"People be nice, be nice, be nice."

He seemed to be pressing with his body now. The hand sort of quieting down. Lee put his legs tight together. His eyes were still closed. He felt the rough fabric of the sofa on his face. Ferrie was breathing all over him, covering his head and neck with heavy breath.

Hide the L in Lee.

No one will see.

Then he felt it on his pants, seeping in. He tried not to take it personally. They separated themselves and Ferrie got a towel for him and then put on a robe. This was achieved mostly in the dark.

"When you get back to Dallas, there are some places you ought to know about."

"I'm going to Mexico City."

"But when you get back. There's a place called Gene's Music Bar. You ought to drop in some night. Or the Century Room, which I hear just opened."

"What for?"

"Meet people."

"What kind of people?"

"People you want to meet. I don't know Dallas bars myself. I'm passing on the word. Stay away from the Holiday. That's rough trade. Not for you, Leon."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Of course you do. Gene's Music Bar is number one on your list. You definitely want to catch the action. Tell me what it's like."

Out came the hashish.

David Ferrie said, "Hashish. Interesting, interesting word. Arabic. It's the source of the word assassin."

Jack Ruby liked his juice fresh-squeezed in the morning. He bought eight grapefruits at a clip, grabbing them out of the bin with a steely look, like this is the only thing that can save me. There were grapefruits wedged in every part of the fridge. He liked to slap the surface of a good grapefruit. Dependable. He liked to heft the thing in his hand. The whole business of juice was allied in his mind with swimming laps in a pool or working out with weights. He was a physical-culture nut when he had time.

When he stepped out of the kitchen, that's when the bachelor chaos began to flow. The place resembled a lost-and-found. To Jack it was okay. He hated and feared a hotel look. All he had to do was recall the time ten years ago when he became depressed over business failures, when money problems were climbing up his back and pressing on his skull. It got so bad he took a room in a cheap walk-up hotel and isolated himself for eight weeks with the shades drawn, eating only enough to stay alive. He was a nothing person. He had no desire to live. It was the one time in his life he was guilty of despair, which is the deepest misery of the spirit, the hardest to overcome.

Maybe this is why Jack had a roommate. To avoid the scariness of being alone. Or was it just his habit of taking in strays, people of untremendous means? George Senator was fifty, a postcard salesman, divorced through the mail, with an eighth-grade education. He'd been in and out of jobs for years, a short-order cook, a novelty man, a salesman of women's apparel whose territory had been reduced from the entire state of Texas to the jackrabbit wastes. He helped out at the club and cooked Jack a meal now and then, although he didn't broil things right and could never learn the organics of another person, the little niceties of diet that mean so much.

Coming out of the kitchen with the juice glass in his hand, Jack barely glanced at George, who sat bloated on the sofa in a beat-up robe, coughing into his cupped hands.

"I'm expecting a huge phone call. Stay away from the phone. Like into next week I'm referring."

"Who do I ever call?" George said.

"I don't know. The weather."

"I don't follow the weather. I don't go anywheres near it."

Jack barely heard. He had the ability to share an apartment with a roommate and just barge and rush around as if the guy wasn't there. His mind raced too fast for a guy like shapeless George to catch a ride. He didn't even know what the spare room looked like since George moved in. Maybe he painted it orange. Not that he didn't like having George around. It's a matter of once you're used to a human presence, growing up like I did with seven brothers and sisters plus two dead in infancy, you feel there's something missing in a household.

Living alone is a pressure situation. The roommates agreed on that.

Jack took a Preludin with his grapefruit juice. He walked around the living room, trying to say in his mind what he was thinking. Six weeks and no word. They were letting him dance in midair. He went into the kitchen and made more juice. He needed a scalp treatment. He was falling behind in every area of personal care.

"Who is the call?" George said.

"A guy from New Orleans I used to know."

"This is the money."

"He told me he'd be in Dallas today. Okay. I'm waiting."

"What about the other guy?" George said.

"Karlinsky? The man is purist-minded from the start. I expected no action and that's what I got."

"So you 'said, what, let me contact New Orleans."

"I went right through Karlinsky. I went ten feet over his head."

"This other guy leaves an opening?"

"We wait and see."

"What, you asked him straight out you needed a loan?"

"He already knew my situation. He knew from last June when we bumped into each other in the street. I was in New Orleans looking at Randi Ryder for the club."

"I never been," George said.

"It's a city where the money's not so tight and clean."

He put on his jacket and hat, got his moneybag and revolver, picked up Sheba from her chair and went down to the car. He dropped the dog on the front seat, opened the trunk and tossed the moneybag in. He drove to Commerce Street and bought a couple of newspapers at a corner stand. Back at the car he spotted his dirty laundry in the rear seat, where he'd left it six, seven, eight days ago, tied together with a pajama leg. He looked around for a glass of water. Nervous in the service. Then he drove half a block in reverse to the Carousel, checking the spelling of the girls' names on the marquee. Some tourists from Topeka were looking at the glossies on the wall out front. Jack introduced himself, shook hands, gave them his card, got the dog from the front seat and went on up the narrow stairway.

Walking into the empty club made him feel how inspirational it was to grow up quitting school in Chicago, nickname Sparky, scalping tickets outside fight arenas, selling carnations in dance halls, and now he is a club owner, a known face, with ads in the paper, as only America can turn out.

He went to his office and called the local IRS and told them he had to postpone the meeting they'd scheduled because he was unable to get his records properly compiled. A phrase his attorney had suggested. They made a new appointment and he promised to bring thirteen hundred cash to ease the matter of delinquency. Another phrase.

He went to the bar, poured a glass of water and swallowed another Preludin. To speed the day along and help him think positive. The phone rang in his office. He hurried in and picked up. It was George at the apartment. The call had come. The man was in town. Tony Astorina. Carousel at noon.

The dogs in the back room were barking to be let out. Jack went down to the car and drove a block and a half to the Ritz Delicatessen. He bought half a dozen sandwiches and beverages and drove right back.

His brother Sam called. He had some new production ideas for those plastic spinners, those twirly things that spin on high wires in front of service stations and car lots for a festive appearance.

The Times Herald called.

A stripper named Double DeLite called.

KLIF called.

Detective Russell Shively called.

His brother Earl called. He tried to talk Jack out of the twist-board idea. Jack wanted to manufacture an exercise device consisting of two fiberboards with some kind of ball-bearing disks between them and you stand on the boards and twist and shimmy, for fun and body tone both.