U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [458]
"A century ain't high for what you spent an' the girls an' al . . . . If you f---k around it'l cost you more.
. . . You got your watch, ain't you? This ain't no clip-joint."
"What time is it?"
"What time is it, Joe?"
"Let me cal up the office. I'l get my secretary to come up.""What's the number? What's his name?" The young wop tossed up the blackjack and caught it. "I'l talk to him. We're lettin' you out of this cheap. We don't want no hard feelin's."
After they'd cal ed up the office and left word that Mr. Anderson was sick and to come at once, they gave him some coffee with rum in it that made him feel sicker than
-349-ever. At last Cliff was standing over him looking neat and wel shaved. "Wel , Cliff, I'm not the drinker I used to be."
In the taxicab he passed out cold.
He opened his eyes in his bed at the hotel. "There must have been knockout drops in the coffee," he said to Cliff who sat by the window reading the paper. "Wel , Mr. Anderson, you sure had us worried. A damn lucky thing it was they didn't know who they'd bagged in that clipjoint. If they had it would have cost us ten grand to get out of there."
" Cliff, you're a good boy. After this you get a raise."
"Seems to me I've heard that story before, Mr. Ander-son."
" Benton know?"
"I had to tel him some. I said you'd eaten some bad fish and had ptomaine poisoning."
"Not so bad for a young fel er. God, I wonder if I'm gettin to be a rummy. . . . How are things downtown?"
"Lousy. Mr. Benton almost went crazy trying to get in touch with you yesterday."
"Christ, I got a head. . . . Say, Cliff, you don't think I'm gettin' to be a rummy, do you?"
"Here's some dope the sawbones left."
"What day of the week is it?""Saturday.""Jesus Christ, I thought it was Friday." The phone rang. Cliff went over to answer it. "It's the massageman."
"Tel him to come up. . . . Say, is Benton stayin' in town?"
"Sure he's in town, Mr. Anderson, he's trying to get hold of Merritt and see if he can stop the slaughter. . . . Merritt . . ."
"Oh, hel , I'l hear about it soon enough. Tel this mas-seur to come in." After the massage, that was agony, especial y the cheer--350-ful Germanaccent remarks about the weather and the hockey season made by the big curlyhaired Swede who looked like a doorman, Charley felt wel enough to go to the toilet and throw up some green bile. Then he took a cold shower and went back to bed and shouted for Cliff, who was typing letters in the drawingroom, to ring for the bel hop to get cracked ice for a rubber icepad to put on his head.
He lay back on the pil ows and began to feel a little better.
"Hay, Cliff, how about lettin' in the light of day? What time is it?""About noon.""Christ. . . . Say, Cliff, did any women cal up?" Cliff shook his head. "Thank god."
"A guy cal ed up said he was a taxidriver, said you'd told him you'd get him a job in an airplane factory . . . I told him you'd left for Miami."
Charley was beginning to feel a little better. He lay back in the soft comfortable bed on the crisplylaundered pil ows and looked around the big clean hotel bedroom. The room was high up. Silvery light poured in through the broad window. Through the A between the curtains in the win-dow he could see a piece of sky bright and fleecy as milk-weed silk. Charley began to feel a vague sense of accom-plishment, like a man getting over the fatigue of a long journey or a dangerous mountainclimb.
"Say, Cliff, how about a smal gin and bitters with a lot of ice in it? . . . I think that 'ud probably be the makin'
of me.""Mr. Anderson, the doc said to swear off and to take some of that dope whenever you felt like taking a drink.""Every time I take it that stuff makes me puke. What does he think I am, a hophead?""Al right, Mr. Anderson, you're the boss," said Cliff, screwing up his thin mouth. "Thataboy, Cliff. . . . Then I'l try some grape-fruitjuice and if that stays down I'l take a good breakfast and to hel wid 'em. . . . Why aren't the papers here?"
"Here they are, Mr. Anderson . . . I've got 'em al
-351-turned to the financial section." Charley looked over the reports of trading. His eyes wouldn't focus very wel yet. He stil did better by closing one eye. A paragraph in News and Comment made him sit up.