U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [490]
"To East Fiftysecond Street. I'l show you the house." He set-tled back against the cushions. Christ, I'm tired, he whis-pered to himself. As he sat slumped back jolted by the stopping and starting of the taxi in the traffic his belt cut into his bel y. He loosened the belt a notch, felt better, brought a cigar out of his breastpocket and bit the end off. It took him some time to light the cigar. Each time he had the match ready the taxi started or stopped. When he did light it it didn't taste good. "Hel , I've smoked too much today . . . what I need's a drink," he muttered aloud.
The taxi moved jerkily uptown. Now and then out of
-343-the corner of his eye he caught grey outlines of men in other taxis and private cars. As soon as he'd made out one group of figures another took its place. On Lafayette Street the traffic was smoother. The whole stream of metal, glass, upholstery, overcoats, haberdashery, flesh and blood was moving uptown. Cars stopped, started, shifted gears in unison as if they were run by one set of bel s. Charley sat slumped in the seat feeling the layer of fat on his bel y against his trousers, feeling the fat of his jowl against his stiff col ar. Why the hel couldn't he remember that num-ber? He'd been there every night for a month. A vein in his left eyelid kept throbbing.
"Bonjour, monsieur," said the plainclothes doorman.
"How do you do, mon capitaine," said Freddy the rat-toothed proprietor, nodding a sleek black head. "Monsieur dining with Mademoisel e tonight?" Charley shook his head. "I have a fel er coming to dinner with me at seven."
"Bien, monsieur.""Let's have a scotch and soda while I'm waitin' and be sure it ain't that rotgut you tried to palm off on me yesterday."
Freddy smiled wanly. "It was a mistake, Mr. Anderson. We have the veritable pinchbottle. You see the wrappings. It is stil wet from the saltwater." Charley grunted and dropped into an easychair in the corner of the bar. He drank the whiskey off straight and sipped the soda afterwards. "Hay, Maurice, bring me another," he cal ed to the greyhaired old wrinklefaced Swiss waiter. "Bring me another. Make it double, see? . . . in a regular highbal glass. I'm tired this evenin'." The shot of whiskey warmed his gut. He sat up straighter. He grinned up at the waiter. "Wel , Maurice, you haven't told me what you thought about the market today.""I'm not so sure, sir. . . . But you know, Mr. Anderson. . . If you only wanted to you could tel me." Charley stretched his legs out and laughed. "Flyin'
-344-higher than a kite, eh. . . . Oh, hel , it's a bloody chore. I want to forget it." By the time he saw Eddy Sawyer threading his way
towards him through the faces, the business suits, the hands holding glasses in front of the cocktailbar, he felt good. He got to his feet. "How's the boy, Eddy? How's things in little old Deetroit? They al think I'm pretty much of a sonofabitich, don't they? Give us the dirt, Eddy." Eddy sighed and sank into the deep chair beside him.
"Wel , it's a long story, Charley."
"What would you say to a bacardi with a touch of absinthe in it? . . . Al right, make it two, Maurice." Eddy's face was yel ow and wrinkled as a summer apple that's hung too long on the tree. When he smiled the deepening wrinkles shot out from his mouth and eyes over his cheeks. "Wel , Charley old man, it's good to see you.
. . . You know they're cal ing you the boy wizard of avi-ation financing?"
"Is that al they're cal in' me?" Charley tapped his dead cigar against the brass rim of the ashtray. "I've heard worse things than that."
By the time they'd had their third cocktail Charley got so he couldn't stop talking. "Wel , you can just tel J. Y. from me that there was one day I could have put him out on his ass and I didn't do it. Why didn't I do it? Because I didn't give a goddam. I real y owned my stock. They'd hocked everythin' they