Page:Levenson - Butterfly Man.djvu/93

Rh "Don't say that," he pleaded.

"But I am. I fought it for months. I had it all figured out. You and I, we'd be real lovers. We're lovers all right now, but no one'll ever write a book about us. I'm too low, too rotten. You're … you."

"You mustn't talk that way."

A knock on the door. The bell boy brought a tray, bottles, glasses, ice and a letter addressed to Rogers and Gracey. Ken opened the letter.

"Don't read it," she said. "Wait! Remember that wristwatch I bought for your birthday last week? You said I couldn't afford it. Well, I paid for that with some dough a funny-faced old guy who sat in the first row in Ventura gave me for—"

"We're cancelled," said Ken. "It's from Buckley."

"The old fluff," Anita jeered. "He's the bastard that cancelled me when I was the wrong end of Rogers and De Long year and a half ago."

The letter fell to the floor. Ken sat down.

"I'll go back home to Selma," said Ken. "I won't never be able to stay on here now."

"You'll do nothing of the sort," she cried, sitting up. "Sweet baby, I'm going to take you where you belong, honey lamb, where you'll meet everyone you want to meet and do what you want to do."

"Where's that?"

"Mexico, Tia Juana. Caliente, Mexicali, Juarez—"

"But how'll we get there?"

"We'll get there, if I have to go down and lay the railroad tracks myself."