“How much did it cost? I’ll take care of it.”
Margo shook her head. “I never loaded my relations on any man’s back,” she said.
When the waiter came in with a tray full of big silver dishes followed by a second waiter pushing in a table already set, Margo pulled apart from Charley. “Well, this is the life,” she whispered in a way that made him laugh.
Driving down was a circus. The weather was good. As they went further south there began to be a green fuzz of spring on the woods. There were flowers in the pinebarrens. Birds were singing. The car ran like a dream. Charley kept her at sixty on the concrete roads, driving carefully, enjoying the driving, the good fourwheel brakes, the easy whir of the motor under the hood. Margo was a smart girl and crazy about him and kept making funny cracks. They drank just enough to keep them feeling good. They made Savannah late that night and felt so good they got so tight there the manager threatened to run them out of the big old hotel. That was when Margo threw an ashtray through the transom.
They’d been too drunk to have much fun in bed that night and woke up with a taste of copper in their mouths and horrible heads. Margo looked haggard and green and saggy under the eyes before she went in to take her bath. Charley made her a prairie oyster for breakfast like he said the English aviators used to make over on the other side, and she threw it right up without breaking the eggyolk. She made him come and look at it in the toilet before she pulled the chain. There was the raw eggyolk looking up at them like it had just come out of the shell. They couldn’t help laughing about it in spite of their heads.
It was eleven o’clock when they pulled out. Charley drove kind of easy along the winding road through the wooded section of southern Georgia, cut with inlets and saltmarshes from which cranes flew up and once a white flock of egrets. They felt pretty pooped by the time they got to Jacksonville. Neither of them could eat anything but a lambchop washed down with some lousy gin they paid eight dollars a quart for to the colored bellboy who claimed it was the best English gin imported from Nassau the night before. They drank the gin with bitters and went to bed.
Driving down from Jax to Miami the sun was real hot. Charley wanted to have the top down to get plenty of air but Margo wouldn’t hear of it. She made him laugh about it. “A girl’ll sacrifice anything for a man except her complexion.” They couldn’t eat on the way down, though Charley kept tanking up on the gin. When they got into Miami they went right to the old Palms where Margo used to work and got a big ovation from Joe Kantor and Eddy Palermo and the boys of the band. They all said it looked like a honeymoon and kidded about seeing the marriagelicense. “Merely a chance acquaintance . . . something I picked up at the busstation in Jax,” Margo kept saying. Charley ordered the best meal they had in the house and drinks all around and champagne. They danced all evening in spite of his game leg. When he passed out they took him upstairs to Joe and Mrs. Kantor’s own room. When he began to wake up Margo was sitting fully dressed looking fresh as a daisy on the edge of the bed. It was late in the morning. She brought him up breakfast on a tray herself.
“Look here, Mr. A,” she said. “You came down here for a rest. No more nightclubs for a while. I’ve rented us a little bungalow down on the beach and we’ll put you up at the hotel to avoid the breath of scandal and you’ll like it. What we need’s the influence of the home. . . . And you and me, Mr. A, we’re on the wagon.”
The bungalow was in Spanishmission style, and cost a lot, but they sure had a good time at Miami Beach. They played the dograces and the roulettewheels and Charley got in with a bunch of allnight pokerplayers through Homer Cassidy, Senator Planet’s friend, a big smiling cultured whitehaired southerner in a baggy linen suit, who came round to the hotel to look him up. After a lot of talking about one thing and another, Cassidy got around to the fact that he was buying up options on property for the new airport and would let Charley in on it for the sake of his connections, but he had to have cash right away. At poker Charley’s luck was great, he always won enough to have a big roll of bills on him, but his bankaccount was a dog of a different stripe. He began burning up the wires to Nat Benton’s office in New York.
Margo tried to keep him from drinking; the only times he could really get a snootful were when he went out fishing with Cassidy. Margo wouldn’t go fishing, she said she didn’t like the way the fish looked at her when they came up out of the water. One day he’d gone down to the dock to go fishing with Cassidy but found that the norther that had come up that morning was blowing too hard. It was damn lucky because just as Charley was leaving the dock a Western Union messengerboy came up on his bike. The wind was getting sharper every minute and blew the chilly dust in Charley’s face as he read the telegram. It was from the senator: ADMINISTRATION PREPARES OATS FOR PEGASUS. As soon as he got back to the beach Charley talked to Benton over longdistance. Next day airplane stocks bounced when the news came over the wires of a bill introduced to subsidize airlines. Charley sold everything he had at the top, covered his margins and was sitting pretty when the afternoon papers killed the story.
A week later he started to rebuy at twenty points lower. Anyway he’d have the cash to refinance his loans and go in with Cassidy on the options. When he told Cassidy he was ready to go in with him they went out on the boat to talk things over. A colored boy made them mintjuleps. They sat in the stern with their rods and big straw hats to keep the sun out of their eyes and the juleps on a table behind them. When they got to the edge of the blue water they began to troll for sailfish.
It was a day of blue sky with big soft pinkishwhite clouds lavender underneath drifting in the sun. There was enough wind blowing against the current out in the Gulf Stream to make sharp choppy waves green where they broke and blue and purple in the trough. They followed the long streaks of mustardcolored weed but they didn’t see any sailfish. Cassidy caught a dolphin and Charley lost one. The boat pitched so that Charley had to keep working on the juleps to keep his stomach straight.
Most of the morning they cruised back and forth in front of the mouth of the Miami River. Beyond the steep dark waves they could see the still sunny brown water of the bay and against the horizon the new buildings sparkling white among a red web of girder construction. “Buildin’, that’s what I like to see,” said Homer Cassidy, waving a veined hand that had a big old gold sealring on it towards the city. “And it’s just beginnin’. . . . Why, boy, I kin remember when Miamah was the jumpin’ off place, a little collection of brokendown shacks between the railroad and the river, and I tell you the mosquitoes were fierce. There were a few crackers down here growin’ early tomatoes and layin’ abed half the time with chills and fever . . . and now look at it . . . an’ up in New York they try to tell you the boom ain’t sound.” Charley nodded without speaking. He was having a tussle with a fish on his line. His face was getting red and his hand was cramped from reeling. “Nothin’ but a small bonito,” said Cassidy. “. . . The way they try to tell you the fishin’ ain’t any good . . . that’s all propaganda for the West Coast. . . . Boy, I must admit that I saw it comin’ years ago when I was workin’ with old Flagler. There was a man with vision. . . . I went down with him on the first train that went over the overseas extension into Key West . . . I was one of the attorneys for the road at the time. Schoolchildren threw roses under his feet all the way from his private car to the carriage. . . . We had nearly a thousand men carried away in hurricanes before the line was completed . . . and now the new Miamah . . . an’ Miamah Beach, what do you think of Miamah Beach? It’s Flagler’s dream come true.”
“Well, what I’d like to do,” Charley began and stopped to take a big swig of the new julep the colored boy had just handed him. He was beginning to feel wonderful now that the little touch of seasickness had gone. Cassidy’s fishing guide had taken Charley’s rod up forward to put a new hook on it, so Charley was sitting there in the stern of the motorboat feeling the sun eat into his back and little flecks of salt spray drying on his face with nothing to do but s
ip the julep, with nothing to worry about. “Cassidy, this sure is the life . . . why can’t a guy do what he wants to with his life? I was just goin’ to say what I want to do is get out of this whole racket . . . investments, all that crap. . . . I’d like to get out with a small pile and get a house and settle down to monkeyin’ around with motors and designin’ planes and stuff like that. . . . I always thought if I could pull out with enough jack I’d like to build me a windtunnel all my own . . . you know that’s what they test out model planes in.” “Of course,” said Cassidy, “it’s aviation that’s goin’ to make Miami. . . . Think of it, eighteen, fourteen, ten hours from New York. . . . I don’t need to tell you . . . and you and me and the Senator . . . we’re right in among the foundin’ fathers with that airport. . . . Well, boy, I’ve waited all ma life to make a real killin’. All ma life I been servin’ others . . . on the bench, railroad lawyer, all that sort of thing. . . . Seems to me about time to make a pile of ma own.”
“Suppose they pick some other place, then we’ll be holdin’ the bag. After all it’s happened before,” said Charley.
“Boy, they can’t do it. You know yourself that that’s the ideal location and then . . . I oughtn’t to be tellin’ you this but you’ll find it out soon anyway . . . well, you know our Washington friend, well, he’s one of the forwardestlooking men in this country. . . . That money I put up don’t come out of Homer Cassidy’s account because Homer Cassidy’s broke. That’s what’s worryin’ me right this minute. I’m merely his agent. And in all the years I’ve been associated with Senator Planet upon ma soul and body I’ve never seen him put up a cent unless it was a sure thing.”
Charley began to grin. “Well, the old sonofabitch.” Cassidy laughed. “You know the one about a nod’s as good as a wink to a blind mule. How about a nice Virginia ham sandwich?”
They had another drink with the sandwiches. Charley got to feeling like talking. It was a swell day. Cassidy was a prince. He was having a swell time. “Funny,” Charley said, “when I first saw Miami it was from out at sea like this. I never would have thought I’d be down here shovelin’ in the dough. . . . There weren’t all those tall buildin’s then either. I was goin’ up to New York on a coastin’ boat. I was just a kid and I’d been down to New Orleans for the Mardi Gras and I tell you I was broke. I got on the boat to come up to New York and got to pallin’ with a Florida cracker . . . he was a funny guy. . . . We went upto New York together. He said the thing to do was get over an’ see the war, so him and me like a pair of damn fools we enlisted in one of those volunteer ambulance services. After that I switched to aviation. That’s how I got started in my line of business. Miami didn’t mean a thing to me then.”
“Well, Flagler gave me ma start,” said Cassidy. “And I’m not ashamed to admit it . . . buyin’ up rightofway for the Florida East Coast. . . . Flagler started me and he started Miamah.”
That night when they got in sunburned and a little drunk from the day on the Gulf Stream they tucked all the options away in the safe in Judge Cassidy’s office and went over to the Palms to relax from business cares. Margo wore her silver dress and she certainly looked stunning. There was a thin dark Irishlooking girl there named Eileen who seemed to know Cassidy from way back. The four of them had dinner together, Cassidy got good and tight and opened his mouth wide as a grouper’s talking about the big airport and saying how he was going to let the girls in on some lots on the deal. Charley was drunk, but he wasn’t too drunk to know Cassidy ought to keep his trap shut. When he danced with Eileen he talked earnestly in her ear telling her she ought to make the boyfriend keep his trap shut until the thing was made public from the proper quarters. Margo saw them with their heads together and acted the jealous bitch and started making over Cassidy to beat the cars. When Charley got her to dance with him she played dumb and wouldn’t answer when he spoke to her.
He left her at the table and went over to have some drinks at the bar. There he got into an argument with a skinny guy who looked like a cracker. Eddy Palermo, with an oily smile on his face the shape and color of an olive, ran over and got between them. “You can’t fight this gentleman, Mr. Anderson, he’s our county attorney. . . . I know you gentlemen would like each other . . . Mr. Pappy, Mr. Anderson was one of our leading war aces.”
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 dressi
ngrooms 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?”