“HELP! HELP!”
She was doing beautifully, hollering away and hammering her fists on the door. On the bed, Grofield was screaming like a banshee and waving his right arm in the air.
The door burst open so fast that Ellen Marie barely had time to jump back out of the way and get the cosh down out of sight. Grofield, doing it right, let another notch out of his voice and projected a howl straight through the ceiling.
Both of them had come charging into the room, guns drawn. It was the talker and one of his assistants. The talker yelled at everybody at once, trying to be heard over Grofield’s shrieking, “Shut up! What is it? Watch her! Shut your face, you!”
He came running toward the bed. The other one, openmouthed, stood in the middle of the room and paid no attention to Ellen Marie, but gaped at Grofield instead. Grofield’s waving arm dropped down to his side, fingers folding around the spray can.
But the talker had his own methods. He didn’t want to know what Grofield’s problem was, he just wanted to shut Grofield’s mouth. So he came running to the bed, reversing the gun in his hand, and immediately swung the gun butt in a long, rapid loop aimed straight at Grofield’s head.
Grofield, his eyes half-closed, saw it coming just barely in time and wrenched himself out of the way with a jolting effort that drew the kind of knife pain from his wound that he hadn’t felt in two days. The gun butt smashed into the mattress next to Grofield’s ear.
He’d lost the can. It was down there somewhere, he almost had it, but his finger couldn’t find the button on top. He just grabbed it, swung with it.
The talker had wound up his swing half-bent over the bed, enraged face directly above Grofield’s. Before he could regain his balance, Grofield had swung around and hit him in the mouth with the side of the spray can.
But the can was too light. It startled the talker, but that’s all it did. Grofield hit him two more times fast with the can, once again on the mouth and once on the nose, and only dented the can. But by then he’d finally found the button, and he started spraying.
Only he was too late. The talker was already backing away from the bed, getting control of things again, reversing the gun to get the long-distance end aimed at Grofield. Grofield had managed to cut his lip, but that wasn’t enough, not nearly enough.
Nor could he get off the bed in time. The useless spray can still clutched in his hand, Grofield struggled around on the bed, trying to get up, trying to get on his feet. His left arm didn’t want to help at all, didn’t want to do a thing.
In front of him, too far away, the talker had come to a stop, was braced, had the gun around and aimed, was saying, “Goodbye, you smart bas—”
And fell over on his face.
Grofield had managed finally to get off the bed by throwing himself over the edge. He and the talker hit the floor at the same time. The talker’s gun bounced and landed beside Grofield’s cheek. Grofield looked up and saw Ellen Marie standing there, the only vertical person in the room.
She shook her head and hefted the blackjack. “I don’t know what you’d do without me,” she said.
“You got him?”
“I got them both.”
“Bless you, Elly. You’re a dear child.”
“There’s a rumor going around,” she said, “that you’re going to help me.”
“Moral support,” he said. “Also, I hold your coat. Would you mind helping me up? I believe I’ve had enough humiliation for one day.”
She helped him to his feet and handed him the talker’s gun, then pointed at the other door. “I haven’t heard a thing from there,” she said. “Shouldn’t we have heard something?”
“What?”
“I don’t know. A scream maybe.”
“Or sizzling?”
“Oh! Don’t talk like that.”
“Wait here,” he said. “I’ll go around and see.”
She said, “What if these two start to wake up again?”
“Conk them again.”
“Is that safe?”
“Sure. It’s soft, won’t cut the flesh or anything.”
“But what about concussions?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “What about them? Wait here, I’ll be right back.”
“All right.”
He went through the other room, out to the hall, down past the locked door to the room where he’d been imprisoned, and tried the door to room number three. It was unlocked, and inside, hood number three was lying on his face on the floor.
Grofield went over and looked at him and he looked very gray. Grofield called through the door, “Unplug that thing.”
“All right. Wait a second.”
Grofield waited till she told him it was all right, then unlocked and opened the door. “There,” he said. “Our choice of escape routes.”
She looked past him, saying, “Is he—is he—?”
“I don’t know. Does it matter?”
“Yes, it does. I’ve never, I’ve never been involved in—would you please go see how he is?”
“If you say so.” Grofield went over and knelt beside him and looked him over. “He’s breathing,” he said. “Shallow, but breath.”
“I’m glad.”
He looked up at her, and she really did mean it. She wasn’t, so far as he could tell, totally consistent. One minute she was climbing up and down the outside of buildings on a sheet and knocking out gunmen with a homemade cosh, and the next minute she was Louisa May Alcott.
Skipping right out of Alcott again, now, she said briskly, “Shouldn’t we hurry? We’ve still got to get away from here.”
“One thing at a time, sweetheart. Help me drag this guy into the other room.”
He was feeling very down now, after the sudden burst of activity. Also, his throat was sore from all the shrieking he’d done. Dragging the limp body into the middle room, even with Ellen Marie’s help, left him shaking with weakness. He sat down on the bed, gasping a little, saying, “Got to rest a minute. Look, you go through that side room, lock the door behind you, take the key with you, come around through the hall and come back here, okay?”
“You all right?”
“I’m fine. I just have to sit down a minute, that’s all.”
“Your face is all-over sweat. Let me get you a towel.”
“You’re a dear girl.”
She got him the towel and then went away to lock the connecting door. Grofield mopped his face and looked at the three sleeping beauties. “I would like to see you boys again some time,” he told them, “when I’m up to snuff.”
Ellen Marie came back in from the hall and said, “Now what?”
“Get their guns and their wallets and any official-type papers they may have on them, and pack everything away in your suitcase. Then we’re getting out of here.”
“Good. Where do we go from here?”
“First, down to get my suitcase. Second, out of the hotel and into a cab. Third, to a car-rental agency, where you are going to rent a car. Fourth, out of Mexico City.”
“I can’t go to Acapulco,” she said. “I don’t dare get there before Friday. There are more of—” she motioned at the three on the floor “—more of them down there. That’s why I came here; I thought I’d be safe here until Friday.”
“But they were waiting for you.”
“Yes.”
“So we’ll go somewhere else.” He felt more rested now, and much more pleased with life. He got to his feet, staggering almost not at all, and said, “A place I’ve heard of. We’ll both love it. Come on.”
They locked the hoods in, and went away.