The Great Wash Read online

  “—That means snakes,” Monty Cello said to me.

  “—Just so,” said Oaks, “but he could have talked about anything that had ribs—even of one or two creatures that had none, like octopi (or Pussies, as they are sometimes called, as distinct from Cats). He was very hot, again, on some piddling North American flying fox painted phosphorescent, and billed as Dracula the Vampire Bat. He talked always like the scholar and gentleman that he was, making his arguments, influencing his audiences. To him, everyone in front of him was a potential student—just as to every sideshow spieler (or barker or talker) everyone who has ears to hear is a possible mark.

  “The best talker is the one who believes wholeheartedly in his show, because belief begets belief. Believing wholeheartedly in what he is trying to sell, he will stop at nothing to sell it: the means will justify the end. He will, therefore, in spite of himself, adjust himself on the surface to those upon whom he hopes to make his impression. First of all, he will adjust his voice to their ears, and his manner to their habits: first and foremost, he has got to get in their ears! So, whether he likes it or not, he tries to talk to his mark in the style to which the mark is accustomed—if he knows his business. Hence, after long and painful experience with listeners from the north, the south, the east and the west, he learns to talk the basic language of the nation without any accent at all. To the northerner he is a northerner, to the southerner he is a southerner—his manner of speaking is universal.

  “The intonation he can never lose: but the accent is mutable, and arranges itself. So; the King of England speaks in the accent of all England; and the President of the United States similarly avoids localisation by touching some point between the twangs and the burrs of the north and the south. The great Franklin D. Roosevelt, for instance, deliberately dropped his Harvard accent and cultivated something like the accent of San Francisco, which is all American accents in one. So it is with the talker in Carny, my dear Monty. He acquires an imitative faculty; he takes his tone from his surroundings. In Maine he would say ‘Yes’ like this: Eeaw, reluctantly, grudging the very sound of the word; in Georgia he says Yassum—willing to say the word, but too lazy to shape it. So, between the Eeaw and the Yassum, he develops an indefinable ‘Yes’ that might be almost anything. How would a Sullivan Street boy who never got beyond the fifth grade get himself an indefinable accent except in Carny?”

  “I got to the sixth grade,” said Monty Cello. “Otherwise you’re right. I was in Carny for seven years. I was talker for the fight shows. Then I quit. You’re smart, George. You’re all right.”

  “I wish I were, Monty, I wish I were. But I’m not. I’m like you, a fool, a wanderer . . . always roaming with a hungry heart, Monty . . . and, like you, much have I seen and known; cities of men, and manners, climates, governments . . .”

  George Oaks closed his eyes and talked on dreamily: “. . . I know something of the Americas, too, both North and South. I also ran away from school, Monty, to be ship’s boy on the Olaf Trygvesson, a windjammer. Youth! Oh, dear me, dear me! These fingers have been frozen to a topsail off the Horn. The mate was a man-breaker, one of the old school, Bucko Keate, an old Black Ball sailor with a golden ear-ring. He was supposed to be the original ‘Kicking Jack Williams’ in the song. He broke my nose. He taught me the stars. . . . And Ole Larsen showed me how to knot stockings. All gone, Monty; and in the furrow that the ploughman makes, a stampless penny, a tale, a dream. . . . In Los Angeles, did you work for Buggsy Siegel?” he asked suddenly, opening his eyes.

  “I met Buggsy,” said Monty Cello.

  I said: “I take it you’re over here for a holiday?”

  “Yeah, a vacation, that’s right. Kind of seeing Europe, looking around, taking a rest. I gotta hernia,” said Monty Cello. “Only what the hell d’you do in London?”

  Then George Oaks nudged me under the table and said: “If it’s a rest you want, why don’t you come with us to Sussex for a few days? We’d be delighted to have you, wouldn’t we, Albert?”

  “Of course,” I said, “only too delighted.”

  Then a boy sang “Mis-ter Mon-ty Cel-lo . . . Mis-ter Mon-ty Cel-lo . . .”

  Monty sprang out of his seat, shouting: “Okay, okay!” and fumbling in his pockets for a small coin.

  “Wanted on the telephone, sir.”

  “Okay . . . par’me for a minute.”

  “And what the devil was the idea of that?” I asked, after Monty Cello had disappeared.

  George Oaks said: “Albert, as soon as I saw that man, I felt a pricking in my thumbs. Carny man, mobsman . . . but Hollywood writer, my foot! In Los Angeles he was probably carrying a gun for Buggsy Siegel. . . . And now, on the run, Albert; hot, hotter than hell; and scared, scared of his own shadow. He is a story, Albert, a story worth reading——”

  “—Will you keep your fingers out of my ribs!”

  “—Never mind your ribs. This is more important. When John Stuart Mill’s servant girl used the manuscript of Thomas Carlyle’s French Revolution to light the fire—she said that since the paper was all written on she assumed that it was no good any more; an Irish girl, of course—Carlyle sat down and read the light novels of Captain Marryat. Read Monty Cello, Albert, read Monty Cello—he will do you good. Besides, something tells me that there is a tragic destiny hanging over that unhappy man. Clasp him to your bosom, squeeze out his refreshing juice!”

  “You said us. Are you coming too?”

  “If I may. May I?”

  “May you! Don’t be a fool. But will you come, even if this Cello fellow doesn’t?”

  “Of course I will, old friend,” said George Oaks, patting my knee, “I’ll come and keep you company. No one shall hurt you while I’m around, not even yourself. For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the deaths of kings—eh? We will show Monty the abbey at Battle, where the last of the Saxon kings went down with a Norman arrow in his eye eight hundred and eighty-four years ago at Senlac Fight. And he will sit upon a stool and tell sad stories of the deaths of Dion O’Banion, Hymie Weiss, the Amberg Brothers, and Dutch Schultz.”

  George Oaks rubbed his hands and beckoned to the waiter. “I hope he comes; I think he will. . . . Aha, here he is now, Albert, like one who on a lonesome road doth walk with fear and dread, and having once looked round, walks on and turns no more his head, because he knows a frightful fiend doth close behind him tread—eh, Albert? Woe, but he’s frightened! I wish I could have listened in to that call.”

  Monty Cello’s face was white now, and when he released his lips from between his teeth they quivered. He said something that sounded like Ji-Ji-Ji-Ji—as he picked up his glass in an unsteady hand and made one great gulp of its contents; wiped his face and his dark glasses with a silk handkerchief, and pressed his hands against his thighs to steady them. At last he said: “Jeez—Jeez, it’s hotter’n hell in them telephone booths!” and began to chew his lips again.

  “Good man!” said Oaks to the waiter, who had arrived with fresh drinks. “. . . What’s the matter, bad news?”

  “Nothing. Forget it.” Monty Cello poked thoughtfully at the ice in his glass. “Where is this place, Sussex? Anywhere near Liverpool? I knew a guy married a girl from Liverpool when he was in the army. Her father was a farmer in Liverpool—made a hell of a lot of money. This guy said he had a nine-thousand-acre ranch in Texas. Well, so he had for a fact; but half of it was desert—and the other half, it took twenty acres to feed one cow. Tex hadda hustle for a living in New York—couldn’t go back home, anyway, on account he busted a parole and was hotter’n hell. His marriage broke up. Girl said she didn’t like his friends. Nine thousand acres sounds like a hell of a lot to an English farmer; don’t it?”

  “Whereas, on Sullivan Street nine thousand acres is a mere window-box,” said Oaks. “Do you know, once, between Sullivan and Prince on a clear day I saw the sun com
ing up ninety-three million miles away? Oh, for the great open spaces!”

  “Now you’re kidding me,” said Monty Cello. “I didn’t mean anything; no reason to get sore. . . . Only England’s, well, so little; isn’t that so?” He said this with a pathetic kind of despair, drying his wet palms on his trousers, while his uneasy eyes flickered left and right.

  “No State lines: only one Law instead of forty-eight plus Federal; and if you tried to bribe a magistrate you’d probably be sent for an inquiry into your mental condition. . . . Out of date, Monty, backward. Albert’s house, for example, has been standing five hundred years—it doesn’t know enough to fall down. No, joking aside, Monty, I know how you feel: hemmed in, surrounded by sea; nowhere to hide—is that it?”

  Monty Cello said: “This place, Sussex, is it far?”

  “Fifty or sixty miles,” I said. “You could get there comfortably in a couple of hours or so, by car.”

  “I could make it in less,” said Monty Cello. “I gotta car. I paid six hundred pounds for it—got it right away because I paid in dollars. Were you serious when you said I could come?”

  George Oaks answered: “We were never more serious in our lives, Monty—were we, Albert?”

  I said: “Come any time you like.”

  “Thanks a lot, Al! How about tonight?” asked Monty Cello, eagerly. “I can get packed and check outta here in twenty minutes. Fifteen minutes. I only unpacked one suitcase. I gotta car. Show me the way, and I’ll drive you there. What d’ya say?”

  Before I could say anything, George Oaks said: “Excellent, Monty, excellent! Give me a man who can make a quick decision every time! Order another drink and then nip upstairs and pack.”

  “Okay,” said Monty Cello, and some of the fear went out of his face. “I’ll be ready in ten minutes. Let’s get the hell outta here. And thanks again, I appreciate this. You’re sure it’s okay for me to come—no kidding?”

  “Oh, pack, Monty, pack!” said Oaks, and “Yes, pack,” said I.

  “I’ll check out right away, then,” said Monty Cello, “and the hell with London. Meaning no offence, but it’s kind of . . .” He paused, rummaging in his muddled mind for a word.

  “Crowded?” I said; and simultaneously Oaks said: “Lonely?”

  Monty Cello stuttered again: “Kik-kik-kik-kik . . . come upstairs with me while I pipack. I want to gigive you giguys a hand-pipainted tie.”

  He was afraid now even to go to his room alone.

  So he paid his bill, tipping indiscriminately but with extreme moderation. I remember that Oaks stopped him in the act of offering a two-shilling piece to a moustachioed officer of the Royal Marines, and whispered that eighteenpence was not enough for the porter—whereupon Monty Cello pulled out a fistful of money and thrust it into my hands, saying: “Be a pal, do it for me—let’s get outta here.”

  At this point he stopped abruptly, chewed his lips, and, quick as a lizard, darted to the place where the telephone booths are. We followed him. He was sweating again.

  “Listen,” he whispered, “kikikind of cocover me, fellows. There’s a gig——” he gulped, “—a guy at the desk I don’t wantta see. A stringbibean, a skinny fellow with a little tiny bibeard. Cocover me, willya?”

  “Of course, we will,” said Oaks. “Eh, Albert? We will engage him in conversation while you slip out to your car.” He nudged me with a sharp elbow. “Wait a few seconds, Albert, and then, when you see me talking to a tall thin man with a little beard, walk towards me slowly, covering Monty. You, Monty, when Albert draws this thin man’s attention, make a quick dash for it through the grill room, out at the side entrance, and into your car. We’ll join you in one minute.”

  Part Two

  We did as Oaks said. But when I saw the tall, thin man whom Monty Cello was so anxious to avoid I started with unpleasant surprise, for he was Major Chatterton. I hated that man. And, indeed, I never met anyone worth talking to who had a good word to say for Major Chatterton, yet nothing specifically evil was known of him. His manners were excellent; his manner charming. In spite of his appearance of emaciation he was, in a way, handsome, especially as he was dressed now, in evening clothes—in which he was handsome from behind like a perfect beetle, and handsome in front like a black bird with a glossy white breast—handsome bird, handsome insect, collector’s specimen of anything but Man.

  His eyes were very bright, but quite devoid of warmth. An instinct warns one to beware of cold light in a human being; one asks oneself: Where does it go, that heat which ought to be radiant? To what secret power station does it feed itself? No, nobody ever liked Major Chatterton. His energy was inexhaustible: one admired this as one admires the tirelessness of the black ant, while failing to see to what it tends. His ingenuity was remarkable, like the blind cleverness of the chimney-swift that has the knack of building its nest against the apparently impossibly vertical interior of your home chimney, sticking the twigs together with its own saliva, which is peculiarly glutinous . . . but where in the world does it go in the winter? Nobody knows.

  And where did Major Chatterton go in the winter? Nobody knew. What did we know of him? Little enough. He had left the Indian Army to become equerry to a Prince; and so, having access to high places, became an important man on the shadowy side of Public Relations. Therefore, since his business took him in and out of Fleet Street, we all knew him to speak to. We knew that after the disgrace and subsequent suicide of poor Austin Crabbe, Major Chatterton had taken his place as Personal Assistant (whatever that might be) to Lord Kadmeel, who, as it was generally agreed, was next-door but one to certifiably insane with delusions of grandeur, which is by way of being an occupational disease of press barons.

  The point was, what had Major Chatterton to do with Monty Cello? And why was our Carny-man and gangster afraid of him?

  “—I wish I had time to offer you a drink, George, old fellow,” the Major was saying, “but I’ve got to see a man . . . Why, Albert, how are you, my dear fellow?”

  “Anyone I know?” asked Oaks.

  “I doubt it,” said Major Chatterton, offering his cold, dry hand. “I’ll be seeing you, I hope? . . .”

  Oaks and I left the hotel.

  “This is distinctly rum,” he said. “Albert, what do you make of it?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “What do you?”

  “Nothing, as yet. But patience, patience, Albert! Calm, calm! It is like a pointilliste painting—we are too close to it; we can’t see the picture for the dots. We must wait and see.”

  The engine of Monty Cello’s car was running. He was huddled over the wheel, his hat pulled down over his eyes. “Thank Gig-Gig——” he said, and got it out, “—God! Giget in quick!”

  And a minute later we were in the Strand.

  Monty Cello was one of those drivers under whose hands an engine seems to throb with something like love and understanding. Little was said until we were on the open road.

  Then Monty Cello said: “I hate to drive at night. One time, driving at night, I got a buckshot in my shoulder. I was pushing a load of beer. . . . Well, all at once I see a crate ahead go wibble-wobble, wibble-wobble, zig-zag, right in the middle of the road, so I gotta brake sudden. Then these guys cut loose with sawed-off shotguns, and I got one buckshot in the shoulder. I couldn’t afford a good croaker; I was just a punk then. You know something? That buckshot’s still there, and it gives me hell every time it rains. I should hate to’ve got the whole load—it would have blown me apart.”

  I said: “There isn’t any buckshot in Sussex.”

  The road behind us was empty. Monty Cello relaxed. He stopped the car to light a cigar, and said, very sincerely: “I appreciate this, George. Al, you don’t know what this means to me . . . I hope you liked the ties.”

  “They’re worth framing,” said Oaks; and I made an ecstatic noise.

 
; “They cost seventy-five bucks apiece,” said Monty Cello, not stuttering now. With his hands on the wheel, he was happy. “Real artists hand-painted them ties: Jake Joy pays ’em up to fifteen, twenty bucks just for painting on the picture. He gave Julie Romeo a dozen for a present, Christmas before last, and Julie—he gave me six! . . . Julie used to be kind of in the men’s clothing game: he took care of manufacturers’ welfare, sort of insured ’em against damage by fire, acid, and all that . . . you know? . . . I got one tie painted with a picture of Our Lord like it is on Saint Veronica’s handkerchief—while you look at it, the eyes open! I only wear it on Easter. . . . I wouldn’t give a tie like that away to anybody, not never. I’ve gotta gold medal of Saint Christopher, too, with diamonds for the halo. Wearing it round my neck, right now. . . . He’s the Saint that watches over travellers, and I can tell you for a fact I’ve needed Saint Christopher’s intervention on my travels!” He touched his breast where the medal hung. “. . . I want you guys should wear them ties in good health.”

  I never wore mine. It is of rich black satin upon which some amorous dreamer has painted a nubile nude in a provocative attitude; but I keep it in memory of Monty Cello, enemy of society and unwitting servant of humanity.

  We were passing through Obham, when Monty Cello suggested that we pull in at a pub called the Game Chicken because he wanted to eat a sandwich and—as he put it—powder his nose.

  “Chicken,” he said, looking up at the old swinging sign, upon which some unknown genius had painted a fighting cock, murderously spurred, standing triumphantly over the corpse of another cock, which lay on its back with uplifted claws. Crude though the painting was, it was vividly alive, because the artist had put his heart into it: you never saw a chicken like that undefeated game-chicken on the board, yet you could almost hear his crow of victory.