"Have to be discreet about this, Frankie. Can't poke into anyplace unless it's fitting for us to."

"Yeah? Well, how's about seeing what Vera Verina's doing now?"

"Take a look into Ciro's, Frankie."

Frankie does and just like that, he's decked out in a dress suit and parked at a table in that fancy beanery. And who's with him? Only who's ballyhooed from border to border and ocean to sea as The Every American Girl.

Yeah, Vera Verina's voice is like her eyes—deep and warm. "I'm so glad you brought me here tonight, Frankie."

Frankie don't remember nothing about that part of it. But he's mannerly. "Oh, it ain't nothing."

Nothing? Vera's wearing her pale blonde hair long. Her face is everything the close-ups at the Rivoli say it is. And her figure in that dress she's wearing—Frankie knows if he sits here doing nothing but look another minute he'll bust a gasket.

So he says, "Maybe we should dance, hey?"

"Anything you want, Frankie."

So they dance. But Vera's perfume, the way she holds Frankie so close to her, the way she looks into his eyes—

"Oh, brother," Frankie whispers to himself.

"I," Vera whispers in his ear, "think we've danced enough, don't you?"

"Yeah," Frankie says and runs a finger between his collar and neck. What it's safest to do next he don't know.

But Vera tucks her hand under his arm like she owns him now. "Take me home, Frankie."

"Yeah." Ain't a guy supposed to take a dame home after having her out? "Sure," Frankie says and finds his way out of the place and into a hack that's waiting.

Vera's hand finds his and don't let go. "What are you thinking, Frankie?"

Thoughts are flapping through Frankie's mind like the colored lights zipping past the hack windows. What's he thinking?

"This is it, Mac," the hack driver's voice says like gravel rolling.

And Frankie don't have to tell what he's thinking—yet. But he ain't out of this deal 

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