" Yeah, " I said, imitating one of his characters, " but they’re here. "
" The bastards, " he cursed. But he went off to enjoy himself, Betty Gray on his arm.
Babe Rawlins was an enterprising blonde. She knew of an old miner’s house at the edge of town where we boys could sleep for the weekend; all we had to do was clean it out. We could also throw vast parties there. It was an old shack of a thing covered with an inch of dust inside; it had a porch and a well in back. Tim Gray and Ray Rawlins rolled up their sleeves and started in cleaning it, a major job that took them all afternoon and part of the night. But they had a bucket of beer bottles and everything was fine.
As for me, I was scheduled to be a guest at the opera that afternoon, escorting Babe on my arm.
I wore a suit of Tim
