Big Money

by John Dos Passos

  Margo showed her through the house and out on the screened porch under the palms facing the purpleblue sea and the green water along the shore and the white breakers. “Oh, it’s too lovely,” Agnes said and let herself drop into a Gloucester hammock sighing. “Oh, I’m so tired.” Then she began to cry again. Margo went to do her face at the long mirror in the hall. “Well,” she said when she came back looking freshpowdered and rosy, “how do you like the house? Some little shack, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, we won’t be able to stay here now. . . . What’ll we do now?” Agnes was blubbering. “I know it’s all the wicked unreality of matter. . . . Oh, if he’d only had proper thoughts.”

  “Anyway the rent’s paid for another month,” said Margo.

  “Oh, but the expense,” sobbed Agnes.

  Margo was looking out through the screendoor at a big black tanker on the horizon. She turned her head and talked peevishly over her shoulder. “Well, there’s nothing to keep me from turning over a few options, is there? I tell you what they are having down here’s a boom. Maybe we can make some money. I know everybody who is anybody in this town. You just wait and see, Agnes.”

  Eliza, the black maid, brought in a silver coffeeservice and cups and a plate of toast on a silver tray covered by a lace doily. Agnes pushed back her veil, drank some coffee in little gulps and began to nibble at a piece of toast. “Have some preserves on it,” said Margo, lighting herself a cigarette. “I didn’t think you and Frank believed in mourning.”

  “I couldn’t help it. It made me feel better. Oh, Margo, have you ever thought that if it wasn’t for our dreadful unbelief they might be with us this day.” She dried her eyes and went back to the coffee and toast. “When’s the funeral?”

  “It’s going to be in Minnesota. His folks have taken charge of everything. They think I’m ratpoison.”

  “Poor Mr. Anderson. . . . You must be prostrated, you poor child.”

  “You ought to see ’em. His brother Jim would take the pennies offa dead man’s eyes. He’s threatening to sue to get back some securities he claims were Charley’s. Well, let him sue. Homer Cassidy’s my lawyer and what he says goes in this town. . . . Agnes, you’ve got to take off those widow’s weeds and act human. What would Frank think if he was here?”

  “He is here,” Agnes shrieked and went all to pieces and started sobbing again. “He’s watching over us right now. I know that!” She dried her eyes and sniffed. “Oh, Margie, coming down on the train I’d been thinking that maybe you and Mr. Anderson had been secretly married. He must have left an enormous estate.”

  “Most of it is tied up. . . . But Charley was all right, he fixed me up as we went along.”

  “But just think of it, two such dreadful things happening in one winter.”

  “Agnes,” said Margo, getting to her feet, “if you talk like that I’m going to send you right back to New York. . . . Haven’t I been depressed enough? Your nose is all red. It’s awful. . . . Look, you make yourself at home. I’m going out to attend to some business.” “Oh, I can’t stay here. I feel too strange,” sobbed Agnes. “Well, you can come along if you take off that dreadful veil. Hurry up, I’ve got to meet somebody.”

  She made Agnes fix her hair and put on a white blouse. The black dress really was quite becoming to her. Margo made her put on a little makeup. “There, dearie. Now you look lovely,” she said and kissed her.

  “Is this really your car?” sighed Agnes as she sank back on the seat of the blue Buick sedan. “I can’t believe it.” “Want to see the registration papers?” said Margo. “All right, Raymond, you know where the broker’s office is.” “I sure do, miss,” said Raymond, touching the shiny visor of his cap as the motor started to hum under the unscratched paint of the hood.

  At the broker’s office there was the usual welldressed elderly crowd in sportsclothes filling up the benches, men with panamahats held on knees of Palm Beach suits and linen plusfours, women in pinks and greens and light tan and white crisp dresses. It always affected Margo a little like church, the whispers, the deferential manners, the boys quick and attentive at the long blackboards marked with columns of symbols, the click of the telegraph, the firm voice reading the quotations off the ticker at a desk in the back of the room. As they went in Agnes in an awed voice whispered in Margo’s ear hadn’t she better go and sit in the car until Margo had finished her business. “No, stick around,” said Margo. “You see those boys are chalking up the stockmarket play by play on those blackboards. . . . I’m just beginning to get on to this business.” Two elderly gentlemen with white hair and broadflanged Jewish noses smilingly made room for them on a bench in the back of the room. Several people turned and stared at Margo. She heard a woman’s voice hissing something about Anderson to the man beside her. There was a little stir of whispering and nudging. Margo felt welldressed and didn’t care.

  “Well, ma dear young lady,” Judge Cassidy’s voice purred behind her, “buyin’ or sellin’ today?” Margo turned her head. There was the glint of a gold tooth in the smile on the broad red face under the thatch of silvery hair the same color as the grey linen suit which was crossed by another glint of gold in the watchchain looped double across the ample bulge of the judge’s vest. Margo shook her head. “Nothing much doing today,” she said. Judge Cassidy jerked his head and started for the door. Margo got up and followed, pulling Agnes after her. When they got out in the breezy sunshine of the short street that ran to the bathingbeach, Margo introduced Agnes as her guardian angel.

  “I hope you won’t disappoint us today the way you did yesterday, ma dear young lady,” began Judge Cassidy. “Perhaps we can induce Mrs. Mandeville . . .”

  “I’m afraid not” broke in Margo. “You see the poor darling’s so tired. . . . She’s just gotten in from New York. . . . You see, Agnes dear, we are going to look at some lots. Raymond will take you home, and lunch is all ordered for you and everything. . . . You just take a nice rest.”

  “Oh, of course I do need a rest” said Agnes, flushing. Margo helped her into the Buick that Raymond had just brought around from the parkingplace, kissed her and then walked down the block with the judge to where his Pierce Arrow touringcar stood shiny and glittery in the hot noon sunlight.

  The judge drove his own car. Margo sat with him in the front seat. As soon as he’d started the car she said, “Well, what about that check?” “Why, ma dear young lady, I’m very much afraid that no funds means no funds. . . . I presume we can recover from the estate.” “Just in time to make a first payment on a cemetery lot.” “Well, those things do take time . . . the poor boy seems to have left his affairs in considerable confusion.”

  “Poor guy,” said Margo, looking away through the rows of palms at the brown reaches of Biscayne Bay. Here and there on the green islands new stucco construction stuck out raw, like stagescenery out on the sidewalk in the daytime. “Honestly I did the best I could to straighten him out.”

  “Of course. . . . Of course he had very considerable holdings. . . . It was that crazy New York life. Down here we take things easily, we know how to let the fruit ripen on the tree.”

  “Oranges,” said Margo, “and lemons.” She started to laugh but the judge didn’t join in.

  Neither of them said anything for a while. They’d reached the end of the causeway and turned past yellow frame wharfbuildings into the dense traffic of the Miami waterfront. Everywhere new tall buildings iced like layercake were standing up out of scaffolding and builder’s rubbish. Rumbling over the temporary wooden bridge across the Miami River in a roar of concretemixers and a drive of dust from the construction work, Margo said, turning a roundeyed pokerface at the judge, “Well, I guess I’ll have to hock the old sparklers.” The judge laughed and said, “I can assure you the bank will afford you every facility. . . . Don’t bother your pretty little head about it. You hold some very considerable options right now if I’m not mistaken.” “I don’t suppose you could lend me a couple of grand to run on on the strength of them, judg
e.”

  They were running on a broad new concrete road through dense tropical scrub. “Ma dear young lady,” said Judge Cassidy in his genial drawl, “I couldn’t do that for your own sake . . . think of the false interpretations . . . the idle gossip. We’re a little oldfashioned down here. We’re easygoin’ but once the breath of scandal . . . Why, even drivin’ with such a charmin’ passenger through the streets of Miamah is a folly, a very pleasant folly. But you must realize, ma dear young lady . . . A man in ma position can’t afford . . . Don’t misunderstand ma motive, ma dear young lady. I never turned down a friend in ma life. . . . But ma position would unfortunately not be understood that way. Only a husband or a . . .”

  “Is this a proposal, judge?” she broke in sharply. Her eyes were stinging. It was hard keeping back the tears.

  “Just a little advice to a client. . . .” The judge sighed. “Unfortunately I’m a family man.”

  “How long is this boom going to last?”

  “I don’t need to remind you what type of animal is born every minute.”

  “No need at all” said Margo gruffly.

  They were driving into the parkinglot behind the great new caramelcolored hotel. As she got out of the car Margo said, “Well, I guess some of them can afford to lose their money but we can’t, can we, judge?” “Ma dear young lady, there’s no such word in the bright lexicon of youth.” The judge was ushering her into the diningroom in his fatherly way. “Ah, there are the boys now.”

  At a round table in the center of the crowded diningroom sat two fatfaced young men with big mouths wearing pinkstriped shirts and nilegreen wash neckties and white suits. They got up still chewing and pumped Margo’s hand when the judge presented them. They were twins. As they sat down again one of them winked and shook a fat forefinger. “We used to see you at the Palms, girlie, naughty naughty.”

  “Well, boys,” said the judge, “how’s tricks?” “Couldn’t be better,” one of them said with his mouth full. “You see, boys,” said the judge, “this young lady wants to make a few small investments with a quick turnover. . . .” The twins grunted and went on chewing.

  After lunch the judge drove them all down to the Venetian Pool where William Jennings Bryan sitting in an armchair on the float under a striped awning was talking to the crowd. From where they were they couldn’t hear what he was saying, only the laughter and hand-clapping of the crowd in the pauses. “Do you know, judge,” said one of the twins, as they worked their way through the fringes of the crowd around the pool, “if the old boy hadn’t wasted his time with politics, he’d a made a great auctioneer.”

  Margo began to feel tired and wilted. She followed the twins into the realestateoffice full of perspiring men in shirtsleeves. The judge got her a chair. She sat there tapping with her white kid foot on the tiled floor with her lap full of blueprints. The prices were all so high. She felt out of her depth and missed Mr. A to buy for her, he’d have known what to buy sure. Outside, the benches on the lawn were crowded. Bawling voices came from everywhere. The auction was beginning. The twins on the stand were waving their arms and banging with their hammers. The judge was striding around behind Margo’s chair talking boom to anybody who would listen. When he paused for breath she looked up at him and said, “Judge Cassidy, could you get me a taxi?” “Ma dear young lady, I’ll drive you home myself. It’ll be a pleasure.” “O.K.,” said Margo. “You are very wise,” whispered Judge Cassidy in her ear.

  As they were walking along the edge of the crowd one of the twins they’d had lunch with left the auctioneer’s stand and dove through the crowd after them. “Miss Dowlin’,” he said, “kin me an’ Al come to call?” “Sure,” said Margo, smiling. “Name’s in the phonebook under Dowling.” “We’ll be around.” And he ran back to the stand where his brother was pounding with his hammer. She’d been afraid she hadn’t made a hit with the twins. Now she felt the tired lines smoothing out of her face.

  “Well, what do you think of the great development of Coral Gables?” said the judge as he helped her into the car. “Somebody must be making money,” said Margo dryly.

  Once in the house she pulled off her hat and told Raymond, who acted as butler in the afternoons, to make some martini cocktails, found the judge a cigar and then excused herself for a moment. Upstairs she found Agnes sitting in her room in a lavender negligee manicuring her nails at the dressingtable. Without saying a word Margo dropped on the bed and began to cry. Agnes got up looking big and flabby and gentle and came over to the bed. “Why, Margie, you never cry. . . .” “I know I don’t,” sobbed Margo, “but it’s all so awful. . . . Judge Cassidy’s down there, you go and talk to him. . . .” “Poor little girl. Surely I will but it’s you he’ll be wanting to see. . . . You’ve been through too much.” “I won’t go back to the chorus . . . I won’t,” Margo sobbed. “Oh, no, I wouldn’t like that. . . . But I’ll go down now. . . . I feel really rested for the first time in months,” said Agnes.

  When Margo was alone she stopped bawling at once. “Why, I’m as bad as Agnes,” she muttered to herself as she got to her feet. She turned on the water for a bath. It was late by the time she’d gotten into an afternoondress and come downstairs. The judge looked pretty glum. He sat puffing at the butt of a cigar and sipping at a cocktail while Agnes talked to him about Faith.

  He perked up when he saw Margo coming down the stairs. She put some dancemusic on the phonograph. “When I’m in your house I’m like that famed Grecian sage in the house of the sirens . . . I forget hometies, engagements, everything,” said the judge, coming toward her onestepping. They danced. Agnes went upstairs again. Margo could see that the judge was just on the edge of making a pass at her. She was wondering what to do about it when Cliff Wegman was suddenly ushered into the room. The judge gave the young man a scared suspicious look. Margo could see he thought he was going to be framed.

  “Why, Mr. Wegman, I didn’t know you were in Miami.” She took the needle off the record and stopped the phonograph. “Judge Cassidy, meet Mr. Wegman.” “Glad to meet you, judge. Mr. Anderson used to talk about you. I was his personal secretary.” Cliff looked haggard and nervous. “I just pulled into this little old town,” he said. “I hope I’m not intruding.” He grinned at Margo. “Well, I’m woiking for the Charles Anderson estate now.”

  “Poor fellow,” said Judge Cassidy, getting to his feet. “I had the honor of bein’ quite a friend of Lieutenant Anderson’s. . . .” Shaking his head he walked across the soft plumcolored carpet to Margo. “Well, ma dear young lady, you must excuse me. But duty calls. This was indeed delightful.” Margo went out with him to his car. The rosy evening was fading into dusk. A mockingbird was singing in a peppertree beside the house. “When can I bring the jewelry?” Margo said, leaning towards the judge over the front seat of the car. “Perhaps you better come to my office tomorrow noon. We’ll go over to the bank together. Of course the appraisal will have to be at the expense of the borrower.” “O.K. and by that time I hope you’ll have thought of some way I can turn it over quick. What’s the use of having a boom if you don’t take advantage of it?” The judge leaned over to kiss her. His wet lips brushed against her ear as she pulled her head away. “Be yourself, judge,” she said.

  In the livingroom Cliff was striding up and down fit to be tied. He stopped in his tracks and came towards her with his fists clenched as if he were going to hit her. He was chewing gum; the thin jaw moving from side to side gave him a face like a sheep. “Well, the boss soitenly done right by little Orphan Annie.”

  “Well, if that’s all you came down here to tell me you can just get on the train and go back home.”

  “Look here, Margo, I’ve come on business.”

  “On business?” Margo let herself drop into a pink overstuffed chair. “Sit down, Cliff . . . but you didn’t need to come barging in here like a process server. Is it about Charley’s estate?”

  “Estate hell . . . I want you to marry me. The pickin’s are slim right now but I’ve got a big
career ahead.”

  Margo let out a shriek and let her head drop on the back of the chair. She got to laughing and couldn’t stop laughing. “No, honestly, Cliff,” she spluttered. “But I don’t want to marry anybody just now. . . . Why, Cliff, you sweet kid. I could kiss you.” He came over and tried to hug her. She got to her feet and pushed him away. “I’m not going to let things like that interfere with my career either.”

  Cliff frowned. “I won’t marry an actress. . . . You’d have to can that stuff.”

  Margo got to laughing again. “Not even a movingpicture actress?”

  “Aw, hell, all you do is kid and I’m nuts about you.” He sat down on the davenport and wrung his head between his hands. She moved over and sat down beside him. “Forget it, Cliff.”

  Cliff jumped up again. “I can tell you one thing, you won’t get anywheres fooling around with that old buzzard Cassidy. He’s a married man and so crooked he has to go through a door edgeways. He gypped hell out of the boss in that airport deal. Hell. . . . That’s probably no news to you. You probably were in on it and got your cut first thing. . . . And then you think it’s a whale of a joke when a guy comes all the way down to the jumpingoff place to offer you the protection of his name. All right, I’m through. Good . . . night.” He went out slamming the glass doors into the hall so hard that a pane of glass broke and tinkled down to the floor.

  Agnes rushed in from the diningroom. “Oh, how dreadful,” she said. “I was listening. I thought maybe poor Mr. Anderson had left a trustfund for you.” “That boy’s got bats in his belfry,” said Margo. A minute later the phone rang. It was Cliff with tears in his voice, apologizing, asking if he couldn’t come back to talk it over. “Not on your tintype,” said Margo and hung up. “Well, Agnes,” said Margo as she came from the telephone, “that’s that. . . . We’ve got to figure these things out. . . . Cliff’s right about that old fool Cassidy. He never was in the picture anyways.” “Such a dignified man,” said Agnes, making clucking noises with her tongue.