Page:Levenson - Butterfly Man.djvu/185

Rh Frankie entered. "We can't do much in this town, Joe says."

"Who's Joe?" Ken asked.

"Durazzo. Come in, Joe." He held the door open. A stocky square-shouldered Italian entered. Ken remembered him as one of the new dancers. His hair was stringy and brown, his eyes shiftily blue, his chin firm, his hand clasp moist.

"Joe's been around the loop eighteen times," Frankie commented.

"Yeh, I been hoofing on the road for plenty of years. I was in Julie's first show, which gives you an idea."

"You must be over thirty."

"Over forty and I can still outlook most of the marcelined twists—without corsets."

"What about a little fun tonight?" Ken asked.

"Show people only," Joe said quickly. "I'm offa cruising towns of this type. The cops don't understand."

Ken opened a drawer of his trunk. "Is nipping allowed?"

"If you nip quick," Joe said.

Ken took a bottle of cognac from the drawer. "Gift of Gran'pa Colman." He opened it. "Joe, you round up whatever you can, male or female—after you dig into your first drink."

At five o'clock, a faint glow in the hotel court yard, a melancholy gray splotch, announced the rising sun. In the three-room suite which Ken had engaged in the Colonial Hotel, the party was ending. He teetered dizzily on his toes, placed an affectionate arm around Joe Durazzo's shoulder.