Big Money (6 page)

“Twentyfive years from now you can talk to me about aviation. Ain't practical yet.”

“Well, we got a couple of tricks up our sleeve. . . . We're shootin' the moon.”

“That's about the size of it.” Jim got to his feet. His lips got thin. “Well, you needn't think you can lay around my house all winter just because you're a war hero. If that's your idea you've got another think
comin'.” Charley burst out laughing. Jim came up and put his hand wheedlingly on Charley's shoulder. “Say, those birds'll be around here in a few minutes. You be a good feller and change into your uniform and put on all the medals. . . . Give us a break.”

Charley stood a minute staring at the ash on his cigar. “How about givin' me a break? Haven't been in the house five hours and there you go pickin' on me just like when I was workin' back here. . . .”

Jim was losing control of himself, he was starting to shake. “Well, you know what you can do about that,” he said, cutting his words off sharp. Charley felt like smashing him one in his damn narrow jaw. “If it wasn't for Ma, you wouldn't need to worry about that,” he said quietly.

Jim didn't answer for a minute. The wrinkles came out of his forehead. He shook his head and looked grave. “You're right, Charley, you better stick around. If it gives her any pleasure . . .”

Charley threw his cigar halfsmoked into the brass spittoon and walked out the door before Jim could stop him. He went to the house and got his hat and coat and went for a long walk through the soggy snow of the grey afternoon.

They were just finishing at the suppertable when Charley got back. His supper had been set out on a plate for him at his place. Nobody spoke but old man Vogel. “Ve been tinking, dese airmen maybe dey live on air too,” he said and laughed wheezily. Nobody else laughed. Jim got up and went out of the room. As soon as Charley had swallowed his supper he said he was sleepy and went up to bed.

Charley stayed on while November dragged on towards Thanksgiving and Christmas. His mother never seemed to be any better. Every afternoon he went over to see her for five or ten minutes. She was always cheerful. It made him feel terrible the way she talked about the goodness of God and how she was going to get better. He'd try to get her talking about Fargo and old Lizzie and the old days in the boardinghouse, but she didn't seem to remember much about that, except about sermons she'd heard in church. He'd leave the hospital feeling weak and groggy. The rest of his time he spent looking up books on internalcombustion motors at the public library, or did odd jobs for Jim in the garage the way he used to when he was a kid.

One evening after Newyears Charley went over to the Elks Ball in Minneapolis with a couple of fellows he knew. The big hall was full of noise and paper lanterns. He was cruising around threading his way
between groups of people waiting for the next dance when he found himself looking into a thin face and blue eyes he knew. It was too late to make out he hadn't seen her. “Hello, Emiscah,” he said, keeping his voice as casual as he could.

“Charley . . . my God.” He was afraid for a minute that she was going to faint. “Let's dance,” he said.

She felt limp in his arms. They danced a while without saying anything. She had too much rouge on her cheeks and he didn't like the perfume she had on. After the dance they sat in a corner and talked. She wasn't married yet. She worked in a departmentstore. No, she didn't live at home any more, she lived in a flat with a girlfriend. He must come up. It would be like old times. He must give her his phonenumber. She supposed things seemed pretty tame to him now after all those French girls. And imagine him getting a commission, the Andersons sure were going up in the world, she guessed they'd be forgetting their old friends. Emiscah's voice had gotten screechy and she had a way he didn't like of putting her hand on his knee.

As soon as he could Charley said he had a headache and had to go home. He wouldn't wait for the guys he'd come with. The evening was ruined for him anyway, he was thinking. He rode back all alone on the interurban trolley. It was cold as blazes. It was about time he got the hell out of this dump. He really did have a splitting headache and chills.

Next morning he was down with the flu and had to stay in bed. It was almost a relief. Hedwig brought him stacks of detective stories and Aunt Hartmann fussed over him and brought him toddies and eggflips, and all he had to do was lie there and read.

First thing he did when he got on his feet was to go over to the hospital. Ma had had another operation and hadn't come out of it very well. The room was darkened and she didn't remember when she'd seen him last. She seemed to think she was home in Fargo and that he'd just come back from his trip south. She held tight to his hand and kept saying, “My son that was lost hath been returned to me . . . thank God for my boy.” It took the strength out of him so he had to sit down for a second in a wicker chair in the corridor when he left her.

A nurse came up to him and stood beside him fidgeting with a paper and pencil. He looked up at her, she had pink cheeks and pretty dark eyelashes. “You mustn't let it get you,” she said. He grinned. “Oh,
I'm all right. . . . I just got out of bed from a touch of flu, it sure pulls down your strength.”

“I hear you were an aviator,” she said. “I had a brother in the Royal Flying Corps. We're Canadians.”

“Those were great boys,” said Charley. He wondered if he could date her up but then he thought of Ma. “Tell me honestly what you think, please do.”

“Well, it's against the rules, but judging from other cases I've seen her chances are not very good.”

“I thought so.”

He got to his feet. “You're a peach, do you know it?” Her face got red from the starched cap to the white collar of her uniform. She wrinkled up her forehead and her voice got very chilly. “In a case like that it's better to have it happen quickly.” Charley felt a lump rise in his throat. “Oh, I know.” “Well, goodby, Lieutenant, I've got to go about my business.” “Gee, thanks a lot,” said Charley. When he got out in the air he kept remembering her pretty face and her nice lips.

One slushy morning of thaw in early March Charley was taking a scorched gasket out of a Buick when the garage helper came and said they wanted him on the phone from the hospital. A cold voice said Mrs. Anderson was sinking fast and the family better be notified. Charley got out of his overalls and went to call Hedwig. Jim was out, so they took one of the cars out of the garage. Charley had forgotten to wash his hands and they were black with grease and carbon. Hedwig found him a rag to wipe them off with. “Someday, Hedwig,” he said, “I'm going to get me a clean job in a draftin'room.”

“Well, Jim wanted you to be his salesman,” Hedwig snapped crossly. “I don't see how you're going to get anywheres if you turn down every opportunity.” “Well, maybe there's opportunities I won't turn down.” “I'd like to know where you're going to get 'em except with us,” she said. Charley didn't answer. Neither of them said anything more in the long drive across town. When they got to the hospital they found that Ma had sunk into a coma. Two days later she died.

At the funeral, about halfway through the service, Charley felt the tears coming. He went out and locked himself in the toilet at the garage and sat down on the seat and cried like a child. When they came back from the cemetery he was in a black mood and wouldn't let anybody speak to him. After supper, when he found Jim and Hedwig sit
ting at the diningroom table figuring out with pencil and paper how much it had cost them, he blew up and said he'd pay every damn cent of it and they wouldn't have to worry about his staying around the goddam house either. He went out slamming the door after him and ran upstairs and threw himself on his bed. He lay there a long time in his uniform without undressing, staring at the ceiling and hearing mealy voices saying, deceased, bereavement, hereafter.

The day after the funeral Emiscah called up. She said she was so sorry about his mother's death and wouldn't he come around to see her some evening? Before he knew what he was doing he'd said he'd come. He felt blue and lonely and he had to talk to somebody besides Jim and Hedwig. That evening he drove over to see her. She was alone. He didn't like the cheap gimcracky look her apartment had. He took her out to the movies and she said did he remember the time they went to see
The Birth of a Nation
together. He said he didn't, though he remembered all right. He could see that she wanted to start things up with him again.

Driving back to her place she let her head drop on his shoulder. When he stopped the car in front of where she lived, he looked down and saw that she was crying. “Charley, won't you give me a little kiss for old times?” she whispered. He kissed her. When she said would he come up, he stammered that he had to be home early. She kept saying, “Oh, come ahead. I won't eat you, Charley,” and finally he went up with her though it was the last thing he'd intended to do.

She made them cocoa on her gasburner and told him how unhappy she was, it was so tiring being on your feet all day behind the counter and the women who came to buy things were so mean to you, and the floorwalkers were always pinching your seat and expecting you to cuddlecooty with them in the fittingbooths. Some day she was going to turn on the gas. It made Charley feel bad having her talk like that and he had to pet her a little to make her stop crying. Then he got hot and had to make love to her. When he left he promised to call her up next week.

Next morning he got a letter that she must have written right after he left saying that she'd never loved anybody but him. That night after supper he tried to write her that he didn't want to marry anybody and least of all her; he couldn't get it worded right, so he didn't write at all. When she called up next day he said he was very busy and that
he'd have to go up into North Dakota to see about some property his mother had left. He didn't like the way she said, “Of course I understand. I'll call you up when you get back, dear.”

Hedwig began to ask who that woman was who was calling him up all the time, and Jim said, “Look out for the women, Charley. If they think you've got anything they'll hold onto you like a leech.” “Yessir,” said old man Vogel, “it's not like ven you're in the army yet and can say goodby, mein schatz, I'm off to the vars, now they can find out vere you live.” “You needn't worry,” growled Charley. “I won't stay put.”

The day they went over to the lawyer's office to read Ma's will, Jim and Hedwig dressed up fit to kill. It made Charley sore to see them, Hedwig in a new black tailored dress with a little lace at the throat and Jim dressed up like an undertaker in the suit he'd bought for the funeral. The lawyer was a small elderly German Jew with white hair brushed carefully over the big baldspot on the top of his head and goldrimmed pincenez on his thin nose. He was waiting for them when they came into the office. He got up smiling solemnly behind his desk littered with bluebound documents and made a little bow. Then he sat down beaming at them with his elbows among the papers, gently rubbing the tips of his fingers together. Nobody spoke for a moment. Jim coughed behind his hand like in church. “Now let me see,” said Mr. Goldberg in a gentlesweet voice with a slight accent like an actor's. “Oughtn't there to be more of you?”

Jim spoke up. “Esther and Ruth couldn't come. They both live on the coast. . . . I've got their power of attorneys. Ruth had her husband sign hers too, in case there might be any realestate.” Mr. Goldberg made a little clucking noise with his tongue. “Too bad. I'd rather have all parties present. . . . But in this case there will be no difficulty, I trust. Mr. James A. Anderson is named sole executor. Of course you understand that in a case like this the aim of all parties is to avoid taking the will to probate. That saves trouble and expense. There is no need of it when one of the legatees is named executor. . . . I shall proceed to read the will.”

Mr. Goldberg must have drafted it himself because he sure seemed to enjoy reading it. Except for a legacy of one thousand dollars to Lizzie Green who had run Ma's boardinghouse up in Fargo, all the estate, real and personal, the lots in Fargo, the Liberty bonds and the fifteenhundreddollar savings-account were left to the children jointly to be administered by James A. Anderson, sole executor, and eventually divided as they should agree among themselves.

“Now are there any questions and suggestions?” asked Mr. Goldberg genially.

Charley couldn't help seeing that Jim felt pretty good about it. “It has been suggested,” went on Mr. Goldberg's even voice that melted blandly among the documents like butter on a hot biscuit, “that Mr. Charles Anderson, who I understand is leaving soon for the East, would be willing to sign a power of attorney similar to those signed by his sisters. . . . The understanding is that the money will be invested in a mortgage on the Anderson Motor Sales Co.”

Charley felt himself go cold all over. Jim and Hedwig were looking at him anxiously. “I don't understand the legal talk,” he said, “but what I want to do is get mine as soon as possible. . . . I have a proposition in the East I want to put some money in.”

Jim's thin lower lip began to tremble. “You'd better not be a damn fool, Charley. I know more about business than you do.”

“About your business maybe, but not about mine.”

Hedwig, who'd been looking at Charley like she could kill him, began to butt in: “Now, Charley, you let Jim do what he thinks best. He just wants to do what's best for all of us.”

“Aw, shut your face,” said Charley.

Jim jumped to his feet. “Look here, kid, you can't talk to my wife in that tone of voice.”

“My friends, my dear friends,” the lawyer crooned, rubbing his fingers together till it looked like they'd smoke, “we mustn't let ourselves be carried away, must we, not on a solemn occasion like this. . . . What we want is a quiet fireside chat . . . the friendly atmosphere of the home. . . .”