elevator.
A few yards away I heard the sound of a scuffle and Walter’s voice saying, “Now, really! Now, really!”
I followed her, taking the steps three at a time. I don’t know how I avoided breaking my neck.
“Jean,” I called. “Damn it, I’ve got to talk to you.”
As I figured, she was headed straight for the front door. But as I hadn’t figured, the door was locked. She hadn’t figured it either. I heard her swear and then I reached out and caught her wrist.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s talk.”
“You’re hurting my wrist, baby,” Jean Dahl said.
“Well, stop wriggling then,” I said. “You’re pretty lively for someone who was out cold an hour ago. Come on!”
I dragged her across the hall and through a door. I kept us moving, bumping into things as we went but still moving. We were both breathing hard.
“O.K.,” I said. “I guess this is all right.”
I was still holding her by the wrist. I dug into my pocket and found my lighter. I snapped it on. It threw a tiny beam of light. I held it up close to her face. She looked terrible.
Her blonde hair was disheveled and she was very pale.
“Somebody slugged me,” I said. “I want to know who it was.”
“Jay Jostyn. Mr. District Attorney. Don’t you ever give up?”
It was the cold, nasty, derisive voice. And this time it was right at my elbow.
I jumped and then my lighter went out.
The man with the voice had a light of his own.
A flashlight.
He poked the beam into my face and I blinked, completely blinded. I let go of Jean Dahl’s wrist. “What do you want?” I said.
The light was hitting me in the face and my mouth was dry.
From behind the blinding light the voice said, “Don’t get mixed up in this, I told you. Mind your own business, I said. Have you noticed, there’s some people you can’t tell them anything. Right away they know it all. Give me the gun.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about.
“The gun,” he said. “In your pants pocket. It makes an unsightly bulge.”
I was a hero, all right. I’d forgotten I had the gun.
I tried to get the gun out of my pocket, but it stuck. It didn’t fit the pocket very well. I couldn’t get it out.
“Wild Bill Hickok,” he said. “Quick on the draw.”
Along with everything else, it was embarrassing. Standing there with the light in my face, trying to get the gun out of my pocket.
“Take my advice,” he said, “avoid the far West. Stay out of gun fights. You have no talent for it.”
My pocket tore and the gun came out. I had my finger on the trigger. It clicked.
“Roy Rogers,” he said. “It’s lucky you got a safety catch. A man could lose a toe. Innocent bystanders could be shot down.”
After that, everything happened very fast.
First came the sound of a crash.
Then the flashlight fell to the ground and went out.
I felt someone grab my hand. “Come on, baby,” I said. I shoved the gun back in my pocket and, holding hands, we moved rapidly through the dark rooms. “What did you hit him with?” I asked, panting. “A lamp?”
But she was too winded to answer.
We kept moving, putting distance between us and the man with the voice who was likely to recover from his lamp, or whatever it was, to the head at any minute.
When it seemed we had gone a safe distance, I stopped suddenly and twisted her arm around behind her. Not hurting her yet, but holding it up tight where I could hurt her very easily if I wanted to.
She gasped.
“Shut up,” I said. “Shut up and listen.”
Then, with my lips close to her ear, I began to whisper.
“Listen, listen to me,” I said. “I quit. I resign. I’ve had enough. I don’t care if you have a new Anstruther book or if you don’t. If you had an unpublished musical comedy libretto by William Shakespeare it wouldn’t be worth it.
“I saved your life twice in one week. And you probably saved mine just now. So we’re even. We’re all square. This is a good time to quit.
“I don’t want to have anything to do with this. I don’t want people wrecking my apartment. I don’t want to be beaten up. I don’t like lying on the floor while being kicked in the stomach. I don’t want to be called on the telephone by gorillas with nasty voices.
“I don’t want to be slugged twice a week.
“I don’t want to have anything to do with girls who carry guns in their purses and have friends who feed them mickeys. Even if they’re very pretty girls. I’m not interested.
“You can tell your nasty-voiced friend for me that the only thing I want is to be left alone. That goes for you, too, baby. Just leave me alone. Take your big literary bargain to somebody else.”
I kept talking. I wasn’t even really aware of what I was saying. I was letting off steam and pent-up emotion.
“O.K.,” I said. “I’m leaving. If the door is locked, I’ll go out through a window. We’re all through.”
I relaxed my grip on her arm. Then I thought of something else and tightened it again.
“No, I’m not quite through either. Give me my coat. It’s part of my gabardine suit. It’s English gabardine and custom made. It cost one hundred bucks. The way you and your friends play you might spill something on it. Like blood. Where’s my coat?”
She started to speak. I cut her off.
“Never mind,” I said. “Forget it. I make you a present of it. O.K., Jeannie. I may see you again some time. But I hope not. Goodbye.”
I let go of her arm and pulled her close to me. I leaned down and found her mouth. I kissed her very hard.
Then she was kissing me and we were standing very close together in the dark, holding each other.
Then, as suddenly as they had gone out, the lights came back on.
We separated, dazed by the light and emotion.
She looked up at me and smiled.
“This is the damnedest game I ever got mixed up in,” Janis Whitney said.
I looked at Janis Whitney for a minute or two thinking maybe I was losing my mind.
Janis Whitney smiled. “Wrong girl?” she said.
I looked helplessly around.
We were standing in the big, empty entrance hall. I couldn’t understand that either. Unless we had circled through the house in the dark and come back to the hall again.
“What are you doing here?” I said to Janis Whitney.
“I was sticking close to you,” she said. “I followed you down the stairs. Everything was fine till this other character comes along. He seemed to be giving you some kind of trouble so I bopped him on the head with a lamp. I wonder where the other dame went.”
I looked around in a bewildered fashion. That’s when I saw where the other dame went.
Jean Dahl was lying by the locked front door.
She was lying there in a crumpled heap.
They’d tried to get her once before.
This time they’d succeeded.
One look was enough. You didn’t have to examine the body. I bent down and slipped my coat off her shoulders. She didn’t need it any more. I noticed her hair was still damp.
