defective,” said Moloch. He understood quite well that this was Dave’s method of showing his appreciation for the privilege of lending his boss a few dollars.

Dave never noticed the grammatical correction, but sailed on blithely; there was more than a hint of braggadocio in his comments.

“Why, I noticed he always carries a book under his arm. It’s written in Italian. He says it’s a classic.”

“Well, there’s nothing wrong in that, Dave.”

“Maybe not, but when I asked him if he understood Italian he said, ‘No, but I like to read it just the same—it makes me feel better.’”

“What was the name of the book?”

“I think he said
Inferno
… is that right? Is there such a book?” He laughed apologetically, showing all the yellow stumps in his mouth.

Prigozi nabbed him by the sleeve and pointed to some red lettering on a narrow cardboard strip which Moloch had tacked on the railing for the applicants to study while they waited to be interviewed:

DO NOT ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE