"Here we are, here were are, gang!" someone shouted as they piled out
of the cabs and Kane was being hustled toward the suddenly formidable
glint of a revolving door.
So here we are, Kane thought. It was nice being here all right. He was
glad, very glad. But it sounded as though someone might swoon over the
fact.
There was some difficulty with the revolving door. No one seemed able
to move first, and there were spontaneous group lunges ending in
jamming chaos in which someone hurt their arm. Kane thought it was the
fat man, Ben.
"We're hurt!" Jenny screamed.
"Oh--it's not bad," Ben said, laughing all the time he was groaning.
"Just bruised a little, gang. We're just bruised a little."
Kane grabbed his advantage and ventured alone through the revolving
doors into the lobby. A pair of desk clerks nodded across the lobby.
A group was emerging from behind drapes and beyond them Kane saw an
ornate, subtly lighted, cocktail lounge.
Kane was heading for the elevator when the gang overtook him.
Laura had hold of one of his arms, and Phil the other.
"We're having cocktails," Laura said.
Phil repeated it, and Ben and Jenny joined in. The young man, Clarence,
was singing as he herded the others toward the drapes of the cocktail
lounge, and they were all whisking Kane away before he could voice any
protest.
"What'll the gang have?" the waiter asked, smiling. Only he wasn't
really smiling at any of them, Kane thought. He had picked out a center
point of focus and was smiling at that so as not to appear to be
smiling at any one, but at everyone.
"Martinis!" several voices said.
The waiter nodded, whirled away.
"Ah, waiter," Kane said. "I'll have a double shot of Scotch. No ice."
The waiter seemed shocked, unable to come to grips with Kane's
seemingly simple order. "But--but I thought you said Martini."
The gang was still smiling, but faintly. The waiter was backing away.
"No," Kane insisted. "He said Martinis, and she said Martinis, and so
did several others. But I didn't say Martinis. I said Scotch, no ice."
"But Martinis--"
Ben forced a pained laugh. "But we ordered Martinis."
"Martinis," Laura said.
"The ayes always have it," Kane heard Lucille whisper near him.
Phil said, with a kind of shaky joviality. "Martinis--"
"Gin makes me ill," Kane said. "For me, it has to be Scotch."
Phil whispered. "Scotch."
"Scotch," the waiter said.
A jukebox in a far corner blasted out from a sea of bubbling,
multicolored light.
_We're all pals togetherrrrrrrr.
The Gang knows no bad weatherrrrrrr.
We're all for us all for us,
And we're rolling do-own life's highway,
On our crowded busssssss!_
Laura whispered huskily in his ear. "Don't worry about any little old
thing. We're one together, man."
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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