U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [492]
"With pleasure if you put it that way. . . . Always rather drink than fight. . . . Here's to the old days of the Rainbow Division."
-347-"Was you over there?"
"Sure. Put it there, baddy."
"Those were the days."
"And now you come back and over here there's nothin'
but a lot of doublecrossin' bastards."
"Businessmen . . . to hel wid 'em . . . doublecrossin'
bastards I cal 'em."
Mr. Budkiewitz got to his feet, scowling again. "To what kind of business do you refer?"
"Nobody's business. Take it easy, buddy." Mr. Budkie-witz sat down again. "Oh, hel , bring out another bottle, Maurice, and have it cold. Ever drunk that wine in Saumur, Mr. Budkibbitzer?"
"Have I drunk Saumur? Why shouldn't I drink it?
Trained there for three months."
"That's what I said to myself. That boy was overseas," said Charley.
"I'l tel the cockeyed world."
"What's your business, Mr. Buchanan?"
"I'm an inventor."
"Just up my street. Ever heard of the Askew-Merritt starter?" He'd never heard of the Askew-Merritt starter and
Charley had never heard of the Autorinse washingmachine but soon they were cal ing each other Charley and Paul. Paul had had trouble with his wife too, said he was going to jail before he'd pay her any more alimony. Charley said he'd go to jail too. Instead they went to a nightclub where they met two charming girls. Charley was tel ing the charming girls how he was going to set Paul, good old Paul, up in business, in the washingmachine business. They went places in taxicabs under the el with the girls. They went to a place in the Vil age. Charley was going to get al the girls the sweet pretty little girls jobs in the chorus, Charley was explain-ing how he was going to take the shirts off those bastards
-348-in Detroit. He'd get the girls jobs in the chorus so that they could take their shirts off. It was al very funny. In the morning light he was sitting alone in a place with torn windowshades. Good old Paul had gone and the girls had gone and he was sitting at a table covered with ciga-rettestubs and spilt dago red looking at the stinging bright-ness coming through the worn places in the windowshade. It wasn't a hotel or a cal house, it was some kind of a dump with tables and it stank of old cigarsmoke and last night's spaghetti and tomatosauce and dago red. Some-body was shaking him. "What time is it?" A fat wop and a young slickhaired wop in their dirty shirtsleeves were shaking him.
"Time to pay up and get out. Here's your bil ."
A lot of things were scrawled on a card. Charley could only read it with one eye at a time. The total was seventy-five dol ars. The wops looked threatening.
"You tel us give them girls twentyfive dol ar each on account." Charley reached for his bil rol . Only a dol ar. Where the hel had his wal et gone? The young wop was playing with a smal leather blackjack he'd taken out of his back pocket.
"A century ain't high for what you spent an' the girls an' al . . . . If you f---k around it'l cost you more.
. . . You got your watch, ain't you? This ain't no clip-joint."
"What time is it?"
"What time is it, Joe?"
"Let me cal up the office. I'l get my secretary to come up.""What's the number? What's his name?" The young wop tossed up the blackjack and caught it. "I'l talk to him. We're lettin' you out of this cheap. We don't want no hard feelin's."
After they'd cal ed up the office and left word that Mr. Anderson was sick and to come at once, they gave him some coffee with rum in it that made him feel sicker than
-349-ever. At last Cliff was standing over him looking neat and wel shaved. "Wel , Cliff, I'm not the drinker I used to be."
In the taxicab he passed out cold.
He opened his eyes in his bed at the hotel. "There must have been knockout drops in the coffee," he said to Cliff who sat by the window reading the paper. "Wel , Mr. Anderson, you sure had us worried. A damn lucky thing it was they didn't know who they'd bagged in that clipjoint. If they had it would have cost us ten grand to get out of