The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow [192]
"Can't you come sooner? Where are you now?" "Out in the sticks, and I'm coming as soon as I can." "But I don't have long to stay in Chicago." "Do you have to go? But where?" "Honey, I'll explain it when I see you. I'll wait in all day tomorrow. If you can't phone first, ring the doorbell three times." Like a strong brush the excitement went over me, and I stood up to it with shut eyes of pleasure, heat snarls at the ears and thrills descending my legs. I was dying to get to her. But I wasn't able to leave yet. There were loose ends to tie up. It was important how even victors said au revoir. Grammick couldn't leave until he had arranged the bookkeeping and everything was in order. Then, when we got back to the city, I had to go with him to headquarters to report our success. This was to advance me too, and was to get a knockdown to Mr. Ackev and be a little thicker with the officials, not stay a supernumerary. Ackey was waiting for us, not to congratulate us but with a redeployment order on his spindle. "Grammick," he said, asking him instead of me, "is this your protege March? March," he went on, still not finding me with his eyes, as if the time wasn't just ripe, "you're soin" to have to do some serious trouble-shooting today, and right this minute. It's one of those hot dual-union situations. They're murder. The Northumberland Hotel--that's a ritzy place--how many people do we have signed up there? Not enough. They must have upward of two hundred and fifty in a place like that." I said, "I think we have about fifty cards from the Northumberland, and most of those from chambermaids. But why, what's going on?" "They're getting ready to strike, that's what. This morning there have been about five calls for you from Sophie Geratis, one of the maids. There's a strike meeting on right now in the linen room, and you get over there and stop them. The ALL is in there, and the thing to aim for is an election." "Then what am I supposed to do?" "Hold the line. You sign them up and keep them from going out. Quick now, there must be hell broke loose." I snatched up my pack of membership blanks and lit out for the Northumberland; a huge building, it was, with florid galleries and Roman awnings fluttering up to the thirtieth story and looking down at the growth of the elms and flaglike greens of Lincoln Park. I flashed up in a Checker cab. There wasn't any doorman on duty; the place glittered from the copper arms swelling on shields from either side and from the four glasses of the revolving door and their gold monograms. I didn't think I'd get far by way of the lobby, and I hurried back to the alley and found a service entrance. Up three flights of steel stairs, as nobody answered the bell of the freight elevator, I heard yelling and tracked it through the corridors, now velvet, now cement, to this place, the linen room. The fight that was going on was between those who were loyal to the recognized union and the rebellious, mostly the underpaid women, who were scalding mad about the last refusal to raise them from twenty cents an hour. All were in uniform or livery. The room was white and hot, right in the path of the sun, the doors open to the laundry, and the women in their service blues and in white caps shouted and spoiled for war and struggle. They stood on the metal tables and soap barrels and screamed for the walkout. I looked for Sophie, who saw me first. She cried, "Here's the organizer. Here's the man. Here comes March!" She was on top of one of the hogsheads, with her gams wide apart in their black stockings. Hot, but grim and pale, and her black hair covered by the cap, her excitement of the eyes was all the blacker. She tried to express no familiarity in them toward me, so no scrutiny could have found out that our arms ever had crossed or hands ever stroked up and down. I looked around and could see my friends and enemies in a minute, jeering or urging, distrustful, partisan, indignant, crying. There was one gaffer dressed up as white as any intern, and a face on him like Tecumseh, or one of the painted attackers of Schenectady;