Big Money by John Dos Passos Page B

asphalt street where cars shuttled back and forth.
    â€œLook here, Charley, snap out of it.” Jim’s voice behind him took on a pleading singsong tone. “You know the proposition Ford has put
up to his dealers. . . . It’s sink or swim for me. . . . But as an investment it’s the chance of a lifetime. . . . The cars are there. . . . You can’t lose, even if the company folds up.”
    Charley turned around. “Jim,” he said mildly, “I don’t want to argue about it. . . . I want to get my share of what Ma left in cash as soon as you and Mr. Goldberg can fix it up. . . . I got somethin’ about airplane motors that’ll make any old Ford agency look like thirty cents.”
    â€œBut I want to put Ma’s money in on a sure thing. The Ford car is the safest investment in the world, isn’t that so, Mr. Goldberg?”
    â€œYou certainly see them everywhere. Perhaps the young man would wait and think things over a little. . . . I can make the preliminary steps . . .”
    â€œPreliminary nothing. I want to get what I can out right now. If you can’t do it I’ll go and get another lawyer who will.”
    Charley picked up his hat and coat and walked out.
    Next morning Charley turned up at breakfast in his overalls as usual. Jim told him he didn’t want him doing any work in his business, seeing the way he felt about it. Charley went back upstairs to his room and lay down on the bed. When Hedwig came in to make it up she said, “Oh, are you still here?” and went out slamming the door after her. He could hear her slamming and banging things around the house as she and Aunt Hartmann did the housework.
    About the middle of the morning Charley went down to where Jim sat worrying over his books at the desk in the office. “Jim, I want to talk to you.” Jim took off his glasses and looked up at him. “Well, what’s on your mind?” he asked, cutting off his words the way he had. Charley said he’d sign a power of attorney for Jim if he’d lend him five hundred dollars right away. Then maybe later if the airplane proposition looked good he’d let Jim in on it. Jim made a sour face at that. “All right,” said Charley. “Make it four hundred. I got to get out of this dump.”
    Jim rose to his feet slowly. He was so pale Charley thought he must be sick. “Well, if you can’t get it into your head what I’m up against . . . you can’t and to hell with you. . . . All right, you and me are through. . . . He dwig will have to borrow it at the bank in her name. . . . I’m up to my neck.”
    â€œFix it any way you like,” said Charley. “I got to get out of here.”
    It was lucky the phone rang when it did or Charley and Jim would have taken a poke at each other. Charley answered it. It was Emiscah.
She said she’d been over in St. Paul and had seen him on the street yesterday and that he’d just said he was going to be out of town to give her the air, and he had to come over tonight or she didn’t know what she’d do, he wouldn’t want her to kill herself, would he? He got all balled up, what with rowing with Jim and everything and ended by telling her he’d come. By the time he was through talking Jim had walked into the salesroom and was chinning with a customer, all smiles.
    Going over on the trolley he decided he’d tell her he’d got married to a French girl during the war but when he got up to her flat he didn’t know what to say, she looked so thin and pale. He took her out to a dancehall. It made him feel bad how happy she acted, as if everything was fixed up again between them. When he left her he made a date for the next week.
    Before that day came he was off for Chi. He didn’t begin to feel really good until he’d transferred