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Show •219 He looked around as if he suspected eavesdroppers. "Politics," he said. "Take my wordr-everything else is kid's play compared." "You going to run for mayor?" "Don't act simple. You don't have to be a politician to be in politics. There's a river of money running through this town. Do you know how much a garbage collector makes, for example? It's bigger than anybody knows. A regular Mississippi. _And all a man needs is his own bucket to dip out a little. You want in?" "No." "All right. Don't say I never tried." He turned back at the door. "I could have made you a rich man." But I didn't care about riches. I was hot to get back to California with Fancy, to leave the East, which I had found interesting and full of a peculiar liveliness, but after all alien. To go home. I staggered downstairs with Fancy's crate in my arms and took it in a taxi to the express company, where a good-natured frog-faced girl took my money and helped me paste labels in all the proper places, New York is at its best during the late fall and I walked back to the apartment with my nose to the wind, trying to smell out traces of the far West that might have filtered this far. But I also craned my neck and looked up at the buildings as if I'd been in town three days instead |
