They dropped their fists and stood glaring at each other with the little wop nodding and grinning between them. Charley put out his hand. “All right, put it there, pal,” he said. The county attorney gave him a mean look and put his hands in his pockets. “County attorney s — t,” said Charley. He was reeling. He had to put his hand against the wall to steady himself. And he turned and walked out the door. Outside he found Eileen who’d just come out of the ladies’ room and was patting back her sleek hair in front of the mirror by the hatchecking stand. He felt choked with the whiskey and the cigarsmoke and the throbbing hum of the band and the shuffle of feet. He had to get outdoors. “Come on, girlie, we’re goin’ for a ride, get some air.” Before the girl could open her mouth he’d dragged her out to the parkinglot. “Oh, but I don’t think we ought to leave the others,” she kept saying. “They’re too goddam drunk to know. I’ll bring you back in five minutes. A little air does a little girl good, especially a pretty little girl like you.”
The gears shrieked because he didn’t have the clutch shoved out. The car stalled; he started the motor again and immediately went into high. The motor knocked for a minute but began to gather speed. “See,” he said, “not a bad little bus.” As he drove he talked out of the corner of his mouth to Eileen. “That’s the last time I go into that dump… Those little cracker politicians fresh out of the turpentine camps can’t get fresh with me. I can buy and sell ’em too easy like buyin’ a bag of peanuts. Like that bastard Farrell. I’ll buy and sell him yet. You don’t know who he is but all you need to know is he’s a crook, one of the biggest crooks in the country, an’ he thought, the whole damn lot of ’em thought, they’d put me out like they did poor old Joe Askew. But the man with the knowhow, the boy who thinks up the gadgets, they can’t put him out. I can outsmart ’em at their own game too. We got somethin’ bigger down here than they ever dreamed of. And the Administration all fixed up. This is goin’ to be big, little girl, the biggest thing you ever saw and I’m goin’ to let you in on it. We’ll be on easystreet from now on. And when you’re on easystreet you’ll all forget poor old Charley Anderson the boy that put you wise.”
“Oh, it’s so cold,” moaned Eileen. “Let’s go back. I’m shivering.” Charley leaned over and put his arm round her shoulders. As he turned the car swerved. He wrenched it back onto the concrete road again. “Oh, please do be careful, Mr. Anderson… You’re doing eightyfive now… Oh, don’t scare me, please.”
Charley laughed. “My, what a sweet little girl. Look, we’re down to forty just bowlin’ pleasantly along at forty. Now we’ll turn and go back, it’s time little chickens were in bed. But you must never be scared in a car when I’m driving. If there’s one thing I can do it’s drive a car. But I don’t like to drive a car. Now if I had my own ship here. How would you like to take a nice trip in a plane? I’d a had it down here before this but it was in hock for the repair bills. Had to put a new motor in. But now I’m on easystreet. I’ll get one of the boys to fly it down to me. Then we’ll have a real time. You an’ me an’ Margo. Old Margo’s a swell girl, got an awful temper though. That’s one thing I can do, I know how to pick the women.”
When they turned to run back towards Miami they saw the long streak of the dawn behind the broad barrens dotted with dead pines and halfbuilt stucco houses and closed servicestations and dogstands.
“Now the wind’s behind us. We’ll have you back before you can say Jack Robinson.” They were running along beside a railroad track. They were catching up on two red lights. “I wonder if that’s the New York train.” They were catching up on it, past the lighted observation car, past the sleepers with no light except through the groundglass windows of the dressingrooms at the ends of the cars. They were creeping up on the baggagecar and mailcars and the engine, very huge and tall and black with a little curling shine from Charley’s headlights in the dark. The train had cut off the red streak of the dawn. “Hell, they don’t make no speed.” As they passed the cab the whistle blew. “Hell, I can beat him to the crossin’.” The lights of the crossing were ahead of them and the long beam of the engine’s headlight, that made the red and yellow streak of the dawn edging the clouds very pale and far away. The bar was down at the crossing. Charley stepped on the gas. They crashed through the bar, shattering their headlights. The car swerved around sideways. Their eyes were full of the glare of the locomotive headlight and the shriek of the whistle. “Don’t be scared, we’re through,” Charley yelled at the girl. The car swerved around on the tracks and stalled.
He was jabbing at the starter with his foot. The crash wasn’t anything. When he came to he knew right away he was in a hospital. First thing he began wondering if he was going to have a hangover. He couldn’t move. Everything was dark. From way down in a pit he could see the ceiling. Then he could see the peak of a nurse’s cap and a nurse leaning over him. All the time he was talking. He couldn’t stop talking.
“Well, I thought we were done for. Say, nurse, where did we crack up? Was it at the airport? I’d feel better if I could remember. It was this way, nurse… I’d taken that little girl up to let her get the feel of that new Boeing ship… you know the goldarned thing… I was sore as hell at somebody, must have been my wife, poor old Gladys, did she give me a dirty deal? But now after this airport deal I’ll be buyin’ an’ sellin’ the whole bunch of them. Say, nurse, what happened? Was it at the airport?”
The nurse’s face and her hair were yellow under the white cap. She had a thin face without lips and thin hands that went past his eyes to smooth the sheet under his chin.
“You must try and rest,” she said. “Or else I’ll have to give you another hypodermic.”
“Say, nurse, are you a Canadian? I bet you’re a Canadian.”
“No, I’m from Tennessee… Why?”
“My mistake. You see always when I’ve been in a hospital before the nurses have been Canadians. Isn’t it kinder dark in here? I wish I could tell you how it happened. Have they called the office? I guess maybe I drink too much. After this I attend strictly to business. I tell you a man has to keep his eyes open in this game… Say, can’t you get me some water?”
“I’m the night nurse. It isn’t day yet. You try and get some sleep.”
“I guess they’ve called up the office. I’d like Stauch to take a look at the ship before anything’s touched. Funny, nurse. I don’t feel much pain, but I feel so terrible.”
“That’s just the hypodermics,” said the nurse’s brisk low voice. “Now you rest quietly and in the morning you’ll wake up feeling a whole lot better. You can only rinse out your mouth with this.”
“Check.”
He couldn’t stop talking. “You see it was this way. I had some sort of a wrangle with a guy. Are you listenin’, nurse? I guess I’ve got a kind of a chip on my shoulder since they’ve been gangin’ up on me so. In the old days I used to think everybody was a friend of mine, see. Now I know they’re all crooks… even Gladys, she turned out the worst crook of the lot… I guess it’s the hangover makes me so terribly thirsty.”
The nurse was standing over him again. “I’m afraid we’ll have to give you a little of the sleepy stuff, brother… Now just relax. Think of somethin’ nice. That’s a good boy.”