One On The House

  One on the House!

  Mary Lasswell

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Books by Mary Lasswell

  SUDS IN YOUR EYE

  HIGH TIME

  ONE ON THE HOUSE

  WAIT FOR THE WAGON

  TOONER SCHOONER

  LET’S GO FOR BROKE

  The characters in this book are fictitious; any resemblance to real persons is wholly accidental and unintentional.

  For

  LASS

  Chapter 1

  MRS. FEELEY STOOD SWEATING AND SWEARING AT the corner of Broadway and Forty-Third Street, New York City, on a steaming July afternoon. She looked up and down the crowded street filled with cut-rate drugstores, phony pineapple-juice places, and blatting record shops.

  “Gawd!” she breathed. “An’ I thought I owned a junk-pile!”

  The reek of the overworked cotton-seed oil from a doughnut place hit her in the nose.

  “Phew!” she snorted. “Enough to drive a buzzard off a gut-cart! I wish Mrs. Rasmussen an’ Miss Tinkham would hurry. The sight o’ these malted-milk shops makes me nauseous! Not a decent beer saloon in sight!”

  Across the street she spied her two friends, Mrs. Rasmussen conspicuous by the neatness of her tan pongee dress in a town of drooping hems and frowsy necklines, and Miss Tinkham majestic above the crowd in a Roman-striped silk jersey tunic over a pleated skirt. She wore a large white Panama hat with a band of tropical shells around it.

  “How about a beer?” Mrs. Feeley roared across the din. She charged into the street without looking at the traffic lights. An open hand the size of a premium ham was shoved against her diaphragm.

  “On the green, lady! You cross on the green.” Mrs. Feeley looked at the cop, then at the orange warning light. It changed almost instantly to green and she nudged the officer with her elbow.

  “You don’t give the Protestants much time, do you?”

  Miss Tinkham and Mrs. Rasmussen waited on the traffic-island. They looked tired and a little sad.

  “Let’s go home to San Diego soon,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  “Took the words right outa my mouth, dirty unsanitary habit that it is!” Mrs. Feeley grinned and reached out for her share of the bundles. “It’s been swell, but I had about enough o’ this.”

  Miss Tinkham turned for a last look down Forty-Third Street. In her eyes was the holy zeal of the faithful facing Mecca.

  “Such Thrift Shoppes!” she breathed. “But of course California’s more picturesque.” In her arms she clutched an almost life-size figure of Aphrodite rising from the foam. Some misbegotten person had wired it for electricity and an even more perverse mind had conceived and executed the lampshade of pleated cerise chiffon. The shade was slightly awry, producing an effect of gay abandon not unlike the angle Miss Tinkham’s own picture hats assumed on convivial occasions.

  “Bunglesome to pack, ain’t it?” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “A trifle. But it was this or the gorgeous full-length coat of Irish crochet, and I thought we could all share the lamp.”

  “Only two stores I wanted to see,” Mrs. Rasmussen said as they nudged their way through the crowd. “Klein’s an’ Saks-Fifth Avenue. Both full o’ sweaters with beads round the neck.”

  “I seen the Rockettes again an’ found a beer saloon up this alley—Shamrock Bar.” Mrs. Feeley and her friends executed a pivot that would have turned a Marine sergeant green with envy. The bartender slid the schooners with speed and accuracy. Mrs. Feeley paid and planted one small foot on the rail:

  Here’s to them that wish us well,

  An’ those who don’t can go to hell.

  The bartender grinned and set up three on the house. “You was in here earlier. Sightseeing?”

  “Yeup. I seen a sight. Them Rockettes flingin’ their legs around. I sure like ’em. Just one thing puzzles me: how does anybody know ’em when they see ’em on the street?”

  “They look different without make-up,” Miss Tinkham said.

  “In a town this size, you don’t often run into anybody you know,” the bartender said.

  “It’s a damn good thing!” Mrs. Feeley said. “Their own mother wouldn’t recognize ’em unless they had their clothes pulled up over their heads.”

  “Where’s she from?” the bartender asked Miss Tinkham.

  “San Diego, California. Mrs. Feeley is the owner of the famous Noah’s Ark, where two of everything can be found. She has a heart like a poorhouse blanket with a warm side for everybody. We came East to visit Mrs. Feeley’s nephew, an officer in the Supply Corps of the United States Navy. Not unchaperoned,” Miss Tinkham said confidentially. “We were accompanied by Mrs. Feeley’s handy-man, Old-Timer. He is the strong silent type.” The bartender’s eyes twinkled. Even in the kindly light of the bar, none of the ladies would see sixty again.

  Mrs. Rasmussen was inching away from a persistent and relentless admirer. He moved in on her as she came close to Mrs. Feeley’s side. He was a vaguely gray little man like the dust-kittens under a bed.

  Mrs. Feeley braced herself and shoved him in the chest. He lost his balance and fell to the floor with his legs spread out in a V in front of him.

  “That’s for nothin’!” Mrs. Feeley glared at him. “Now let’s see you do somethin’!”

  “I was only trying to buy you ladies a beer.”

  “Three beers,” Mrs. Feeley waved at the bartender.

  “Four,” the little man said from the floor.

  Mrs. Feeley turned her back on him and drank her beer. Miss Tinkham sniffed. He moved in beside Mrs. Rasmussen once more. “I open safes,” he said.

  “Don’t tell me your troubles! Pay for the beer!” Mrs. Feeley commanded. “Let’s go. We’ll be late for supper. Don’t want to keep Katy and Danny waitin’.” She nodded politely to the bartender and coolly to the little man.

  “Mesdames,” he said plaintively.

  “Let’s not have any name-callin’! You’re outweighed, outnumbered, an’ outclassed.”

  “Don’t call us dames,” Mrs. Rasmussen glowered.

  “That’s ladies in all the best newspapers,” he said. “I merely wished to inquire if you would be coming this way again. I will gladly provide the cup that cheers.”

  “We dislike humble men!” Miss Tinkham raised her lorgnette. “You remind me of Uriah Heep!”

  “He’s a wolf in Heep’s clothin’!” Mrs. Feeley withered him with a glance. “If we come back, it’s because the bartender’s civil an’ the beers is big!”

  Into the hot steaming subway the three ladies crammed themselves. The five o’clock rush was well under way and smellier than usual.

  “Everybody’s goin’ to Brooklyn!” Mrs. Feeley said.

  Miss Tinkham was having some difficulty finding standing-room for her statue. A woman knocked the lampshade askew when she turned angrily to see who was being familiar with her. Miss Tinkham smiled and pointed at the culprit.

  “Alabaster,” she said.

  “Somebody botherin’ you, dear?” Mrs. Feeley turned.

  Miss Tinkham shook her head and clasped the lamp more tigh
tly.

  “That’s right,” Mrs. Feeley said. “Hold her in front of you an’ face the door. Mrs. Rasmussen an’ me will stand in back o’ you, just to make sure none o’ these jerks makes no passes.” She reached up and from the back of her hat drew a long murderous-looking hatpin. She stuck it out at right angles behind her. “Just to make sure o’ elbow room!”

  Mrs. Feeley pressed the button marked 5 on the electric elevator.

  “Sure beats walkin’,” she said.

  Lieutenant Daniel Malone opened the door of the apartment for his aunt and her two friends.

  “Two weeks since we come an’ I still can’t get over the fact o’ bein’ here,” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “The town will never be the same,” her nephew laughed. He took the lamp from Miss Tinkham, patted the marble fanny, and set it down in a corner. “What did you get into today?”

  “Nothin’ much!” Mrs. Feeley grinned. “Mrs. Rasmussen had a sex-maniac after her.”

  “Good for him!” Danny said. “And he doesn’t even know she can cook!”

  “Where’s Katy?” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “Taking her shower. She’s working too hard…you know how she is! Making lists and collecting all the stuff we’ll need to while away the long winter evenings in Alaska.”

  “I sure hate to see you go,” Mrs. Feeley said, “Even if Katy does say it’s good duty. She’d say Siberia was good duty, long as you was home every night.”

  “You’d oughta be able to save a lot,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  “At least getting ordered to Alaska finally made you take the trip up here like you promised over five years ago. It’s not your fault Little Danny wasn’t born with a long, white beard! Katy’s got a full list of things for you gals to do the next two weeks.”

  Mrs. Feeley looked at Mrs. Rasmussen, moist but still tidy—at Miss Tinkham, dripping and disheveled. “This time o’ day, if we was home, we’d be reachin’ for a sweater or some other little wrap-rascal.”

  “Don’t pull that wistful stuff on me, Toots. You’re not going home. You’ve hardly seen anything yet.”

  “We got enough to talk about for a lifetime,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  “What’s this?” Katy called from the door of her bedroom. Her short hair was damp and curly and her face rosy and cheerful above her peacock-blue shantung dress. “You’re not talking of going home surely! The best is just coming up.”

  “You been swell, but there’s so much to be did. I worry about the Ark an’ Darleen an’ all…she might forget to water the gardenias.”

  “When we sit down in our accustomed surroundings and recall these pleasures, I think we shall enjoy them even more in retrospect,” Miss Tinkham said.

  “Just what I was sayin’,” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “Where’s the baby?” Mrs. Rasmussen asked.

  “He went somewhere with Old-Timer,” Katy said.

  “And don’t let him hear you call him the baby!” Danny laughed. “He told the doctor who gave him his shots that he wanted to be a real sailor, but the Old Man said he had to go to the Academy.”

  Old-Timer and Daniel Callahan Malone, Junior, came in very quietly.

  “Where have you been?” Katy said.

  “Sands Street! I got a regulation haircut!”

  “Damn if you didn’t!” Mrs. Feeley said. “You’d be harder to catch than a greased pig in an alley!”

  “That’s not all,” Little Danny said. Old-Timer reached out into the hall and brought in a huge old-fashioned tin pail.

  “Rush the growler!” Mrs. Feeley yelled. “Bet he’s got the rim buttered so they couldn’t fill it up with foam!”

  Mrs. Rasmussen appeared with a tray of glasses and some crackers and cheese. Little Danny sat on Old-Timer’s lap and shared his beer.

  “Don’t eat too much,” Katy said. “We have cold lobster for supper.”

  “I’ll make the French fries now,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. Miss Tinkham began laying the table.

  “This is a pretty domestic scene,” Danny said. “Everybody working but the host and hostess! Proper joss, I call it. How about reading me the evening paper, Toots?” He passed the paper over to Mrs. Feeley. She winked at Katy.

  “Think I can’t, huh? Remember what the lightning-bug said, Smarty! ‘I think I’m bright, but it’s just my rear-end showin’.’ What do you want me to read you first?”

  “Anything! Anything at all is good the way you read! You read the way Salvador Dali paints!” Danny said.

  “I seen the Dolly Sisters once,” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “Absolutely no kin!” Danny said. “On with the headlines.”

  Mrs. Feeley straightened up in her chair and held the newspaper at arm’s-length.

  “My eyes is perfect, but my arms ain’t long enough!”

  “Quit stalling—and read.”

  “The President issues a stink-ment to the press tomorrow,” Mrs. Feeley read slowly.

  Danny shook his head. “I don’t know whether to correct that or not.”

  “Don’t make fun of her,” Katy said. “It’s really amazing the way she has learned to read in the last year.”

  “Amazing is the word!” Danny looked at the front page and pointed to a photograph. “What does it say under the picture?”

  Mrs. Feeley studied again. “Count escorts Ambassador’s two-headed daughter to Stork Club. She ain’t got but one head in the picture.”

  “Tow-headed! Not two-headed,” Danny said. “Can I have some food before she gets me crazy too, Katy?”

  “He can laugh all he wants to,” Mrs. Feeley said. “I sure enjoy life more now that I can read…more things goin’ on!”

  “You said you were going to learn to read if you ever got out of that tax trouble, and you certainly did!” Katy said.

  “Every year gets shorter an’ more fun! When I first took up with Miss Tinkham an’ Mrs. Rasmussen I didn’t hardly know nothin’ outside o’ the junk business—an’ swillin’ beer! Then, through goin’ to school, we met you and you an’ Danny got married…then he got promoted to an officer an’ look at all the changes in our lives! We been to Mexico an’ New York, run a day-nursery an’ a boardin’-house for war-workers, an’ got Daphne an’ her kids straightened out an’ Darleen married an’ settled. Who’d a said all four of us would o’ come up an’ seen Brooklyn an’ the Navy Yard?”

  “Your life gets richer because you’re interested in people,” Katy said. “A long time ago, a man named John Donne said, ‘I am involved with all mankind!’”

  “That’s us!” Mrs. Feeley grinned.

  “I sometimes wonder why the three of you make such a perfect combination.”

  “First off,” Mrs. Feeley said, “we’re all just as different from one another as people can be. But at rock-bottom, we’re all three alike: We live for now. We act like every day was our last day on earth an’ we might miss somethin’! We all pull our weight in the boat, fair an’ square. In different ways, o’ course! We respect each other. Don’t call each other by no first names an’ we never go in the other’s room less we’re invited. We sweat out tough times together an’ we sure enjoy the good ones!”

  “We are Spartan when we have to be, and Epicurean whenever we can!” Miss Tinkham came up and put her hand on Katy’s shoulder. “One of the reasons for our great contentment is the fact that each of us appreciates what we have: we never take our good fortune for granted.

  “Give an’ take is what does it,” Mrs. Feeley said. “But most people’s idea o’ give an’ take is ‘You give, an’ I’ll take!’”

  “Yeah.” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “Most people forgets their friends the minute they get the wrinkles outa their belly. It was awful dull till Mrs. Feeley took us in.”

  Mrs. Feeley laughed. “The fat with the lean’s what makes a good piece o’ bacon. Long as we’re together—an’ healthy—they ain’t nothin’ we can’t whip!”

  “Come an’ get it!” Mrs. Rasmussen called.

  She carried a huge platte
r on which six noble crustaceans lay in state. The lobster meat was picked out in big pieces, mixed with mayonnaise, chopped chives, and a good slug of sherry, then stuffed back into the shells. The liver and coral made a fine garnish edged all around with capers. The French-fried potatoes were crisp and mealy. A large mahogany bowl held a salad of endive, lettuce, and tomatoes, with generous slices of avocado here and there.

  “I’ll have some o’ that Russian rye bread, please.” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “It sure goes good with the beer!”

  Chapter 2

  “THEY WAS LUCKY TO GET THIS APARTMENT,” MRS. Rasmussen said. She and Miss Tinkham were freshening up after supper in the guest room. They each occupied a twin bed and Mrs. Feeley slept in the Murphy bed in the door. Old-Timer slept on a fold-away bed in Little Danny’s room. They shared a small neat bathroom between the two rooms. Through the open door they could hear Little Danny singing as he did every night at bedtime: “Old Sailors Never Die,” while Old-Timer boomed out the bass. Mrs. Feeley went into the child’s room.

  “Sing the part about ‘Old soldiers never pay,’” she said.

  “I’m coming to it,” the little boy said. “You going out?”

  “We got quite some unfinished business yet!” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “I don’t want you to go home,” he said.

  “We wouldn’t,” Mrs. Rasmussen came in,“ but you’re goin’ to Alaska an’ we wouldn’t like it here without you.”

  “When you come up there to see me I’ll show you my pet polar bear an’ maybe a penguin!”

  “Wouldn’t mind bein’ there tonight,” Mrs. Feeley said, wiping her upper lip. “See you in the mornin’, love!”

  The three went through the living room where Katy and Danny were playing cards with Dusty Rhodes, Chief Machinist Mate, and Spud Murphy, Chief Boatswain’s Mate.

  “Old-Timer going with you?” Katy asked.

  Mrs. Feeley shook her head.

  “He’s content just to sit an’ watch Little Danny sleep.”

  “Don’t spend all your money!” Danny said. “Spud and Dusty are taking you to the races tomorrow.”