MARGO DOWLING 2 страница. She started to get to her feet

She started to get to her feet. "Well, of all the fresh
kids." He went on in the same tone of voice. "And you
won't tell him and I won't tell him about . . . er . . ."
"But, you damn fool, that's just my exhusband.""Well,
I'm lookin' forward to bein' the exboyfriend. . . . No,
honestly, I know you'll like me . . . they all like me."
He leaned over to take her hand. His hand was icycold.
"No, honest, Margo, why's it any different from the other
night? Nobody'll know. You just leave it to me." Margo
began to giggle. "Say, Cliff, you ought to have a sign on
you.""Sayin' what?""Fresh paint."

She went over and sat beside him. Through the shaking
rumble of the train she could feel him shaking. "Why, you
funny kid," she said. "You were scared to death all the
time."

NEWSREEL LXI

High high high
Up in the hills
Watching the cloud roll by

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genius, hard work, vast resources, and the power and will
to achieve something distinctive, something more beautiful,
something more appealing to the taste and wise judgment of
the better people than are the things which have made the
Coral Gables of today, and that tomorrow may be better, big-
ger, more compellingly beautiful

High high high up in the hills

GIANT AIRSHIP BREAKS IN TWO IN
MIDFLIGHT

here young and old will gather to disport themselves in
fresh invigorating salt water, or to exchange idle gossip in the
loggias which overlook the gleaming pool, and at night the
tinkle of music will tempt you to dance the hours away

Shaking hands with the sky

It Is the Early Investor Who Will Share to the Fullest
Extent in the Large and Rapid Enhancement of Values That
Will Follow Such Characterful Development

Who's the big man with gold in his mouth?
Where does he come from? he comes from the south

TOWN SITE OF JUPITER SOLD FOR TEN MILLION DOLLARS

like Aladdin with his magic lamp, the Capitalist, the In-
vestor and the Builder converted what was once a desolate
swamp into a wonderful city linked with a network of glisten-
ing boulevards

Sleepy head sleepy head
Open your eyes
Sun's in the skies
Stop yawnin'
It's mornin'

ACRES OF GOLD NEAR TAMPA

like a magnificent shawl of sapphire and jade, studded
with a myriad of multicolored gems, the colorful waters of the
lower Atlantic weave a spell of lasting enchantment. The spot

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where your future joy, contentment and happiness is so sure
that to deviate is to pass up the outstanding opportunity of your
lifetime

MATE FOLLOWS WIFE IN LEAP FROM WINDOW
BATTLE DRUG-CRAZED KILLERS

Lulu always wants to do
What we boys don't want her to

A detachment of motorcycle police led the line of march
and cleared the way for the white-clad columns. Behind the
police rose A. P. Schneider, grand marshal. He was followed
by Mr. Sparrow's band and members of the painters' union.
The motion picture operators were next in line and the cigar
workers, the glaziers, the musicians, the signpainters and the
Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen followed in the order
named. The meat cutters brought up the rear of the first
division.

The second division was composed of more than 3,500
carpenters. The third division was led by the Clown Band and
consisted of electricians, blacksmiths, plasterers, printers, press-
men, elevator constructors, postoffice clerks and plumbers and
steamfitters.

The fourth division was led by ironworkers, brick masons,
the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, steam and operat-
ing engineers, the Typographical Union, lathers, composition
roofers, sheetmetal workers, tailors and machinists

Don't bring Lulu
I'll bring her myself

CHARLEY ANDERSON

"You watch, Cliff. . . . We'll knock 'em higher than
a kite," Charley said to his secretary, as they came out of

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the crowded elevator into the humming lobby of the
Woolworth Building. "Yessiree," said Cliff, nodding
wisely. He had a long face with a thin parchment skin
drawn tightly from under his brown felt hat over high
cheekbones and thin nose. The lipless mouth never opened
very wide above the thin jaw. He repeated out of the
corner of his mouth, "Yessiree, boddy . . . higher than a
kite."

They went through the revolving doors into the five-
o'clock crowd that packed the lower Broadway sidewalks
to the curbs in the drizzly dusk of a raw February day.
Charley pulled a lot of fat envelopes out of the pockets of
his English waterproof and handed them to Cliff. "Take
these up to the office and be sure they get into Nat Ben-
ton's personal safe. They can go over to the bank in the
mornin' . . . then you're through. Call me at nine, see?
You were a little late yesterday. . . . I'm not goin' to
worry about anythin' till then.""Yessir, get a good night's
sleep, sir," said Cliff and slid out of sight in the crowd.

Charley stopped a cruising taxicab and let himself drop
into the seat. Weather like this his leg still ached. He swal-
lowed a sigh; what the hell was the number? "Go on up-
town up Park Avenue," he yelled at the driver. He
couldn't think of the number of the damn place. . . . "To
East Fiftysecond Street. I'll show you the house." He set-
tled back against the cushions. Christ, I'm tired, he whis-
pered to himself. As he sat slumped back jolted by the
stopping and starting of the taxi in the traffic his belt cut
into his belly. He loosened the belt a notch, felt better,
brought a cigar out of his breastpocket and bit the end off.

It took him some time to light the cigar. Each time he
had the match ready the taxi started or stopped. When he
did light it it didn't taste good. "Hell, I've smoked too
much today . . . what I need's a drink," he muttered
aloud.

The taxi moved jerkily uptown. Now and then out of

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the corner of his eye he caught grey outlines of men in
other taxis and private cars. As soon as he'd made out one
group of figures another took its place. On Lafayette Street
the traffic was smoother. The whole stream of metal, glass,
upholstery, overcoats, haberdashery, flesh and blood was
moving uptown. Cars stopped, started, shifted gears in
unison as if they were run by one set of bells. Charley
sat slumped in the seat feeling the layer of fat on his belly
against his trousers, feeling the fat of his jowl against his
stiff collar. Why the hell couldn't he remember that num-
ber? He'd been there every night for a month. A vein in
his left eyelid kept throbbing.

"Bonjour, monsieur," said the plainclothes doorman.
"How do you do, mon capitaine," said Freddy the rat-
toothed proprietor, nodding a sleek black head. "Monsieur
dining with Mademoiselle tonight?" Charley shook his
head. "I have a feller coming to dinner with me at seven."
"Bien, monsieur.""Let's have a scotch and soda while I'm
waitin' and be sure it ain't that rotgut you tried to palm
off on me yesterday."

Freddy smiled wanly. "It was a mistake, Mr. Anderson.
We have the veritable pinchbottle. You see the wrappings.
It is still wet from the saltwater." Charley grunted and
dropped into an easychair in the corner of the bar.

He drank the whiskey off straight and sipped the soda
afterwards. "Hay, Maurice, bring me another," he called
to the greyhaired old wrinklefaced Swiss waiter. "Bring
me another. Make it double, see? . . . in a regular high-
ball glass. I'm tired this evenin'."

The shot of whiskey warmed his gut. He sat up
straighter. He grinned up at the waiter. "Well, Maurice,
you haven't told me what you thought about the market
today.""I'm not so sure, sir. . . . But you know, Mr.
Anderson. . . If you only wanted to you could tell me."

Charley stretched his legs out and laughed. "Flyin'

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higher than a kite, eh. . . . Oh, hell, it's a bloody chore.
I want to forget it."

By the time he saw Eddy Sawyer threading his way
towards him through the faces, the business suits, the hands
holding glasses in front of the cocktailbar, he felt good. He
got to his feet. "How's the boy, Eddy? How's things in
little old Deetroit? They all think I'm pretty much of a
sonofabitich, don't they? Give us the dirt, Eddy."

Eddy sighed and sank into the deep chair beside him.
"Well, it's a long story, Charley."

"What would you say to a bacardi with a touch of
absinthe in it? . . . All right, make it two, Maurice."

Eddy's face was yellow and wrinkled as a summer apple
that's hung too long on the tree. When he smiled the
deepening wrinkles shot out from his mouth and eyes over
his cheeks. "Well, Charley old man, it's good to see you.
. . . You know they're calling you the boy wizard of avi-
ation financing?"

"Is that all they're callin' me?" Charley tapped his dead
cigar against the brass rim of the ashtray. "I've heard
worse things than that."

By the time they'd had their third cocktail Charley got
so he couldn't stop talking. "Well, you can just tell J. Y.
from me that there was one day I could have put him out
on his ass and I didn't do it. Why didn't I do it? Because
I didn't give a goddam. I really owned my stock. They'd
hocked everythin' they had an' still they couldn't cover,
see. . . . I thought, hell, they're friends of mine. Good
old J. Y. Hell, I said to Nat Benton when he wanted me
to clean up while the cleanin' was good . . . they're
friends of mine. Let era ride along with us. An' now look
at 'em gangin' up on me with Gladys. Do you know how
much alimony Gladys got awarded her? Four thousand
dollars a month. Judge is a friend of her old man . . .
probably gets a rakeoff. Stripped me of my children . . .
every damn thing I've got they've tied up on me. . . .

-345-

Pretty, ain't it, to take a man's children away from him?
Well, Eddy, I know you had nothin' to do with it, but
when you get back to Detroit and see those yellow bastards
who had to get behind a woman's skirts because they
couldn't outsmart me any other way . . . you tell 'em.
from me that I'm out to strip 'em to their shirts every
last one of 'em. . . . I'm just beginnin' to get the hang
of this game. I've made some dust fly . . . the boy wiz-
ard, eh? . . . Well, you just tell 'em they ain't seen
nothin' yet. They think I'm just a dumb cluck of an in-
ventor . . . just a mechanic like poor old Bill Cermak.
. . . Hell, let's eat."

They were sitting at the table and the waiter was put-
ting differentcolored horsd'œon Charley's plate.
"Take it away . . . I'll eat a piece of steak, nothing else."
Eddy was eating busily. He looked up at Charley and his
face began to wrinkle into a wisecrack. "I guess it's another
case of the woman always pays."

Charley didn't laugh. " Gladys never paid for anythin'
in her life. You know just as well as I do what Gladys was
like. All of those Wheatleys are skinflints. She takes after
the old man. . . . Well, I've learned my lesson. . . .
No more rich bitches. . . . Why, a goddam whore
wouldn't have acted the way that bitch has acted. . . .
Well, you can just tell 'em, when you get back to your
employers in Detroit . . . I know what they sent you for.
. . . To see if the old boy could still take his liquor. . . .
Drinkin' himself to death, so that's the story, is it? Well,
I can still drink you under the table, good old Eddy, ain't
that so? You just tell 'em, Eddy, that the old boy's as
good as ever, a hell of a lot wiser. . . . They thought
they had him out on his can after the divorce, did they,
well, you tell em to wait an' see. An' you tell Gladys the
first time she makes a misstep . . . just once, she needn't
think I haven't got my operatives watchin' her . . . Tell
her I'm out to get the kids back, an' strip her of every god-

-346-

dam thing she's got. . . . Let her go out on the streets,
I don't give a damn."

Eddy was slapping him on the back. "Well, oldtimer,
I've got to run along. . . . Sure good to see you still rid-
ing high, wide and handsome."

"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 thea-
tertime lull. "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 tell me I been
drinkin' too much . . . I know it. . . . When everybody
you had any confidence in has rocked you all 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?"

" Hell, 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 hell wid 'em . . . doublecrossin'
bastards I call '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, hell, 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'll tell 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 calling 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 telling 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
Village. Charley was going to get all 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 all 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 callhouse, 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
bill."

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 dollars. The wops looked threatening.

"You tell us give them girls twentyfive dollar each on
account."

Charley reached for his billroll. Only a dollar. Where
the hell had his wallet gone? The young wop was playing
with a small leather blackjack he'd taken out of his back
pocket. "A century ain't high for what you spent an' the
girls an' all. . . . If you f---k around it'll 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 call up the office. I'll 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'll talk to
him. We're lettin' you out of this cheap. We don't want
no hard feelin's."

After they'd called 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
wellshaved. "Well, 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. "Well,
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 tell him some. I said you'd eaten some bad
fish and had ptomaine poisoning."

"Not so bad for a young feller. 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."

"Tell 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, hell, I'll hear about it soon enough. Tell this mas-
seur to come in."

After the massage, that was agony, especially 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 well 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 bellhop to get cracked ice for a rubber icepad to put on
his head.

He lay back on the pillows 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 call up?" Cliff shook his head. "Thank god."

"A guy called 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 pillows
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 small 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?""All right, Mr.
Anderson, you're the boss," said Cliff, screwing up his thin
mouth. "Thataboy, Cliff. . . . Then I'll try some grape-
fruitjuice and if that stays down I'll take a good breakfast
and to hell wid 'em. . . . Why aren't the papers here?"

"Here they are, Mr. Anderson . . . I've got 'em all

-351-

turned to the financial section." Charley looked over the
reports of trading. His eyes wouldn't focus very well yet.
He still did better by closing one eye. A paragraph in
News and Comment made him sit up.

"Hay, Cliff," he yelled, "did you see this?"

"Sure," said Cliff. "I said things were bad."

"But if they're goin' ahead it means Merritt and Farrell
have got their proxies sure."

Cliff nodded wisely with his head a little to one side.

"Where the hell's Benton?""He just phoned, Mr. An-
derson, he's on his way uptown now,""Hay, give me that
drink before he comes and then put all the stuff away and
order up a breakfast."

Benton came in the bedroom behind the breakfast tray.
He wore a brown suit and a derby. His face looked like
an old dishcloth in spite of his snappy clothes. Charley
spoke first, "Say, Benton, am I out on my fanny?"

Benton carefully and slowly took off his gloves and hat
and overcoat and set them on the mahogany table by the
window.

"The sidewalk is fairly well padded," he said.

"All right, Cliff. . . . Will you finish up that cor-
respondence?" Cliff closed the door behind him gently.
" Merritt outsmarted us?"

"He and Farrell are playing ball together. All you can
do is take a licking and train up for another bout."

"But damn it, Benton . . ."

Benton got to his feet and walked up and down the
room at the foot of the bed. "No use cussing at me. . . .
I'm going to do the cussing today. What do you think of a
guy who goes on a bender at a critical moment like this?
Yellow, that's what I call it. . . . You deserved what you
got . . . and I had a hell of a time saving my own hide,
I can tell you. Well, I picked you for a winner, Anderson,
and I still think that if you cut out the funny business you
could be in the real money in ten years. Now let me tell

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you something, young man, you've gone exactly as far as
you can go on your record overseas, and that was certainly
a hell of a lot further than most. As for this invention
racket . . . you know as well as I do there's no money in
it unless you have the genius for promotion needed to go
with it. You had a big initial success and thought you were
the boy'wizard and could put over any damn thing you
had a mind to."

"Hay, Nat, for Pete's sake don't you think I've got
brains enough to know that? . . . This darn divorce and
bein' in hospital so long kinder got me, that's all."

"Alibis."

"What do you think I ought to do?"

"You ought to pull out of this town for a while. . . .
How about your brother's business out in Minnesota?"
"Go back to the sticks and sell tin lizzies . . . that's a
swell future.""Where do you think Henry Ford made his
money?""I know. But he keeps his dealers broke. . . .
What I need's to get in good physical shape. I always have
a good time in Florida. I might go down there and lay
around in the sun for a month."

"O.K. if you keep out of that landboom."

"Sure, Nat, I won't even play poker . . . I'm goin'
down there for a rest. Get my leg in real good shape.
Then when I come back we'll see the fur fly. After' all
there's still that Standard Airparts stock."

"No longer listed."

"Check."

"Well, optimist, my wife's expecting me for lunch.
. . . Have a good trip."

Benton went out. "Hay, Cliff," Charley called through
the door. "Tell 'em to come and get this damn breakfast
tray. It didn't turn out so well. And phone Parker to get
the car in shape. Be sure the tires are all O.K. I'm pullin'
out for Florida Monday."