U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [491]
dol ars a month. Judge is a friend of her old man . . . probably gets a rakeoff. Stripped me of my children . . . every damn thing I've got they've tied up on me. . . .
-345-Pretty, ain't it, to take a man's children away from him?
Wel , Eddy, I know you had nothin' to do with it, but when you get back to Detroit and see those yel ow bastards who had to get behind a woman's skirts because they couldn't outsmart me any other way . . . you tel 'em. from me that I'm out to strip 'em to their shirts every last one of 'em. . . . I'm just beginnin' to get the hang of this game. I've made some dust fly . . . the boy wiz-ard, eh? . . . Wel , you just tel 'em they ain't seen nothin' yet. They think I'm just a dumb cluck of an in-ventor . . . just a mechanic like poor old Bil Cermak.
. . . Hel , let's eat."
They were sitting at the table and the waiter was put-ting differentcolored horsd'oeon Charley's plate.
"Take it away . . . I'l eat a piece of steak, nothing else." Eddy was eating busily. He looked up at Charley and his face began to wrinkle into a wisecrack. "I guess it's another case of the woman always pays."
Charley didn't laugh. " Gladys never paid for anythin'
in her life. You know just as wel as I do what Gladys was like. Al of those Wheatleys are skinflints. She takes after the old man. . . . Wel , I've learned my lesson. . . . No more rich bitches. . . . Why, a goddam whore
wouldn't have acted the way that bitch has acted. . . . Wel , you can just tel 'em, when you get back to your employers in Detroit . . . I know what they sent you for.
. . . To see if the old boy could stil take his liquor. . . . Drinkin' himself to death, so that's the story, is it? Wel , I can stil drink you under the table, good old Eddy, ain't that so? You just tel 'em, Eddy, that the old boy's as good as ever, a hel of a lot wiser. . . . They thought they had him out on his can after the divorce, did they, wel , you tel em to wait an'
see. An' you tel Gladys the first time she makes a misstep . . . just once, she needn't think I haven't got my operatives watchin' her . . . Tel her I'm out to get the kids back, an'
strip her of every god--346-dam thing she's got. . . . Let her go out on the streets, I don't give a damn."
Eddy was slapping him on the back. "Wel , oldtimer, I've got to run along. . . . Sure good to see you stil rid-ing high, wide and handsome."
"Higher than a kite," shouted Charley, bursting out laughing. Eddy had gone. Old Maurice was trying to
make him eat the piece of steak he'd taken out to heat up. Charley couldn't eat. "Take it home to the wife and kid-dies," he told Maurice. The speak had cleared for the theatertime lul . "Bring me a bottle of champagne, Maurice old man, and then maybe I can get the steak down. That's how they do it in the old country, eh? Don't tel me I been drinkin'
too much . . . I know it. . . . When everybody you had any confidence in has rocked you al down the line you don't give a damn, do you, Maurice?"
A man with closecropped black hair and a closecropped black mustache was looking at Charley, leaning over a cocktailglass on the bar. "I say you don't give a damn," Charley shouted at the man when he caught his eye. "Do you?"
" Hel , no, got anything to say about it?" said the man, squaring off towards the table.
" Maurice, bring this gentleman a glass." Charley got to his feet and swayed back and forth bowing politely across the table. The bouncer, who'd come out from a little door in back wiping his red hands on his apron, backed out of the room again. " Anderson my name is. . . . Glad to meet you, Mr. . . .""Budkiewitz," said the blackhaired man who advanced scowling and swaying a little to the other side of the table. Charley