Page:Manhattan Transfer (John Dos Passos, 1925).djvu/318

 we'll have him eatin out of our hands. Didn't he say he'd be at the El Fey tonight?"

Rosie had just put a rhinestone comb into the coil of her black hair. She nodded and got to her feet. She was a plump broadhipped woman with big black eyes and high-arched eyebrows. She wore a corset trimmed with yellow lace and a pink silk chemise.

"Put on everythin you've got Rosie. I want yez all dressed up like a Christmas tree. We're goin to the El Fey an stare Nichols down tonight. Then tomorrer I'll go round and put the proposition up to him Lets have a little snifter anyways " He went to the phone. "Send up some cracked ice and a couple of bottles of White Rock to four o four. Silverman's the name. Make it snappy."

"Jake let's make a getaway," Rosie cried suddenly. She stood in the closet door with a dress over her arm. "I cant stand all this worry It's killin me. Let's you an me beat it to Paris or Havana or somewheres and start out fresh."

"Then we would be up the creek. You can be extradited for grand larceny. Jez you wouldnt have me goin round with dark glasses and false whiskers all my life."

Rosie laughed. "No I guess you wouldnt look so good in a fake zit Oh I wish we were really married at least."

"Dont make no difference between us Rosie. Then they'd be after me for bigamy too. That'd be pretty."

Rosie shuddered at the bellboy's knock. Jake Silverman put the tray with its clinking bowl of ice on the bureau and fetched a square whiskeybottle out of the wardrobe.

"Dont pour out any for me. I havent got the heart for it."

"Kid you've got to pull yourself together. Put on the glad rags an we'll go to a show. Hell I been in lots o tighter holes than this." With his highball in his hand he went to the phone. "I want the newsstand Hello cutie Sure I'm an old friend of yours Sure you know me Look could you get me two seats for the Follies That's the idear No I cant sit back of the eighth row.