He had the fixings for oldfashioneds in the kitchenette and a plate of sandwiches. He brought them in and set them out on the round wicker table. Doris bit into several sandwiches before she decided which she liked best. “Why, your Jap must be quite an artist, Charley,” she said.
“They’re a clever little people,” said Charley.
“Everything’s lovely, Charley, except this light hurts my eyes.”
When he switched off the lights the window was brightblue. The lights and shadows of the taxis moving up and down the snowy street and the glare from the stores opposite made shifting orange oblongs on the ceiling. “Oh, it’s wonderful here,” said Doris. “Look how oldtimy the street looks with all the ruts in the snow.”
Charley kept refilling the oldfashioneds with whiskey. He got her to take her dress off. “You know you told me about how dresses cost money.” “Oh, you big silly… Charley, do you like me a little bit?” “What’s the use of talking… I’m absolutely cuckoo about you… you know I want us to be always together. I want us to get mar—” “Don’t spoil everything, this is so lovely, I never thought anything could be like this… Charley, you’re taking precautions, aren’t you?” “Sure thing,” said Charley through clenched teeth and went to his bureau for a condom.
At seven o’clock she got dressed in a hurry, said she had a dinner engagement and would be horribly late. Charley took her down and put her in a taxi. “Now, darling,” he said, “we won’t talk about what I said. We’ll just do it.” Walking back up the steep creaky stairs he could taste her mouth, her hair, his head was bursting with the perfume she used. A chilly bitter feeling was getting hold of him, like the feeling of seasickness. “Oh, Christ,” he said aloud and threw himself face down on the windowseat.
The apartment and Taki and the bootlegger and the payments on his car and the flowers he sent Doris every day all ran into more money than he expected every month. As soon as he made a deposit in the bank he drew it out again. He owned a lot of stock but it wasn’t paying dividends. At Christmas he had to borrow five hundred bucks from Joe Askew to buy Doris a present. She’d told him he mustn’t give her jewelry, so he asked Taki what he thought would be a suitable present for a very rich and beautiful young lady and Taki had said a silk kimono was very suitable, so Charley went out and bought her a mandarincoat. Doris made a funny face when she saw it, but she kissed him with a little quick peck in the corner of the mouth, because they were at her mother’s, and said in a singsongy tone, “Oh, what a sweet boy.”
Mrs. Humphries had asked him for Christmas dinner. The house smelt of tinsel and greens, there was a lot of tissuepaper and litter on the chairs. The cocktails were weak and everybody stood around, Nat and Sally Benton, and some nephews and nieces of Mrs. Humphries’, and her sister Eliza who was very deaf, and George Duquesne who would talk of nothing but wintersports, waiting for the midafternoon dinner to be announced. People seemed sour and embarrassed, except Ollie Taylor who was just home from Italy full of the Christmas spirit. He spent most of the time out in the pantry with his coat off manufacturing what he called an oldtime Christmas punch. He was so busy at it that it was hard to get him to the table for dinner. Charley had to spend all his time taking care of him and never got a word with Doris all day. After dinner and the Christmas punch he had to take Ollie back to his club. Ollie was absolutely blotto and huddled fat and whitefaced in the taxi, bubbling “Damn good Christmas” over and over again.
When he’d put Ollie in the hands of the doorman Charley couldn’t decide whether to go back to the Humphries’ where he’d be sure to find Doris and George with their heads together over some damnfool game or other or to go up to the Askews’ as he’d promised to. Bill Cermak had asked him out to take a look at the bohunks in Jamaica but he guessed it wouldn’t be the thing, he’d said. Charley said sure he’d come, anyplace to get away from the stuffedshirts. From the Penn station he sent a wire wishing the Askews a Merry Christmas. Sure the Askews would understand he had to spend his Christmas with Doris. On the empty train to Jamaica he got to worrying about Doris, maybe he oughtn’t to have left her with that guy.
Out in Jamaica Bill Cermak and his wife and their elderly inlaws and friends were all tickled and a little bit fussed by Charley’s turning up. It was a small frame house with a green papertile roof in a block of identical little houses with every other roof red and every other roof green. Mrs. Cermak was a stout blonde a little fuddled from the big dinner and the wine that had brought brightred spots to her cheeks. She made Charley eat some of the turkey and the plum-pudding they’d just taken off the table. Then they made hot wine with cloves in it and Bill played tunes on the pianoaccordion while everybody danced and the kids yelled and beat on drums and got underfoot.
When Charley said he had to go Bill walked to the station with him. “Say, boss, we sure do appreciate your comin’ out,” began Bill. “Hell, I ain’t no boss,” said Charley. “I belong with the mechanics… don’t I, Bill? You and me, Bill, the mechanics against the world… and when I get married you’re comin’ to play that damned accordeen of yours at the weddin’… get me, Bill… it may not be so long.” Bill screwed up his face and rubbed his long crooked nose. “Women is fine once you got ’em pinned down, boss, but when they ain’t pinned down they’re hell.” “I got her pinned down, I got her pinned down all right so she’s got to marry me to make an honest man of me.” “Thataboy,” said Bill Cermak. They stood laughing and shaking hands on the drafty station platform till the Manhattan train came in.
During the automobile show Nat called up one day to say Farrell who ran the Tern outfit was in town and wanted to see Charley and Charley told Nat to bring him around for a cocktail in the afternoon. This time he got Taki to stay.
James Yardly Farrell was a roundfaced man with sandygray hair and a round bald head. When he came in the door he began shouting, “Where is he? Where is he?” “Here he is,” said Nat Benton, laughing. Farrell pumped Charley’s hand. “So this is the guy with the knowhow, is it? I’ve been trying to get hold of you for months… ask Nat if I haven’t made his life miserable… Look here, how about coming out to Detroit… Long Is land City’s no place for a guy like you. We need your know how out there… and what we need we’re ready to pay for.”
Charley turned red. “I’m pretty well off where I am, Mr. Farrell.”
“How much do you make?”
“Oh, enough for a young feller.”
“We’ll talk about that… but don’t forget that in a new industry like ours the setup changes fast… We got to keep our eyes openor we’ll get left… Well, we’ll let it drop for the time being… But I can tell you one thing, Anderson, I’m not going to stand by and see this industry ruined by being broken up in a lot of little onehorse units all cutting each other’s throats. Don’t you think it’s better for us to sit around the table and cut the cake in a spirit of friendship and mutual service, and I tell you, young man, it’s going to be a whale of a big cake.” He let his voice drop to a whisper.
Taki, with his yellow face drawn into a thin diplomatic smile, came around with a tray of bacardi cocktails. “No, thanks, I don’t drink,” said Farrell. “Are you a bachelor, Mr. Anderson?”
“Well, something like that… I don’t guess I’ll stay that way long.”
“You’d like it out in Detroit, honestly… Benton tells me you’re from Minnesota.”