Jim slept soundly for the first night in a long time. His mother scarcely closed her eyes at all.
CHAPTER XIV
There had been a row at the Red Flag Club––a matter of differing opinions between members––nothing sufficient to attract the police, but enough to break several heads, benches and windows. And it was evident that some gentleman’s damaged nose had bled all over the linoleum in the lobby.
Elmer Skidder, arriving at the studio next morning in his brand new limousine, heard about the shindy and went into the club to inspect the wreckage. Then, mad all through, he started out to find Puma. But a Sister Art had got the best of Angelo Puma in a questionable cabaret the night before, and he had not yet arrived at the studio of the Super-Picture Corporation.
Skidder, thrifty by every instinct, and now smarting under his wrongs at the hands––and feet––of the Red Flag Club, went away in his gorgeous limousine to find Sondheim, who paid the rental and who lived in the Bronx.
It was a long way; every mile and every gallon of gasoline made Skidder madder; and when at length he arrived at the brand new, jerry-built apartment house inhabited by Max Sondheim, he had concluded that the Red Flag Club was an undesirable tenant and that it must be summarily kicked out.
Sondheim was still in bed, but a short-haired and 196 pallid young woman, with assorted spots on her complexion, bade Skidder enter, and opened the chamber door for him.
The bedroom, which smelled of sour fish, was very cold, very dirty, and very blue with cigar smoke. The remains of a delicatessen breakfast stood on a table near the only window, which was tightly shut, and under the sill of which a radiator emitted explosive symptoms of steam to come.