“Where should we go?” Rose asked cautiously, still intent on his nails.
Slug thought rapidly. “Aw, I guess you could fix that yourself,” he said generously. “Just say where you’d like to go.”
“Well…” She paused, then she shook her head. “No, I guess that place isn’t quite what you’re used to.”
Slug scowled. “Come on,” he said, “where is it?”
“I’ve always wanted to go to the Miami Club, but that’s where all the swells go. You couldn’t rise to that, could you?”
With a sinking heart, Slug said fiercely: “Who says? Let me tell you, baby, there ain’t no place that I can’t go. If you want to go to that joint it’s O.K. with me.”
Rose sat back and looked at him. Her big eyes regarded him almost with admiration. “Gee!” she said. “Why, even Harry won’t go there. Do you really mean it?”
Conscious of a great victory, Slug committed himself, regardless of the cost. “Sure,” he said, “you wantta line up with the big-timers. A baby like you don’t want to run around with a lotta dopes. I tell you that sortta dump is just canary seed to me.”
“Why, Mr. Moynihan, I didn’t realize that you were such a big-shot. Look, let’s not go to Miami Club, let’s go to the ‘Ambassadors’. That’s a place I’ve really wanted to go to.”
Slug gulped. He saw too late where his boasting had led him. Miami Club was bad enough, but the ‘Ambassadors’ was one of the most expensive night-clubs in town. Not only that, but it was a stiff-shirt joint, and Slug hadn’t got a tuxedo. He felt the sweat coming out from his body at the very thought of what the evening was going to cost him.