Suds In Your Eye Read online

  ‘I think perhaps you and Mrs. Rasmussen had better go without me,’ she said. ‘I am financially embarrassed at the moment, and I would rather stay at home than to impose on you ladies for my drinks.’

  ‘Tit!’ shouted Mrs. Feeley. ‘I got that all figgered out too! We ain’t got no money to toss around reckless like! You come along with us an’ maybe you’ll find out that there’s more ways o’ killin’ a cat than chokin’ it to death with butter!’

  Sunshine filled the air again. Miss Tinkham quaffed her beer with more abandon, and Mrs. Rasmussen brought out a plate of rye hardtack and some cheese she had prepared with port wine, whole cloves, and other spices. When that was finished they made short work of the dishes and disappeared into their rooms to deck themselves out for the fray.

  Mrs. Feeley and Mrs. Rasmussen looked very neat in washable print frocks. Mrs. Rasmussen thought a hat was in order and put on a large white linen one. Mrs. Feeley went bareheaded. Miss Tinkham appeared clad in a champagne-colored silk jersey frock, vintage of nineteen-twenty-eight, judging by the long waist and irregular hem-line. She had on her lovely horsehair hat and plenty of beads. Mrs. Feeley took the shirtbox out of the cooler and they set off.

  ‘We’ll just make the rounds once over lightly,’ she said as they peeked in through the swinging doors of several bars. ‘See where they’s the most sailors,’ she explained.

  The Creole Palace was jammed full…but that was no place for ladies. Mrs. Feeley knew the proprietor of old! The Rainbow Gardens were doing a land-office business.

  ‘Don’t the bars look funny with them blackout curtains?’ Mrs. Rasmussen asked. Miss Tinkham noted the screen of chicken-wire that surrounded the orchestra; that must have been put up for protection after the bottle-throwing incident Mrs. Feeley had described.

  The trio did not stop long enough for a drink in any of these places. Miss Tinkham began to be a little impatient, wondering when the fun was going to start. Soon they reached the Merry-Go-Round.

  ‘This’ll do!’ Mrs. Feeley announced with finality. The place was jammed with sailors and B girls. Miss Tinkham wanted to know what B girls were, and Mrs. Rasmussen explained while Mrs. Feeley ordered beer for her guests.

  ‘They acts like hostesses, only they gets a cut on every drink the feller buys ’em,’ she said. ‘They keeps the checks outa the cash register an’ at closin’ time the boss pays ’em a percentage on the checks. The girls don’t drink nothin’ but ginger ale, but the bartender charges for whiskey an’ soda on the check, so they makes out all right!’

  Mrs. Feeley finished her beer and opened the box containing the gardenias. She took a few dollar bills out of her purse to make change, and handed Mrs. Rasmussen the purse for safe-keeping.

  ‘Now you watch me! I’m a-goin’ to work!’ she instructed Miss Tinkham, and sauntered off among the tables, her weather eye peeled for likely-looking sailors.

  ‘Kiss-arge! Buy a kiss-arge, Chief?’ Mrs. Feeley wheedled. Miss Tinkham watched her, fascinated. She heard a burly boatswain’s mate say, ‘Keep the change, Grandma!’ as Mrs. Feeley stalled around pretending not to have the right change…nothing but dollar bills in her hand. At the next table a homesick seaman asked her to sit down and have a drink with him. When Mrs. Rasmussen caught her eye, she nodded and winked; Mrs. Rasmussen grinned and ordered more beer for Miss Tinkham and herself.

  In a little while Mrs. Feeley returned minus half her corsages, but some eleven dollars to the good. Miss Tinkham was spellbound: it was too fantastically easy!

  ‘Come on! Let’s get outa here!’ said Mrs. Feeley when the beer was gone. ‘It’s gettin’ close to ten o’clock, an’ that’s when they puts out the free ordures at the Tropic! I’m hungry!’

  They were stuffing the hors d’oeuvres with both hands when the second mate off a freighter joined them. Apparently he was well in the weeds.

  ‘Hi, there!’ he shouted, shaking hands with each of them in turn. ‘If I’d a known you was comin’, I’d a baked a cake…with nuts in it! Sit down an’ have a drink on me!’

  The ladies accepted graciously. The Saturday-night excursion was going even better than they had hoped for. After the third beer, their host quietly folded up and went to sleep with his head on the table. The bartender came over and presented the bill. Mrs. Feeley told him to collect it from the sleeper.

  ‘Him?’ the bartender inquired scornfully. ‘He’s been broke since six o’clock!’

  Mrs. Feeley paid, but grudgingly.

  ‘Let that be a lesson to me,’ she muttered. ‘At my age!’ She explained to Miss Tinkham how badly they had been used.

  ‘Never sit down with ’em unless you see the pay-dirt piled up in front of ’em on the table! They generally pays for a round o’ drinks outa a five- or ten-dollar bill; then they leaves the change piled up in front of ’em, an’ drinks till that’s gone, too. Be sure you see the color o’ their money, or they’ll hook you every time!’

  Miss Tinkham promised to be careful. Then she asked shyly:

  ‘Mrs. Feeley, could I go round with the flowers? I’d love to see if I could sell some!’ Mrs. Feeley handed her the box and some sweaty bills to make change with.

  ‘Sure, dear! Always tell ’em you’ll go get the change, then they’ll tell you never mind an’ you can keep the change!’

  Miss Tinkham caught on fast.

  ‘That’s why I come out tonight,’ Mrs. Feeley explained to Mrs. Rasmussen in a mellow, confidential mood. ‘If she’s any good at it, she can work the kiss-arge racket every Saturday night an’ probably make herself as much by the end o’ the month as she’d a had from her income!’

  ‘It sure takes you to think o’ things!’ Mrs. Rasmussen sighed admiringly.

  Apparently Mrs. Feeley’s apprentice was an apt one, for they soon saw her smiling her lovely heartwarming smile at the boys in blue. She was bridling and tossing her head coquettishly at them. They noticed that her greatest personal triumphs were at tables where there were no hostesses or other feminine competition. Before long Miss Tinkham was sitting at a table, the center of an admiring group of submarine sailors. They were stacking up drinks on her, and a lad had bought the last corsage and was pinning it on Miss Tinkham.

  Mrs. Rasmussen looked at Mrs. Feeley with twinkling eyes and cried, ‘Skoal!’

  Mrs. Feeley clinked glasses with her and said: ‘Skoal! It’s a low bush that the sun never shines on! Looks like we got her all set! Pssssssst! Look who just come in the door!’

  In response to Mrs. Feeley’s Panamanian love call, Mrs. Rasmussen turned and saw Danny and Kate Logan disappearing into the cocktail lounge where the Hawaiian orchestra was playing.

  ‘Gawd!’ Mrs. Feeley breathed, her eyes shining. ‘They got it good, an’ that ain’t bad! Come on! Let’s me ‘n you get stiff as a haddock!’

  ‘Okay by me!’ Mrs. Rasmussen agreed. ‘Guess I’ll just put these here in the First National!’ And she took the money from her purse and shoved it well down into her stocking.

  ‘Good idea!’ said Mrs. Feeley. ‘Take mine, too; just in case some drunk should try to roll us.’

  Miss Tinkham and the submarine sailors were singing with a fine disregard for the lyrics ‘The Song of the Islands,’ bearing down hard on the ‘na-ni-Hawaii’ part.

  ‘You know,’ Mrs. Feeley confided with a slight hiccup, ‘you can’t beat fun!’

  Mrs. Rasmussen drank to that sentiment and began looking around for the ladies’ room.

  ‘Come on! I’ll go with you,’ Mrs. Feeley said. ‘That door over there where them girls just come out!’

  Several minutes later when they were both feeling much more comfortable, they noticed the life-sized painting of a handsome male nude over the washbowl. His sole sop to the proprieties consisted of a large fig-leaf where it would do the most good.

  ‘Look!’ Mrs. Rasmussen tittered.

  ‘Ain’t he somepin’?’ chortled Mrs. Feeley. ‘Hey, they’s words on the fig-leaf! Let’s see what it says!’ Slowly and carefully
Mrs. Rasmussen read aloud:

  ‘Do not raise this leaf!’

  The sports looked at each other questioningly, each trying to measure the other’s daring. Mrs. Feeley got her nerve up first:

  ‘Come on! Let’s lift it!’ she urged. ‘After all, it ain’t as if it would be anythin’ you an’ me ain’t seen before!’

  Gingerly she lifted the fig-leaf, and as she did so the air was filled with the wild, high buzzing of a burglar alarm. Mrs. Feeley immediately dropped the leaf back into place. The clamor ceased.

  The two culprits emerged from the ladies’ room grinning sheepishly. They were met at the door by wild salvos of applause, whistles, and cat-calls. The patrons at the bar turned around to stare at them and the sailors demanded a drink on the house.

  Miss Tinkham was pounding on the table with her beer-glass and laughing heartily as the sailors explained the joke to her…they had caught an unsuspecting male earlier in the evening who lifted the fig-leaf of the feminine nude that adorned the wall of the men’s room.

  Two suckers in one evening! Second drink on the house in one night…almost too good to be true!

  Nothing abashed, Mrs. Feeley and Mrs. Rasmussen enjoyed their free beer. They had scarcely finished when the lights were dimmed as a signal for closing time.

  As they left, Miss Tinkham told everyone what a marvelous time she had had; she promised to write regularly to the sailor boys. It had been a glorious binge.

  There was not a taxi in sight and the busses had stopped running. Mrs. Feeley did not feel like walking. They trudged a few steps along Market Street and were about to cross over to Island Avenue when the red light stopped them. The same red light stopped a car, heading down Island Avenue. Mrs. Feeley thought fast.

  ‘Stay close to me an’ do just what I do!’ she said. She stepped out into the street, opened the back door of the sedan, and got in, followed by the other two, before the astonished young driver or his companion could open their mouths.

  ‘You don’t mind if we just ride along to the foot o’ Island Avenue, do you? It’s only a little ways, an’ my feet hurts!’

  As the junk yard came into view, Mrs. Feeley told the young man he could stop.

  ‘Thanks for the lift, young feller!’ she said as he drove off scratching his head.

  ‘Yeup!’ said Mrs. Feeley as she got ready for bed. ‘Home’s the best place after all…after all the gin-mills is closed!’

  Chapter 9

  MISS TINKHAM came up the walk from the front gate with the mail in her hand. There was a card from the Broadway Beauty School for Mrs. Rasmussen announcing free permanent waves to anyone who would act as a model for the students to practice on.

  For Mrs. Feeley there was another of those letters with the bright orange enclosure from the tax collector’s office. Miss Tinkham was concerned about the frequency of these notices. She knew little about business procedure, but she felt sure that tax bills were rendered not more than twice a year, anyway. So she decided to broach the subject to Mrs. Feeley at once. Mrs. Feeley always disposed of the notices quite simply: she dropped them into the glass jar where she kept the tax money without ever opening the letters!

  ‘Mrs. Feeley, dear, I hope you won’t think I am interfering in what does not concern me, but here is another of those notices from the tax collector. Don’t you think perhaps I had better open it?’

  ‘Well, ’twon’t do no harm, I guess. I never open ’em, myself! The lawyer feller tends to that, but he ain’t been around an’ it’s a week past his time. He ain’t never been late before! I ain’t so hot on the readin’ myself; that’s why Mr. Feeley told me to leave all that there to Strunk an’ he’d take care o’ it for me. What’s it say in the letter, anyway?’

  Miss Tinkham opened the envelope and read silently what the notice contained. She looked stunned, as if unable to believe what her eyes told her.

  ‘Well?’ queried Mrs. Feeley.

  ‘It says: “The county tax collector is required by state law to offer for sale at public auction all that property herein described in the attached legal description of the property, delinquent for taxes of nineteen thirty-six, on or about June thirtieth, nineteen forty-two, at the tax collector’s office. You have been repeatedly notified of the delinquency, and unless the property is redeemed by the full payment of arrears in taxes plus eight per cent delinquent penalty, the sale will proceed according to law.”’

  Mrs. Feeley stopped rocking. She wet her lips and said, ‘Would you just read that over again…slow, like?’

  Miss Tinkham complied, even reading off the list of numbers describing the lots and their location.

  ‘There’s been a awful mistake somewhere!’ Mrs. Feeley announced at last. ‘I paid every cent o’ them taxes long ’fore they was due for six years! I got receipts to prove it, too!’

  From a drawer in her dresser she produced an old tin candy box and dug out a handful of tax receipts. Sure enough, there were the rubber stamp marks in the proper squares marked ‘Paid,’ plain as the nose on your face. Miss Tinkham could see.

  ‘Come on!’ Mrs. Feeley ordered. ‘We ain’t waitin’ for the lawyer: he must be outa town or he’d a been here before now. We’re goin’ right down to the head man about this!’

  Mrs. Rasmussen and Miss Tinkham ran to get their hats while Mrs. Feeley put her shoes on. No one spoke. The tenseness of the situation had spread to all of the group. This situation would require the combined mental resources of the friends, and they were saving their strength. The monstrous fact that their happy home was in danger rendered them utterly speechless. It was all a bad dream.

  As Mrs. Feeley finished gathering up the tax receipts she said:

  ‘We’ll have the truck, on account o’ it’s so important. Just holler to Old-Timer, one o’ you!’

  Old-Timer rolled the truck out and the ladies climbed aboard.

  ‘Where should I tell him to go?’ asked Mrs. Feeley, bewildered by the sudden turn of events.

  ‘Civic Center, I think,’ Miss Tinkham said.

  An education did not always get you much, but it sure came in handy at a time like this.

  ‘By God,’ Mrs. Feeley swore fervently, ‘if I get outa this one with my hide, I’m gonna learn to read sure as God made little apples!’

  Once inside the tax collector’s office, Mrs. Feeley took command. Two or three clerks tried to get her to state her business. This angered her greatly, and she swept them aside when Miss Tinkham pointed out to her the door that led to the tax collector’s private office.

  ‘Outamy way, small fry!’ she cried. ‘I come to see the man himself.’ And in she went.

  The collector was a nice, mild-mannered fellow. Apparently he was not unused to irate taxpayers and their grievances, for he calmed Mrs. Feeley down, gave her a chair, found out her name, and sent the secretary for the proper tax book.

  ‘I been payin’ my taxes regular for six years, ever since Mr. Feeley was took!’ she protested. ‘I been givin’ the money to the lawyer just like he told me to before he died!’

  The collector asked why she hadn’t paid them herself.

  ‘See, on account o’ me never havin’ hardly no schoolin’ to speak of, I can’t hardly read; an’ he thought I oughta have the lawyer to look out for the business end o’ things for me!’ she explained.

  The tax collector soothed her.

  ‘Obviously there has been a slip-up somewhere, Mrs. Feeley. We’ll soon straighten it out, if things are as you say. You said you had receipts?’

  ‘Sure have!’ cried Mrs. Feeley, getting up and bringing them to his desk.

  The collector examined them carefully for several minutes. Then he said kindly:

  ‘Sit down, Mrs. Feeley! I hate to tell you this, but you have been swindled. These receipts are forgeries. You understand what that means, don’t you?’

  Mrs. Feeley shook her head in dumb misery.

  ‘It means that for six years this lawyer has been putting your tax money in his pocket and giving yo
u back a receipt which he stamped “Paid” himself, instead of paying the money to the county and getting a receipt from us! If you had opened your tax bills each time they had come, you would have known something was wrong.’

  Mrs. Feeley still couldn’t take it in. It wasn’t possible. She was bound to wake up any minute now out of this evil dream.

  ‘I can see how you were taken in, all right!’ the collector went on. ‘It’s a pretty low-down piece of business; but I am afraid that unless the property is redeemed before the last of June, it will have to go up for sale. You see, when we receive no answer from the delinquent billings, we assume that the owners have moved away or abandoned the property and are letting it go for the taxes.’

  Mrs. Feeley sat shaking her head, still speechless. There was nothing to say. What could be said ever again that would make sense? Her whole world had collapsed around her head.

  ‘Of course, you’ll have to start proceedings right away to have the lawyer arrested and prosecuted. What did you say his name was?’

  Mrs. Feeley gradually came to life:

  ‘Elmer Strunk! That’s the bastard! Let me get my hands on him! They’ll pick the son-of-a-bitch up off the floor with blottin’ paper when I’m through with him! Here I been thinkin’ my property was as safe as if it was in God’s own pocket for six years!’

  ‘Now, take it easy, Mrs. Feeley! You’re not the only one that wants to get hold of Strunk! I think I can tell you about a few of his activities! He is wanted for forgery, embezzlement, and some shady oil-stock deals he pulled off. He is mixed up in some immigration chiseling too. The Chinese-American League is offering a reward for information leading to his arrest: it seems he was forging identification papers for Japanese aliens proving them to be Chinese citizens so they could escape being deported. You want to see if you can discover his hiding place, if you can, and have him arrested!’

  ‘The hell with him!’ shouted Mrs. Feeley, galvanized into action at last. ‘I’ll tend to him later! What I wanna know right now is what I gotta do to get my property back!’