Page:Levenson - Butterfly Man.djvu/165

Rh "A gentleman gave me this box for you, Mr. Gracey. A note's inside." He handed Ken an oblong package. Ken opened it. Within a purple velvet jewel box was a card, on the back of which was written in tiny script: "Thanks for a wonderful evening. Ernest Emerson." Ken opened the box. Beneath fine tissue paper lay a platinum wrist watch.

Ken called: "Frankie … come up!" The chubby-cheeked dancer, swathed in a heavy Turkish towel, appeared on the stair landing.

"Look what I got," Ken cried. He snapped the watch bracelet on his wrist.

"You are certainly luckier than I am," Frankie said.

"Do you know him?"

"We are the best of friends, almost sisters-in-sin, you might say."

Ken laughed.

While Ken dressed for the street, Howard appeared. "Let's go to Tony's for a Tom Collins," he suggested. "I want you to listen to a new lyric I wrote this afternoon."

"I'm tired," said Ken. "I'd rather go home."

"Stop acting like a baby. Check out of the Algonquin. Rutgers will call for your bags."

"We'll talk about that tomorrow," Ken replied.

Howard explained that he was planning a new show, an ultra-sophisticated European revue. He was writing a part in it for Ken, that of a debonair, worldly American who would possess a naive soul, "a timeless Casanova who can never grow up."

With breathless haste, Howard prattled on. He accompanied Ken downstairs where Ken saw Frankie waiting for