LITMIR.BIZ

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toasted his belated arrival. At 2:30 they uncorked fresh bottles of champagne and toasted the Three Musketeers, at which point Reuben upended the table, along with Rocky and Jerry. “Don’t make that toast again.” He hiccoughed drunkenly. By 3:15 they had Daniel dead and ready to be buried, and all three were blubbering into their champagne as each offered his own version of a eulogy.

      By this time Stella had had enough and sent the bartender to fetch Irene, who took one look at the drunken men and turned to leave.

      “Wait a minute, you can’t leave them here!” Stella screeched. “They’re giving my place a bad name. Six parties left because of them, and who’s paying for all this?”

      Reuben raised his hand. “I have that honor. These…fine gentlemen have graciously…graciously…I said that…they said I can pay. How much?” He leered at the voluptuous Stella. “And don’t charge us for the virgins. I didn’t get one.”

      “Neither did I,” Rocky said, his voice wafting up from the floor. “Jerry had two, didn’t you, old buddy?”

      “Yep, I had two,” Jerry said, latching on to Irene. “Just point me in the right direction. I wanna go home and see…I wanna go home and…”

      “Take your virgins with you.” Reuben laughed uproariously. “I paid for them, so you can take them, isn’t that right, Rocky?”

      “Yessireee,” Rocky said from under the chair.

      “I’ll be back for the other two,” Irene said through clenched teeth. “Wait till Mr. Bishop hears about this!”

      “Mr. Bishop! We just gave his eulogy.” Reuben sniffed. “A fine man, a gentleman of much renown. My friend and…my friend…and I love him.”

      “I love him, too. Where are the virgins you paid for, Tarz?” Rocky squeaked.

      “Jerry, the sneaky bastard, took them home,” Reuben grumbled.

      “Then, by God, let’s go after him. Help me up. How did I get down here?” Rocky asked, bleary-eyed.

      “You fell when you were giving your eulogy. You were looking for dust. Dust to dust, you said. You should clean this place better,” Reuben said virtuously to Stella as he peeled a series of bills from his money clip.

      Rocky and Reuben, their arms around each other, lurched to the door and stumbled outside.

      “Quick, lock the door before they decide to come back,” Stella called to the bartender.

      “Here, here, and here,” Irene said sternly to the three men, motioning for them to sit together on the leather sofa in Daniel’s waiting room. Properly chastised, they sat like errant schoolboys as Irene laced into them.

      “You are a disgrace! This is shameful! You and you,” she said, pointing to Jerry and Rocky, “are members of the bar! People saw you! People actually saw you!”

      “Did we have the virgins with us?” Jerry demanded, sliding next to Reuben.

      “Virgins!” Irene squeaked.

      “Those lasses that still have their cherries.” Reuben roared with laughter. Rocky chose to slide off the leather sofa and rolled about on the floor. Irene quickly locked the door, then thought better of it and grabbed her purse, locking the door behind her.

      “There goes one virgin,” Jerry bellowed loudly enough to be heard all over the building.

      “Shame on you! Shame on you! Shame on you!” Irene called from her position of safety behind the locked door. “Go to sleep, all of you, and I’ll be back in the morning.”

      “She sounds like my mother,” Rocky grumbled.

      “Nah, my mother sounds like that,” Jerry said, joining Rocky on the floor.

      “What are you doing up there, Mr. Hollywood?” asked Rocky. “You too good for us?”

      Reuben peered over his knees to stare at Daniel’s two friends. “I wish I had a dog.”

      “I had a cat once,” Rocky volunteered, “but it died.”

      “I had goldfish. I called them Frick and Frack. They died.” Jerry wept.

      “What’d you have, Tarz?” they asked together.

      “I never had a dog or cat or even goldfish,” Reuben blubbered.

      “Jesus, that’s terrible. Let’s go get him a dog, Rock. A man needs a dog. Goddamn,” Jerry moaned, tears streaming down his cheeks.

      “We’ll have to get it tomorrow, that virgin of yours locked us in here,” Rocky slurred.

      “What would you call the dog? A boy dog, right?”

      “Yeah,” Reuben mumbled. “Maybe…maybe…wha’d you call your cat, so I don’t name my dog the same thing?” he demanded of Rocky.

      “Maizie. May-zee, May-zee,” Rocky crooned. “So what’s the name of the dog we’re buying you?”

      “Dog. Just Dog,” Reuben said sorrowfully. “Maybe Jake, maybe not.” He stretched out on the leather couch. “G’night,” he mumbled.

      Within minutes three sets of lusty snores permeated the room.

      At 7:30 the following morning, before the building came to life, Irene unlocked the office door and shook the three men awake.

      Reuben sat up, instantly aware of where he was and what had transpired during the previous hours. His stomach felt sour, and the pounding in his head was equal to that of a thousand drums. He struggled to a standing position, then wished he hadn’t. His shoulders shaking with exertion, he looked down at the floor where Rocky and Jerry were cursing to each other. He stretched one long arm toward Rocky, who reached for it after a moment’s debate. Jerry was next, his eyes holding a mixture of respect and suspicion.

      “Now what?” he grumbled.

      “I don’t know what you two Harvard boys are going to do, but I’m going back to the Ambassador and clean up.”

      “Hold on, Tarz, I thought we left all that crap at the crossroads last night. I thought we were friends waiting for news of a mutual friend. What the hell kind of a son of a bitch are you that you can turn your emotions on and off at a second’s notice?”

      Reuben wished he could squeeze the pain out of his head. Although he deserved what Rocky said, it didn’t make things better in his mind. Daniel, loyal, wonderful Daniel, had gone to them for help instead of him when the chips were down. But it wasn’t their fault. “I was out of line, sorry.”

      “We’ll be in touch the minute we hear anything. You can stop by, camp out here, whatever you want. Do you need a car?”

      Gingerly he shook his head. “No, I think I’ll take on the city by foot; I can use the exercise. But thanks for the offer.” He hesitated a fraction of a second before he held out his hand. The surprise on the faces of both men was worth the effort. Before the door closed behind him, Reuben heard Jerry mumbling about paying for two virgins and getting only one. He would have laughed, but his head hurt too much.

      The only thing to do now, the only thing he could do, was wait.

      Chapter Six

      Bebe woke in slow degrees. First her eyes opened and then closed. It always took a good five minutes before she realized that she felt terrible, sick really. After another five minutes she’d succeeded in forcing the bile back to her stomach. Her second conscious thought was that she needed a drink to start the day more than she needed to brush her teeth and take a shower. Her third thought, always realistic, was how lucky she was that there was no one around to see how she looked and felt.

      The diamond-studded watch on her wrist told her it was seven A.M. Usually she was just getting in at this hour, and here she was getting up with the roosters. Why, she asked herself, her foggy brain

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