"Oh, you!" the waitress said, cuffing him gently with a damp hand, and O'Leary tweaked a rib. Abdomen muscles flexed, bouncing her back off the table; she grinned, flicked her tail to his view — there was an instant, just time for a pinch, but this was Mitch's, after all, not Jake's, and O'Leary's hand in motion abruptly stopped and its fingers snapped — the waitress flinched, good as the real thing, then giggling to herself, swished kitchenward with dishes.
"Why haven't you never got married, Henry?" Lou asked, cheeks brightly flushed from such proximity to license. Maybe it had been Lou asking all the time.
"I don't know, never thought about it much," Henry lied. "Probably the same reasons you didn't want to."
"Didn't want to!" After big meals, Lou's squeaky voice mellowed. A kind of coo. You could hardly hear it. Lou scrubbed his face with a napkin, pressed forward. "Henry, I'd get married tomorrow, if I knew where to start. You always know how to say the right thing, but me — Henry, I've never even gone, you know, on a, out with a.. " Yes, it was Holly Tibbett, all right, in the flushed and floundering flesh. Up from the ashes, a magical event.
"Shall we start then with the waitress?" O'Leary suggested. Willie was modestly but marvelously drunk, while back of the pillar, Gabe and Frosty and the boys were egging him on. They took Holly up to Molly… He signaled.
"No!" gasped Holly, looking for some place to run, but too full to squeeze out.
O'Leary saw the others splitting their sides, but with effort kept a straight face, which seeing, the approaching waitress grinned at broadly. In on it. In on everything. They took Holly up to Molly/And she said she'd like, by golly/To eat a hot tamale in the shower. . Willie O'Leary lit up one of Holly's cigars, and admiring a navel-high splotch of shrimp sauce on the white face of the moon, said: "Molly, my girl, what can we do, you and I, to relieve a poor lad in direst distress?"
"A lad…?" A little slow; she was.
"Yes, our friend here, the vice-president in charge of talent-testing for All-American Symphonies Consolidated; he's on the quest of a respectable and compassionate — and of course talented — lady companion to go, uh, round die world with him on an unlimited expense account, and who do you think we can find for him?" The brogue was a little rusty, but he saw she liked the music of it.
"Who, ya mean Mr. Engel here?" Molly said. "Ya must be kiddin'!" Slow as they come.
Henry grinned. "Sure, I'm kiddin'," he said. They all knew Holly wherever he went, too — the backside of shyness. O'Leary winked. "He's really the president."
She smiled, rubbing her nose with one hand, stroking her big round butt with the other, looked down on poor Lou, near to tears with shame and desire. Well, that tamale was a folly /For melancholy Holly/Cause that dolly stole his jolly little flower. . "Get me back in time for work Monday?" she asked.
Holly, the crimson flush congealing suddenly into brilliant splotches, giggled hopelessly. The boys, concealed, whooped it up.
"So, what'll it be, boss?" O'Leary asked, and blew smoke on the excited birds that fluttered around them. "Round the world or two lemon sherbets?"
"Same for me!" Holly squeaked, and that made them all laugh.
And coffee," said Henry, shifting to make room in his pant leg for the old rahab who rose and hungered in his lap.
Molly winked gaily at O'Leary and left them. Slow, but a heart of gold, sure as sin.
"Henry! you must be drunk!" Lou gasped, reduced to a hoarse squawk.
"I am feeling pretty good," Henry admitted. Felt light, head swimming a little, shedding his duties like an old skin, rising up… "Glad I came."
Mitch Porter, spying a favored customer in discomfort, bobbed up once more to inquire into their well being and was reassured, but Henry was chastised with a brief suspicious squint, and Molly, too, received ample admonitions. No funny business when she brought the sherbets, but Lou went scarlet again just the same. Henry, watching, realized: why, he loves that girl. Simple as that. How many did Holly love in truth, and which did he, going out with that mushroom that bulged in his brain, dream of? Just one, maybe. It was often like that. The naval officer, Henry observed, had gone, the lady as well. Over their empty booth, ducks rose from a lake in alarm — shot rang out, feathers flew, and that pretty one, head reared: ahh! always glorious. Second-rate ballplayer, slaek-waisted backstop: still glorious. "Let's go to Jake's."
"Where?"
"Bar I know."
The bill appeared, and then Mr. Mitch Porter, kindly assisting with coats. Henry found coins approximating a seventh of the bill, which he lay beside the saucer, but Lou, impulsively, plunged an extra dollar to the pot. The waitress, arriving too late to catch more than a glimpse of the great red-necked seal, fleeing cashierward, her penguin boss in stubby-legged pursuit, still trying to help with die coat, like a mating pair, surprised, trying to run away still hooked up, gathered up the offering with bemused care. "He's a nice man," Henry said.
"He is," said she.
At the cash register, Lou hesitated, dropping bills all over the floor, but Gus Maloney, stoked up, paid. Party's money and none a my own. "More where that came from." Old Gus, one of the great old-timers, and a classic case of the single inscrutable ego rising up to have his own way at all costs. Henry never liked him but he couldn't stop him. He'd even finally grown fond of the corrupt old bastard. Big Daddy Boggier.
They went out, huddled around cigars — Good evening, Mr. Waugh! Good evening, Mr. Engel! Night now! Thanks again! Come again soon! We shall! We shall! — and found the night had chilled a bit. Hot-stove league weather.
"Winter's coming on," Lou remarked.
"Seems like it." Would there be a winter? Probably. He'd want to tie up all loose ends. But why? once it was over, it was over, wasn't it? Well, curiosity. See if Thornton Shad-well made it into the big leagues or not. What Stars and Aces fell and who came up to take their places. Whether or not Swanee Law set those records he was aiming at: ho ho! what a surprise for that big arrogant fart to have history end as soon as he made it! He saw old Swanee's jaw set into the storm: "Ah ain't quittin'!"
"Quitting what, Henry?"
"Nothing, it's a line from a song," Henry alibied. "I was trying to think of it, just remembered it."
"Henry, you listen now, you have to stop that extra work, it's—"
"It's not really work, Lou. It's a game."
"A game?"
"A baseball game I play with dice."
"A baseball game!" Lou mulled that over. "Mmm." Which meant a certain dim light was beginning to dawn. "But then…?" And now the history of the last few weeks. "With dice…" Reflecting on the bloodshot eyes, the office absences. "Is that really what…?"
"Like to see it?"
"Well, I.. sure! I mean, is it something, uh, something two can…?"
"I don't see why not. Why don't you drop over tomorrow night? Pick up a pizza on the way. I've got plenty of beer."
"Sure!" More enthusiasm now. Two could. Yes, this might make it work again. And while Lou was learning it, suppose he had the Knickerbockers.. might give the others just the edge they needed. "Why don't we go to the movies first, and then—"
"Well, no, thanks, Lou. I've got to clean the place up a little." That's right, Lou always went to the movies on Sundays.
"Oh, I don't care how things look, Henry. Come on, we'll—"
"No, I'm not much of a moviegoer, Lou." Had to be careful. Couldn't let it degenerate into nothing more than a social event.
"I, I didn't know you kept up with baseball, Henry, how…?"
"I don't"