THE "DETECTIVE
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had the gall to make people call him Major! Why Major? How
Major? Major what? Try to think of it: Julius Gruber, Major, the
United States Army. What kind of monster U .S. Army it must have
been! And then his own shriveled-up, nervous stick of a wife-poor
thing, so skinny now there was hardly a place to stick the needle-–
takes to asking
him
what
the
Major said today, what
the
Major did
today ... how could Acker ever have let himself be talked into such
a stewardship? It must have been the long, fat green cigar that
Gruber spieled him with, the golden ruby ring on the curled white
left pinky and the diamond with six sapphires clustered on the
thick right pinky, and the way that hairless gorilla with the jewelry
of a pasha on his hands hypnotized him into signing on. Really!
he just didn't have to stand for it, Acker decided as he stood there
stuck on the thought of making a stand for once on the principle
of his individual self-respect, even if it meant a scandal. What a
spot to be in! He began hooking his glasses on, and halted in the
niche on his right where he had ducked to avoid the trayful of
dishes wobbling by him, and surveyed the kitchen.
What a decrepit joint this Metropole was. The
N ew
Metropole,
it said on the stationery. Really! In kitchens you can see all kinds,
mostly the worst crumb-bums, but whose idea of a crew was this?
Even if it was a busy year, there had to be better specimens for
hire. There had to! Was there never a bottom to the barrel? He
was looking at the salad-man, whose hairy arms shook with a fur–
tive and anxious ineptitude as he stooped over the ice-filled counter
and laid out single sheets of that tough lettuce, covering them dis–
gracefully with hacked-up slices of tomato-and the tomatoes Acker
was able to afford this past week certainly needed more skillful
cutting than this. Mac-clid salad-men anywhere ever need another
name ?-trembled and said nothing because it was his first job in fif–
teen years: a convict, hunched and scared and stupid. Fortunately
not a drunk: the two drunks, real old dirty fairy bums, slouched
on their stools by the dishwasher, letting the busboys tilt their
full trays over and make a hideous racket instead of calling for
quiet, and smoked one guinea-stinker between them, suck and puff,
suck and puff, turn and turn about. And down at the far end,
quarreling with chef, those two waitresses long past sixty who
thought they bossed the show: what a collection of hennaed heads
