Fact or Fiction?

According to an article at foxnews.com, Sweden is abandoning its liberal approach to the pandemic, as the rate of infections and deaths has spiked.

Here’s an excerpt from Present and Past that mentions a celebrity. It’s based on an incident someone related to me. I don’t know if it actually occurred, but the guy wasn’t a B.S. artist. Freddie and Tony are driving cross country and are somewhere in the Midwest:
“… I ever tell you ‘bout the time we met Dean Martin, me and Billy Fontana?”
Freddie turned toward him. “I don’t think so.”
He remembered it, but chose not to admit it, sensing it was precisely what Tony needed to be pulled from the doldrums. In fact, he was surprised Tony, who seemed to remember everything, had forgotten he’d told him.
“This’s goin’ back fourteen, fifteen years. It’s a great story. You musta been at school when it happened.”
“And you never answered any of my letters, so you probably forgot about it by the time I came home for the summer.”
Tony’s face soured. “Again with that? Leave me alone already. What’d you need letters for, anyway? You had all those hick girls to keep you company. And when you came home for summer you always went right to work and played ball at night, so I hardly saw you anyway.”
“So how’d you meet Dino?”
He shifted in his seat, making himself comfortable. “We were leavin’ the casino one night, me and Billy, both of us ripped atta our faces. Cuz — remember how he used to call everybody that? Anyway, he was worse off than me. He started crossin’ the street against the light. I yelled at ‘im to stop and he told me to go to hell. Meanwhile he’s staggerin’ along and this limo stops short and taps him on the leg with its bumper.” He slapped lightly at Freddie’s thigh in illustration. “And he falls down. The wind woulda knocked ‘im over in the condition he was in. Anyway, he gets up cursin’ — you know the way he gets when he’s drunk — and the chauffeur comes runnin’ over to see if he’s okay. And Billy pushes ‘im atta the way and charges up to the limo to curse out the bigshot inside, and whatta you know — it’s his idol. He starts yellin’: ‘Hey, Dino! Dino’ and hoppin’ aroun’ all excited like a little kid. He musta said ‘Dino!’ a hundred times. Anyway, Dino gets atta the car and says: ‘You okay, kid? C’mon, we’ll take you to the hospital.’ You could see he was worried, even though it wasn’t the driver’s fault. Cuz tells ‘im: ‘Nah, Dino, I’m awright.’ And they went on for five minutes with Dino tryin’ to get ‘im to go to the hospital and Cuz sayin’ he’s all right. Finally Dino gives up and gives Billy a pass to the hotel he’s workin’ at. Billy says thanks and Dino leaves, and we don’t think twice about it ‘cept we can stay in Vegas an extra night. Turns out the pass’s good for a lifetime. We couldn’t believe it. Now that’s bein’ generous, not like that clown ballplayer.” (Previous reference to Bucky Dent giving memorabilia to two teenage girls, related to me by someone else.)
“I’m sure it didn’t come out of his own pocket.”
“So what? He didn’t hafta do it. Billy’s the kinda mope who woulda been happy the rest of his life just to tell people he got hit by Dean Martin’s limo.”
“He was grateful you guys didn’t try to fleece him.”
“Billy said he couldn’t do that to a paisan. I’d’a stayed down no matter who it was. What’s a million to a guy like that? It’s like a hundred to us. Billy said he’d’a sued if it’d been one’a those Judotz comedians. We used that pass every time we went. It was good for room service too. What a score! Then they had some phony fire and all their records got burned. We couldn’t complain, though. We got six, seven good years atta the thing.”

It looked like a big fat goose egg was headed the way of the floating book shop until the last half hour. My thanks to the gentleman who settled his tab, and to the one who bought Debt of Honor by Tom Clancy, one of the 25 Dirk Pitt adventures — Trojan Odyssey by Clive Cussler, and Never Call Retreat: Lee and Grant: The Final Victory by Newt Gingrich & William R. Forstchen, which had been on display several years and I thought would never sell, especially since its the third part of a trilogy.

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