When Charley went back into Merritt’s room he found the black eyes of the fat senator fixed on him from between the two cute bobbing hats of two pretty girls. Charley found himself saying goodby to them. The browneyed one was a blonde and the blueeyed one had very black hair. A little tang of perfume and kid gloves lingered after them when they left. “Now which would you say was the prettiest, young man?” The fat senator was standing beside him looking up at him with a tooconfidential smile. Charley felt his throat stiffen, he didn’t know why. “They’re a couple of beauties,” he said. “They leave you like the ass between two bundles of hay,” said the fat senator with a soft chuckle that played smoothly in and out of the folds of his chin.
“Buridan’s ass died of longing, senator,” said the thin senator putting the envelope back in his pocket on which he and Andy Merritt had been doping out figures of some kind. “And so do I, senator,” said the fat one, pushing back the streak of black hair from his forehead, his loose jowls shaking. “I die daily… Senator, will you dine with me and these young men? I believe old Horace is getting us up a little terrapin.” He put a small plump hand on the thin senator’s shoulder and another on Charley’s. “Sorry, senator, the missis is having some friends out at the Chevy Chase Club.” “Then I’m afraid these youngsters will have to put up with eating dinner with a pair of old fogies. I’d hoped you’d bridge the gap between the generations… General Hicks is coming.” Charley saw a faint pleased look come over Andy Merritt’s serious wellbred face. The fat senator went on with his smooth ponderous courtroom voice. “Perhaps we had better be on ourway… He’s coming at seven and those old warhorses tend to be punctual.”
A great black Lincoln was just coming to a soundless stop at the hotel entry when the four of them, Charley and Andy Merritt and Savage and the fat senator, came out into the Washington night that smelt of oil on asphalt and the exhausts of cars and of young leaves and of wisteriablossoms. The senator’s house was a continuation of his car, big and dark and faintly gleaming and soundless. They sprawled in big blackleather chairs and an old whitehaired mulatto brought around manhattans on an engraved silver tray.
The senator took each of the men separately to show them where to wash up. Charley didn’t much like the little pats on the back he got from the senator’s small padded hands as he was ushered into a big oldfashioned bathroom with a setin marble tub. When he came back from washing his hands the folding doors were open to the diningroom and a halelooking old gentleman with a white mustache and a slight limp was walking up and down in front of them impatiently. “I can smell that terrapin, Bowie,” he was saying. “Ole Horace is still up to his tricks.”
With the soup and the sherry the general began to talk from the head of the table. “Of course all this work with flyin’machines is very interestin’ for the advancement of science… I tell you, Bowie, you’re one of the last people in this town who sets a decent table… perhaps it points to vast possibilities in the distant future… But speakin’ as a military man, gentlemen, you know some of us don’t feel that they have proved their worth… The terrapin is remarkable, Bowie… I mean we don’t put the confidence in the flyin’machine that they seem to have over at the Navy Department… A good glass of burgundy, Bowie, nothin’ I like so much… Experiment is a great thing, gentlemen, and I don’t deny that perhaps in the distant future…”
“In the distant future,” echoed Savage, laughing, as he followed Merritt and Charley out from under the stone portico of Senator Planet’s house. A taxi was waiting for him. “Where can I drop you, gentlemen?… The trouble with us is we are in the distant future and don’t know it.”
“They certainly don’t know it in Washington,” said Merritt as they got into the cab. Savage giggled. “The senator and the general were pricelessly archaic… like something dug up… But don’t worry about the general… once he know she’s dealing with… you know… presentable people, he’s gentle as Santa Claus… He believes in a government of gentlemen, for gentlemen and by gentlemen.”
“Well, don’t we all?” said Merritt sternly.
Savage let out a hooting laugh. “Nature’s gentlemen… been looking for one for years.” Then he turned his bulging alcoholic eyes and his laughing pugface to Charley. “The senator thinks you’re the whiteheaded boy… He asked me to bring you around to see him… the senator is very susceptible, you know.” He let out another laugh.
The guy must be pretty tight, thought Charley. He was a little woozy himself from the Napoleon brandy drunk out of balloon-shaped glasses they’d finished off the dinner with. Savage let them out at the Waldman Park and his taxi went on. “Say, who is that guy, Andy?” “He’s a wild man,” said Merritt. “He is one of Moorehouse’s bright young men. He’s bright enough, but I don’t like the stories I hear about him. He wants the Askew-Merritt contract but we’re not in that class yet. Those publicrelations people will eat you out of house and home.”
As they were going up in the elevator Charley said, yawning, “Gee, I hoped those pretty girls were comin’ to dinner.” “Senator Planet never has women to dinner… He’s gota funny reputation… There are some funny people in this town.” “I guess there are,” said Charley. He was all in, he’d hardly got his clothes off before he was asleep.
At the end of the week Charley and Bill flew back to New York leaving Andy Merritt to negotiate contracts with the government experts. When they’d run the ship into the hangar Charley said he’d wheel Bill home to Jamaica in his car. They stopped off in a kind of hofbrau for a beer. They were hungry and Bill thought his wife would be through supper so they ate noodlesoup and schnitzels. Charley found they had some fake rhinewine and ordered it. They drank the wine and ordered another set of schnitzels. Charley was telling Bill how Andy Merritt said the government contracts were going through and Andy Merritt was always right and he’d said it was a patriotic duty to capitalize production on a broad base. “Bill, goddam it, we’ll be in the money. How about another bottle?… Good old Bill, the pilot’s nothin’ without his mechanic, the promotor’s nothin’ without production… You and me, Bill, we’re in production, and by God I’m goin’ to see we don’t lose out. If they try to rook us we’ll fight, already I’ve had offers, big offers from Detroit… in five years now we’ll be in the money and I’ll see you’re in the big money too.”
They ate applecake and then the proprietor brought out a bottle of kummel. Charley bought the bottle. “Cheaper than payin’ for it drink by drink, don’t you think so, Bill?” Bill began to start saying he was a family man and had better be getting along home. “Me,” said Charley, pouring out some kummel into a tumbler, “I haven’t got no home to go to… If she wanted she could have a home. I’d make her a wonderful home.”
Charley discovered that Bill Cermak had gone and that he was telling all this to a stout blonde lady of uncertain age with a rich German accent. He was calling her Aunt Hartmann and telling her that if he ever had a home she’d be his housekeeper. They finished up the kummel and started drinking beer. She stroked his head and called him her vandering yunge. There was an orchestra in Bavarian costume and a thicknecked man that sang. Charley wanted to yodel for the company but she pulled him back to the table. She was very strong and pushed him away with big red arms when he tried to get friendly, but when he pinched her seat she looked down into her beer and giggled. It was all like back home in the old days, he kept telling her, only louder and funnier. It was dreadfully funny until they were sitting in the car and she had her head on his shoulder and was calling him schatz and her long coils of hair had come undone and hung down over the wheel. Somehow he managed to drive.