“So shall I tell them it’s O.K. for Saturday?”
“Do I have to pay for the girl at the movies?”
“Cheapskate. Maybe if you just stand around saying ‘Hmm,’ she’ll buy her own. O.K.?”
“O.K. But this whole thing is your idea, and if it stinks it’s going to be your fault.”
“Boy, what an enthusiast! Come on, let’s play a record and do the math.”
Nick is better at math than I am, so I agree.
Saturday morning at ten o’clock Nick turns up at my house in a white shirt and slicked-down hair. Pop whistles. “On Saturday, yet! You got a girl or something?”
“Yessir!” says Nick, and he gives my T-shirt a dirty look. I go put a sweater over it and run a comb through my hair, but I’m hanged if I’ll go out looking like this is a big deal.
“We’re going to a movie down at the Academy,” I tell my family.
“A new horror show,” says Nick. “And an old Disney.”
“Is it really a new horror show?” I ask Nick, because I think I’ve seen every one that’s been in town.
“Yup. Just opened. _The Gold Bug._ Some guy wrote it—I mean in a book once—but it’s supposed to be great. Make the girls squeal anyway. I love that.”
“Hmm.” I just like horror shows anyway, whether girls squeal or not.
“You’ll be the life of the party with that ‘Hmm’ routine.”
We hang around the subway kiosk on Fourteenth Street, where Nick said he’d meet them. After half an hour they finally show up.
It’s nice and sunny, and we see a crowd bunched up over in Union Square, so we wander over. A shaggy-haired, bearded character is making a speech all about “They,” the bad guys. A lot of sleepy bums are sitting around letting the speech roll off their ears.
“What is he, a nut or something?” the blonde asks.
“A Commie, maybe,” I say. “They’re always giving speeches down here. Willie Sutton, the bank robber, used to sit down here and listen, too. That’s where somebody put the finger on him.”
The girls look at each other and laugh like crazy, as if I’d said something real funny. I catch Nick’s eye and glare. O.K., I _tried_. After this I’ll stick to “Hmm.”
A beard who is listening to the speech turns and glares at us and says, “Shush!”
“Aw, go shave yourself!” says Nick, and the girls go off in more hoots. Nick starts herding them toward Fourteenth Street, and I follow along.