As she rides by

the pianist, Big Red, Lola (short for Delores), girlfriend of the steel guitar, and a couple of other friends of friends whose monikers I don’t recall, and in no time at all after that, Evonne and I joined the throng on the dance floor and were cutting a pretty mean Texas two-step, if I do say so myself. I might also say that spirited sort of foxtrot is one of only two sorts of dances I can actually do, the other being the slow, which, as is well known, practically everyone can do because all you have to do for it is stand up, then hold on, and the tighter the better.
    Shortly thereafter, Evonne told Jerry of her senior prom and her teenage pash; shortly thereafter that he was dancing a slow, a very slow, with her. In revenge, I took Cherry for a brisk turkey trot, or whatever it was, despite the fact she only came up to the enameled cactus thing on the bottom of my string tie. What the hell, I even gave Sir Sara a break once, but once was all—I couldn’t have gotten near her for the rest of the evening even if I’d wanted to because, surprise, surprise, guess who was the belle of whole darn ball? Yep; none other, pards. And could she dance, too, the little snippet, especially jive; them rednecks were going crazy trying to figure her out. Well, they weren’t the only ones.
    At one stage in the soiree, when she thought I wasn’t looking, she slipped Jerry a piece of paper; I figured it probably had her phone number on it. She’d be lucky.
    Shortly after my third tankard of ale, Rick and the boys took a break. The ageing MC, who was decked out in elaborate cowboy finery, said he had the great pleasure to welcome to the Bar-Bee-Q that night two special guests, Tom ‘n’ Jerry, would you take a bow, please, boys. The boys half stood up, waved to one and all in a friendly fashion, then sat down again. The MC said, maybe, just maybe, given a little encouragement, the boys might actually be persuaded to sing one or two of their old numbers. Try and stop them, said one cynical customer quietly into the dregs of his beer.
    To give them credit, that’s exactly what Jerry said as he was taking his guitar out of its case. “Try and stop us, mates,” he said, to be precise. “We didn’t just come to see how many sensational girls you could fit into one room.” Which didn’t go down all that badly with the assembled company, either; it was probably a coincidence that he was directing a smarmy-eyed look Evonne’s way as he said it.
    Tom ‘n’ Jerry’s songs didn’t go down all that badly with the folks, either, in fact they loved them, and sang along with the best-known ones. Imagine writing a song that other people, lots of them, all over the world, know the words to—amazing, really. But then, what the hell— could it really be that hard? Semi-illiterate, acne’d teenagers do it all the time.
    Then Rick and his boys came back, well refreshed by the look of them, and with Tom ‘n’ Jerry pitching right in, played out the last set, then the last dance, then the lights came up and all drinks were hastily finished and Rick went off with Big Red and Cherry with the piano player and Lola with the steel-guitar player, and Sara said don’t worry about her, this guy she met was gonna drop her off, and the MC went off with his fancy embroidered vest and huge Stetson hat and Tom ‘n’ Jerry went off with two fetching young ladies dressed alike in skintight stretch jeans, high heels, and deep decolletes—off for a nice game of bridge, I figured. And Evonne Louise Shirley sighed and went home with me. She held on to my arm all the way.

    T ell you something about dreams, kids—they are true.
    While they last.

Chapter Twelve

    I had this little package they’d requested me to deliver —
    It wasn’t strictly legal, but hell, tell me what is today?

    I T WAS EIGHT-TEN the following morning, a bright and breezy Wednesday. The Dodgers were only four games out, the radio told me. I was in the kitchen area waiting for the toast to pop—seven-grain brown for Evonne, good old plain white for me. King was sitting at my feet and looking up hopefully. Evonne was in the shower showering. One minute she was singing away loudly—seems she wanted to borrow her father’s T-Bird, or something—the next she was wailing away and crying out, “Oh my God, just look at me!” So I hastened to the bathroom and did just that—it takes more than the sight of a lissome naked woman to spoil my appetite.
    “What is it? Did you