The Cold Millions: A Novel, стр. 79
She turned and wrote on a slip of paper: “The Phoenix Hotel” and “Edith.” And then she signed it: “Ursula.” She said she’d bought this hotel and that Edith was the manager and I could stay for a few days.
I stared at the page. “You bought a hotel?”
“I am going to come see you in three days. You’ve got two days to get sober. If you can’t do that, don’t ever come see me again.”
The Phoenix was the old Bailey Hotel with a new sign and, inside, a new coat of paint. I stood outside for a minute before going in. This manager, Edith, was an older woman, attractive enough, and she looked me up and down and said, simply, “Huh.” She had the desk clerk give me a second-floor room in the men’s wing. It was a single-occupancy bed and bureau, water closet down the hall. Better than I deserved. And all of it covered by Ursula. Best of all, there was a saloon in the basement, a private club Edith had started for men and women to get around the law that they could not consort inside a drinking establishment.
Now, if a woman gives me three days to sober up, it generally means I will spend the first two potted, and I did, eating and drinking in that basement saloon—and never once did a bill come, “Thank you, Mr. Dolan,” and “It’s on your account, Mr. Dolan,” and I thought I might live at the Phoenix forever.
I figured you would come looking for me, Rye-boy. But there was a good shop job and a boardinghouse for you if I stayed away. And if you flew off with me? What then? Another hobo camp, another saloon, another icebox to pilfer, another cop to roust us from sleep, and in the end, another Dolan gone Drunk.
What cannot be cured cannot be cured. Not by uisce, or by self-pity, or love or family or anything else. I had a good two days of that which could not be cured and woke in full light at the Phoenix. I did not remember getting myself to bed. They had given me a room with a window. One of those cold sharp winter suns was cracking the shades. There was a light rap at the door.
“Yes,” I said.
The door opened. It was the hotel manager, Edith, with a fresh set of clothes for me. “Good morning,” she said.
“If you say so.”
She set the clothes on the bureau, left, and returned a minute later with a basin of steaming hot water. Then she left and returned with another basin. Then three towels, a bar of soap, a straight razor, and a mug of shaving cream.
“Are you preparing for surgery?” I asked. “Is that the price of this room, a kidney? Because I’ll gladly pay.”
“You are funny.” Edith turned and considered me. “I must say, I didn’t see it when you first came in here. I just thought, Oh, God, she’s got a weakness for bums.”
This stung more than I let on.
Next, Edith brought in a chair and set it next to the bed. I lay there watching all of this without moving, without a word.
Then she left again.
And when the door opened this time, it was Ursula who came in.
I sat up. “I thought I had three days.”
“Today is the third.”
“Your math is suspect.”
“You came to see me Saturday night. Today is Monday.”
“I guess I was thinking of a day as more of a twenty-four-hour period . . . a discrete unit of—”
“Should I leave?”
“No, it’s just, I’m afraid I’m not—”
“Quiet,” she said. And she laid me back down on the pillow. Then she took one of the towels and pressed it down into the hot water. She wrung it out and then put the towel on my face. It nearly burned at first, then the heat seeped into my teeth. Eye sockets. My thoughts, bones, regrets, all hot and open, and I teared up beneath the hot cloth. Nothing in the world has ever felt as good. When she lifted the cloth away, she had the brush from the shaving mug, and she began putting the cream on my face. She spread it carefully on my cheeks and neck, using the tips of her fingers to clear it from my nose and lips. Then she had me hold the bowl of hot water on my chest and she gently shaved me, the whiskers falling into the bowl. She dipped the razor into the hot water and glided it across my cheeks, the pelt of whiskers falling away. She was a whiz with that straightedge, sure and fast as any barber.
I watched her eyes as she shaved me, careful and intent, looking for what she might be thinking, but she seemed as distant as if she were onstage. She shaved nearly up to my eyes and all the way down my neck. When my beard was gone, she used the wet towel again, wiped away the last of the cream.
Then she touched my cheek. She smiled. “There he is.” Next she told me to stand and undress.
“Ursula, I don’t even know if—”
“Just be quiet,” she said.
So I got out of bed and stripped to nothing. I threw my rank long johns in a pile next to my dirty clothes. I stood before her, shaking and ashamed, flaccid, ribs sticking out. I closed my eyes and I kept them that way.
She was even more careful in the washing of my body, dipping the towels and dabbing under my arms, across my neck, my chest, over the purple and yellow of jail beatings. Ursula used the soap and the water from both basins. I kept my eyes closed and I let myself be washed and rinsed and dried by her. And when she began washing my legs and torso, I felt myself roused.
“There he is,” she said again, and I felt her