'Lock it,' she said when she came in. Her breath was still coming heavy, and her face was flushed.
'I ran all the way here,' she said.
'Put the chain on.'
I pulled the spread up over the unmade bed. When I'm not with Susan I don't need a suite. The room was all there was. No view of the volcano.
'Sit down,' I said.
'Want a drink?'
She shook her head. She continued to stand.
'Was Marty alone?' I said.
'The little man was there, that was with you tonight. I saw him through the door and never went in. There might have been other men too. The minute I saw Marty I turned and ran.'
'Bernard J. Fortunate,' I said.
'The little man that was with you?'
'Yeah,' I said.
'Looks like he sold you twice.'
She had her arms folded and she walked back and forth in the small room, staying away from the window though we were on the tenth floor.
'You mean he called Marty?'
'I'll bet,' I said.
'Double the profit, double the fun.'
'I'm scared.'
'Don't blame you.'
'I don't know what to do.'
'Stay here,' I said.
'That's the first thing. Don't take off on me.'
'I feel so stupid after all that stuff I said tonight about men.'
'What you said made sense,' I said.
'You're just not quite ready to do it all without help. Nobody does it all without help.
And this is my kind of help.'
She stared at me.
'Without your shirt on… I didn't realize. You're a big man, aren't you.'
'Yeah, and you don't need to slip into the admiring-woman disguise,' I said.
'I'll help you regardless.'
'I wasn't… maybe I was. But Marty is a huge man, and he's so vicious. Nobody can stop Marty.'
'Hawk and I will stop him,' I said.
'You're going to be fine.'
'Will you kill him?'
'We'll see,' I said.
'Kill him,' she said.
Her voice was soft and flat, and earnest.
'You have to kill him,' she said.
'It's the only way.'
'We'll play it as it lays,' I said.
'If you kill him,' she said, 'I'll do anything you want me to do.'
'No charge,' I said.
'Either way. I'll go to Hawk's room and you can sleep here.'
She shook her head.
'I can't be alone,' she said.
'Okay. I'll put the mattress on the floor. One of us can sleep on it and one on the box spring.'
'That's very nice of you.'
'Yeah. And listen. The way you were talking earlier was the right way. There's things some people can do and other things other people can do, and if you need help, it doesn't mean you're dependent. So don't be dependent.
