U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [456]
-344-higher than a kite, eh. . . . Oh, hel , it's a bloody chore. I want to forget it." By the time he saw Eddy Sawyer threading his way
towards him through the faces, the business suits, the hands holding glasses in front of the cocktailbar, he felt good. He got to his feet. "How's the boy, Eddy? How's things in little old Deetroit? They al think I'm pretty much of a sonofabitich, don't they? Give us the dirt, Eddy." Eddy sighed and sank into the deep chair beside him.
"Wel , it's a long story, Charley."
"What would you say to a bacardi with a touch of absinthe in it? . . . Al right, make it two, Maurice." Eddy's face was yel ow and wrinkled as a summer apple that's hung too long on the tree. When he smiled the deepening wrinkles shot out from his mouth and eyes over his cheeks. "Wel , Charley old man, it's good to see you.
. . . You know they're cal ing you the boy wizard of avi-ation financing?"
"Is that al they're cal in' me?" Charley tapped his dead cigar against the brass rim of the ashtray. "I've heard worse things than that."
By the time they'd had their third cocktail Charley got so he couldn't stop talking. "Wel , you can just tel J. Y. from me that there was one day I could have put him out on his ass and I didn't do it. Why didn't I do it? Because I didn't give a goddam. I real y owned my stock. They'd hocked everythin' they had an' stil they couldn't cover, see. . . . I thought, hel , they're friends of mine. Good old J. Y. Hel , I said to Nat Benton when he wanted me to clean up while the cleanin' was good . . . they're friends of mine. Let era ride along with us. An' now look at 'em gangin' up on me with Gladys. Do you know how much alimony Gladys got awarded her? Four thousand
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."