“You stay here and start warming up,” I said to Jane.

“What?”

“I mean, you know, start warming up the bed.”

I quickly dressed and went to check on Waltham. He was staggering around the parlor with a loony grin, carrying an empty quart bottle of tequila and wearing a doily on his head. He’d already knocked over a lamp and was singing “99 Bottles of Beer.” Everyone was laughing at him but somehow I heard Tommy the Wire above the throng say, “At least he’s got a semi!” That’s when I noticed Waltham’s drunken pecker peeking out of his fly. Jane came up behind me laughing.

Amidst a round of boos, I led Waltham into my bedroom and sat him on my bed. I pulled the tequila bottle out of his hand. I could’ve broken it over his head.

“You’re killing me, Irv,” I said.

He just smiled.

“How much of this bottle did you drink?”

“None of it,” he said.

“Irrviiinnng? Come on now. Don’t bullshit me.”

“I thwear, Dump. I jutht drank the thtuff that wath inthide the bottle.”

Jane broke up again and said, “Cripes, Dunph, he sounds like you when he’s drunk.”

Irving noticed Jane for the first time.

“Don’t worry about me, Mrs. Dump. I took a buncha … vitamin Qs ’fore I had ’sing to drink.”

I should’ve figured. If Drugs Delaney would feed his dog acid, then why not pump Irving Waltham with Quaaludes?

Waltham begged me to let him return to the party, so I followed him into the parlor and kept a watchful eye. I figured after seventeen years of milk and cookies he deserved a night like this. He ended up drinking out of a beer can that Drugs was using as an ashtray. Remarkably, though, he hung in there and at 4 A.M. he waved and slobbered a drunken goodbye upon the last few guests.

Bunny was the last to leave. She was swearing at Jack as he followed her to the door. She wasn’t too happy with me, either.

“Dunphy, your friend here’s a snake,” she said. “I don’t know what the hell you told him but the crum’s been terrorizing me all night. What do you take me for, a fucking hooer?”

Jack looked amused. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Buns—”

“Don’t call me Buns, you sleazebag!”

Bunny burst out crying, ran down the steps, and crossed the street. I caught up to her at her Vega, parked beside Mousy’s pole. She was sniffling and fumbling with her keys at the door. “Bunny, wait a second.”

“Fuck you! I don’t need your shit. I know you never liked me none anyhow.” She got the door open. “You think you’re pretty smart and everyone else is stupid, but you got a lot to learn ’cause you don’t know nothing.”

I didn’t say anything, and Bunny stood there wiping her eyes.