"Wait, Bull. You couldn't catch me."
I spun around. Damned if it wasn't old Benji, coming down the stairs again just as though it wasn't impossible. This time he looked himself, but worse. He had on an old lab smock and a new hangover. He looked awful—but with a hint of satisfaction too, like remembering the time he'd had getting into such lousy shape.
"Well, Bull boy," he mumbled, wavering on down the steps, holding the top of his head on with one hand, "come on out in the lab. Maybe we could find a little nip. And I have something to show you."
"So you said."
"Eh? Oh, yes, so I did. Last night, when I was going out."
"It was just now—only you went out all dressed up, and here you are all beat up. What's this all about?"
"Come on," he said with a flash of temper. "When I get a hair or two of the dog, I'll explain it to you."
I followed him into his lab, the dean's old study. It was the only thing Benji could call his own. Vera let him have it on the off-chance that he might find something important enough to give their social and financial position a boost.
In the lab, Benji fished an amber-filled flask from the wastebasket under the old rolltop desk and poured himself a double, me a single, in a couple of big test tubes. I only half saw him out of a corner of the eye.