He felt fine and was all cleaned up, had been asleep in a barberchair while the barber shaved him and put an icebag on his black eye, and he had gone back to Frank and Joe’s for a pickup when there was Nat Benton. Good old Nat was worried asking him about his black eye and he was showing Nat where he’d skinned his knuckles on the guy, but Nat kept talking about the business and Askew-Merritt and Standard Airparts and said Charley’d be out on the sidewalk if it wasn’t for him. They had some drinks but Nat kept talking about buttermilk and wanted Charley to come around to the hotel and meet Farrell. Farrell thought Charley was about the best guy in the world, and Farrell was the coming man in the industry, you could bet your bottom dollar on Farrell. And right away there was Farrell and Charley was showing him his knuckle and telling him he’d socked the guy in that lousy pokergame and how he’d have cleaned ’em all up if somebody hadn’t batted him back of the ear with a stocking full of sand. Detroit, sure. He was ready to go to Detroit any time, Detroit or anywhere else. Goddam it, a guy don’t like to stay in a town where he’s just been rolled. And that damn highyaller had his pocketbook with all his addresses in it. Papers? Sure. Sign anythin’ you like, anythin’ Nat says. Stock, sure. Swop every last share. What the hell would a guy want stock for in a plant in a town where he’d been rolled in a clipjoint. Detroit, sure, right away. Nat, call a taxi, we’re goin’ to Detroit.
Then they were back at the apartment and Taki was chattering and Nat attended to everything and Farrell was saying, “I’d hate to see the other guy’s eye,” and Charley could sign his name all right this time. First time he signed it on the table but then he got it on the contract, and Nat fixed it all up about swapping his Askew-Merritt stock for Tern stock and then Nat and Farrell said Charley must be sleepy and Taki kept squeaking about how he had to take right away a hot bath.
Charley woke up the next morning feeling sober and dead like a stiff laid out for the undertaker. Taki brought him orangejuice but he threw it right up again. He dropped back on the pillow. He’d told Taki not to let anybody in, but there was Joe Askew standing at the foot of the bed. Joe looked paler than usual and had a worried frown like at the office, and was pulling at his thin blond mustache. He didn’t smile. “How are you coming?” he said.
“Soso,” said Charley.
“So it’s the Tern outfit, is it?”
“Joe, I can’t stay in New York now. I’m through with this burg.”
“Through with a lot of other things, it looks like to me.”
“Joe, honest I wouldn’ta done it if I hadn’t had to get out of this town… and I put as much into this as you did, some people think a little more.”
Joe’s thin lips were clamped firmly together. He started to say something, stopped himself and walked stiffly out of the room.
“Taki,” called Charley, “try squeezin’ out half a grapefruit, will you?”
Newsreel LVI
his first move was to board a fast train for Miami to see whether the builders engaged in construction financed by his corporation were speeding up the work as much as they might and to take a look at things in general
Pearly early in the mornin’
LUTHERANS DROP HELL FOR HADES
Oh joy
Feel that boat arockin’
Oh boy
See those darkies flockin’
What’s that whistle sayin’
All aboard toot toot
AIR REJECTION BLAMED FOR WARSHIP DISASTER
You’re in Ken-tucky just as sure as you’re born
LINER AFIRE
POSSE CLOSING IN ON AIRMAIL BANDITS
Down beside the summer sea
Along Miami Shore
Some one waits alone for me
Along Miami Shore
SINCE THIS TIME YESTERDAY NEARLY TWO THOUSAND MEN
HAVE CHANGED TO CHESTERFIELDS
PEACHES FLED WITH FEW CLOTHES
Saw a rosebud in a store
So I’m goin’ where there’s more
Good-bye blues
the three whites he has with him appear to be of primitive Nordic stock. Physically they are splendid creatures. They have fine flaxen hair, blue-green eyes and white skins. The males are covered with a downlike hair
Let me lay me down to sleep in Carolina
With a peaceful pillow ’neath my weary head
For a rolling stone like me there’s nothing finer
Oh Lordy what a thrill
To hear that whip-poor-will
In Carolina
The Camera Eye (48)
westbound to Havana Puerto-Mexico Galveston out of Santander (the glassy estuary the feeling of hills hemming the moist night an occasional star drips chilly out of the rainy sky a row of lights spills off the muffled shore) the twinscrews rumble
at last westbound away from pension spinsters tasty about watercolors the old men with crocodile eyes hiding their bloody claws under neat lisle gloves the landscapes corroded with literature westbound
for an old man he is old
for an old man he is grey
but a young man’s heart is full of love
get away old man get away
at the dinnertable westbound in the broadlit saloon the amplybosomed broadbeamed la bella cubana in a yellow lowcut dress archly with the sharp rosy nail of her littlest finger points
the curlyhaired young bucks from Bilbao (louder and funnier) in such tightwaisted icecreamcolored suits silk shirts striped ties (westbound to Havana for the sugarboom) the rich one has a diamond ring tooshiny eyes look the way her little finger jabs
but a young man’s heart is full of love
she whispers He came out of her cabin when I was on the way to the bath Why was she giggling in number sixtysix? the rich one from Bilbao orders champagne
to echo the corks that pop in an artillery salute from the long table where the Mexican general tall solemnfaced with a black mustache and five tall solemnfaced bluejowled sons a fat majordomo and a sprinkling of blank henshaped ladies who rustle out hurriedly in black silk with their handkerchiefs to their mouths as soon as we round the cape where the lighthouse is
westbound (out of old into new inordinate new undeciphered new) southerly summertime crossing (towards events) the roar in the ears the deep blue heaving the sun hot on the back of your hand the feel of wet salt on the handrails the smell of brasspolish and highpressure steam the multitudinous flickering dazzle of light
and every noon we overeat hors d’œuvres drink too much wine while gigglingly with rolling eyes la bella to indicate who slept with who sharply jabs with littlest pinsharpened finger