CHAPTER II
EAST LYNCH

Success has ruined more guys than failure ever will. It's like a Santa Cruz rum milk punch on an empty stomach – there's very few people can stand it. Many a guy that's a regular fellow at a hundred a month, becomes a boob at a hundred a week. What beat Napoleon, Caesar and Nero – failure? No, success! Give the thing the once over some time and you'll see that I'm right.

Success is the large evenin' with the boys at the lodge and failure is the mornin' after. As a matter of fact, they're twins. Often you can be a success without knowin' it, so if you been a failure all your life accordin' to your own dope, cheer up. But when you get up to the top where you can look down at all these other guys tryin' to sidestep the banana peels of life and climb up with you, knock off thinkin' what a big guy you are for a minute and give ten minutes to thinkin' what a tough time you had gettin' there. Give five minutes more to ruminatin' on how long the mob remembers a loser and you'll find it the best sixteen minutes you ever spent in your life.

In these days when the world is just a great big baby yellin' for a new toy every second, any simp can beat his way to the top. The real stunt is stayin' there after you arrive!

Kid Scanlan was a good sample of that. When the Kid was fightin' for bean money and the exercise, he never spent nothin' but the evenin' and very little of that. He didn't know whether booze was a drink or a liniment and the only ladies he was bothered about was his mother. But when he knocked out One-Punch Ross for the title and eased himself into the movies, it was all different. He begin to spend money like a vice-investigating committee, knock around with bartenders and give in to all the strange desires that hits a guy with his health and a bankroll. I stood by and cheered for a while until he crashes in love with this movie queen, Miss Vincent, that got more money a start than the Kid did in a season and more letters from well wishin' males than a newly elected mayor. Then I stepped in and saved the Kid just before he become a total loss.

I was standin' by the African Desert one day watchin' them take a picture called "Rapacious Rupert's Revenge," when the Kid comes over and calls me aside. Since he had become a actor he had gave himself up to dressin' in panama hats, Palm Beach suits and white shoes. He reminded me of the handsome young lieutenant in a musical comedy. Every time I seen him in that outfit I expected to hear him burst into some song like, "All hail, the Queen comes thither!" Know what I mean?

Well, havin' lured me away under the shade of some palm trees, the Kid tells me he's goin' over to Frisco on a little shoppin' expedition, and he wants me to come with him. I says I can't drink a thing because I have had a terrible headache since the night before when him and me and some camera men went to Montana Bill's and toyed with the illegal brew for a few hours.

"That last round," I says, "which I'll always remember because it come to six eighty-five, was what ruined me. The bartender must have gone crazy and put booze in them cocktails, because I've had that headache ever since!"

"It ain't the cocktails that give you the headache," the Kid tells me, "it was the check. And you must have had a bun on before that, anyhow, because you paid it! But that's got nothin' to do with this here trip to Frisco. I'm not goin' to stop anywheres for no powders. I'm gonna get somethin' I've needed for a long time!"

"What is it," I asks him, "a clean collar?"

"I wish you'd save that comedy for some rainy Sunday," he says; "that stuff of yours is about as funny as a broken arm! Since I been out here with these swell actors, I been changin' my clothes so often that I'll bet my body thinks I'm kiddin' it. Stop knockin' and come over to Frisco with me and – "

I don't know what else he was goin' to say, because just at that minute a Kansas cyclone on wheels come between us and I come to in a ditch about five feet from where the Kid is tryin' to see can he really stand on his head. When I had picked up enough ambition to get to my feet, I went over and jacked up the Kid. About half a mile up the road the thing which had attacked us is turnin' around.

"Run for your life!" I yells to the Kid. "It's comin' back!"

Before we could pick our hidin' places, the thing has drawed up in front of us and we see it's one of them trick autos known to the trade as racin' cars. I recognized it right away as belongin' to Miss Vincent. The owner was in the car and beside her was Edmund De Vronde, the shop-girls' delight. The Kid and De Vronde had took to each other from the minute they first met like a ferret does to a rat. It was a case of hate at first sight. So you can figure that this little incident did nothin' to cement the friendship. Miss Vincent leaps out of the thing and comes runnin' over to us.

"Good Heavens!" she says. "You're not hurt, are you?"

She's lookin' right past me and at the Kid like it made little or no difference whether I was damaged or not.

The Kid throws half an acre of California out of his collar and removes a few pebbles and a cigar butt from his ear.

"No!" he growls, with a sarcastical smile. "Was they many killed?"

She takes out a little trick silk handkerchief and wipes off his face with it.

"I meant to step on the foot brake," she explains, "and I must have stepped on the gas by mistake!"

"You must have stepped on the dynamite," I butts in, "because it blowed me into the ditch!"

The Kid shakes a bucket or so of sand out of his hair and looks over at the car where De Vronde is examin' us through a pair of cheaters and enjoyin' himself scandalously.

"I see you got Foolish with you," says the Kid to Miss Vincent. "What's the matter – are you off me now?"

She smiles and wipes some mud off the Kid's collar.

"Why, no," she tells him. "Genaro is putting on 'The Escapes of Eva' this morning and I'm playing the lead opposite Mr. De Vronde. I happened to pick him up on the road and I'm bringing him in, that's all."

"Yeh?" says the Kid, still lookin' over at the car. "What are you laughin' at, Stupid?" he snarls suddenly at De Vronde.

De Vronde give a shiver and the glasses fell off in the bottom of the car. While he was stoopin' down to look for 'em, the Kid turns to Miss Vincent.

"I only wish he had been drivin' the thing," he says, "because then I'd have some excuse for bouncin' him! On the level, now," he goes on, winkin' at her, "he was drivin' the thing, wasn't he?"

"Oh, no!" she answers. "I was at the wheel."

The Kid frowns and thinks for a minute.

"Well," he says finally, takin' another look at De Vronde, "ain't the brakes or somethin' where he was sittin'?"

"No!" she tells him, grabbin' him by the arm. "Please don't lose your head now and start a fuss! I'm awfully sorry this happened, but as long as neither of you were hurt and – "

"It didn't do me no good, that's a cinch!" butts in the Kid, with a meanin' look at his spoiled scenery. He walks over to the car and glares up at De Vronde. "Hey!" he snarls. "What d'ye mean by bein' in a automobile that runs over me, eh?"

De Vronde moves as far over as the seat will let him, and then falls back on prayer.

"I must decline to enter any controversy with you," he pipes, after a minute. "You were standing in the right of way and – "

The Kid grins and holds up his hand. His face has lighted all up and he's lickin' his lips like he always did in the ring when he seen the other guy was pickin' out a place to fall. He's walked around to where De Vronde had been sittin' and piped a little handle stickin' up.

"What's this?" he calls to Miss Vincent, who's climbin' in the other side.

"That's just the oil pump," she says.

The Kid suddenly reaches up, grabs De Vronde by the arm and jerks him out of the car.

"You big stiff!" he roars. "Why didn't you pump that oil, hey? If you had done that, the thing wouldn't have hit us! I knowed it was all your fault – you deliberately laid off that pump, hopin' we'd get killed!"

With that he starts an uppercut from the ground, but I yanked him away just as De Vronde murmurs, "Safety first!" and takes a dive. Miss Vincent gets out and gives me a hand with the Kid, and De Vronde sits up and menaces us with his cane.

"That isn't a bit nice!" Miss Vincent frowns at the Kid. "That's ruffianly! You never should have struck him!"

"I didn't hit him!" yells the Kid. "The big tramp quit! If I had hit him he wouldn't be gettin' up."

He starts over again, but I held him until she has climbed into the car with De Vronde and they shoot up the road. Just before they disappeared, De Vronde turns around in the seat and shakes his finger at us.

"Only the presence of the lady," he calls, "saves you from my wrath!"

"Come on!" says the Kid, grabbin' my arm. "Let's get the next train for Frisco, before I run after that guy and flatten him! Believe me," he goes on, lookin' up the road after the car, "I'll get that bird before the day is over if I have to bust a leg!"

And that's just what he did – both!

All the way over in the train I tried to work the third degree on the Kid to find out what he was goin' to buy, but there was nothin' doin'. He stalled me off until we pull into the town and then he takes me to a street that was so far from the railroad station I come near castin' a shoe on the way over. About half way down this boulevard there's a garage and the Kid stops in front of it.

"Wait here!" he tells me. "And don't let nobody give you no babies to mind. I'll be right out!"

He slips inside and I'm lookin' the joint over when a big sign catches my eye. I took one good flash at the thing, and then I starts right in after the Kid. A friend of mine in New York had gone into a place with a sign on it like that one time and made a purchase. Six months later when he come out of the hospital, he claimed the bare smell of gasoline made him faint Here's what it said on that sign,

J. MARKOWITZ

USED AND NEARLY NEW AUTOS

FOR SALE

It was kinda dark inside and it takes me a minute to get my bearin's, but finally I see the Kid and a snappy dressed guy standin' in front of what I at first thought was a Pullman sleeper. When I get a close up, though, I find it's only a tourin' car. It was the biggest automobile I ever seen in my life; a sightseein' bus would have looked like a runabout alongside of it. There was one there and it did! The thing hadn't been painted since the Maine was blowed up, and you could see the guy that had been keepin' it was fond of the open air, because there was samples of mud from probably all over the world on it.

"You could believe it, you're gettin' it a practically brand new car!" the young feller is tellin' the Kid. "The shoes are in A number one condition – all they need is now vulcanizin', and Oi! – how that car could travel!"

"Just a minute!" I butts in. "Before you make this sale, I want to speak to my friend here."

Both him and the Kid glares at me, and the Kid pushes me aside.

"Lay off!" he says. "I know just what you're gonna say. There's no use of you tryin' to discourage me, because I'm gonna buy a car. Here I am makin' all kinds of money and I might as well be a bum! – no automobile or nothin'. I should have had a car long ago; all the big leaguers own their own tourin' cars. There's no class to you any more, if you don't flit from place to place in your own bus!"

"Yeh?" I comes back. "Well, Washington never had no car, but that didn't stop him from gettin' over! I never heard of Columbus gettin' pinched for speedin' and Shakespeare never had no trouble with blowouts. Yet all them birds was looked on as the loud crash in their time. What's the answer to that?"

In butts I. Markowitz, shovin' his hat back on his ears.

"That brings us right down to the present!" he says. "And I could tell you why none of your friends had oitermobiles. Cars was too expensive in them days – a millionaire even would have to talk it over with his wife before they should buy one. But now, almost they give them away! Materials is cheaper, in Europe the war is over and now competition is – is – more! That's why I'm able to let your friend have this factory pet here for eight hundred dollars. A bargain you ask me? A man never heard a bargain like that!"

"Don't worry!" I tells him. "Nobody will ever hear about it from me. If you made him a present of it and throwed in the garage, it would still be expensive!"

"Who's buyin' this car?" snarls the Kid. "You or me?"

"Not guilty!" I says. "If you got to have a car, why don't you buy a new one?"

"This is the same as new!" pipes I. Markowitz.

"Speak when you're spoken to, Stupid!" I says.

"Don't start nothin' here," the Kid tells me, pullin' me away. "I don't want none of them new cars. They're too stiff and I might go out and hit somebody the first crack out of the box. I want one that's been broke in."

"Well," I laughs, "that's what you're gettin', believe me! That there thing has been broke in and out!" I turns to I. Markowitz. "What make is the old boiler?" I asks him.

"Boiler he calls it!" he says, throwin' up his hands and lookin' at the ceilin'. "It's an A. G. F. I suppose even you know what an A number one car that is, don't you?"

"No!" I answers. "But I know what A. G. F. means."

He falls.

"What?" he wants to know.

"Always Gettin' Fixed!" I tells him. "They make all them used cars. I know a guy had two of them and between 'em they made a fortune for three garages and five lawyers! How old is it?"

"Old!" says I. Markowitz, recovering "Who said it was old? Your wife should be as young as that car! It was turned in here last week, only eight short days from the factory. The owner was sudden called he should go out of town and – "

"And he went somewheres and got an automobile to make the trip," I cuts him off, "and left this thing here!"

"Don't mind him!" says the Kid, gettin' impatient. "Gimme a receipt." He digs down for the roll.

While I. Markowitz is countin' the money with lovin' fingers, I went around to one side of the so called auto and looked at the speedometer. One flash at the little trick clock was ample.

"Stop!" I yells, glarin' at him. "How long did you say this car had been out of the factory?"

"Right away he hollers at me!" says I. Markowitz to the Kid. "A week."

"Well," I tells him, "all I got to say is that the bird that had it must have been fleein' the police! He certainly seen a lot of the world, but I can't figure how he slept. He was what you could call a motorin' fool. It says on this speedometer here, 45,687 miles and if that guy did it in a week, I got to hand it to him! I'll bet he's so nutty over speed that he's goin' around now bein' shot out of cannons from place to place, eh?"

I. Markowitz gets kinda balled up and blows his nose twice.

"That must be the – the – motor number!" he stammers.

"Sure!" nods the Kid. "Don't mind him, he's always got the hammer out. Count that change and gimme a receipt."

"Wait!" I says. "Gimme one more chance to save you from givin' yourself the work. Have you heard the motor turn over? Does the clutch slip in all right? Do the brakes work? Has the – "

"Say!" butts in the Kid. "What d'ye think I been doin' – workin' here at nights? Don't mind him," he tells I. Markowitz, who ain't. "Hurry up with that receipt!"

"How is the motor?" I asks that brigand. "Tell me that, will you?"

"Convalescent!" he sneers, tuckin' the Kid's bankroll away.

"Some motor, eh?" pipes the Kid. "And it's got a one-man top on it besides, ain't it?" he asks I. Markowitz.

"Why not?" says he. "Everything new and up to date you would find on this car which only yesterday I could have sold to a feller for a thousand dollars!"

After pullin' that, he walks over to the thing and climbs in the back. "An example!" he says. "If you're alone in the car and there's nobody with you, you only should stand up on the seat and pull up the top like this, if it comes up a rain. Then you – "

I didn't hear the rest on account of him havin' trouble makin' his voice travel from under the seat, because he reached up and pulled somethin' here and jerked somethin' there – and that one-man top made good! I thought at first the ceilin' of the joint had fell in, and I'll bet I. Markowitz knowed it had, but then I seen it was only the thing that keeps the rain out of the car. Me and the Kid drags him out, and as soon as he gets on his feet and felt to see if he had his watch and so forth, he wipes the dirt out of his eyes and turns on me.

"It's a wonder I ain't now dead on account from you?" he snarls. "I suppose you're one of them wise fellers from New Jersey, which they got to be showed everything, heh?"

"Missouri!" I says. "Not New Jersey. If I was from New Jersey, I would probably be fightin' with the Kid to let me buy the car!"

"It's got a self-commencer on it, too!" yelps the Kid, climbin' into the front seat. "See – lookit!" He presses a button with his foot and a laughin' hyena or somethin' in the hood moans a couple of times and then passes away.

"The first time I wouldn't be surprised you should have to crank it," says I. Markowitz. "The motor has been standin' so long – I mean – that is – speakin' of motors, I think that one is maybe a little cold! Once she gets runnin' everything will be A number one!"

I goes around the front of the thing and stoops down.

"Put her on battery, if there's any on there," I calls to the Kid, "and I'll spin the motor!"

I. Markowitz steps over and lays his hand on my arm. His face is as serious as prohibition.

"Its only fair I should tell you," he whispers, "that she kicks a little!"

I give him a ungrateful look and grabs hold of the crank. After turnin' the thing ninety-four times without gettin' nothin' but a blister on my thumb, I quit.

"Nothin' stirrin'," I remarks to I. Markowitz.

"Believe me, that's funny!" he tells me, shakin' his head like he had ball bearin's in his neck.

"Ain't it?" I says. "Are you positive they's a motor inside there?"

He makes a funny little noise in his throat and not knowin' him long, I didn't know what he meant. There's a big husky in overalls walkin' by with plenty of medium oil on his face and a monkey wrench in his hand. I. Markowitz hisses at him, and they exchange jokes in some foreign language for a minute and then the new-comer grabs hold of that crank like the idea was to see if he could upset the car in three twists. He gives it a turn, and I guess the Kid had got to monkeyin' around them little buttons on the steerin' wheel because it went off like a cannon. First, there was a great big bang! And then a cloud of smoke rolls out of the back of the car and the bird that had wound the thing up come to in an oil can, half way across the floor. The Kid fell off the seat and me and I. Markowitz busted the hundred yard record to the front door.

"That was a rotten trick, wasn't it?" I asks him when we stopped.

"What do you talk tricks?" he pants.

"Why," I tells him, "puttin' that dynamite in the hood!"

"That wasn't dynamite," he says. "She only backfired a little. I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out there was, now, too much air in the carburetor. The only reason I ran out here is because I seen it passin' a friend of mine and – "

"I know," I cuts him off. "I seen it too!"

We go back to the Kid and his play toy, and he's leanin' up against the side of it rubbin' his shoulder and scowlin'.