The Crimson Tide: A Novel

Kastner came around beside him and said in his thin, sinister tone:

“You know it vat I got on you, Angelo?”

“I do.”

“So? Also! Vas iss it you do about doze vimmen?”

“They won’t go.”

In Bromberg’s voice sounded an ominous roar: “Don’t hand us nothing like that! You hear what I’m telling you?”

Puma shrugged: “I hand you what I have to hand you. They have the lease. What is there for me to do?”

“Buy ’em off!”

“I try. They will not.”

“You offer ’em enough and they’ll quit!”

“No. They will not. They say they are here to fight you. They laugh at my money. What shall I do?”

“I’ll tell you one thing you’ll do, and do it damn quick!” roared Bromberg. “Hand over that money we need!”

“If you bellow in so loud a manner,” said Puma, “they could hear you in the studio… How much do you ask for?”

“Two thousand.”

“No.”

“What yeh mean by ‘No’?”

“What I say to you, that I have not two thousand.”

“You lying greaser–”

“I do not lie. I have paid my people and there remains but six hundred dollars in my bank.”

“When do we get the rest?” asked Sondheim, as Puma tossed the packet of bills onto the desk.

“When I make it,” replied Puma tranquilly. “You will understand my receipts are my capital at present. What else I have is engaged already in my new theatre. If you will be patient you shall have what I can spare.”

Bromberg rested both hairy fists on the desk and glared down at Puma.

“Who’s this new guy you got to go in with you? What’s the matter with our getting a jag of his coin?”

“You mean Mr. Pawling?”

“Yeh. Who the hell is that duck what inks his whiskers?”

“A partner.”

“Well, let him shove us ours then.”

“You wish to ruin me?” inquired Puma placidly.

“Not while you’re milkin’,” said Sondheim, showing every yellow fang in a grin.

“Then do not frighten Mr. Pawling out. Already you have scared my other partner, Mr. Skidder, like there never was any rabbits scared. You are foolish. If you are reasonable, I shall make money and you shall have your share. If you are not, then there is no money to give you.”

Sondheim said: “Take a slant at them yellow-backs, Karl.” And Kastner screwed a powerful jeweller’s glass into his eye and began a minute examination of the orange-coloured treasury notes, to find out whether they were marked bills.

Bromberg said heavily: “See here, Angelo, you gotta quit this damned stalling! You gotta get them women out, and do it quick or we’ll blow your dirty barracks into the North River!”

Sondheim began to wag his soiled forefinger again.

“Yeh quit us cold when things was on the fritz. Now, yeh gotta pay. If you wasn’t nothing but a wop skunk yeh’d stand in with us. The way you’re fixed would help us all. But now yeh makin’ money and yeh scared o’ yeh shadow!–”

Bromberg cut in: “And you’ll be outside when the band starts playing. Look what’s doing all over the world! Every country is starting something! You watch Berlin and Rosa Luxemburg and her bunch. Keep your eye peeled, Angy, and see what we and the I. W. W. start in every city of the country!”

Kastner, having satisfied himself that the bills had not been marked, and pocketed his jeweller’s glass, pushed back his lank blond hair.

“Yess,” he said in his icy, incisive voice, “yoost vatch out already! Dot crimson tide it iss rising the vorld all ofer! It shall drown effery aristocrat, effery bourgeois, effery intellectual. It shall be but a red flood ofer all the vorld vere noddings shall live only our peoble off the proletariat!”

“And where the hell will you be then, Angelo?” sneered Bromberg. “By God, we won’t have to ask you for our share of your money then!”

Again Sondheim leaned over him and wagged his nicotine-dyed finger:

“You get the rest of our money! Understand? And you get them women out!–or I tell you we’ll blow you and your joint to Hoboken! Get that?”

“I have understood,” said Puma quietly; but his heavy face was a muddy red now, and he choked a little when he spoke.

“Give us a date and stick to it,” added Bromberg. “Set it yourself. And after that we won’t bother to do any more jawin’. We’ll just attend to business–your business, Puma!”

After a long silence, Puma said calmly: “How much you want?”

“Ten thousand,” said Sondheim.

“And them women out of this,” added Bromberg.

“Or ve get you,” ended Kastner in his deadly voice.

Puma lifted his head and looked intently at each one of them in turn. And seemed presently to come to some conclusion.

Kastner forestalled him: “You try it some monkey trick and you try it no more effer again.”

“What’s your date for the cash?” insisted Sondheim.

“February first,” replied Puma quietly.