U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [434]
"I haven't got any cash.""You could put up about ten grand of stock to cover. The stock won't be tied up long."
"Check," said Charley. "Shoot the moon . . . this is my lucky year." The plant was great. Charley drove out there in a new Buick sedan he bought himself right off the dealer's floor the next morning. The dealer seemed to know al about him and wouldn't even take a downpayment. "It'l be a pleasure to have your account, Mr. Anderson," he said. Old Bledsoe seemed to be on the lookout for him and showed him around. Everything was lit with skylights. There wasn't a belt in the place. Every machine had its own motor. " Farrel thinks I'm an old stickinthemud be-cause I don't talk high finance al the time, but God damn it, if there's a more uptodate plant than this anywhere, I'l eat a goddamned dynamo.""Gee, I thought we were
-292-in pretty good shape out at Long Island City. . . . But this beats the Dutch.""That's exactly what it's intended to do," growled Bledsoe.
Last Bledsoe introduced Charley to the engineering
force and then showed him into the office off the drafting-room that was to be his. They closed the groundglass door and sat down facing each other in the silvery light from the skylight. Bledsoe pul ed out a stogie and offered one to Charley. "Ever smoke these? . . . They clear the head."
Charley said he'd try anything once. They lit the stogies and Bledsoe began to talk between savage puffs of stinging blue smoke. "Now look here, Anderson, I hope you've come out here to work with us and not to juggle your damned stock. . . . I know you're a war hero and al that and are slated for windowdressing, but it looks to me like you might have somepun in your head too. . . . I'm say-ing this once and I'l never say it again. . . . If you're workin' with us, you're workin' with us and if you're not you'd better stick around your broker's office where you belong."
"But, Mr. Bledsoe, this is the chance I've been lookin'
for," stammered Charley. "Hel , I'm a mechanic, that's al . I know that."
"Wel , I hope so. . . . If you are, and not a god-damned bondsalesman, you know that our motor's lousy and the ships they put it in are lousy. We're ten years be-hind the rest of the world in flyin' and we've got to catch up. Once we get the designs we've got the production ap-paratus to flatten 'em al out. Now I want you to go home and get drunk or go wenchin' or whatever you do when you're worried and think about this damn business.""I'm through with that stuff," said Charley. "I had enough of that in New York." Bledsoe got to his feet with a jerk, letting the ash from his stogie fal on his alpaca vest.
"Wel , you better get
-293-married then.""I been thinkin' of that. . . . But I can't find the other name to put on the license," said Charley, laughing. Bledsoe smiled. "You design me a decent light dependable sixteencylinder aircooled motor and I'l get my little girl to introduce you to al the bestlookin' gals in Detroit. She knows 'em al . . . . And if it's money you're lookin' for, they sweat money." The phone buzzed. Bled-soe answered it, muttered under his breath, and stamped out of the office.
At noon Farrel came by to take Charley out to lunch.
"Did old Bledsoe give you an earful?" he asked. Charley nodded. "Wel , don't let him get under your skin. His bark is worse than his bite. He wouldn't be in the outfit if he wasn't the best plantmanager in the country." It was at the Country Club dance that Farrel and his wife, who was a thin oldish blonde haggard and peevish under a festoon of diamonds, took him out to, that Char-ley met old Bledsoe's daughter Anne. She was a square-shouldered girl in pink with a large pleasantlysmiling mouth and a firm handshake. Charley cottoned to her first thing. They danced to Just a Girl That Men Forget and she talked about how crazy she was about flying and had five hours toward her pilot's license. Charley said he'd take her up any time if she wasn't too proud to fly a Curtiss-Robin. She said he'd better not make a promise if he didn't intend to keep it because she always did what she said she'd do. Then she talked about golf and he didn't let on that he'd never had a golfclub in his hand in his life. At supper when he came back from getting a couple of plates of chickensalad he found her sitting at a round table under a Japanese lantern with a pale young guy, who turned out to be her brother Harry, and a girl with beau-tiful ashenblond hair and a touch of Alabama' in her talk whose name was Gladys Wheatley. She seemed to be en-gaged or something to Harry Bledsoe who had a silver flask and kept pouring gin into the fruitpunch and held