Big Money Read Online Free Page B

the cabs. For a second her hand was in his, very little and cool as he helped her into the cab. He handed out a half a dollar to the doorman who had whispered “Shanley’s” to the taxidriver in a serious careful flunkey’s voice.
    The taxi was purring smoothly downtown between the tall square buildings. Charley was a little dizzy. He didn’t dare look at her for a moment but looked out at faces, cars, trafficcops, people in raincoats and umbrellas passing against drugstore windows.
    â€œNow tell me how you got the palms.”
    â€œOh, the frogs just threw those in now and then to keep the boys cheerful.”
    â€œHow many Huns did you bring down?”
    â€œWhy bring that up?”
    She stamped her foot on the floor of the taxi. “Oh, nobody’ll ever tell me anything. . . . I don’t believe you were ever at the front, any of
you.” Charley laughed. His throat was a little dry. “Well, I was over it a couple of times.”
    Suddenly she turned to him. There were flecks of light in her eyes in the dark of the cab. “Oh, I understand. . . . Lieutenant Anderson, I think you flyers are the finest people there are.” “Miss Humphries, I think you’re a . . . humdinger. . . . I hope this taxi never gets to this dump . . . wherever it is we’re goin’.” She leaned her shoulder against his for a second. He found he was holding her hand. “After all, my name is Doris,” she said in a tiny babytalk voice.
    â€œDoris,” he said. “Mine’s Charley.”
    â€œCharley, do you like to dance?” she asked in the same tiny voice. “Sure,” Charley said, giving her hand a quick squeeze. Her voice melted like a little tiny piece of candy. “Me too. . . . Oh, so much.”
    When they went in the orchestra was playing
Dardanella.
Charley left his trenchcoat and his hat in the checkroom. The headwaiter’s heavy grizzled eyebrows bowed over a white shirtfront. Charley was following Doris’s slender back, the hollow between the shoulderblades where his hand would like to be, across the red carpet, between the white tables, the men’s starched shirts, the women’s shoulders, through the sizzly smell of champagne and welshrabbit and hot chafing-dishes, across a corner of the dancefloor among the swaying couples to the round white table where the rest of them were already settled. The knives and forks shone among the stiff creases of the fresh tablecloth.
    Mrs. Benton was pulling off her white kid gloves looking at Ollie Taylor’s purple face as he told a funny story. “Let’s dance,” Charley whispered to Doris. “Let’s dance all the time.”
    Charley was scared of dancing too tough so he held her a little away from him. She had a way of dancing with her eyes closed. “Gee, Doris, you are a wonderful dancer.” When the music stopped the tables and the cigarsmoke and the people went on reeling a little round their heads. Doris was looking up at him out of the corners of her eyes. “I bet you miss the French girls, Charley. How did you like the way the French girls danced, Charley?”
    â€œTerrible.”
    At the table they were drinking champagne out of breakfast coffee-cups. Ollie had had two bottles sent up from the club by a messenger. When the music started again Charley had to dance with Mrs. Benton, and then with the other lady, the one with the diamonds and
the spare tire round her waist. He and Doris only had two more dances together. Charley could see the others wanted to go home because Ollie was getting too tight. He had a flask of rye on his hip and a couple of times had beckoned Charley out to have a swig in the cloakroom with him. Charley tongued the bottle each time because he was hoping he’d get a chance to take Doris home.
    When they got outside it turned out she lived in the same block as the Bentons