U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [457]
"Higher than a kite," shouted Charley, bursting out laughing. Eddy had gone. Old Maurice was trying to
make him eat the piece of steak he'd taken out to heat up. Charley couldn't eat. "Take it home to the wife and kid-dies," he told Maurice. The speak had cleared for the theatertime lul . "Bring me a bottle of champagne, Maurice old man, and then maybe I can get the steak down. That's how they do it in the old country, eh? Don't tel me I been drinkin'
too much . . . I know it. . . . When everybody you had any confidence in has rocked you al down the line you don't give a damn, do you, Maurice?"
A man with closecropped black hair and a closecropped black mustache was looking at Charley, leaning over a cocktailglass on the bar. "I say you don't give a damn," Charley shouted at the man when he caught his eye. "Do you?"
" Hel , no, got anything to say about it?" said the man, squaring off towards the table.
" Maurice, bring this gentleman a glass." Charley got to his feet and swayed back and forth bowing politely across the table. The bouncer, who'd come out from a little door in back wiping his red hands on his apron, backed out of the room again. " Anderson my name is. . . . Glad to meet you, Mr. . . .""Budkiewitz," said the blackhaired man who advanced scowling and swaying a little to the other side of the table. Charley pointed to a chair. "I'm drunk . . . beaucoup champagny water . . . have a glass."
"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.