John Passos - Manhattan transfer

‘Mother made us stop because you kicked little Billy Schmutz in the funnybone an made him cry.’

‘Spose we go down an look at the trains,’ put in Jimmy.

‘We’re not allowed to go down stairs after dark,’ said Maisie severely.

‘I’ll tell you what lets play stock exchange… I’ve got a million dollars in bonds to sell and Maisie can be the bulls an Jimmy can be the bears.’

‘All right, what do we do?’

‘Oh juss run round an yell mostly… I’m selling short.’

‘All right Mr Broker I’ll buy em all at five cents each.’

‘No you cant say that… You say ninetysix and a half or something like that.’

‘I’ll give you five million for them,’ cried Maisie waving the blotter of the writing desk.

‘But you fool, they’re only worth one million,’ shouted Jimmy.

Maisie stood still in her tracks. ‘Jimmy what did you say then?’ Jimmy felt shame flame up through him; he looked at his stubby shoes. ‘I said, you fool.’

‘Haven’t you ever been to Sunday School? Don’t you know that God says in the Bible that if you call anybody Thou fool you’ll be in danger of hellfire?’

Jimmy didn’t dare raise his eyes.

‘Well I’m not going to play any more,’ said Maisie drawing herself up. Jimmy somehow found himself out in the hall. He grabbed his hat and ran out the door and down the six flights of white stone stairs past the brass buttons and chocolate livery of the elevator boy, out through the hall that had pink marble pillars in to Seventysecond Street. It was dark and blowy, full of ponderous advancing shadows and chasing footsteps. At last he was climbing the familiar crimson stairs of the hotel. He hurried past his mother’s door. They’d ask him why he had come home so soon. He burst into his own room, shot the bolt, doublelocked the door and stood leaning against it panting.

‘Well are you married yet?’ was the first thing Congo asked when Emile opened the door to him. Emile was in his undershirt. The shoebox-shaped room was stuffy, lit and heated by a gas crown with a tin cap on it.

‘Where are you in from this time?’

‘Bizerta and Trondjeb… I’m an able seaman.’

‘That’s a rotten job, going to sea… I’ve saved two hundred dollars. I’m working at Delmonico’s.’

They sat down side by side on the unmade bed. Congo produced a package of gold tipped Egyptian Deities. ‘Four months’ pay’; he slapped his thigh. ‘Seen May Sweitzer?’ Emile shook his head. ‘I’ll have to find the little son of a gun… In those goddam Scandinavian ports they come out in boats, big fat blond women in bumboats…’

They were silent. The gas hummed. Congo let his breath out in a whistle. ‘Whee… C’est chic ça, Delmonico… Why haven’t you married her?’

‘She likes to have me hang around… I’d run the store better than she does.’

‘You’re too easy; got to use rough stuff with women to get anything outa them… Make her jealous.’

‘She’s got me going.’

‘Want to see some postalcards?’ Congo pulled a package, wrapped in newspaper out of his pocket. ‘Look these are Naples; everybody there wants to come to New York… That’s an Arab dancing girl. Nom d’une vache they got slippery bellybuttons…’

‘Say, I know what I’ll do,’ cried Emile suddenly dropping the cards on the bed. ‘I’ll make her jealous…’

‘Who?’

‘Ernestine… Madame Rigaud…’

‘Sure walk up an down Eighth Avenue with a girl a couple of times an I bet she’ll fall like a ton of bricks.’

The alarmclock went off on the chair beside the bed. Emile jumped up to stop it and began splashing water on his face in the washbasin.

‘Merde I got to go to work.’

‘I’ll go over to Hell’s Kitchen an see if I can find May.’

‘Don’t be a fool an spend all your money,’ said Emile who stood at the cracked mirror with his face screwed up, fastening the buttons in the front of a clean boiled shirt.

‘It’s a sure thing I’m tellin yer,’ said the man again and again, bringing his face close to Ed Thatcher’s face and rapping the desk with his flat hand.

‘Maybe it is Viler but I seen so many of em go under, honest I dont see how I can risk it.’

‘Man I’ve hocked the misses’s silver teaset and my diamond ring an the baby’s mug… It’s a sure sure thing… I wouldn’t let you in on it, xept you an me’s been pretty good friends an I owe you money an everythin… You’ll make twentyfive percent on your money by tomorrow noon… Then if you want to hold you can on a gamble, but if you sell three quarters and hold the rest two or three days on a chance you’re as safe as… as the Rock of Gibraltar.’

‘I know Viler, it certainly sounds good…’

‘Hell man you dont want to be in this damned office all your life, do you? Think of your little girl.’

‘I am, that’s the trouble.’

‘But Ed, Gibbons and Swandike had started buying already at three cents when the market closed this evening… Klein got wise an’ll be right there with bells on first thing in the morning. The market’ll go crazy on it…’

‘Unless the fellers doin the dirty work change their minds. I know that stuff through and through, Viler… Sounds like a topnotch proposition… But I’ve examined the books of too many bankrupts.’

Viler got to his feet and threw his cigar into the cuspidor. ‘Well do as you like, damn it all… I guess you must like commuting from Hackensack an working twelve hours a day…’

‘I believe in workin my way up, that’s all.’

‘What’s the use of a few thousands salted away when you’re old and cant get any satisfaction? Man I’m goin in with both feet.’

‘Go to it Viler… You tellem,’ muttered Thatcher as the other man stamped out slamming the office door.

The big office with its series of yellow desks and hooded typewriters was dark except for the tent of light in which Thatcher sat at a desk piled with ledgers. The three windows at the end were not curtained. Through them he could see the steep bulk of buildings scaled with lights and a plankshaped bit of inky sky. He was copying memoranda on a long sheet of legal cap.

Fan Tan Import and Export Company (statement of assets and liabilities up to and including February 29)… Branches New York, Shanghai, Hongkong and Straights Settlements…

Balance carried over $345,789.84

Real Estate $500,087.12

Profit and Loss $399,765.90

‘A bunch of goddam crooks,’ growled Thatcher out loud. ‘Not an item on the whole thing that aint faked. I dont believe they’ve got any branches in Hongkong or anywhere…’

He leaned back in his chair and stared out of the window. The buildings were going dark. He could just make out a star in the patch of sky. Ought to go out an eat, bum for the digestion to eat irregularly like I do. Suppose I’d taken a plunge on Viler’s red hot tip. Ellen, how do you like these American Beauty roses? They have stems eight feet long, and I want you to look over the itinerary of the trip abroad I’ve mapped out to finish your education. Yes it will be a shame to leave our fine new apartment looking out over Central Park… And downtown; The Fiduciary Accounting Institute, Edward C. Thatcher, President… Blobs of steam were drifting up across the patch of sky, hiding the star. Take a plunge, take a plunge… they’re all crooks and gamblers anyway… take a plunge and come up with your hands full, pockets full, bankaccount full, vaults full of money. If I only dared take the risk. Fool to waste your time fuming about it. Get back to the Fan Tan Import. Steam faintly ruddy with light reflected from the streets swarmed swiftly up across the patch of sky, twisting scattering.