The Big Rock Candy Mountain (95 page)

But he found himself writing almost with his breath held back, almost pleadingly, and he hadn't even the will to tear the letter up and throw it away. He had told Bruce he never wanted to see him again, and he didn‘t, the ungrateful whelp. But he was writing, and he kept on writing, and as he wrote the vision of the Della grew brighter. If they could just get that into production, capitalize and get a smooth organization going. It was a sure thing, a dead immortal cinch, a gold lead as good as anything ever dug up in Nevada. But it took money to get it started, for the mill and everything. He had four thousand in it, and when it got going he'd get it back twenty times. But meantime the whole thing might fizzle for the lack of a few hundred dollars. If Bruce wanted to come in, he'd cut him in share and share alike for whatever he put up. It wasn't too far-fetched to say that a few hundred now might put him on Easy Street the rest of his life, and he'd be helping his dad at the same time. The main thing was to get that mine going, so he could get back on his feet. He wasn't feeling too good, that stroke or whatever it was had left his left side numb. He might not live very long, and that was another reason why Bruce ought to get in on this while he could. He'd get the whole third share anyway, in the course of a few years.

Writing that made him feel better, more optimistic. And he felt better toward Bruce. He was a good enough kid. Bright as a whip. It was Elsa's death that had put him off that way, made him bitter. He was doing all right now, going to be a good lawyer sometime.

Ought to send him something, he thought. Some little present, just to show him that his old man still wished him well. He dug the loose change from his pocket, counted the two dollars and forty-five cents in his palm, thought of the hundred and three dollars in the bank, looked in his wallet and found two fives and a two. Maybe he'd better take it easy. He had to eat, himself.

Then he noticed the pen on the desk. It was a good pen, cost seven fifty when he bought it. He took it up and wrote at the bottom of the letter, “I'm sending you a little present, something you may be able to use in school.” He carried the pen to the wash bowl, squirted the ink in a blue stream against the porcelain, drew the bulb full of water two or three times, wiped it off carefully with toilet paper. It looked practically new. He shined the point clean and rummaged in the closet till he found a shoe box from which he cut strips to make a little carton. When he went down to the desk after stamps he felt better than he had for quite a while, and he straightened his tie at the mirror by the desk before he left the hotel.

Looking pretty seedy, he thought. Coat all out of press, pants baggy. You got down and forgot to watch your appearance. You'd never get back on your feet looking like a tramp. People had to be able to look at you and see that you were a responsible looking guy. Dubois, with his little thin look, asking if you were really scraping bottom. You couldn't take chances on things like that. They hurt your reputation.

In a tavern just off State Street he had a quick beer, standing straight in front of the bar and looking at himself in the mirror. From the tavern he went straight to the shine parlor of Joe Ciardi, his old whiskey outlet.

“Look,” he said, almost before Joe could say hello. “I need a press job. Got a closet I can sit in?”

“Sure thing,” Joe said. “Got a date?”

“I've been so damn busy I haven't had time to wipe my nose,” Bo said. “Just looked in a mirror and saw I looked like a bum.”

He sat down with a magazine in the curtained closet. After a minute he pulled off his shoes and opened the curtain and beckoned to the colored shine and slid the shoes across the tiles to him. Sitting in his shirt tails, he remembered that he still wore his hat, and took it off. Pretty sloppy. He opened the curtain again and whistled at Joe and sailed the hat toward him. “Might as well shoot the works,” he said.

Joe, smoothing the trousers on the goose, caught the hat and hooked it over a blocking form. He took the wallet from the hip pocket of the pants and cleaned the side pockets of change. “This for me?” he said.

“Some of it's for you if you ever get done,” Bo said.

“What the hell,” Joe said. “I got to use the goose, not magic. I think you got a date.”

“I got half a dozen dates. Get busy and don't talk so much.”

He was impatient waiting, but he didn't feel as tired as he had that morning. When he stood in front tying his tie he found himself whistling. There was a spot on the tie, and he fixed it so the vest covered it. The newly-creased trousers were warm on his legs, the coat fitted smoothly across his shoulders again. He looked in the mirror steadily while the shine gave him an unnecessary brush-off, and he tipped the shine a dime.

Then he cut diagonally across the street to the building which housed Miller and Weinstein, Tailors.

Louis Miller, sidling, peering near-sightedly, came around the immaculate counter in front of the dressing rooms. Bo gauged exactly the cordiality of his greeting. It was all right. Miller would sell him anything in the store. He ought to. He'd got cash on the nose for enough clothes in the last ten years.

“Ah,” Louis said. “Mr. Mason. What can I do for you?”

“Like to look at some of your rolls of burlap,” Bo said.

“Yes!” Louis Miller said. “Any special color?”

“I don't know. Gray. Blue.”

Miller put his hand up to the door of one glass-fronted case. “You don't want just anything,” he said.

“Did you ever know me to want just anything?” Bo said. “I want a suit.”

The fawning agreement of Miller's smile warmed him clear down. “Now right back here,” Louis said, “I have something I think you like.”

When he left at five-thirty, Bo had ordered a ninety-dollar suit, had stood while Louis gave him the old line during the measurements. You are a wise man to have suits tailored to measure. You are a hard man to fit. So big up here.

And he carried with him to the sidewalk six of Louis' best ties, telling Louis offhand to put them with the bill. He had felt of his bare head and asked Louis if he had any hats. Louis did not. Bo toyed with the idea of going somewhere else and getting one, but gave it up because he didn't have a charge account at any haberdasher's and would have to pay cash. The hat could wait till Joe polished up the old one.

It was only when he started walking that he remembered he didn't have anyone to see or anywhere to go except the hotel.

 

In the lobby of the Winston, after dinner, he sat smoking a cigar, the first one he had bought for two weeks. His legs were crossed, one glittering shoe swinging slightly. The cigar was sweet and fragrant in his mouth after the sour pipe he had been smoking.

“You look all spiffed up,” the clerk said. “Isn't that a new tie?”

“That's a new three-dollar tie.”

“Must have cleaned up.”

Bo winked. “Killed a Swede,” he said, and lay back on the back of his neck. By now all three of those letters were on the way. One of them was sure to turn up something. A man didn't have anybody but himself to blame if he let a little hard luck get him down. Keep up the appearance, that was the thing. The world looked like a different place with your shoes shined and your pants pressed.

The scratching of the dog's claws made him turn his face toward the door. The bulldog came in, tugging at the leash, his wide chest pushing close to the floor, and then she came, letting the door go behind her and tinkling a little laugh as the dog pulled her off balance. Bo saw her face freeze slightly as she saw him. He remained where he was, sprawling in the chair.

“Hi, Good-looking,” he said.

He noticed that she stopped the dog all right when she wanted to. That was another of her God damned poses, that little game of being dragged along helplessly behind the pup, and laughing, and getting herself noticed. Now she hauled the pup short with a curt jerk of the leash and stood looking Bo over.

“Well, if it isn't Baby Harry, named after his father's chest,” she said. “I thought you'd left town.”

Bo motioned to the next chair. “Sit down.”

“What for?”

“Not for anything. Can't you sit down and pass the time of day?”

She glanced from him to the clerk, and he could see her wondering what was up. They hadn't been on speaking terms for ten days, ever since she threw that cheap-john stuff at him and he cussed her out. “I'm a pretty busy woman,” she said.

“Yeah,” Bo said. “So I've heard.”

As if a hinge had given away, she sat down suddenly on the arm of the other chair. Her eyes were hard. “What do you mean by that?”

“You've been too busy to talk to me,” Bo said, and shrugged.

“Who
could
talk to you?” she said. “The minute anybody opens their mouth you jump right down their throat about something. I don't have to take that kind of treatment.”

“No,” Bo said. “I guess not.”

She was giving him the once-over, obviously wondering why he had asked her to sit down and talk. Let her wonder. He didn't know himself, exactly. While he was looking up at her from under his eyebrows, she put out her finger and touched the new tie. “Mmm,” she said. “New tie.”

“Check.”

“Handsome.”

“Glad you like it.”

She looked around the lobby, humming a little song. The bulldog sniffed at Bo's glittering shoes, and she jerked the leash. “So you're not really mad at me,” she said.

“No,” he said, watching her. “No, I'm not mad at you.”

She slid off the arm of the chair onto the cushion, bent to un-snap the dog's leash. “Heard anything from Dubois?”

“I saw him this morning.”

“You look as if something nice had happened,” she said.

“Something nice has.”

“Oh, I'm so glad!” she said. (He saw her fix her face for that one.) “What?”

Now she was wondering just how nice she ought to be, estimating the value of what had happened, trying to guess whether he was worth making a play for and taking back on. The bitch. But she was good looking, you couldn't deny it. The meat was put on her bones just right.

“Oh, come on,” she said, and leaned a little forward. “You know I'd be glad to hear anything nice that had happened to you.”

Whatever game it was he had been playing—and he didn't know himself why he was sitting here gassing with her—was swallowed in the enormous angry contempt he felt. “Especially if you thought I'd made some dough,” he said.

She was no longer leaning forward. “Now don't start that again!” she said.

“It's true, isn't it?”

“No, it's not true,” she said. “You think you put me up so damned handsome, and I ought to stick around while you let loose of nickels one by one! You talk about all the money you spent on me. All the money you ever spent on me you could put you know where, and it wouldn't clog you either.”

There was nothing in the whole lobby but her spiteful face. He wanted to reach out and slap it bloody. The blood came heavy and slow into his own face, a smothering weight of it. “You thought when you came in here I'd made a killing, didn't you?” he said. “So you thought maybe you'd snuggle up and play sisters again. Well, you can go to hell. Maybe I've made a killing and maybe I haven't ...”

She stood up. “I don't give a damn whether you have or not,” she said. “You could be rolling in gold and you'd still be nothing but a filthy old goat to me!”

“If I was rolling in gold ...” he said, but she cut him off, whip-lashed him.

“You could go roll in the manure for all I care. It wouldn't make you smell any differentl”

She started for the stairs, turned with set face to whistle up the dog, and disappeared. Bo worked his hands. He was standing, ready to leap after her, knock her down, kick her apart, beat her damned good-looking weasel face in. He breathed loudly, heard himself gasping for air, and sat down again.

The clerk was looking at his nails behind the desk. In the doorway off to the side Mrs. Winter stood as if not quite sure she should come in at all. She must have come in the back way while they were shouting at each other. Furiously fumbling for a match to re-light his cigar, he ignored her, but she came over and sat down anyway.

“Oh dear!” she said.

He grunted.

“I don't see why she has to be that way,” Mrs. Winter said. When he didn't answer she turned the handbag over in her lap and picked with her painted nails at the patterned alligator leather. “Don't be downhearted about her,” she said. “It'll all come around.”

“If you think I'm downhearted about her,” he said through his teeth, “take another think!”

She smiled and patted his knee. “That's the way. Don't let her bother you. Just between you and me ...” She leaned her skinny face toward him.

“Just between you and me what?”

“Just between you and me,” Mrs. Winter said, “she's a bitch.”

He grunted again. The anger had ebbed away, leaving the old dead weariness. Mrs. Winter smiled at him coaxingly. “You need a drink,” she said. “Come on up to my room and I'll buy you one.”

“Oh, I guess not, thanks.”

“Come on. You'll feel better after a shot.”

He let her lead him up to her room on the second floor. He had not been in her room before. It was fussed up, he noticed. Curtains on the windows with tie-backs on them, woman's junk around. Mrs. Winter got a bottle out of the bureau drawer and rinsed out the two bathroom glasses. She poured two stiff slugs and passed him one.