Virgin With Butterflies Read Online Free PDF

once. “He’s got a room there in the hotel part. He’s been staying there for a week.”
    And I says, “Suppose somebody, I won’t say who, went there and was to get to talking to him, a girl I mean, in the gambling part, I mean.”
    â€œYes,” they says, “go on.”
    I went right on.
    â€œAnd suppose she got him to thinking that this phony ring had kind of got under her skin, see? And that maybe if he wasn’t too crazy about that ring, see, that maybe she could forget about his pimples and his fat, do you see what I mean?”
    Well, they saw all right, and it didn’t seem to occur to them to wonder why I would do all this for them. Punk hoodlums is like that—dumb.
    But Pimples wasn’t no high-school bandit, not by no means he wasn’t, nor was he a police blotter, neither, and I felt that old flutter of wings in the pit of my stomach when I thought of me going to Harry Mulloy’s for any reason, especially this one.
    â€œWhat’s the conference for?” says Butch, moving down to that end of the bar to get a clean towel. “You running for election as the chief gun moll for these guys?”
    â€œSure,” I says, “that’s it.” And then when he turned away, I told ’em quick and quiet what to do.
    They said, yes, there was a switchboard at Mulloy’s and I said to fix the phone girl and when I took the pimply face’s phone off of the hook she was to give ’em the go-ahead and they was to come up quick. I thought I could handle it.
    I don’t know what came over me that I even thought I could try it, but I patted my stomach through Butch’s satin and told the butterflies to keep still, but they didn’t. For in three quarters of an hour from that minute they went to town, like a flock of eagles having the hysterics. That’s when I did vomit, but by that time it didn’t matter hardly at all, except manners. I remember Popsaying to me at the Sunday school picnic back in Mattoon, Pop aid, “Remember, it ain’t never what you’d call really good manners.”
    Well, I couldn’t ask Butch to let me go out again. The bar was near the door so I couldn’t get by him without him asking where I was going.
    Millie was crying into her next soda and her head was down against Red’s shoulder. Moe was serving at a table, so I took the coat and went into the Ladies’ and hid the tray and the cash box away up on top of that square tank, up over the john. And I put on the coat and come out and sidled along the little hall to go out the alley door, but it was locked, so I got out the window and there I was in the alley.

CHAPTER FOUR
    B LACK AS YOUR HAT IT WAS , all the way down to the next street. So I hurried toward that and I could see there was nothing between me and it. I couldn’t see a thing behind me where there wasn’t no light to see it against.
    After I had passed the back of the Greek’s and heard dishes rattling—getting washed, but not too well washed—I came to the corner. Just as I turned, I took one more look back in that black alley and a cold chill run up me thinking how dark it was. Then I turned the corner, it seemed like I heard a car start back up in there, but I couldn’t be sure.
    To get to Mulloy’s I had to go past Butch’s, but I crossed to the other side and hoped nobody would see me go by. Of course I could have gone around the block, but anybody that knows what’s around that block would sure understand why I just couldn’t do that, not ever.
    As I passed the Greek’s—on the other side of the street—I saw Jeff in there having a cup of coffee and I was sure glad. If Jeff had known what I was getting ready to do now he would have cussed louder than Pop did the time I ran off to Champagne with a strange drummer in his Ford and had to fight him all the waythere. And Pop, when he found out about it, thought what