Pat was dancing with a pale pretty mulatto girl in a yellow dress. Dick was dancing with a softhanded brown boy in a tightfitting suit the color of his skin. The boy was whispering in Dick’s ear that his name was Gloria Swanson. Dick suddenly broke away from him and went over to Pat and pulled her away from the girl. Then he ordered drinks all around that changed sullen looks into smiles again. He had trouble getting Pat into her coat. The fat woman was very helpful. “Sure, honey,” she said, “you don’t want to go on drinkin’ tonight, spoil your lovely looks.” Dick hugged her and gave her a ten-dollar bill.
In the taxi Pat had hysterics and punched and bit at him when he held her tight to try to keep her from opening the door and jumping out into the snow. “You spoil everything… You can’t think of anybody except yourself,” she yelled. “You’ll never go through with anything.” “But, Pat, honestly,” he was whining. “I thought it was time to draw the line.” By the time the taxi drew up in front of the big square apartmenthouse on Park Avenue where she lived she was sobbing quietly on his shoulder. He took her into the elevator and kissed her for a long time in the upstairs hall before he’d let her put the key in the lock of her door. They stood there tottering clinging to each other rubbing up against each other through their clothes until Dick heard the swish of the rising elevator and opened her door for her and pushed her in.
When he got outside the door he found the taxi waiting for him. He’d forgotten to pay the driver. He couldn’t stand to go home. He didn’t feel drunk, he felt immensely venturesome and cool and innocently excited. Patricia Doolittle he hated more than anybody in the world. “The bitch,” he kept saying aloud. He wondered how it would be to go back to the dump and see what happened and there he was being kissed by the fat woman who wiggled her breasts as she hugged him and called him her own lovin’ chile, with a bottle of gin in his hand pouring drinks for everybody and dancing cheek to cheek with Gloria Swanson who was humming in his ear: Do I get it now… or must I he… esitate.
It was morning. Dick was shouting the party couldn’t break up, they must all come to breakfast with him. Everybody was gone and he was getting into a taxicab with Gloria and a strapping black buck he said was his girlfriend Florence. He had a terrible time getting his key in the lock. He tripped and fell towards the paleblue light seeping through his mother’s lace curtains in the windows. Something very soft tapped him across the back of the head.
He woke up undressed in his own bed. It was broad daylight. The phone was ringing. He let it ring. He sat up. He felt lightheaded but not sick. He put his hand to his ear and it came away all bloody. It must have been a stocking full of sand that hit him. He got to his feet. He felt tottery but he could walk. His head began to ache like thunder. He reached for the place on the table he usually left his watch. No watch. His clothes were neatly hung on a chair. He found the wallet in its usual place, but the roll of bills was gone. He sat down on the edge of the bed. Of all the damn fools. Never never never take a risk like that again. Now they knew his name his address his phonenumber. Blackmail, oh, Christ. How would it be when Mother came home from Florida to find her son earning twentyfive thousand a year, junior partner of J. Ward Moorehouse being blackmailed by two nigger whores, male prostitutes receiving males? Christ. And Pat Doolittle and the Bingham girls. It would ruin his life. For a second he thought of going into the kitchenette and turning on the gas.
He pulled himself together and took a bath. Then he dressed carefully and put on his hat and coat and went out. It was only nine o’clock. He saw the time in a jeweler’s window on Lexington. There was a mirror in the same window. He looked at his face. Didn’t look so bad, would look worse later, but he needed a shave and had to do something about the clotted blood on his ear.
He didn’t have any money but he had his checkbook. He walked to a Turkish bath near the Grand Central. The attendants kidded him about what a fight he’d been in. He began to get over his scare a little and to talk big about what he’d done to the other guy. They took his check all right and he even was able to buy a drink to have before his breakfast. When he got to the office his head was still splitting but he felt in fair shape. He had to keep his hands in his pockets so that Miss Hilles shouldn’t see how they shook. Thank God he didn’t have to sign any letters till afternoon.
Ed Griscolm came in and sat on his desk and talked about J.W.’s condition and the Bingham account and Dick was sweet as sugar to him. Ed Griscolm talked big about an offer he’d had from Halsey, but Dick said of course he couldn’t advise him but that as for him the one place in the country he wanted to be was right here, especially now as there were bigger things in sight than there had ever been before, he and J.W. had had a long talk going down on the train. “I guess you’re right,” said Ed. “I guess it was sour grapes a little.” Dick got to his feet. “Honestly, Ed, old man, you mustn’t think for a minute J.W. doesn’t appreciate your work. He even let drop something about a raise.” “Well, it was nice of you to put in a word for me, old man,” said Ed and they shook hands warmly.
As Ed was leaving the office he turned and said, “Say, Dick, I wish you’d give that youngster Talbot a talking to… I know he’s a friend of yours so I don’t like to do it, but Jesus Christ, he’s gone and called up again saying he’s in bed with the grippe. That’s the third time this month.”
Dick wrinkled up his brows. “I don’t know what to do about him, Ed. He’s a nice kid all right but if he won’t knuckle down to serious work… I guess we’ll have to let him go. We certainly can’t let drinking acquaintance stand in the way of the efficiency of the office. These kids all drink too much anyway.”
After Ed had gone Dick found on his desk a big lavender envelope marked Personal. A whiff of strong perfume came out when he opened it. It was an invitation from Myra Bingham to come to the housewarming of her studio on Central Park South. He was still reading it when Miss Hilles’ voice came out of the interoffice phone. “There’s Mr. Henry B. Furness of the Furness Corporation says he must speak to Mr. Moorehouse at once.” “Put him on my phone, Miss Hilles. I’ll talk to him… and, by the way, put a social engagement on my engagement pad… January fifteen that five o’clock… reception Miss Myra Bingham, 36 Central Park South.”
Newsreel LXVIII
WALL STREET STUNNED
This is not Thirty-eight but it’s old Ninety-seven
You must put her in Center on time
MARKET SURE TO RECOVER FROM SLUMP
Decline in Contracts
POLICE TURN MACHINE GUNS
ON COLORADO MINE STRIKERS
KILL 5 WOUND 40
sympathizers appeared on the scene just as thousands of office workers were pouring out of the buildings at the lunch hour. As they raised their placard high and started an indefinite march from one side to the other, they were jeered and hooted not only by the office workers but also by workmen on a building under construction
NEW METHODS OF SELLING SEEN
Rescue Crews Try To Upend Ill-fated Craft While Waiting For Pontoons
He looked ’round an’ said to his black greasy fireman
Jus’ shovel in a little more coal
And when we cross that White Oak Mountain