Mr. Smith at the car agency looked at my heap with a jaundiced eye.
“The Bertha Cool car,” I said by way of explanation.
He stared at the car once more. Then he said, “She told me the make and model all right, but I made the deal on the strength of the car being in good condition. This needs a paint job, tires, work done on the motor, and there’s a leak in the radiator.”
I lit a cigarette and said, “That’s out of my department. I’m in the delivery department.”
“What’s your telephone number up at the agency?”
I told him.
He strode into the office. Through the plate-glass window I could see him jerk a receiver out of its cradle, place it to his ear, and jab a stubby forefinger into the dial holes. He spun the dial furiously.
After the first few seconds, his jaw quit working. I saw him wilt down inside his shirt. After a while, he began to nod his head. Then he tried a sickly smile, and made as though to hang up. But Bertha wasn’t letting him off that easy. He tried twice more to get the conversation ended, but it was no soap. When he finally got the receiver back on the hook, the only thing he’d said in the last five minutes had been accompanied by nods of the head.
He came on out, looking a couple of inches shorter than when he went in. “Okay, buddy,” he said. “You’re to take the new bus.”
“Uh huh.”
He led me over to it. Halfway over, he said, “This Bertha Cool is a card all right.”
“Card, hell,” I told him, “she’s the whole deck.”
He looked at me and started to laugh, but it was a laugh that didn’t have much mirth in it.
I got the car, saw that I wasn’t chiseled on the tools, made them fill it to the brim with gasoline, checked the oil, made them test the battery, and then drove it out.
It was a dream, a sweet, smooth-running car that made no more noise than a sewing machine and jumped like a greyhound when I put my foot on the throttle. I figured Cunner would have a hell of a time ditching me in that bus.
At four-thirty I set the trip odometer back to zero, put my notebook on the seat beside me where it would be handy, and went out to Webley & McMarr.
I had a hunch Bertha Cool hadn’t spent the day sitting down twiddling her fingers or letting grass grow under her feet, but she hadn’t seen fit to tell me what she was doing, and I didn’t particularly want to know.
Cunner came out at six minutes past five. After having followed him the night before, it was a cinch to pick him up out of the crowd. He was tall enough to send his green felt hat bobbing along well above the heads of the others, and his tweed overcoat, in a raglan cut across the shoulders, gave him a long, loose-jointed appearance of easy power as he walked.
He walked over to the same car line and climbed aboard a car. I was so certain he was going to get off at the garage and pick up the Gell automobile that I loped along behind mechanically, debating with myself whether I should speed ahead of the car in order to—
I had to slam on my brakes suddenly when the car stopped abruptly at the corner. Cunner swung off the car steps, and walked directly across the street to a parking lot.
I pulled in to the curb too close to the intersection and in a red zone. I prayed that no cop would come along until I saw what it was all about. My best bet was that he was dropping in to talk with someone about a business deal.
Two minutes later he came out, driving a car which looked so much like the agency heap I’d turned in that morning that I couldn’t be certain for a moment it wasn’t the same one. It wasn’t, but it was a good imitation.
He wheezed and jolted along through the traffic, coaxing the car into slow motion at the intersection after the signals changed, backing it into lopsided acceleration between blocks, squeaking it to protesting stops at the red signals. I purred along behind, riding the brakes about half the time to keep from climbing over his back bumper.
This time he didn’t take the north boulevard, but turned over to the west, and then went south. He wound up in a cheap apartment district, parked the car in front of a rather frowzy, three-storied brick apartment house, and went in.
I parked my car where it wouldn’t be too conspicuous, and sat waiting for Cunner to come out.
He didn’t come out.
It got dark, and I got hungry. The day had been clear, but the night was turning cold, and this was a low section of town where the damp air clung to the ground like a blanket.
I looked up and down the street and didn’t see anything which looked like a place to eat.
I compromised on a cigarette, huddled down inside my thin overcoat, and tried to hug warmth into myself.
Lights came on and went off in the apartment house.
People came and went. None of them was the man I wanted. I kept getting more and more hungry.
A speed cop came roaring up on his motorcycle. He overshot the apartment house, slowed down half a block up the street to look for numbers, then leaned way over as he made a U-turn in the middle of the block and came back. He kicked the prop under his motorcycle and went into the apartment house.
I went over and noticed the license number.
He came out ten minutes later, and I kicked myself for not having made a quick run for a sandwich while he was there.
About seven-ten a car with a tax-exempt license plate drove up in front of the apartment house. Two men got out and went in.
I ran across, noticed the license number, sprinted back, stepped on the starter, and sent Bertha Cool’s new car zipping down the street. I had to go six blocks to a through boulevard before I found a café. A sleepy-eyed man behind the counter didn’t see any reason why he should hurry, or his customers should do likewise. I gulped coffee while he was making a leisurely job of cooking a hamburger. Even the stove wasn’t more than lukewarm, and took its time about the cooking.
When he handed me the sandwich, I grabbed it, slid twenty cents across the counter, and sprinted out to Bertha Cool’s car.
I drove with one hand and ate hamburger with the other, and I wasn’t driving anywhere near the legal limit. I got to the apartment house, slid the car to a stop, switched off the lights, took a satisfying bite of the hot meat and steamy bread soaked with its meat juices—and then suddenly quit chewing, my jaw half open.
Cunner’s car was gone. So was the car with the tax-exempt license plate.
I knew how Bertha Cool would feel about that. I’d lost the guy the night before, but I had an alibi then. I could blame it on the car. Now Bertha Cool had bought a new car so I could be sure to keep him in sight, and I’d let him slip through my fingers.
I looked at my watch. It was seven-twenty-one. I could stall off calling Bertha Cool until eight o’clock—perhaps until eight-thirty. But she’d be sure to ask the details as to when I’d lost him.
I decided it shouldn’t interfere with my taking on nourishment, so I finished the sandwich, wiped my hands on my handkerchief, then climbed out of the car, and walked over to the apartment house.
The lobby was a T-shaped wide place at the front end of the corridor. An uncomfortable wicker settee and chair had been wedged into the place. It was illuminated by a reddish light which couldn’t have been much over ten candlepower. I saw a sign on the door of apartment one, and, without bothering to strain my eyes reading it, took it for granted it said “manager.”
I knocked on the door.
After a while, a peroxide blonde of about thirty-five opened the door and surveyed me with eyes that were hard and cynical, a mouth that was ready for a smile only if I proved to be a cash customer. Otherwise, she seemed poised to give me the bum’s rush.
“You have any vacancies?” I asked.
“Single, double, or bachelor?” she asked.
“Bachelor.”
“No.”
“I might consider a single.”
“Thirty-seven-fifty.”
“On the north or south side?”
“North.”
“Get any sun?”
“Of course. Every apartment in the place gets sunlight.”
“Let’s look at it,” I said.
She looked me over and decided I might be a cash customer after all. Her lips twisted into a smile. “What,” she asked, “was the name?”
“Sinclair,” I said. “Robert Sinclair.”
“This way,” she told me. She took a passkey from a hook just inside the door, and led the way down the corridor, bored but businesslike, and masking her hard voice behind a synthetic cordiality of manner. “Just yourself?” she inquired.
“I may have someone rooming with me,” I said. “Funny thing how I happened to come here. A man whom I haven’t seen for years—used to work with the Southern California Edison Company. Heck of a nice chap. His name’s a short one, and hanged if I can place it. —Say, by the way, you may be able to help me out. He recognized me instantly, called me by name, and I hate to tell him I can’t remember his. He’s a tall man around thirty-five with wavy, chestnut hair and a straight nose. He has some trouble with his teeth, and his chin doubles back. The boys in the office used to call him Andy Gump—behind his back, of course. It used to make him sore as thunder.” I laughed slightly and said, “That’s the way a man’s mind plays tricks on him. When I saw him, I immediately thought of Andy Gump, and that was the only name I could bring to my mind.”
“I guess you mean Ned Pines in 208.”
“Pines!” I exclaimed. “That’s the chap. I wonder if the boys still call him Gump.”
She laughed. “I wouldn’t know.” She paused before the door of an apartment and opened it.
I walked on in and looked around. It was a dark dump on the ground floor on the north side. A two-story building on the north was separated from it only by the width of a driveway.
“Where,” I asked, “does the sun come in?”
“Right here,” she said, taking me into a kitchenette and showing me a half window over the sink, a window about as big as a framed picture. “The sun just streams in here during the mornings.”
The window was on the north side, but through it you could see past the corner of the other house. There was an opening between it and the garage. In the summer, when the sun was farthest north, the window probably got half an hour of early morning sunlight.
I looked the place over a little dubiously. “It’s not exactly what I was looking for. You don’t have anything on the south?”
“Not during the winter,” she said. “During the summer I have lots of them. Now this apartment is one of the most desirable in the whole place. It’s quite livable the year around. You don’t have to move out in summer.”
“Yes,” I said, “that’s true. Well, I won’t ask you to save it, but if it isn’t rented by tomorrow evening, I’ll bring a friend to look at it. There’s some chance we may double up.”
“Very well, Mr. Sinclair.”
The apartment smelled as though it had been vacant for months. She seemed as glad to get out of it as I was.
We walked back down the corridor in silence. She’d showed the apartment and done her duty. She knew as well as I did that it was a lemon.
I told her good night and went out to the car and did a little more thinking. God, how I hated to call Bertha Cool.
I might as well be sunk as the way I was. It would take about half an hour to run out to Yucca City, and, anyway, I wanted to see Ruth. So I slid in behind the wheel and made time, keeping away from the center of town, dodging what traffic I could, and taking a chance on getting pinched.
The night clerk at the Mountain Crest Apartments didn’t seem at all glad to see me, and I bore up under the strain remarkably well. I walked across to where Ruth was seated at the switchboard. She flashed me a glad smile of recognition and gave me her hand. I held it until the night clerk’s stare was as chilly as a cold shower on a foggy morning.
“Gell in?” I asked aimlessly.
“Yes,” she said. “He came in about ten minutes ago.”
“Alone?” I asked.
She avoided my eyes. “Uh huh.”
She was reaching for a cord on the switchboard, and I said, “Wait a minute. Don’t call him just now, Ruth. I’m supposed to call Premmer before I try to see him. Premmer said it was all right last night, but I haven’t an okay for tonight.”
I headed toward the booth. She said, in a low voice, “Go in booth 2, and I’ll save you a dime, Donald.”
I shook my head at her. “Thanks a lot, Ruth, but we have an audience.” I jerked my head in the direction of the night clerk.
“Oh him,” she said, in a tone that spoke volumes. But I was moving away from her as she spoke and ducked into the pay station.
I spent a dime and called Bertha Cool.
“Hello, Donald,” she said. “What’s new?”
“Lots,” I told her. “Our man has another apartment and another car. This time he’s Ned Pines. He’s in 208 in the Orange Cove Apartments.”
“Are you near there now, Donald?” she asked.
“No, I’m back out at Yucca City. He had a few more city employees call on him at the Orange Cove Apartments. Ned Pines’ car doesn’t amount to much. I could have followed it on roller skates.”
“But what are you doing out at Yucca City, Donald?” she asked.
“I tailed him out,” I said. “He left the Orange Cove about thirty or forty minutes ago, and came out here.”
She thought that information over for a minute, then suddenly said, “How did he come out, Donald, in the dilapidated bus or in the Gell car?”
Damn her, she would have to ask that.
I hesitated a minute, and said, “The Gell Car,” mumbling my words together. If it came to a showdown I could claim she’d misunderstood me, and I’d said the old car.
“Where did—”
I knew she was going to ask where he’d picked up the Gell car and what he’d done with the old one, so I interrupted to say, “Just a minute. I’ll give you the license number on the wreck he’s driving and the license numbers of the cars his visitors were driving.”
I fished out my notebook and read off the numbers more rapidly than she could take them down. She said, “For Christ’s sake, Donald, hold your horses. I’m not a shorthand operator. Now give me those again, and give them to me slow.”
I read them off slowly, figuring that a little irritation would take her mind off some of the questions she’d been going to ask.
“Any visitors out at the Mountain Crest Apartments?” she asked, when I’d finished with the numbers.
“Not yet. He just got there.”
“How did he arrange the switch in cars, Donald? What—”
“Just a minute,” I interrupted. “I think he’s coming out now. Someone in the elevator—G’bye.”
I hung the phone up and mopped perspiration off my forehead. I went out of the telephone booth and said to Ruth Marr, “I’ve got to wait a while before I see him. I’m to get some more information from Premmer.”
“Be back, Donald?” she asked.
I nodded.
She raised her eyebrows in a gesture, beckoning me over closer.
I walked over to lean against the little partition which separated the switchboard desk from the lobby. “Donald,” she said, in a low voice, “I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed last night—this morning.”
“Maybe you think I didn’t.”
“Did you really?”
“Uh huh.”
“You’re so nice, Donald,” she said. “You—well, you must have known—I was lonesome—you didn’t try to crowd things. Donald, I’m for you.—Tell me, honey, is she really his sister?”
“I can’t tell you,” I said, and then added significantly, “yet. Give me a little more time.”
“Didn’t Premmer know?”
“I’m not in a position to ask.”
Her face grew hard. “Well,” she said, “if you won’t tell me, I’ll tell you.”
“What?”
“She isn’t his sister.”
“No?” I asked.
Her lips were in a firm, straight line, her voice vibrant with emotion. “I hate him,” she said. “Oh, how I hate him!”
“What’s the matter?”
“He’s a married man.”
“Married?”
She nodded and blinked back tears.
“How do you know, Ruth?”
She tried to say something, but couldn’t talk. She shook her head as a sign she didn’t want to talk about it. After a moment, she said, “You’ll be back after a while, Don?”
I nodded.
“Have a talk with me,” she said, “before—before you go up.”
I leaned across the shelf. “Look here, Ruth. I don’t want to do business with him if he isn’t on the square. Tell me what you know.”
“Oh, I guess he’s all right so far as business is concerned. It’s only—only—oh well, skip it.”
“Now don’t be like that, Ruth. I want to know. A man can’t be crooked in his private life and honest in business, that is, if he can, he isn’t.”
She looked up at me. “Donald, can you tell me what you want to see Gell about, what kind of business—”
The night clerk said icily, “Miss Marr, I have a series of calls for you to make, a list of people whom I wish you to ring up. Will you come and get the list please?”
She flashed me a swiftly pleading look. I raised my voice and my hat at the same time, and said, “I’ll be back in half an hour,” and then, meeting the night clerk’s eyes, said, “Try and save ten or fifteen minutes for me then.”
I walked out.
I looked up and down the street and could find no sign of the old wreck that I’d trailed out to the Orange Cove Apartments. I walked on back into the garage and passed the time of day with the Swede janitor, telling him I thought I’d found a job, working for a wealthy Swedish couple, that it would be a swell job, that one of my parents had been Swedish, and I knew I’d get along swell.
The janitor listened to me but didn’t say much. I went through the motions of looking around the place, ostensibly to see if I’d passed up any live bets the night before.
Gell’s car wasn’t there.
“That was a swell car I was looking at last night,” I said. “Sure had lots of soup. Who was it that owned it—oh yes, Gell. He isn’t in tonight, huh?”
The Swede said he hadn’t come in yet and let it go at that.
I walked out and began to worry about that telephone call to Bertha Cool. I remembered what she’d said about trying to fake my report in case I lost him.
I sat out in the car, smoked a couple of cigarettes, and thought. The more I thought, the less I could figure out. The time element was just about right, and, of course, Gell could have ditched his old heap and taken a taxi to the apartment house. I stared moodily out through the windshield at the flow of traffic along the boulevard. I was in a spot, and it was a spot I didn’t like.
A gray sedan pulled up to the curb. A thin figure, in a double-breasted, checkered suit, got out of the car, and then struggled into an overcoat with a high collar.
A person usually slips off his overcoat after he gets out of his car and before entering an apartment house. It isn’t often the process is reversed. I watched the figure all the way into the apartment house, and then did some more thinking about my own problems. I decided I’d better ask Ruth Marr a couple of questions. She might be able to tell me how my man had arrived. At least, if he’d come in a taxi, the night clerk would know, and she could find out from the night clerk.
I got out of the car and crossed over to the lobby. I didn’t see the night clerk at the desk, and figured that was a break for me. Someone was huddled over the switchboard—Ruth, as I thought. But when I had taken two steps toward the telephone desk something about the huddled figure struck my attention. I paused to stare as I recognized the shoulders of a man’s coat. I took it for granted it was the night clerk and turned around and beat it back to the car, noticing that Ruth was nowhere in sight.
After a while, the figure in the overcoat, the checkered suit, and hat pulled low over the forehead, emerged from the lobby, walked quickly to the gray sedan, and drove away. On general principles, I turned for a flash at the license number—just to see that it wasn’t a county car. Beyond that, I paid no attention to it.
Four minutes later, I heard running steps on the sidewalk behind the car. It was a woman running. I turned to take a look, and saw Ruth Marr. She was carrying something in her right hand, something that glittered, and her face was frozen into a mask of terror.
She flashed me a swift glance from glassy eyes, started to run on past, and then suddenly checked herself.
“Donald!” she said, in a voice that sounded as though her mouth was dry.
“What is it, Ruth?”
“You didn’t tell me you had a new car. I was looking—looking for the other one.”
“You were looking for me?”
She nodded.
“What is it?” I asked.
She climbed into the car and sat down beside me.
“What’s that in your hand, Ruth?” I asked.
She shook her head, refusing to meet my eyes. I slid my arm around her shoulders. She was trembling like a dead leaf in a breeze.
“Ruth,” I said, “what is it?” and slid my hand down her arm, pulling her hand out into view. Then I switched on the dashlight, took a good look, and switched it back off.
“Thirty-eight caliber, Smith and Wesson police positive,” I said. “What’s the idea? Did you stage a holdup or something?”
She made a quick, convulsive half turn, flung her arms around my neck, and started to cry. I patted her shoulders, told her everything was all right, felt the tension of her quivering muscles, realized her tears were at the verge of hysterics.
I pushed her back and said, “Listen, Ruth, what the hell? Tell me about it.”
“I c-c-can’t.”
“Don’t kid me, and don’t kid yourself, Ruth. Give me the dope. What is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you know?”
“S-s-s-someone came out of Gell’s room.”
“What were you doing up there?”
“He—he—I wanted a showdown.”
“What about?” I asked.
“About his being married. He’s been stringing me along.”
“Go on,” I said. “What else?”
She said, “I asked Mr. Epsworth to relieve me for a few minutes. I told him I was ill.”
“Epsworth,” I said, “the night clerk?”
“Yes. George—George Epsworth.”
“Go on,” I said.
“I went out to the restroom, and then climbed the stairs to the second floor, and took the elevator to the sixth,” she said. “As I started toward Arthur’s apartment—”
“Gell’s?” I interrupted.
“Yes. Arthur Gell. The other elevator car was there on the sixth floor, standing with the door hooked open. There’s a hook on the door that the janitor uses when he’s moving furniture so no one can take the elevator away from him. It’s automatic, you know, and—”
“Yes, I know,” I said. “What about it?”
“And Arthur’s apartment is right across from the elevator door. It’s apartment six hundred. Well, when I was pretty close to the apartment, the door opened, and a funny man came out. He was wearing a big, black overcoat and had a checkered suit underneath it. A hat was pulled down over his face, and he—was carrying—this gun.”
“Go on,” I said, keeping my eyes away from hers.
“I don’t know. I guess I screamed. Anyway, this man saw me. He threw the gun at me, right at my feet, jumped in the elevator, and unhooked the door.”
“What did you do?”
“I ran to the elevator and kept jabbing the button, but it was no use. The elevator was on its way down, and you know the way it is with those elevators. One signal has to be completed before you can do anything with another.”
“There were two elevators, weren’t there?”
“Yes. I never thought about taking the other. I was too frightened. And then all of a sudden, I wondered what would happen if the elevator did come back up, and left me facing the burglar.”
“Burglar?” I asked.
“Yes, of course. That’s what he must have been doing in there.”
“But Gell was in there, wasn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Strange time for a burglar to pick.”
“I know, Donald, but I’m telling you what I thought at the time.”
“Go on. What happened after that? I suppose you’re getting ready to tell me you picked up the gun.”
“Yes,” she said. “How did you know?”
“I’m just good at guessing,” I said. “So you picked up the gun. Then what?”
“I picked it up and waited for the elevator to come back. You know, if you keep pressing the button quickly and the person in the elevator isn’t wise to the trick, you can capture the elevator just the moment it hits the lower floor and before the person can get the door open. Once the door is open, that keeps the signal from making a contact and—”
“Yes, I know all about apartment house elevators. Go on. What did you do?”
“Well, I couldn’t get the elevator back, and when it finally did come up from the ground floor, it was empty. So I knew the man had got away then, unless I could telephone the night clerk and get him to head him off.”
“So what did you do?”
“So I ran into Arthur’s apartment and grabbed up the receiver and—then—”
I waited for her to go on, sitting there keeping absolutely silent and keeping my eyes resolutely turned away from hers.
“Then,” she said, “I saw—what was on the floor.”
“Gell?” I asked.
“A man’s legs, all sprawled out with the toes turned cockeyed. He was half in the kitchen, and half in the living room. The half I saw was in the living room.”
“Now let’s see,” I said. “You had the telephone at your ear. You were going to call the night clerk and tell him to head off the man in the overcoat and the checkered suit who was coming down in the elevator.”
“Who had gone down in the elevator,” she corrected. “The elevator had already stopped on the ground floor, and come back at my signal, but I figured George could catch him before he’d gone very far, or at least catch the automobile. —Well, when I suddenly saw those legs, I dropped the receiver back into place.”
“And then what?”
‘Then I thought of you, Donald. I knew you’d be sitting out here in an automobile somewhere, so I just dashed down the stairs in a blind panic.”
“And brought the gun with you, I suppose?”
“Yes.”
“Now let’s get this straight, Ruth. Do you want me to believe that story?”
Her eyes grew wide and round. “Why, yes, of course. It’s the truth.”
“It doesn’t sound like it.”
I could see she was hurt. “Donald, I thought you were so nice. I thought you’d—understand.”
“I do,” I said. I shifted my position so I could look into her eyes. “Tell me again it’s the truth.”
Her eyes were close to mine. “It’s the truth,” she said, and then her quivering, salty lips were searching for mine, and my own cheek grew wet where her tear-streaked skin had been placed against mine. I fought against believing her as a drowning man fights to keep the water from closing over his head. Christ, I simply couldn’t believe her. There was too much at stake for both of us. I had to know the truth and just what we were up against. Yet the minute her body came close to mine, I could feel my pulse start pounding. My hand slid down along her blouse and cupped around her right breast, without any conscious volition on my part. Her right arm stole quietly around my neck. She drew me to her, and I could feel her lips hot against mine.
Something heavy was pressing against my leg. I reached my hand down to move it. It was the gun.
The touch of that cold steel brought me back to earth.
“Listen, Ruth,” I said, “if you killed him, for God’s sake say so. It’s all right with me. I’m for you no matter what happens. All I want is the truth. I want to know what I’m up against. Tell me, darling, is that story you told me the truth?”
“So help me God, Donald, it’s the truth.”
I said, “One thing I want to know about. You were holding the telephone receiver to your ear—you looked in the living room and saw those two legs, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“And then you put the receiver back?”
“Yes.”
“You must have done something, must have said something. You must have—”
“I think I screamed.”
“You think you screamed,” I said, “into the telephone?”
“Yes, Donald. I—I—I guess I must have. I don’t know.”
“How did you get out?” I asked.
“Through the tradesmen’s entrance into the alley.”
“Go back through the tradesmen’s entrance,” I said. “Go into the restroom, powder your nose, wash your eyes in cold water. Go out and tell George you’re feeling like the devil, but you’ll try to stick it out. Sit there at the switchboard and take it. No matter what it is, take it right on the chin, and don’t wince. And no matter what happens, remember that you left the switchboard and went to the restroom. You were feeling like the devil.”
She laughed nervously, and said, “Do I have to go into details?”
“No,” I said. “The cops know the facts of life.”
She said shakily, “Oh, Donald, hold me. I feel so damn—”
I pried her arms from around my neck, and pushed her back. “Don’t be a fool,” I said. “Remember, except for that trip to the restroom, you haven’t left the switchboard. Now get back there and take it, and if you break down and spill anything, you’re going to get us both in a hole. Do you understand?”
“But, Donald, why can’t I tell them the truth? Why can’t I—”
“Listen, kid,” I said. “I’ve fallen for you so bad it hurts. I believe you. But I won’t believe you after you’ve left. I wouldn’t believe your story if I read it in the papers. I wouldn’t believe it if I were on a jury. This is once when the truth won’t work. Get back there, away from me, and let me think.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Oh, Donald, you do too! You’re trying to make it easy for me. Tell me what you’re going to do.”
I jerked open the door of the automobile and climbed out. “I’m going to throw you out if you don’t get started,” I said.
She reached for me. I grabbed at her legs. She gave a nervous scream and kicked. I caught the right leg. She anchored her skirt between her legs by turning her right hand sideways and pushing it down tight between her thighs. I dragged her out.
She slid off the seat. I caught her to me. Her lips brushed my ear. “Donald,” she said, “you darling.” And then she was gone, running down the street toward the alley.
I stood there by the car looking with cynical eyes at the .38 Smith & Wesson revolver lying on the seat.