Big Money (9 page)

Paul let him into a large bare oldfashioned room with flowing purple curtains in the windows. “Just sit down for a minute. I'll see what
Eveline's up to.” He pointed to a horsehair sofa and went through the sliding doors into a back room.

He came back immediately carefully pulling the door to behind him. “Why, that's great. Eveline says you're goin' to have supper with us. She said you just came back from out there. How'd things seem out there? I wouldn't go back if they paid me now. New York's a great life if you don't weaken. . . . Here, I'll show you where you can clean up. . . . Eveline's invited a whole mess of people to supper. I'll have to run around to the butcher's. . . . Want to wash up?”

The bathroom was steamy and smelt of bathsalts. Somebody had just taken a bath there. Babyclothes hung to dry over the tub. A red douchebag hung behind the door and over it a yellow lace negligee of some kind. It made Charley feel funny to be in there. When he'd dried his hands he sniffed them, and the perfume of the soap filled his head.

When he came out of the door he found Mrs. Johnson leaning against the white marble mantel with a yellowbacked French novel in her hand. She had on a long lacy gown with puff sleeves and wore tortoiseshell readingglasses. She took off the glasses and tucked them into the book and stood holding out her hand.

“I'm so glad you could come. I don't go out much yet, so I don't get to see anybody unless they come to see me.”

“Mighty nice of you to ask me. I been out in the sticks. I tell you it makes you feel good to see folks from the other side. . . . This is the nearest thing to Paree I've seen for some time.”

She laughed; he remembered her laugh from the boat. The way he felt like kissing her made him fidgety. He lit a cigarette.

“Do you mind not smoking? For some reason tobaccosmoke makes me feel sick ever since before I had the baby, so I don't let anybody smoke. Isn't it horrid of me?”

Charley blushed and threw his cigarette in the grate. He began to walk back and forth in the tall narrow room. “Hadn't we better sit down?” she said with her slow irritating smile. “What are you up to in New York?”

“Got to get me a job. I got plans. . . . Say, how's the baby? I'd like to see it.”

“All right, when he wakes up I'll introduce you. You can be one of his uncles. I've got to do something about supper now. Doesn't it seem strange us all being in New York?”

“I bet this town's a hard nut to crack.”

She went into the back room through the sliding doors and soon a smell of sizzling butter began to seep through them. Charley caught himself just at the point of lighting another cigarette, then roamed round the room, looking at the oldfashioned furniture, the three white lilies in a vase, the shelves of French books, until Paul, red in the face and sweating, passed through with more groceries and told him he'd shake up a drink.

Charley sat down on the couch and stretched out his legs. It was quiet in the highceilinged room. There was something cozy about the light rustle and clatter the Johnsons made moving around behind the sliding doors, the Frenchy smell of supper cooking. Paul came back with a tray piled with plates and glasses and a demijohn of wine. He laid a loaf of frenchbread on the marbletopped table and a plate of tunafish and a cheese. “I'm sorry I haven't got anything to make a cocktail with. . . . I didn't get out of the office till late. . . . All we've got's this dago wine.”

“Check. . . . I'm keepin' away from that stuff a little. . . . Too much on my mind.”

“Are you round town looking for a job?”

“Feller goin' in on a proposition with me. You remember Joe Askew on the boat? Great boy, wasn't he? The trouble is the damn fool's laid up with the flu and that leaves me high and dry until he gets down here.”

“Things are sure tighter than I expected. . . . My old man got me into a grainbroker's office over in Jersey City . . . just to tide me over. But gosh, I don't want to wear out a desk all my life. I wouldn'ta done it if it hadn't been for the little stranger.”

“Well, we've got something that'll be worth plenty if we ever get the kale to put in to develop it.”

Eveline opened the sliding doors and brought in a bowl of salad. Paul had started to talk about the grain business but he shut his mouth and waited for her to speak.

“It's curious,” she said. “After the war New York. . . . Nobody can keep away from it.”

A baby's thin squalling followed her out of the back room. “That's his messcall,” said Paul. “If you really want to see him,” said Eveline, “come along now, but I should think it would be just too boring to look at other people's babies.” “I'd like to,” said Charley. “Haven't got
any of my own to look at.” “How are you so sure?” said Eveline with a slow teasing smile. Charley got red and laughed.

They stood round the pink crib with their wineglasses in their hands. Charley found himself looking down into a toothless pink face and two little pudgy hands grabbing the air. “I suppose I ought to say it looks like Daddy,” he said. “The little darling looks more like our Darwinian ancestor,” said Eveline coldly. “When I first saw him I cried and cried. Oh, I hope he grows a chin.” Charley caught himself looking out of the corner of his eye at Paul's chin that wasn't so very prominent either. “He's a cheerful little rascal,” he said.

Eveline brought the baby a bottle from the kitchenette next the bathroom, then they went into the other room. “This layout sure makes me feel envious,” Charley was saying when he caught Eveline Johnson's eye. She shrugged her shoulders. “You two and the baby all nicely set with a place to live and a glass of wine and everything. . . . Makes me feel the war's over. . . . What I've got to do is crack down an' get to work.”

“Don't worry,” said Paul. “It'll happen soon enough.”

“Well, I wish people would come. The casserole's all ready,” said Eveline. “Charles Edward Holden is coming. . . . He's always late.”

“He said maybe he'd come,” said Paul. “Here's Al now. That's his knock.”

A lanky sallow individual came in the door from the street. Paul introduced him to Charley as his brother Al. The man looked at Charley with a peevish searching grey eye for a moment. “Lieutenant Anderson . . . Say, we've met before someplace.”

“Were you over on the other side?”

The lanky man shook his head vigorously. “No. . . . It must have been in New York. . . . I never forget a face.” Charley felt his face getting red.

A tall haggardfaced man named Stevens and a plump little girl came in. Charley didn't catch the girl's name. She had straight black bobbed hair. The man named Stevens paid no attention to anybody but Al Johnson. The little girl paid no attention to anybody but Stevens. “Well, Al,” he said threateningly, “have recent events changed your ideas any?”

“We've got to go slow, Don, we've got to go slow . . . we can't affront every decent human instinct. . . . We've got to stick close to the workingclass.”

“Oh, if you're all going to start about the workingclass I think we'd better have supper and not wait for Holden,” said Eveline, getting to her feet. “Don'll be so cross if he argues on an empty stomach.”

“Who's that? Charles Edward Holden?” asked Al Johnson with a tone of respect in his voice.

“Don't wait for him,” said Don Stevens. “He's nothing but a bourgeois muckraker.”

Charley and Paul helped Eveline bring in another table that was all set in the bedroom. Charley managed to sit next to her. “Gee, this is wonderful food. It all makes me think of old Paree,” he kept saying. “My brother wanted me to go into a Ford agency with him out in the Twin Cities, but how can you keep them down on the farm after they've seen Paree?”

“But New York's the capital now.” It was teasing the way she leaned toward him when she spoke, the way her long eyes seemed to be all the time figuring out something about him.

“I hope you'll let me come around sometimes,” he said. “It's goin' to be kinder hard sleddin' in New York till I get my feet on the ground.”

“Oh, I'm always here,” she said, “and shall be till we can afford to get a reliable nurse for Jeremy. Poor Paul has to work late at the office half the time. . . . Oh, I wish we could all make a lot of money right away quick.”

Charley smiled grimly. “Give the boys a chance. We ain't properly got the khaki off our skins yet.”

Charley couldn't keep up with the conversation very well so he leaned back on the sofa looking at Eveline Johnson. Paul didn't say much either. After he'd brought in coffee he disappeared altogether. Eveline and the little girl at the head of the table both seemed to think Stevens was pretty wonderful, and Al Johnson who sat next to Charley on the sofa kept leaning across him to make a point with Eveline and shake his long forefinger. Part of the time it looked like Al Johnson and Stevens would take a poke at each other. What with not following their talk, after all he wasn't onto the town yet, and the good food and the wine Charley began to get sleepy. He finally had to get up to stretch his legs.

Nobody paid any attention to him so he strolled into the kitchenette where he found Paul washing the dishes. “Lemme help you wipe,”
he said. “Naw, I got a system,” said Paul. “You see Eveline does all the cooking so it's only fair for me to wash the dishes.”

“Say, won't those birds get in trouble if they talk like that?” Charley jerked his thumb in the direction of the front room.

“Don Stevens is a red so he's a marked man anyway.”

“Mind you, I don't say they're wrong but, Jesus, we got our livin's to make.”

“Al's on the
World.
They're pretty liberal down there.”

“Out our way a man can't open his face without stirrin' up a hornetsnest,” said Charley, laughing. “They don't know the war's over.”

When the dishes were done they went back to the front room. Don Stevens strode up to Charley. “Eveline says you are an aviator,” he said, frowning. “Tell us what aviators think about. Are they for the exploiting class or the workingclass?”

“That's a pretty big order,” drawled Charley. “Most of the fellers I know are tryin' to get into the workin'class.”

The doorbell rang. Eveline looked up smiling. “That's probably Charles Edward Holden,” said Al. Paul opened the door. “Hello, Dick,” said Eveline. “Everybody thought you were Charles Edward Holden.”

“Well, maybe I am,” said a nattilydressed young man with slightly-bulging blue eyes who appeared in the doorway. “I've been feeling a little odd all day.”

Eveline introduced the new guy by his military handle: “Captain Savage, Lieutenant Anderson.” “Humph,” said Stevens in the back of the room. Charley noticed that Stevens and the young man who had just come in stared at each other without speaking. It was all getting very confusing. Eveline and the bobbedhaired girl began to make polite remarks to each other in chilly voices. Charley guessed it was about time for him to butt out. “I've got to alley along, Mrs. Johnson,” he said.

“Say, Anderson, wait for me a minute. I'll walk along the street with you,” Al Johnson called across the room at him.

Charley suddenly found himself looking right in Eveline's eyes. “I sure enjoyed it,” he said. “Come in to tea some afternoon,” she said. “All right, I'll do that.” He squeezed her hand hard. While he was saying goodby to the others he heard Captain Savage and Eveline gig
gling together. “I just came in to see how the other half lives,” he was saying. “Eveline, you look too beautiful tonight.”

Charley felt good standing on the stoop in the spring evening. The city air had a cool rinsed smell after the rain. He was wondering if she . . . Well, you never can tell till you try. Al Johnson came out behind him and took his arm. “Say, Paul says you come from out home.”

“Sure,” said Charley. “Don't you see the hayseed in my ears?”

“Gosh, when Eveline has two or more of her old beaux calling on her at once it's a bit heavy. . . . And she like to froze that poor little girl of Don's to death. . . . Say, how about you and me go have a drink of whiskey to take the taste of that damn red ink out of our mouths?”

“That'ud be great,” said Charley.

They walked across Fifth Avenue and down the street until they got to a narrow black door. Al Johnson rang the bell and a man in shirtsleeves let them into a passage that smelt of toilets. They walked through that into a barroom. “Well, that's more like it,” said Al Johnson. “After all I only have one night off a week.”

“It's like the good old days that never were,” said Charley.

They sat down at a small round table opposite the bar and ordered rye. Al Johnson suddenly waved his long forefinger across the table. “I remember when it was I met you. It was the day war was declared. We were all drunk as coots down at Little Hungary.” Charley said jeez, he'd met a lot of people that night. “Sure that's when it was,” said Al Johnson. “I never forget a face,” and he called to the waiter to make it beer chasers.

They had several more ryes with beer chasers on the strength of old times. “Why, New York's like any other dump,” Charley was saying, “it's just a village.” “Greenwich Village,” said Al Johnson.

They had a flock of whiskeys on the strength of the good old times they'd had at Little Hungary. They didn't like it at the table any more so they stood up at the bar. There were two pallid young men at the bar and a plump girl with stringy hair in a Bulgarian embroidered blouse. They were old friends of Al Johnson's. “An old newspaperman,” Al Johnson was saying, “never forgets faces . . . or names.” He turned to Charley. “Colonel, meet my very dear friends . . . Colonel . . . er . . .” Charley had put out his hand and was just about to say Anderson when Al Johnson came out with “Charles Edward Holden, meet my artistical friends. . . .”