American Dreams (44 page)

'Till the end of the week.'

'That's grand. We can see the sights. Mr. Pelzer, who runs Liberty pictures, said I could have time off to be with you. My director even rearranged the shooting schedule.'

They found the Speed King in the midst of a group of admirers. His oily race goggles were pushed up on his unruly hair. An attractive dark-haired woman hung on his arm. She gave Carl an unfriendly look as they approached. Fritzi was shocked by Oldfield's sallow skin, the pouches under his red, watering eyes. Though a relatively young man, he looked old and dissipated.

'Barney, I'd like you to meet my sister, Fritzi. Sis, Barney and Bess Oldfield.' Mrs. Oldfield stared at her, plainly hostile.

'Pleased to meet you,' Barney said. 'Your kid brother, huh?' Fritzi nodded. 'He's a good wheel man. Sometimes too good. Hope you enjoyed the show. Come on, sweet.' He pushed his wife and they walked off.

Fritzi pinned her hat as she left the noisy garage. 'Carl, is something going on? Your boss seemed sore.'

'The king lost his throne last Sunday,' Carl said as they followed people toward the Pacific Electric stop, in Daytona a young kid named Wild Bob Burman broke Barney's land speed record. To make it worse, he drove one 274

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of Barney's old cars. Barney's been on a tear all week. Last night at the roadhouse there was an altercation. With people he didn't know.'

'Who started it?'

'Barney, after half a quart of whiskey. Three of us pulled him off, which he didn't appreciate. He socked me a couple of times.'

'Oh, that's terrible. Why do you work for him?'

'I've been wondering that myself,' Carl said. 'Give me five minutes to clean up, and we'll get out of here.'

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When he rejoined her, his face was washed, his hands too. He'd put on a loose jacket and wrapped a dashing red silk scarf around his neck.

Back in Venice, they crossed Lion Canal on an arched footbridge as the spring daylight faded. She showed him where she lived. They strolled on several of the residential islands, then returned to the boardwalk. Within sight of the new and noisy Cloud Race roller coaster, they found a small German restaurant for supper. Carl rammed through the door like the spirited little boy she remembered. He didn't simply sit in his chair, he dropped, making the chair creak and the waiter gasp.

Over platters of pork chops, cabbage, roast potatoes, and Crown's beer, they caught up on things. The easiest topic to start on was their parents.

'What's Pop going to do if the drys win and we have national prohibition?'

Carl asked her.

'I can't speak with any authority. I don't see Papa or hear from him.'

'Same old problem, huh? Too bad.'

Fritzi looked away, wanting to avoid the subject. 'I suppose Crown's and all the other breweries will have to close. Or manufacture something else that's legal.'

'That'd kill Pop.'

She sighed to agree.

Cradually Carl lost some of his tense, tired air. He talked with enthusiasm of his new interest in learning to fly aeroplanes. For dessert he ate two slabs of mince pie with ice cream.

Describing a driving exhibition in Denver, he mentioned a girl named Sissie. Fritzi said, i also recall a Margaret, and one of your letters talked about someone in El Paso. Forgive me for being a nosy sister, but are you ever going to marry one of them?'

Carl's face grew grave. 'Not likely. There was one I really cared about, up in Detroit. Her name was Tess. Her father and his pals were a pretty snotty bunch, but she was different. She was a wonderful lady. I thought hard about staying, trying to make it work out, but-- 1 don't know.

Fritzi and Carl

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Something pushed me on. Something always does.'

With a puzzled smile he added, 'Sometimes I wonder if it's Pop. Maybe
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I'm scared he'll drag me back to Chicago somehow, and I'll have to deal with him every day for the rest of my life. I love him, but he's a tyrant. Hell, who knows?' He grabbed his coffee mug, almost spilling it. Still clumsy as a puppy, she thought, touched. She was aware of him changing the subject:

'How about your life, sis? Any men in it?'

'Not presently, no.'

'What about the actors in pictures? Aren't some of them pretty handsome?'

'Yes,

but they all seem to fall into three categories. Married and happy.

Married and cheating. Or madly in love with themselves.'

He laughed. 'You care about settling down sometime, don't you?'

'Well, I have my career to think about. When we're back in New York this summer, I'm going to try the theater again. I've always said picture making's temporary.'

'Sis, answer the question.'

'Of course I care about settling down. I have feelings. I'm not a female eunuch.' She tilted her head. 'Are there female eunuchs?'

i doubt it. Keep looking for your man. You'll find him.'

To escape the subject she opened her handbag and drew out a picture postcard. 'Here, I've been meaning to show you.'

When he saw the photo, he exclaimed, 'Hey, it's you.' Indeed it was Fritzi, posed rather coyly in a frilly dress and picture hat, with printing beneath.

FRITZI CROWN

A Liberty Pictures Favorite

'Two of our other actors have cards. Theaters sell the cards for a nickel. My boss's idea. You'll meet him when 1 show you the lot.'

At the end of three days Carl's bruises didn't look much better, but he seemed in better spirits, having been separated from his employer for a while. In an ice cream parlor, they sat on wire chairs beside a plateglass window, eating chocolate cones. It was her last day with him. Saturday the Oldfield troupe headed for San Diego; tomorrow, and the rest of the week, she'd be working.

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She brought up the subject she'd so far held in reserve. 'You didn't tell me Barney Oldfield opened a saloon on Spring Street.'

'He and a partner, some joe who used to work for a railroad.' Carl licked a gob of ice cream about to fall off the cone. 'Barney let the other guy do most of the setup. The saloon's one of the reasons we came to Los Angeles. I didn't mention it because I can't take you there.'

'Why not?'

'It's a men's hangout. If it's anything like Barney himself, it'll be a rough place.' He hesitated but went on. 'Everywhere we travel, seems like there's a fight. Barney usually starts them. He plays nasty practical jokes on strangers.'

'You really don't like working for him, do you?'

'Not anymore. Before I signed on, I couldn't think of anything better.

I've gotten a belly full. Barney's great when he's sober. But the rest of the time, which is most of the time, he treats his help like dirt. All the money and fame did something to him, and it's a hell of a lot worse since Burman broke his speed record. You saw what happened at the oval.'

'Did he hit your car deliberately?'

'I don't think so. He doesn't think straight, is the problem. He's in a rage all the time.'

'Will you quit?'

'I think about it a lot.'

'If you quit, what would you do?'

Carl couldn't meet her gaze. 'There's the question. For which I don't have an answer. Maybe I never will. Maybe I'll never figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do with my life. Sometimes in the middle of the night, that scares me.'

She took his hand and squeezed hard. Sometimes in the middle of the night, the same unanswered question scared her too.

'What about that girl, Carl, the special one in Detroit?'

She was startled by the stark, almost anguished look that came on his face; she hadn't realized the depth of his attachment.

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'Tess? What about her?'

'Could you go back to Detroit and find her?'

'She's probably married by now.'

'But you don't know that.'

Carl's dark eyes seemed to show both pain and uncertainty. 'Maybe I don't want to know, sis.'

Fritzi had no answer for that.

Mickey Finn 277

53 Mickey Finn

Carl sat with a plate of the pickled sausages, a pencil and a postcard colorfully illustrating last year's air show at Dominguez Field. It was five o'clock, a day after his final outing with Fritzi.

He munched a sausage, licked the tip of his pencil, and wrote slowly. He hadn't mailed a card to Tess in months, had no idea whether she'd receive this one. Deep feelings compelled him to send something to show he was alive and was thinking of her. He thought of her more than he would admit in the scrawled words that reflected his lifelong losing war with penmanship.

About

a dozen customers lined the long mahogany bar, all men, most from the local newspaper and sporting community. They argued boxing and baseball while cleaning off the free-lunch plates of sliced turkey and ham and cheese. A day after seeing the place for the first time, Barney decided 'saloon' wasn't appropriate for a joint with his name on it. He ordered the exterior sign repainted to read oldfield-kipper iavekn. He told his partner, Jack Kipper, that the word tavern sounded more 'high class English.'

Tavern or saloon, it made no difference to the six gray ladies from the WCTU marching in a circle on the sidewalk, holding high their righteous chins and their placards denouncing alcohol and those who served it.

Patrons sober and otherwise entering the saloon tipped their derbies and joshed with the ladies, who glowered and admonished them with Bible verses. In noisy South Spring Street autos honked, wagons creaked, horses neighed and left huge pods of manure where pedestrians crossed.

Carl wrote a line about his interest in aeroplanes. At twenty past five the rear door opened and Barney swaggered in, chewing on a cigar. He spotted
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Carl.

'Greetings, kid. How are you?' The altercation in Ventura might never have happened. Probably doesn't even remember it.

'Doing all right, Barney, how about you?'

'Soon as 1 get a snootful I'll be better.' He hovered by the table, a big canvas driving cap cocked on his head, a linen duster unbuttoned to show his dark purple suit, a sapphire tie pin big as a headlight. On the duster Carl noticed brown streaks - blood, he suspected.

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'Have a good visit with your sister?'

'Fine, thanks. She'll be heading back to New York by the end of May.'

'We're getting some movie actors in here. I met one named Arbuckle last night, hell of a card. Come on up to the bar, I'll buy a drink.'

'I just had a beer, I don't think--'

'The boss wants to buy you a drink,' Barney cut in. Carl could tell he'd already downed a few. Reluctantly he slipped pencil and postcard in the outside pocket of his shabby corduroy coat.

'Sure, I'll have one with you.'

Customers greeted Barney as he and Carl stepped up to the rail. Above the cut-glass decanters on the back bar hung a huge and heroic painting of Jim Jeffries in boxing tights, fists raised for combat. Barney waved his cold cigar.

'Milo, give Carl a slug of that special stock we keep for friends.'

'Beer's fine with me.'

'I want you to try this stuff.' At these words Carl's neck suddenly itched.

He felt something unpleasant building. 'Make it doubles all around, Milo.'

Barney leaned back, elbows on the bar as he surveyed his establishment.

Without looking at Carl he said, 'My wife told me something I didn't like to hear, kid.'

,/*

'What's that?'

'You talk about me behind my back. She says it ain't complimentary.

That true?'

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Carl was surprised. 'No. I don't know why she'd make up such a story.'

Milo served two oversized glasses. The dark whiskey shimmered and reflected the ceiling lights, fluted trumpets of frosted glass. With a twitchy little smile Barney said, 'You wouldn't be calling Bess a liar, would you, kid?'

Hell's fire. Ever since he'd rebuffed Bess, she'd had it in for him, even though she slept with other men she met on the exhibition circuit. Barney couldn't be so stupid or besotted as not to suspect. Bess had singled Carl out for special punishment. Maybe men didn't often refuse her.

'No, Barney, I'm not saying a word against your wife. I'm only saying I don't talk behind your back.'

'Well, we got two different stories here, don't we? Kind of hard to know which to believe. Got to think it over. Drink up.'

A few minutes ago Carl had been sated from downing a stein of Budweiser. Now he was fiercely thirsty, liking neither the drift of the conversation nor the calculating look in Barney's eyes. He took a big Mickey Finn 279

drink of the strong, faintly bitter whiskey. Barney finished his double in two gulps.

'We got to sort this out, Garl. I can't have a driver going around behind my back saying rotten things about the champ. Those fuckers in Daytona let Bob Burman take my record, but I'm still the champ, got me?'

'Barney, let's talk about this some other--'

'Now.' Barney shoved three stiffened fingers into Carl's chest. 'We'll talk about it now.'

Carl's ears erupted in buzzing. He saw two tie pins, not one, on Barney's cravat. Something sour and sick churned in his throat.

Barney smiled.' 'Less you aren't feeling so good. You look a little green, kid.'

So that was it. Nauseated and woozy, he crossed his arms over his heaving belly. Barney loved pranks, one of his favorites being knockout drops in a drink offered in friendship. Carl swung around, yelled at Milo.

'God damn it, did you slip me a Mickey Finn?'

Milo dried a glass with a towel and didn't look up. Jim Jeffries danced
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in his gilt frame. The electric ceiling lights began to fly around like comets.

Barney was mightily amused.

'Fact is, you look like shit. Don't need a man on my team who can't hold his liquor.' Barney shoved his empty glass down the bar. 'Hey, Milo, another double. None for this lily'

Swaying, Carl said, 'You came in here to set me up.'

'Yeah, I been meaning to settle accounts for weeks. Bess says you're a bum. A dirty lecher.'