Read Dread Journey for Free Online Page A

“No more geraniums for another year, thank God.”
    Hank said in a monotone, “I’m going to New York. I’m going to write a book. It’ll be a whale of a book. It’ll sell a million copies and I’ll eat guinea hen three times a day while the people I write about go on starving. But I won’t care. I won’t have to watch them starve. After a while I’ll have so much money I’ll be able to forget them. I’ll slap down a dollar when the plate is passed for relief and tell what a great humanitarian I am.”
    “Shut up,” Les said wearily.
    “Is he always like this?” she asked.
    Hank answered, “Always except when he’s drunk. Why don’t you ask Les for a drink? He might give you one and you could slip it to me.”
    Les said, “It’s a matter of principle, Hank. We must wait for Cobbett.”
    “It would be easier on the nerves if you’d pass the bottle.”
    She’d known Les Augustin for three years, ever since he became a name in music. She knew all the topnotchers. She gave merry, expensive parties; the successful liked parties just as much as the stragglers. Even more. She didn’t like unsuccessful people. If Cavanaugh were one she must find out now. It wasn’t that she was a snob about labels; it was merely that the unsuccessful, those climbing up and those falling down, were unsure, pathetic. They frightened her.
    She had been safe with Les from the beginning. He was too selfish ever to fail. All the colony liked him. He was wickedly amusing on parties and he was restful. Just being with him was relaxing. How such a limp person could make the most frenetic music of the present day was always good for space in the columns. Les admitted that he hoarded his energy for performance. His other hours were spent reclining.
    She couldn’t understand where Hank Cavanaugh fitted with Les. She couldn’t place Hank Cavanaugh in any familiar pattern. Cavanaugh didn’t look like a success story; his suit was as rumpled as that of the man in compartment F, the difference was that he didn’t care. He had no outward aspects of success but no inner properties of failure. He didn’t seem to care about anything.
    Les might have adopted him in the club car, an Augustinian gesture. Out of monkey curiosity. But there was more than casual relationship here. These men were not strangers; they had known each other a long time. She realized then that in the printed publicity of Augustin there were wide gaps. The boy genius, the Juilliard scholar, the Augustin Stomp—Hank Cavanaugh belonged in one of the gaps.
    She was ready to question but there was a tap on the door.
    Hank blinked open his eyes. “There’s the St. Bernard.” He bellowed, “Come in. Come on in.”
    Charles, the club-car waiter, young, handsome, grave-faced, entered. Everyone who traveled the Chief, and who was anyone, knew Charles.
    Kitten smiled her smile. “Hello, Charles.”
    Charles said, “Hello, Miss Agnew. Mr. Augustin.”
    Les lifted his hand. “Hello there. Put them on the table, will you, Charles?”
    “I’m Hank Cavanaugh,” Hank said. “And you’re a life-saver.” He was holding out a bill.
    Les said, “I’m host.”
    “The set-ups are on me,” Hank growled. “I’ll drink your royal booze while I’m here but I won’t take your filthy lucre.”
    Charles set up a tray table, deposited the set-ups, the bottles of soda. “I only brought two glasses, Mr. Augustin. James said two.”
    “They didn’t expect me,” Kitten admitted. She smiled her smile again. “Though I was invited.”
    “I’ll bring another.”
    Hank said, “Don’t bother. I prefer the bottle.”
    “There’s a tumbler in my room. We’ll get it, Charles.”
    He took the bill from Hank.
    Les said, “Next time you’ve another order this way, bring us a few more. Thanks, Charles.”
    The boy closed himself out.
    Hank said, “If you two will kindly move your assorted legs, I’ll pour. Get out your bottle, Les.”
    Les stirred his legs. Kitten moved hers