I start thinkin'. I think as quick as hell. You gotta remember that earlier in the evenin' I told you that Paulette came an' put her hands on my shoulders when she was talkin' to me. When she took her hands away she sorta let 'em drop down the sides of my coat an' her right hand rested for a minute on my Luger which was in its shoulder holster under my left arm. OK. Well, maybe she will think that the gun is still there. She won't know that the Mexicans pinched the holster off me an' that I have got the gun in my right hand coat pocket.
I get up. I let my hands hang loose by my sides.
'Well, well, well, Paulette,' I say. 'If I've gotta have it I reckon I'll have it standin' up. Maybe you're not very keen on doin' anythin' for me, but there are two favours I would like to ask you. One is that I would like to have another shot of that bourbon of yours before I hand in my checks an' the other thing is that I would like you some time or other to send my Federal badge to a dame in Oklahoma. I'll give you the address. You don't have to send it now. Send it in a year's time if you like, but I sorta feel that I'd like her to have it.'
She laughs again.
'Just fancy now,' she says, 'the tough 'G' man getting sentimental about a woman.'
I shrug my shoulders.
'That's the way it is,' I say.
I turn round an' I walk over to the sideboard. I pour my-self out a shot of bourbon, an' I drink it I put the glass back on the sideboard, an' I turn around.
'OK Paulette,' I say, 'here's the badge. I'll leave it on this table.'
I put my hands sorta quite natural in my right hand coat pocket, an' I fire through my coat. I fire at the electric lamp an' I get it right, at the same moment I drop on my knees an' I hear Paulette fire three times. I take a leap forward like I was a runner gettin' off the mark, an' hit her clean in the belly with my head. She goes over backwards. I grab her arm an' twist the gun out of it.
'OK baby,' I say 'Now let's take it easy.'
'Damn you, Lemmy,' she says. 'What a fool I was to even give you a chance.'
'You're tellin' me,' I say. 'Why you didn't plug me while I was drinkin' that bourbon I don't know. Still I never did know a dame who was really swell with a gun.'
She don't say nothin'. She is just breathin' hard. I throw her gun over the veranda an' still holdin' her by the arm I walk over to the electric standard lamp that is in the other corner of the room an' I switch it on. Then I take a look at her. She is still smilin' but it is a hard sorta smile.
'Well, here's where we go, lady,' I say. 'I reckon you played your hand as well as you could an' it didn't quite come off. You know,' I tell her, 'if you'd had any sense you'da shot me while I was drinkin' that bourbon. Then I'da been nice an' dead by now. Then you coulda got your friend Luis to chuck me in some hole around here an' nobody would have ever known that that big bad wolf Lemmy Caution had come bustin' around annoym' poor little Paulette. Tough luck, baby!'
'That's as maybe,' she says - her voice is sorta tense - 'but I'll be glad to know what you're charging me with. You say you're a Federal Agent, but I've no proof of that. I've never seen your badge. I find you here in my house in the middle of the night. I'm entitled to take a shot at you. This is Mexico.'
'That's OK,' I say. 'An' maybe you could get away with a story like that. But I ain't worryin' about them shots you had at me. I woulda worried if they'd got me an' they didn't. I ain't pinchin' you for them shots. I'm pinchin' you for some thing else.'
She flops down on a chair an' she starts cryin'. The way she is sittin' her robe has fallen hack a bit an' I can see a piece of leg. I get to thinkin' that this Paulette sure has got legs that are easy to look at. I don't say nothin'. I just stick around waitin' for her to try an' pull somethin' else.
After a bit she stops cryin' an' looks up at me. She looks sweller than ever. She sorta smiles through the two big teardrops that are hangin' in her eyes. I'm tellin' you that this Paulette is one helluva actress, an' I would back her, under ordinary luck, to kid a Bowery tough that he was travellin' in ladies' powder puffs an' likin' it.
'Get me a drink, Lemmy,' she says.
I go over an' get her one. I give her a strong one. I reckon she needs it, an' she will need it more before I am through with her. I take it back to her an' watch her while she is drinkin' it.
She puts the glass down.
'I know I've been a fool, Lemmy,' she says, sorta soft, with her eyes lookin' at the floor, 'but you must try and understand. I told you how I felt about Rudy, and I had an idea that you were going over there to put him through the mill. I knew that once there you would drag up all that old stuff and remind him of something that I wanted him not to remember just now - that I'd made a fool of myself over Granworth Aymes. I didn't want him to be bothered just at the time when he is dying and trying to think all the best things of me that he can. So I telephoned Daredo. I told him to get somebody to wait for you and hold you somewhere so that you couldn't get at Rudy. But I told him that I didn't want you hurt.'
Some tears started runnin' down her face again.
'You bet I didn't want you hurt,' she goes on. 'I don't expect you to believe me, Lemmy, but I'm telling you that, even though I've only known you for a few hours, I felt that you are the sort of man who might really mean something in my life.'
She looks up an' her eyes are swimmin'.
'Don't you see, Lemmy,' she says. 'Don't you see... I love you!'
I look at this dame with my mouth floppin' open. I reckon that when they was issuin' out nerve they issued this kiddo with enough to run the Marines on. Here is a dame who has just been on the point of blastin' me down with a.38 gun an' she is now tellin' me that she loves me!
An' the joke is that the dame has got somethin'. She has got that sorta thing that makes you wanta believe her even though you know all the time that she is a first-class four-flushin' double-dealin' twicin' sister of Satan who would take a sleepin' man for the gold stoppin' in his right hand eye tooth.
I look at her an' wonder. Maybe you heard about that classy dame Cleopatra who slipped a bundle into Marc Antony when the guy wasn't lookin'. Maybe you heard of Madame de Pompadour who had the King of France so heel-tied that he thought backwards just so's he wouldn't ever come up for air an' know he was nuts.
Well, I'm tellin' you that this Paulette was born outa her time. She oughta been born in the Middle Ages just so's she coulda pulled a fast one on Richard Coeur de Lion an' kidded him that he was a Roman gladiator with knock-knees. This dame is so good that she almost believes herself.
'Listen, honeybunch,' I tell her. 'So far as I am concerned I reckon it is a great pity that you didn't find all this stuff about lovin' me out before you started that act with the gun. An' I can catch on that you certainly didn't want me around at Zoni askin' Rudy questions an' findin' out one or two things about you - such as the fact that you was stringin' around with Granworth Aymes; that he was your sugar daddy an' that you was the guy who helped pull the wool over the eyes of that poor sap of a husband of yours while Granworth was doin' the big plunderin' act.
'An' do you think that I don't know why you are pullin' this lovin' wife act now. I reckon it is because you wanted to make certain that you was goin' to have the dough after Rudy's dead. It wouldn'ta been so hot for you if he'd left it to somebody else because he didn't like your bein' Granworth's lovin' baby, huh? It woulda been tough if after kiddin' Granworth into handin' back the dough he'd pinched from Rudy, an' then dyin' an' gettin' himself outa the way, Rudy told you to take a bite of air an' handed over the money to some home for Mangy Rattlesnakes. That woulda been too much for you, wouldn't it?
'So you start doin' a big act with Rudy. You make out that you are the naughty little wife who only wants her sick husband to forgive her so's she can start all over, an' the poor mutt does it, an' even while he is dyin' you are kickin' around with that lousy gringo Luis Daredo.'
She don't say nothin'. I just watch her like a snake just to see how she is takin' all this hooey that I am handin' out to her. She sits there lookin' at me with the tears runnin' down her face.
'OK, Paulette,' I tell her. 'You an' me is goin' upstairs an' you are goin' to get yourself dressed an' then we are goin' places, an' don't try anything on wil lya, because I would just hate to get really tough with you.'
She sticks her chin up.
'Supposing I refuse to go,' she says. 'I'm an American citizen and I've rights. Where's your warrant? Where are you going to take me? I want a lawyer.'
'Baby,' I tell her. 'Don't get me annoyed. I ain't got any warrant but I have got a very big hand an' if I have any more hooey outa you I am goin' to put you across my knees an' I am goin' to knock sparks outa that portion of your chassis that was made for slidin' on. As for wantin' a lawyer, as far as I care you can have six hundred lawyers
