A Swell-Looking Babe Read Free Page A

is that what you're telling me, Dad?"
    "Ye – I mean, no." Mr. Rhodes' eyes avoided his son's. "I ate out. It was too hot to do any cooking, so I-"
    "You ate at Pete's place?"
    "Yes – no. No, I didn't eat at Pete's." His father shied away from the trap. Dusty might check at the neighborhood lunchroom. "I went to another place, down toward town."
    Dusty studied him wearily. He refrained from asking the name of the restaurant. It was no use – at such times as this his father was like a sly child – and he just wasn't capable of it. No matter how provoked you got, you shouldn't badger your own dad.
    "All right," he said quietly, taking his billfold from his pocket. "Here's a couple dollars. Go down to Pete's and get you a good meal. Right now, Dad, before you go to bed. Will you do that?"
    "Certainly. Of Course I will, Bill." Mr. Rhodes almost snatched the money from his hand. "Will it be all right if – if -?"
    Dusty hesitated over the unspoken question. "Well," he said, slowly. "You know what we decided about that, Dad. We both agreed on it, that it just wasn't a good idea. When a man's out of work, when he's worried, it's pretty easy to…"
    "But I was just going to get a beer, just sit at the bar a while and watch television."
    "I know, but-"
    "But what?" There was an unaccustomed sharpness in his father's voice. "I don't understand you, Bill. Why all this fuss over a bottle of beer? You know I've never been a heavy drinker. I just don't have any taste for the stuff. But the way you've harped on the subject lately, you'd think I-"
    "I'm sorry." Dusty clapped him on the back, urged him toward the door. "I just get tired and worried, and I talk too much. Go on and have your beer, Dad. But get you a good meal, too."
    "But I'd like to know why-"
    "No reason. Like I said, I talk too much. You run along, and I'll see you in the morning"
    Mr. Rhodes left, still muttering annoyedly. Dusty remained in the house a few minutes longer, giving him time to get out of sight. The old man had gotten dangerously suspicious a moment ago. It wouldn't do to feed those suspicions further by having him think he was being followed.
    Dusty fixed and drank a glass of ice water while he waited. Ice, by God, was just about all there was in the refrigerator. He smoked a cigarette, pacing back and forth across the shabby living room. At last, after a nervous glance at his wrist watch, he hurried out of the house and jumped into his car.
    At a drive-in restaurant, he gulped down a hot turkey sandwich and two cups of coffee. He parked his car at the rear of the Manton, hurried through the service entrance and on into the locker room. There was a sour taste in his mouth. The food he had eaten lay heavy on his stomach. He was tired, sweaty. He felt like he had never rested, never bathed.
    Stripping out of his clothes, he took another shower – cold and necessarily quick. He dried himself, standing directly beneath the ceiling fan. He put on his wine-colored, tuxedo-like uniform, and hung his street clothes in his locker. He sat down under the fan, tapping the persistent sweat from his face with his bath towel. It was ten, no nine, minutes of twelve. There was time for another smoke, time to pull himself together a little before he went up to the lobby.
    He lighted a cigarette moodily, broodingly, trying to escape from the feeling of sullen despair, of hopeless frustration, which crept over him more and more of late.
    There was no way out that he could see. No exit from his difficulties. His mind traveled in a circle, beginning and ending with his father. The doctor's bills, the medicines, the frittering away of money almost as fast as it could be made. Two dollars, five dollars, ten dollars, whatever you gave the old man, he got rid of. And he wasn't a damned bit hesitant about asking for more.
    Dusty had considered taking a day job. But day bellboys didn't make as much money, and they had to work split watches. He'd have to be away from home