U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [498]
Driving down from Jax to Miami the sun was real hot. Charley wanted to have the top down to get plenty of air but Margo wouldn't hear of it. She made him laugh about it. "A girl'l sacrifice anything for a man except her com-plexion." They couldn't eat on the way down, though Charley kept tanking up on the gin. When they got into Miami they went right to the old Palms where Margo
used to work and got a big ovation from Joe Kantor and Eddy Palermo and the boys of the band. They al said it looked like a honeymoon and kidded about seeing the marriagelicense. "Merely a chance acquaintance . . . something I picked up at the busstation in Jax," Margo kept saying. Charley ordered the best meal they had in the house and drinks al around and champagne. They danced al evening in spite of his game leg. When he passed out they took him upstairs to Joe and Mrs. Kantor's own room. When he began to wake up Margo was sitting
-361-ful y dressed looking fresh as a daisy on the edge of the bed. It was late in the morning. She brought him up break-fast on a tray herself.
"Look here, Mr. A," she said. "You came down here for a rest. No more nightclubs for a while. I've rented us a little bungalow down on the beach and we'l put you up at the hotel to avoid the breath of scandal and you'l like it. What we need's the influence of the home.
. . . And you and me, Mr. A, we're on the wagon."
The bungalow was in Spanishmission style, and cost a lot, but they sure had a good time at Miami Beach. They played the dograces and the roulettewheels and Charley got in with a bunch of al night pokerplayers through Homer Cassidy, Senator Planet's friend, a big smiling cul-tured whitehaired southerner in a baggy linen suit, who came round to the hotel to look him up. After a lot of talking about one thing and another, Cassidy got around to the fact that he was buying up options on property for the new airport and would let Charley in on it for the sake of his connections, but he had to have cash right away. At poker Charley's luck was great, he always won enough to have a big rol of bil s on him, but his bankaccount was a dog of a different stripe. He began burning up the wires to Nat Benton's office in New York.
Margo tried to keep him from drinking; the only times he could real y get a snootful were when he went out fish-ing with Cassidy. Margo wouldn't go fishing, she said she didn't like the way the fish looked at her when they came up out of the water. One day he'd gone down to the dock to go fishing with Cassidy but found that the norther that had come up that morning was blowing too hard. It was damn lucky because just as Charley was leaving the dock a Western Union messengerboy came up on his bike. The wind was getting sharper every minute and blew the chil y dust in Charley's face as he read the telegram. It was from the senator: ADMINISTRATION PREPARES OATS FOR
-362-PEGASUS. As soon as he got back to the beach Charley talked to Benton over longdistance. Next day airplane stocks bounced when the news came over the wires of a bil introduced to subsidize airlines. Charley sold every-thing he had at the top, covered his margins and was sit-ting pretty when the afternoon papers kil ed the story. A week later he started to rebuy at twenty points lower. Anyway he'd have the cash to refinance his loans and go in with Cassidy on the options. When he told Cassidy he was ready to go in with him they went out on the boat to talk things over. A colored boy made them mintjuleps. They sat in the stern with their rods and big straw hats to keep the sun out of their eyes and the juleps on a table behind them. When they got to the edge of the blue water they began to trol for sailfish.
It was a day of blue sky with big soft pinkishwhite clouds