U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [402]
"my old man was a senator once."
After lunch Charley 'went out to the field again to take a look at the ship. Bil Cermak had everything bright as a jeweler's window. Charley brought Bil back to the hotel to give him a drink. There were waiters in the hal outside the suite and cigarsmoke and a great sound of social voices pouring out the open door. Bil laid a thick finger against his crooked nose and said maybe he'd better blow. "Gee, it does sound like the socialregister. Here, I'l let you in my bedroom an' I'l bring you a drink if you don't mind wait--212-ing a sec,""Sure, it's al right by me, boss." Charley washed his hands and straightened his necktie and went into the sittingroom al in a rush like a man diving into a cold pool.
Andy Merritt was giving a cocktailparty with dry mar-tinis, chickensalad, sandwiches, a bowl of caviar, strips of smoked fish, two old silverhaired gentlemen, three husky-voiced southern bel es with too much makeup on, a fat senator and a very thin senator in a high col ar, a sprin-kling of pale young men with Harvard accents and a sal-low man with a gold tooth who wrote a syndicated column cal ed Capitol Smal Talk. There was a young publicity-man named Savage he'd met at Eveline's. Charley was in-troduced al around and stood first on one foot and then on the other until he got a chance to sneak into the bed-room with two halftumblers of rye and a plate of sand-wiches. "Gosh, it's terrible in there. I don't dare open my mouth for fear of puttin' my foot in it." Charley and Bil sat on the bed eating the sandwiches and listening to the jingly babble that came in from the other room. When he'd drunk his whiskey Bil got to his feet, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and asked what time Charley wanted him to report in the morning.
"Nine o'clock wil do. You sure you don't want to stick around? . . . I don't know what to say to those birds
. . . we might fix you up with a southern bel e." Bil said he was a quiet family man and would get him a flop and go to bed. When he left it meant Charley had to go back to the cocktailparty.
When Charley went back into Merritt's room he found the black eyes of the fat senator fixed on him from be-tween the two cute bobbing hats of two pretty girls. Char-ley found himself saying goodby to them. The browneyed one was a blonde and the blueeyed one had very black hair. A little tang of perfume and kid gloves lingered after them when they left. "Now which would you say was the
-213-prettiest, young man?" The fat senator was standing be-side him looking up at him with a tooconfidential smile. Charley felt his throat stiffen, he didn't know why.
"They're a couple of beauties," he said. "They leave you like the ass between two bundles of hay," said the fat sena-tor with a soft chuckle that played smoothly in and out of the folds of his chin.
"Buridan's ass died of longing, senator," said the thin senator putting the envelope back in his pocket on which he and Andy Merritt had been doping out figures of some kind.
"And so do I, senator," said the fat one, pushing back the streak of black hair from his forehead, his loose jowls shaking. "I die daily. . . . Senator, wil you dine with me and these young men? I believe old Horace is getting us up a little terrapin." He put a smal plump hand on the thin senator's shoulder and another on Char-ley's. "Sorry, senator, the missis is having some friends out at the Chevy Chase Club.""Then I'm afraid these young-sters wil have to put up with eating dinner with a pair of old fogies. I'd hoped you'd bridge the gap between the generations. . . . General Hicks is coming." Charley saw a faint pleased look come over Andy Merritt's serious wel bred face. The fat senator went on with his smooth ponderous courtroom voice. "Perhaps we had better be on our way. .
. . He's coming at seven and those old war-horses tend to be punctual." A great black Lincoln was just coming to a soundless stop at the hotel entry when the four of them, Charley and Andy Merritt and Savage and the fat senator, came out into the Washington night that smelt of oil on asphalt and the exhausts of cars and of young leaves and of wisteriablossoms. The senator's house was a continuation of his car, big and dark and faintly gleaming and soundless. They sprawled in big blackleather chairs and an old white-haired mulatto brought around manhattans on an engraved silver tray.