Roughneck by Jim Thompson Page B

trouble, and I had to be satisfied with that.
           We finished eating. Urging me to help myself to the liquor, he went down to the locker room and changed clothes. He returned with a briefcase which he filled with bottles from the bar.
           By this time, naturally, I had had more than a little to drink and the qualms which I usually felt in Allie's presence were fairly well desensitized. As I have indicated, I was very fond of him. In his own peculiar way, he had always tried to be kind to me; and now, I hoped, in my hour of need, he might pull a plump rabbit from the fiscal hat.
           I accompanied him downstairs, and we taxied to an address on upper Broadway. We debarked there, and I followed him upstairs to the second-floor lodge rooms. The men he introduced me to, as I saw them, were semi-prosperous, lower middle-class citizens—master barbers, delicatessen owners, head bookkeepers and the like. Genial men, wise enough in their own way, but not too well-informed when they strayed outside of it. Allie seemed very popular with them. With him vouching for me as "the well-known author and editor," I was looked upon with almost embarrassing awe.
           After a score or so of introductions, Allie ushered me into a kind of board room and seated me at the head of the long table therein. Then, having distributed the bottles around at strategic points, he advised me that everything was going nicely and departed for the outer rooms.
           Some thirty minutes elapsed before the door reopened and Allie ushered in a group of the brothers. They ranged themselves around the table, and the bottles began moving from hand to hand. As the room filled with tobacco smoke and the gentlemen with high-grade bourbon, Allie got down to the business of the evening.
           For some months past, he pointed out, the lodge had considered the establishment of a small magazine or newspaper—something which every self-respecting fraternal order had and which this one certainly must have if the brothers were to go on holding their heads high. The delay in inaugurating such a periodical had reached the point of becoming a lodge disgrace; there was no longer any excuse for it. Here before them sat one of the country's most renowned publicists and editors. Purely out of friendship and the desire to help along a good cause, he '(me, that is)' had consented to get the publication started without fee...except, of course, his personal expenses. All that was required now, was that the good brothers present, these more substantial members who comprised the backbone of the lodge, should underwrite the proposition.
           One of the brothers cleared his throat. Just how much was this—uh—this thing going to cost?
           "Three thousand dollars," said Allie. And then, as his eyes swept the table, weighing the brothers, seeing a troubled expression spread from one face to another—"That's Mr. Thompson's offhand estimate, I should say.
           "What about it, Jim? Could we put out something a little smaller for about—uh"—another lightning-sharp glance at the brothers—"about two thousand?"
           I nodded, looking, I suspect, not a little troubled myself, for I had given him no offhand estimates nor any other kind. Before I could do more than nod, Allie was proceeding:
           "Call it two thousand. That'll be one hundred and fifty each for you gentlemen, or a total of eighteen hundred, and I'll throw in the remaining two hundred. Until the loan is repaid, we'll hold a lien on all advertising and subscription fees—that's Mr. Thompson's suggestion—and each of us will receive a lifetime subscription free of charge. In other words, we'll have the honor of funding the publication and be liberally repaid for—"
           "Allie," I said, rising to my feet. "You can't—I can't—"
           "Of course," said Allie smoothly, "I'd forgotten you had another appointment. You