Free You Play the Black & the Red Comes Up Up by Richard Hallas Page A

the guy getting married.
     
    Genter was so excited he like to bust a nut. He had a telephone plugged in at the table and called people up. I don't know how he did it, but around midnight he had everything fixed up, and we were at his home and I was signing papers and a bird was reading the wedding ceremony over me and Mamie and he said he pronounced us man and wife. And by that time Genter's place was full of people- some of them movie stars you've seen on the screen. And Mamie got to crying right as soon as we were married, and everyone started yelling and laughing. She did look funny at that, crying there and looking different from all the rest of the dolls, but I didn't like them laughing. Mamie was only being herself.
     
    There we were married, in Genter's garden with the lights all colored and shin ing on the fountains with every one laughing fit to die and Genter yelling, "More cham pagne. More champagne!" And everyone whooping and yelling and laughing, and we all got more and more oiled and Jira kept saying, "I want to give him advice on married life—I demand le droit de senora"
     
    And everyone started laughing up there with the air all soft and warm and smelling of orange blossoms from the garden, the smell coming right up, warm, from the grass, and the grass smelling of night. There was Jira falling into the swimming-pool and a bunch all going in after her with their clothes on, and then staying in but taking their clothes off and swimming wound and yelling drunk.
     
    I stood there and smelled the smell of water. I could smell even that, all mixed in with the grass and the sweetness of the orange trees all in blossom. And I stood there, drunk and wishing I could die.
     
    That's how I came to marry Mamie.
     
     
    Chapter Eleven
    COP SCARE
     
    F irst thing you know the money was gone. I couldn't tell you where it went to, but it was all gone. There had been a thousand to Patsy's Party, and five hundred for the Bugatti, and we'd lived plenty high for two months. We'd bought ourselves new outfits. I had some trick suits and Mamie had a white fur coat which she couldn't wear because it never got cool enough except late at night, and then no one could see it.
     
    The Bugatti was gone. I never rode in it once. I sold it to the young fellow at the garage I'd got it from. I got four hundred for it, and that four hundred was gone, too.
     
    We were broke.
     
    "Don't you fret about it, big boy," Mamie said. "When we had it, we dished it out. It was a good time while it lasted. We've just got to cut down, that's all. We can be like we used to and get along on my alimony."
     
    I didn't know she was still getting that.
     
    "Oh, yes?" I said. "How come you're still getting that when you're married to me?"
     
    "Well, Block doesn't know about me being married. I just haven't told him yet."
     
    "Well, that's sweet of you," I said. "If you think I'm going to live off another man's money you're nuts."
     
    She started to get teary then. "I only did it for you, big boy," she said. "I just wanted us to go on living comfortable together."
     
    "Well, I won't be a pimp," I told her. "I've done lots of things in my time, but that's one thing I won't do."
     
    "Well what do you think you're going to do, then?" she asked.
     
    "I don't know," I said. "But I'll do something."
     
    "I know what you're thinking of," she said. "I know— you're planning to ditch me. That's what you're planning."
     
    "Oh, you're nuts," I said. "No such plan ever came into my head."
     
    "Well, it had better not ever come into your head," she said.
     
    "Why not?" I asked her.
     
    "Never mind why not."
     
    "And why shouldn't I?"
     
    "Never mind why shouldn't you."
     
    "And supposing I do, then what?"
     
    "Never mind then what; you'd find out."
     
    "And what would I find out?"
     
    "Never mind what you'd find out. You'd find out all right."
     
    She kept on saying that, just as if she knew something. But she wouldn't let on if she did. She just