He wasn’t too bad on his feet as long as I was there to serve as his training wheels. We turned past the impressive tropical fish tank near the elevator bank and stepped into the men’s room. There was an attendant seated by the sinks, guarding a long row of aftershaves, colognes, hair tonics, talcs, and mouthwashes. The Pinaud and the Wildroot Cream Oil were running a little low, but everything else seemed available in ample sufficiency. I loved that there was a bottle of Drene shampoo available. Was someone really going to shampoo his hair before returning to the ballroom? The attendant stood up from his leather upholstered captain’s chair and helped me help Russ into it.

“Evening,” I said to the attendant.

“Yes sir, it sure is that,” he answered, sensing an opportunity in the making.

“My friend here partook of some pink gins that disagreed with his sobriety,” I said, laying down a five-dollar bill. “Maybe a prairie oyster with a lot of Worcestershire, and a tall tomato juice?”

“You leave him with me,” said the attendant. “I get a case like this three, four nights a week. We’ll give him hot towels and a cold compress, get him smelling nice, too, and have him back to you in under an hour.”

I laid down three more singles. “A little coffee wouldn’t hurt, either.”

“Right as rain he’ll be, you leave that to old Duke.”

I sincerely hoped that he was, in fact, “old Duke.” Otherwise, I had a dreadful image of Russ being hurled about the washroom by an oversized Doberman pinscher until he was scared sober.

I returned to the bandstand, took my seat with an apologetic nod to Jack Donovan, and remembered that I still had to invent a credible reason why Vera had told me (but not her own husband) that she was leaving for a destination and purpose I’d yet to invent, while simultaneously transposing Dave Wooster’s baritone sax part on the fly thirteen whole tones below where it was notated.

A cinch.

The washroom attendant was better than his word. In well under the promised hour, a sober-looking, pale-faced Russ had returned, murmuring some grim apologies to Martha, who looked away from him unforgivingly.

On our next-to-last break, Jack stopped by my music stand and asked, “No idea where our Vera has gotten herself, have you? I saw her chatting you up earlier.”