U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [486]
about every day, at the apartment and at Piquot's, and sent her photographs of herself al framed for hanging but she would never see him. She had enough to think of, what with being alone in the apartment now, because Agnes had final y got Frank away to the country with the help of a practitioner and a great deal of reading of Science and Health, and al the bil s to pay and daily letters from Tony who'd found out her address saying he was sick and begging for money and to be al owed to come around to see her. Then one Monday morning she got down to Piquot's
late and found the door locked and a crowd of girls mil -ing shril y around in front of it. Poor Piquot had been found dead in his bathtub from a dose of cyanide of potas-sium and there was nobody to pay their back wages. Piquot's being dead gave Margo the creeps so that she didn't dare go home. She went down to Altman's and did some shopping and at noon cal ed up Mr. A's office to tel him about Piquot and to see if he wouldn't have lunch with her. With poor old Piquot dead and her job gone, there was nothing to do but to strike Mr. A for a lump sum. About two grand would fix her up, and she could get her solitaire diamond Tad had given her out of hock. Maybe if she teased him he would put her up to something good on the market. When she cal ed up they said Mr. Anderson wouldn't be in his office until three. She went to
-334-Schrafft's and had chickenpatties for lunch al by herself in the middle of the crowd of cackling women shoppers. She already had a date to meet Mr. A that evening at a French speakeasy on Fiftysecond Street where they often ate dinner. When she got back from having her hair
washed and waved it was too early to get dressed but she started fiddling around with her clothes anyway because she didn't know what else to do, and it was so quiet and lonely in the empty apartment. She took a long time doing her nails and then started trying on one dress after an-other. Her bed got al piled with rumpled dresses. Everything seemed to have spots on it. She was almost crying when she at last slipped her furcoat over a paleyel ow eveningdress that had come from Piquot's but that she wasn't sure about, and went down in the shabby elevator into the smel y hal way of the apartmenthouse. The ele-vatorboy fetched her a taxi. There were white columns in the hal of the oldfash-ioned wealthy family residence converted into a restaurant, and a warm expensive pinkish glow of shaded lights. She felt cozier than she'd felt al day as she stepped in on the thick carpet. The headwaiter bowed her to a table and she sat there sipping an oldfashioned, feeling the men in the room looking at her and grinning a little to herself when she thought what the girls at Piquot's would have said about a dame who got to a date with the boyfriend ahead of time. She wished he'd hurry up and come, so that she could tel him the story and stop imagining how poor old Piquot must have looked slumped down in his bathtub, dead from cyanide. It was al on the tip of her tongue ready to tel .
Instead of Mr. A a freshlooking youngster with a long sandy head and a lantern jaw was leaning over her table. She straightened herself in her chair to give him a dirty look, but smiled up at him when he leaned over and said in a Brooklyn confidential kind of voice,
"Miss Dowlin'
-335-. . . excuse it . . . I'm Mr. Anderson's secretary. He had to hop the plane to Detroit on important business. He knew you were crazy to go to the Music Box opening, so he sent me out to get tickets. Here they are, I pretty near had to blackjack a guy to get 'em for you. The boss said maybe you'd like to take Mrs. Mandevil e." He had been talking fast, like he was afraid