Serenade - James M. Cain [27]
"I offer five."
"Declined."
I picked up his peso. "Six."
"Declined."
"I offer sweat. I'll do any reasonable thing to work this passage out, from swabbing decks to cleaning brass. I'm a pretty fair cook."
"Declined."
"I offer a recipe for Iguana John Howard Sharp that I have just perfected, a dish that would be an experience for you, and probably improve your disposition."
"'Tis the first sensible thing you have said, but there would be a difficulty getting the iguana. At this season they move up to the hills. Declined."
"I offer six pesos and a promissory note for two hundred and nine. The note I guarantee to redeem."
"Declined."
I watched him eating his fish, and by that time I was beginning to be annoyed. "Listen, maybe you don't get this straight. I intend to haul out of here, and I intend to haul out on your boat. Write up your contracts any way you want. The thing to get through your head is: I'm going."
"You're not. You've taken my peso, so be off."
I lit a cigarette and still sat there. "All right, I'll level it out, and quit the feinting and jabbing. I was a singer, and my voice cracked up. Now it's coming back, see? That means if I ever get out of this hellhole of a country, and get back where the money is, I can cash in. I'm all right. I'm as good as I ever was, maybe better. To hell with the promissory note. I guess that was a little tiresome. I ask you as a favor to haul me up to San Pedro, so I can get on my feet again."
When he looked up, his eyes were smoky with hate. "So you're a singer, then. An American singer. My answer is: It wouldn't be safe for me to take you aboard. Before I was out of the harbor with you I'd drop you into the water to rid the world of you. No! And don't take up any more of my time with it."
"What's the matter with an American singer?"
"I even hate the Pacific Ocean. On the Atlantic side, I can get London, Berlin, and Rome on my wireless. But here what is it? Los Angeles, San Francisco, the blue network, the red network, a castrated eunuch urging me to buy soap--and Victor Herbert!"
"He was an Irishman."
"He was a German."
"You're wrong. He was an Irishman."
"I met him in London when I was a young man, and I talked German with him myself."
"He talked German, through choice, especially when he was with other Irishmen. You see, he wasn't proud of it. He didn't want them to know it. All right, look him up."
"Then he was an Irishman, though I hate to say it.--And George Gershwin! There was an Irishman for you."
"He wrote some music."
"He didn't write one bar of music. Victor Herbert, and George Gershwin, and Jerome Kern, and buy the soap for me schoolboy complexion, and Lawrence Tibbett, singing mush. At Tampico, I got Mozart's Jupiter Symphony, that I suppose you never heard of, coming from Rome. Off Panama, I picked up the Beethoven Seventh, with Beecham conducting it, in London--"
"Listen, never mind Beethoven--"
"Oh, it's never mind Beethoven, is it? You would say that, you soap-agent. He was the greatest composer that ever lived!"
"The hell he was."
"And who was? Walter Donaldson, I suppose."
"Well, we'll see."
There were two or three mariachis around, but the place wasn't full yet, so there was a lull in the screeching. I called a man over, and took his guitar. It was tuned right, for a change. My fingers still had calluses on them, from the job in Mexico City, so I could slide up to the high positions without cutting them. I went into the introduction to the serenade from Don Giovanni, and then I sang it. I didn't do any number, didn't try to get any hand, and the rest of them in there hardly noticed me. I just sang it, half-voice, rattled off the finish on the guitar, and put my hand over the strings.
He was to his tamales by now, and he kept putting them down. Then he called the guitar player over, had a long powwow in Spanish, and laid down some paper money. The guitar player touched his hat and went off. The waiter took his plate and he stared hard at the