It took me a couple of minutes to reach the office. I stopped short just inside the doorway.
Della and Ricca were sitting near my desk. Ricca had the Colt in his hand, and it was
pointing at me.
VIII
“Come in, Johnny,” Della said.
I closed the door and walked across the expanse of fawn carpet, somehow keeping my face
expressionless, and cursing myself for coming back.
As I made for the desk, Della said, “Don’t sit there. That’s no longer your place, I want you
to meet my new partner,” and she waved to Ricca.
179
“So that’s how it is,” I said. “Did he talk you into it or did you talk him into it, and what’s
the idea of the gun?”
“Neither,” Della said. “Miss Harris Brown talked you out of it.”
I took out a packet of cigarettes together with the keys of the suitcase. Without letting them
see the keys I let them slide into the side of the chair. I lit a cigarette and blew smoke at her. I
could tell by the way she was breathing that there was going to be an explosion before long.
She was only keeping control of herself because she wanted to prolong what she imagined
was my agony. She was pale, and her eyes were deadly, and her breasts were rising and
falling under the thin stuff of her dress as if she were suffocating.
“I told you at the time,” I said, “that little mare was drunk.”
“I know what you told me, Johnny,” she said her voice going shrill. “But I haven’t been
wasting my time this afternoon. I have been making enquiries. You may not know it, but the
guards log all cars that come to the gates. It didn’t take long to find the number of the Lincoln
that brought you back the night you killed Reisner. It didn’t take long for Hame to find out
the owner of the car is Virginia Laverick who has a beach cabin not far from here. Nor did it
take long for me to find out she works at Keston’s in Miami, and Raul under a little pressure
told me you and she often go there for dinner.”
I wasn’t surprised. I knew she might dig out all this information as soon as she had left me
after the scene on the terrace.
“Do we have to go into this with Ricca here?” I said. “It can’t be much fun for him.”
Ricca’s smile widened.
“I thought it might be safer for you if I stuck around,” he said. “Della’s temper is a little
uncertain. She wanted to shoot you as you walked in. I had trouble persuading her to change
her mind.”
“Maybe you’d better stay, then,” I said.
“Do you deny you have an apartment on Franklin Boulevard, and this girl visits you there?”
Della cried, leaning forward and glaring at me.
“No, I don’t deny it,” I said. “What are you going to do about it?”
She sat back, and there was a long moment of silence.
180
Ricca said, “Let’s skip the next piece and go right into the last act. We’re wasting time with
this guy.”
I was glad he was there. She looked ready to blow her top, but his cold flat voice kept her
under control.
“Yes,” she said. “We’ll skip the next piece. Well, Johnny, you’ve been warned. I told you
to lay off other women.”
“I know what you told me.”
“Then you’ll rave to take the consequences,” she said. “I’m going to throw you out of here
the way I picked you up: a third-rate fighter without a dollar to your name. How do you like
