Free BUtterfield 8 by John O'Hara Page A

Kahan, but especially now.”
    “
Town and Country
, eh? Do I send in the pictures or do you?”
    “Oh, they’ll send for them. They call up and find out my plans in advance, you know, and I tell them what houses I’m doing, or at least my secretary does—it’s all routine. I suppose I’ve had more houses chosen for photographing in those magazines than any architect within ten years of my age. Shall we go back to the club? I imagine the ladies are wondering what’s happened.”
    “Okay, but now listen, Mr. Farley, I don’t want you paying for dinner again. Remember last time we were out here I said next time would be my treat?”
    “Huh, huh, huh,” Farley chuckled. “I’m afraid I cheated, then. I have to sign. Some other time in town I’ll hook you for a really big dinner, and I might as well warn you in advance, Mrs. Farley knows wines. I don’t know a damn thing about them, but she does.”
    They drove to the club, where the ladies were waiting; Mrs. Farley fingering her wedding ring and engagement ring and guard in a way she had when she was nervous, Mrs. Kahan painlessly pinching the lobe of her left ear, a thing she did when she was nervous.
    “Well,” said the four, in unison.
    Farley asked the others if they would like cocktails, and they all said they would, and he took Kahan to the locker-room to wash his hands and to supervise the mixing of the drinks. As they were coming in the locker-room a man was on his way out, in such a hurry that he bumped Kahan. “Oh, I beg your pardon, sir,” said the man.
    “Oh, that’s all right, Mr. Liggett,” said Kahan.
    “Oh—oh, how are you,” said Liggett. “Glad to see you.”
    “You don’t know who I am,” said Kahan, “but we were classmates at New Haven.”
    “Oh, of course.”
    “Kahan is my name.”
    “Yes, I remember. Hello, Farley.”
    “Hello, Liggett, you join us in a cocktail?”
    “No, thanks. I’ve got a whole family waiting in the car. Well, nice to have seen you, Kann. ’By, Farley.” He shook hands and hurried away.
    “He didn’t know me, but I knew him right away.”
    “I didn’t know you went to Yale,” said Farley.
    “I know. I never talk about it,” said Kahan. “Then once in a while I see somebody like Liggett, one of the big Skull and Bones fellows he was, and one day I met old Doctor Hadley on the street and I introduced myself to him. I can’t help it. I think what a waste of time, four years at that place, me a little Heeb from Hartford, but last November I had to be in Hollywood when the Yale-Harvard game was played, and God damn it if I don’t have a special wire with the play by play. The radio wasn’t good enough for me. I had to have the play by play. Yes, I’m a Yale man.”

THREE
    “Well, I can see why you didn’t want me to see the ending first. I never would have stayed in the theater if I’d seen that ending. And you wanted to see that again? God, I hope if you ever write anything it won’t be like that.”
    “I hope if I ever write anything it affects somebody the way this affected you,” said Jimmy.
    “I suppose you think that’s good. I mean good writing,” said Isabel. “Where shall we go?”
    “Are you hungry?”
    “No, but I’d like a drink. One cocktail. Is that understood?”
    “Always. Always one cocktail. That’s always understood. I know a place I’d like to take you to, but I’m a little afraid to.”
    “Why, is it tough?”
    “It isn’t really tough. I mean it doesn’t look tough, and the people—well, you don’t think you’re in the Racquet Club, but unless you know where you are, I mean unless you’re tipped off about what the place has, what its distinction is, it’s just another speakeasy, and right now if I told you what its distinguishing characteristic is, you wouldn’t want to go there.”
    “Well, then let’s not go there,” she said. “What is peculiar about the place?”
    “It’s where the Chicago mob hangs out in New York.”
    “Oh,