by Damon Runyon
“I do go to him,” Feet says, and I can see there are big tears in his eyes. “But he says he will not cancel the deal. He says he will not take the money back; what he wants is my body, because I have such a funny-shaped head. I offer him four times what he pays me, but he will not take it. He says my body must be delivered to him promptly on March first.”
“Does Hortense know about this deal?” I ask.
“Oh, no, no!” Feet says. “And I will never tell her, because she will think I am crazy, and Hortense does not care for crazy guys. In fact, she is always complaining about the other guy who buys her the diamond bracelets, claiming he is a little crazy, and if she thinks I am the same way the chances are she will give me the breeze.”
Now this is a situation indeed, but what to do about it I do not know. I put the proposition up to a lawyer friend of mine the next day, and he says he does not believe the deal will hold good in court, but of course I know Feet Samuels does not wish to go to court, because the last time Feet goes to court he is held as a material witness and is in the Tombs ten days.
The lawyer says Feet can run away, but personally I consider this a very dishonorable idea after The Brain putting the okay on Feet with old Doc Bodeeker, and anyway I can see Feet is not going to do such a thing as long as Hortense is around. I can see that one hair of her head is stronger than the Atlantic cable with Feet Samuels.
A week slides by, and I do not see so much of Feet, but I hear of him murdering crap games and short card players, and winning plenty, and also going around the night clubs with Hortense, who finally has so many bracelets there is no more room on her arms, and she puts a few of them on her ankles, which are not bad ankles to look at, at that, with or without bracelets.
Then goes another week, and it just happens I am standing in front of Mindy’s about four-thirty one morning and thinking that Feet’s time must be up and wondering how he makes out with old Doc Bodeeker, when all of a sudden I hear a ploppity-plop coming up Broadway, and what do I see but Feet Samuels running so fast he is passing taxis that are going thirty-five miles an hour like they are standing still. He is certainly stepping along.
There are no traffic lights and not much traffic at such an hour in the morning, and Feet passes me in a terrible hurry. And about twenty yards behind him comes an old guy with gray whiskers, and I can see it is nobody but Doc Bodeeker. What is more, he has a big long knife in one hand, and he seems to be reaching for Feet at every jump with the knife.
Well, this seems to me a most surprising spectacle, and I follow them to see what comes of it, because I can see at once that Doc Bodeeker is trying to collect Feet’s body himself. But I am not much of a runner, and they are out of my sight in no time, and only that I am able to follow them by ear through Feet’s feet going ploppity-plop I will ever trail them.
They turn east onto Fifty-fourth Street off Broadway, and when I finally reach the corner I see a crowd halfway down the block in front of the Hot Box, and I know this crowd has something to do with Feet and Doc Bodeeker even before I get to the door to find that Feet goes on in while Doc Bodeeker is arguing with Soldier Sweeney, the doorman, because as Feet passes the Soldier he tells the Soldier not to let the guy who is chasing him in. And the Soldier, being a good friend of Feet’s, is standing the doc off.
Well, it seems that Hortense is in the Hot Box waiting for Feet, and naturally she is much surprised to see him come in all out of breath, and so is everybody else in the joint, including Henri, the head waiter, who afterwards tells me what comes off there, because you see I am out in front.
“A crazy man is chasing me with a butcher knife,” Feet says to Hortense. “If he gets inside I am a goner. He is down at the door trying to get in.”
Now I will say one thing for Hortense, and this is she has plenty of nerve, but of course you will expect a daughter of Skush O’Brien to have plenty of nerve. Nobody ever has more moxie than Skush. Henri, the head waiter, tells me that Hortense does not get excited, but says she will just have a little peek at the guy who is chasing Feet.
The Hot Box is over a garage, and the kitchen windows look down onto Fifty-fourth Street, and while Doc Bodeeker is arguing with Soldier Sweeney, I hear a window lift, and who looks out but Hortense. She takes one squint and yanks her head in quick, and Henri tells me afterwards she shrieks:
“My Lord, Feet! This is the same daffy old guy who sends me all the bracelets, and who wishes to marry me!”
“And he is the guy I sell my body to,” Feet says, and then he tells Hortense the story of his deal with Doc Bodeeker.
“It is all for you, Horty,” Feet says, although of course this is nothing but a big lie, because it is all for The Brain in the beginning. “I love you, and I only wish to get a little dough to show you a good time before I die. If it is not for this deal I will ask you to be my ever-loving wife.”
Well, what happens but Hortense plunges right into Feet’s arms, and gives him a big kiss on his ugly mush, and says to him like this:
“I love you too, Feet, because nobody ever makes such a sacrifice as to hock their body for me. Never mind the deal. I will marry you at once, only we must first get rid of this daffy old guy downstairs.”
Then Hortense peeks out of the window again and hollers down at old Doc Bodeeker. “Go away,” she says. “Go away, or I will chuck a moth in your whiskers, you old fool.”
But the sight of her only seems to make old Doc Bodeeker a little wilder than somewhat, and he starts struggling with Soldier Sweeney very ferocious, so the Soldier takes the knife away from the doc and throws it away before somebody gets hurt with it.
Now it seems Hortense looks around the kitchen for something to chuck out the window at old Doc Bodeeker, and all she sees is a nice new ham which the chef just lays out on the table to slice up for ham sandwiches. This ham is a very large ham, such as will last the Hot Box a month, for they slice the ham in their ham sandwiches very, very thin up at the Hot Box. Anyway, Hortense grabs up the ham and runs to the window with it and gives it a heave without even stopping to take aim.
Well, this ham hits the poor old Doc Bodeeker kerbowie smack-dab on the noggin. The doc does not fall down, but he commences staggering around with his legs bending under him like he is drunk.
I wish to help him, because I feel sorry for a guy in such a spot as this, and what is more I consider it a dirty trick for a doll such as Hortense to slug anybody with a ham.
Well, I take charge of the old doc and lead him back down Broadway and into Mindy’s, where I set him down and get him a cup of coffee and a Bismarck herring to revive him, while quite a number of citizens gather about him very sympathetic.
“My friends,” the old doc says finally, looking around, “you see in me a broken-hearted man. I am not a crack-pot, although of course my relatives may give you an argument on this proposition. I am in love with Hortense. I am in love with her from the night I first see her playing the part of a sunflower in Scandals. I wish to marry her, as I am a widower of long standing, but somehow the idea of me marrying anybody never appeals to my sons and daughters.
“In fact,” the doc says, dropping his voice to a whisper, “sometimes they even talk of locking me up when I wish to marry somebody. So naturally I never tell them about Hortense, because I fear they may try to discourage me. But I am deeply in love with her and send her many beautiful presents, although I am not able to see her often on account of my relatives. Then I find out Hortense is carrying on with this Feet Samuels.
“I am desperately jealous,” the doc says, “but I do not know what to do. Finally Fate sends this Feet to me offering to sell his body. Of course, I am not practicing for years, but I keep an office on Park Avenue just for old times’ sake, and it is to this office he comes. At first I think he is crazy, but he refers me to Mr. Armand Rosenthal, the big sporting man, who assures me that Feet Samuels is all right.
“The idea strikes me that if I make a deal with Feet Samuels for his body as he proposes, he will wait u
ntil the time comes to pay his obligation and run away, and,” the doc says, “I will never be troubled by his rivalry for the affections of Hortense again. But he does not depart. I do not reckon on the holding power of love.
“Finally in a jealous frenzy I take after him with a knife, figuring to scare him out of town. But it is too late. I can see how Hortense loves him in return, or she will not drop a scuttle of coal on me in his defense as she does.
“Yes, gentlemen,” the old doc says, “I am broken-hearted. I also seem to have a large lump on my head. Besides, Hortense has all my presents, and Feet Samuels has my money, so I get the worst of it all around. I only hope and trust that my daughter Eloise, who is Mrs. Sidney Simmons Bragdon, does not hear of this, or she may be as mad as she is the time I wish to marry the beautiful cigarette girl in Jimmy Kelley’s.”
Here Doc Bodeeker seems all busted up by his feelings and starts to shed tears, and everybody is feeling very sorry for him indeed, when up steps The Brain, who is taking everything in.
“Do not worry about your presents and your dough,” The Brain says. “I will make everything good, because I am the guy who okays Feet Samuels with you. I am wrong on a guy for the first time in my life, and I must pay, but Feet Samuels will be very, very sorry when I find him. Of course, I do not figure on a doll in the case, and this always makes quite a difference, so I am really not a hundred per cent wrong on the guy, at that.
“But,” The Brain says, in a very loud voice so everybody can hear, “Feet Samuels is nothing but a dirty welsher for not turning in his body to you as per agreement, and as long as he lives he will never get another dollar or another okay off of me, or anybody I know. His credit is ruined forever on Broadway.”
But I judge that Feet and Hortense do not care. The last time I hear of them they are away over in New Jersey where not even The Brain’s guys dast to bother them on account of Skush O’Brien, and I understand they are raising chickens and children right and left, and that all of Hortense’s bracelets are now in Newark municipal bonds, which I am told are not bad bonds, at that.
MADAME LA GIMP
One night I am passing the corner of Fiftieth Street and Broadway, and what do I see but Dave the Dude standing in a doorway talking to a busted-down old Spanish doll by the name of Madame La Gimp. Or rather Madame La Gimp is talking to Dave the Dude, and what is more he is listening to her, because I can hear him say yes, yes, as he always does when he is really listening to anybody, which is very seldom.
Now this is a most surprising sight to me, because Madame La Gimp is not such an old doll as anybody will wish to listen to, especially Dave the Dude. In fact, she is nothing but an old hay-bag, and generally somewhat ginned up. For fifteen years, or maybe sixteen, I see Madame La Gimp up and down Broadway, or sliding along through the Forties, sometimes selling newspapers, and sometimes selling flowers, and in all these years I seldom see her but what she seems to have about half a heat on from drinking gin.
Of course, nobody ever takes the newspapers she sells, even after they buy them off of her, because they are generally yesterday’s papers, and sometimes last week’s, and nobody ever wants her flowers, even after they pay her for them, because they are flowers such as she gets off an undertaker over on Tenth Avenue, and they are very tired flowers indeed.
Personally, I consider Madame La Gimp nothing but an old pest, but kind-hearted guys like Dave the Dude always stake her to a few pieces of silver when she comes shuffling along putting on the moan about her tough luck. She walks with a gimp in one leg, which is why she is called Madame La Gimp, and years ago I hear somebody say Madame La Gimp is once a Spanish dancer, and a big shot on Broadway, but that she meets up with an accident which puts her out of the dancing dodge, and that a busted romance makes her become a gin-head.
I remember somebody telling me once that Madame La Gimp is quite a beauty in her day, and has her own servants, and all this and that, but I always hear the same thing about every bum on Broadway, male and female, including some I know are bums, in spades, right from taw, so I do not pay any attention to these stories.
Still, I am willing to allow that maybe Madame La Gimp is once a fair looker, at that, and the chances are has a fair shape, because once or twice I see her when she is not ginned up, and has her hair combed, and she is not so bad-looking, although even then if you put her in a claiming race I do not think there is any danger of anybody claiming her out of it.
Mostly she is wearing raggedy clothes, and busted shoes, and her gray hair is generally hanging down her face, and when I say she is maybe fifty years old I am giving her plenty the best of it. Although she is Spanish, Madame La Gimp talks good English, and in fact she can cuss in English as good as anybody I ever hear, barring Dave the Dude.
Well, anyway, when Dave the Dude sees me as he is listening to Madame La Gimp, he motions me to wait, so I wait until she finally gets through gabbing to him and goes gimping away. Then Dave the Dude comes over to me looking much worried.
“This is quite a situation,” Dave says. “The old doll is in a tough spot. It seems that she once has a baby which she calls by the name of Eulalie, being it is a girl baby, and she ships this baby off to her sister in a little town in Spain to raise up, because Madame La Gimp figures a baby is not apt to get much raising-up off of her as long as she is on Broadway. Well, this baby is on her way here. In fact,” Dave says, “she will land next Saturday and here it is Wednesday already.”
“Where is the baby’s papa?” I ask Dave the Dude.
“Well,” Dave says, “I do not ask Madame La Gimp this, because I do not consider it a fair question. A guy who goes around this town asking where babies’ papas are, or even who they are, is apt to get the name of being nosy. Anyway, this has nothing whatever to do with the proposition, which is that Madame La Gimp’s baby, Eulalie, is arriving here.
“Now,” Dave says, “it seems that Madame La Gimp’s baby, being now eighteen years old, is engaged to marry the son of a very proud old Spanish nobleman who lives in this little town in Spain, and it also seems that the very proud old Spanish nobleman, and his ever-loving wife, and the son, and Madame La Gimp’s sister, are all with the baby. They are making a tour of the whole world, and will stop over here a couple of days just to see Madame La Gimp.”
“It is commencing to sound to me like a movie such as a guy is apt to see at a midnight show,” I say.
“Wait a minute,” Dave says, getting impatient. “You are too gabby to suit me. Now it seems that the proud old Spanish nobleman does not wish his son to marry any lob, and one reason he is coming here is to look over Madame La Gimp, and see that she is okay. He thinks that Madame La Gimp’s baby’s own papa is dead, and that Madame La Gimp is now married to one of the richest and most aristocratic guys in America.”
“How does the proud old Spanish nobleman get such an idea as this?” I ask. “It is a sure thing he never sees Madame La Gimp, or even a photograph of her as she is at present.”
“I will tell you how,” Dave the Dude says. “It seems Madame La Gimp gives her baby the idea that such is the case in her letters to her. It seems Madame La Gimp does a little scrubbing business around a swell apartment hotel on Park Avenue that is called the Marberry, and she cops stationery there and writes her baby in Spain on this stationery, saying this is where she lives, and how rich and aristocratic her husband is. And what is more, Madame La Gimp has letters from her baby sent to her care of the hotel and gets them out of the employees’ mail.”
“Why,” I say, “Madame La Gimp is nothing but an old fraud to deceive people in this manner, especially a proud old Spanish nobleman. And,” I say, “this proud old Spanish nobleman must be something of a chump to believe a mother has plenty of dough, although of course I do not know just how smart a proud old Spanish nobleman can be.”
“Well,” Dave says, “Madame La Gimp tells me the thing that makes the biggest hit of all with the proud old Spanish nobleman is that she keeps her baby in Spain all these years
because she wishes her raised up a true Spanish baby in every respect until she is old enough to know what time it is. But I judge the proud old Spanish nobleman is none too bright, at that,” Dave says, “because Madame La Gimp tells me he always lives in his little town which does not even have running water in the bathrooms.
“But what I am getting at is this,” Dave says. “We must have Madame La Gimp in a swell apartment in the Marberry with a rich and aristocratic guy for a husband by the time her baby gets here, because if the proud old Spanish nobleman finds out Madame La Gimp is nothing but a bum, it is a hundred to one he will cancel his son’s engagement to Madame La Gimp’s baby and break a lot of people’s hearts, including his son’s.
“Madame La Gimp tells me her baby is daffy about the young guy, and he is daffy about her, and there are enough broken hearts in this town as it is. I know I will get the apartment, so you go and bring me Judge Henry G. Blake for a rich and aristocratic husband, or anyway for a husband.”
Well, I know Dave the Dude to do many a daffy thing, but never a thing as daffy as this. But I know there is no use arguing with him when he gets an idea, because if you argue with Dave the Dude too much he is apt to reach over and lay his Sunday punch on your snoot, and no argument is worth a punch on the snoot, especially from Dave the Dude.
So I go out looking for Judge Henry G. Blake to be Madame La Gimp’s husband, although I am not so sure Judge Henry G. Blake will care to be anybody’s husband, and especially Madame La Gimp’s after he gets a load of her, for Judge Henry G. Blake is kind of a classy old guy.
To look at Judge Henry G. Blake, with his gray hair, and his nose glasses, and his stomach, you will think he is very important people indeed. Of course, Judge Henry G. Blake is not a judge, and never is a judge, but they call him Judge because he looks like a judge, and talks slow, and puts in many long words, which very few people understand.