U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [480]
The girl was looking at Charley. Her eyes real y were a perfectly pure blue. She was speaking to him. "Maybe you know how long the bus takes to Miami, mister. This boy thinks he's a wit so I can't get any data."
"Suppose we try it out and see," said Charley.
"They surely come funny in Florida. . . . Another humorist."
"No, I mean it. If you let me drive you down you'l be doing a sick man a great favor."
"Sure it won't mean a fate worse than death?"
"You'l be perfectly safe with me, young lady. I'm al-most a cripple. I'l show you my crutches in the car."
"What's the trouble?"
"Cracked up in a plane."
"You a pilot?"
Charley nodded. "Not quite skinny enough for Lind--320-bergh," she said, looking him up and down. Charley turned red. "I am a little overweight. It's being cooped up with this lousy leg."
"Wel , I guess I'l try it. If I step into your car and wake up in Buenos Aires it'l be my bad luck." Charley tried to pay for her coffee and sandwich but she wouldn't let him. Something about her manner kept him laughing al the time. When he got up and she saw how he limped she pursed her mouth up. "Gee, that's too bad." When she saw the car she stopped in her tracks. "Zowie," she said, "we're bloomin' mil ionaires." They were laughing as they got into the car. There was something about the way she said things that made him laugh. She wouldn't say what her name was. "Cal me Mme. X," she said. "Then you'l have to cal me Mr. A," said Charley. They laughed and giggled al the way to Daytona Beach where they stopped off and went into the surf for a dip. Charley felt ashamed of his pot and his pale skin and his limp as he walked across the beach with her looking brown and trim in her blue bathingsuit. She had a pretty figure although her hips were a little big. "Anyway it's not as if I'd come out of it with one leg shorter than the other. The doc says I'l be absolutely O.K. if I exercise it right."
"Sure, you'l be great in no time. And me thinkin' you was an elderly sugardaddy in the drugstore there."
"I think you're a humdinger, Mme. X."
"Be sure you don't put anything in writing, Mr. A." Charley's leg ached like blazes when he came out of the water, but it didn't keep him from having a whale of a good appetite for the first time in months. After a big fish-dinner they started off again. She went to sleep in the car with her neat little head on his shoulder. He felt very happy driving down the straight smooth concrete highway although he felt tired already. When they got into Miami that night she made him take her to a smal hotel back
-321-near the railroad tracks and wouldn't let him come in with her. "But gosh, couldn't we see each other again?"
"Sure, you can see me any night at the Palms. I'm an entertainer there."
"Honest . . . I knew you were an entertainer but I didn't know you were a professional."
"You sure did me a good turn, Mr. A. Now it can be told . . . I was flat broke with exactly the price of that ham sandwich and if you hadn't brought me down I'da lost the chance of working here. . . . I'l tel you about it sometime."
"Tel me your name. I'd like to cal you up."
"You tel me yours."
" Charles Anderson. I'l be staying bored to death at the Miami-Biltmore."
"So you real y are Mr. A. . . . Wel , goodby, Mr. A, and thanks a mil ion times." She ran into the hotel. Char-ley was crazy about her already. He was so tired he just barely made his hotel. He went up to his room and tum-bled into bed and for the first time in months went to sleep without getting drunk first.
A week later when Nat Benton turned up he was sur-prised to find Charley