Cagney, who'd stayed in a sunny spot by the entrance, cocked his head. He looked from Cissie to me, as if waiting for the reply.
'Cagney's been enough so far,' I shot back. 'He doesn't gripe and he doesn't need nurse-maiding. Yeah, I'll stick with the mutt.'
She left me then, stomping up the stairs, head and shoulders stiff with suppressed - outrage, resentment, good old-fashioned pique? I didn't know which - and I had to resist the urge to call her back. Cagney made a noise deep in his throat, a kind of drawn-out groan, and rolled his eyes at me. 'Quit it,' I snapped, and went back out into the sunshine.
Muriel was waiting for me when I eventually got back to the suite. She was standing by the window, a hand parting the net curtain so she could watch feeble strands of smoke rising from somewhere across the river, another piece of real estate damaged in last night's explosions. She dropped the curtain and hurried towards me as I closed the door.
'I've been so anxious,' she said and stopped a few steps away when she saw the dust in my hair and clothes. 'My goodness, what have you been up to? You look so ... dirty.'
I'd left Cagney outside where he could guard the corridor, a position he was well used to by now, so I didn't have to contend with his growling suspicion of this stranger in the room. Again I wondered at his swift acceptance of Cissie, particularly as I hadn't been there to make the introductions in the first place. I remembered I was still rankled with the girl, so any credit I gave her was limited. Tossing my jacket onto the bed and ignoring Muriel's question, I headed straight for the bathroom. She followed me in.
Muriel started the shower for me as I tugged off my undershirt and I heard her gasp when she saw the massive bruising on my chest and the inflamed edges of the gunshot nick showing around the dressing.
She took in some of the other cuts and bruises on my arms and body, shaking her head in sympathy as she did so.
'Does it hurt badly?' It was a dumb question and she knew it 'Do you have any pain-killers that I can get for you?' she added quickly.
I shook my head and took her by the elbow. 'I'm gonna take my shower alone,' I told her.
'Let me help. You must be sore all over.'
Yeah, I was sore, and I ached too, some of that from the day's work I'd just done, but I didn't need anybody's help to wash myself. 'I'd like some privacy, Muriel.'
Disappointment, hurt - I guess both were in those grey-blue eyes of hers. 'Can't I stay and talk to you?
Last night-'
I cut her off. 'Last night was last night. You needed me, and I wanted you - last night. Today's another day, kid.' Bogart couldn't have put it better.
Now she looked stunned. 'I don't understand,' was all she could think of to say.
'Look, you came to me for one thing last night, and you got it.' I'd never spoken to a girl like that before and I think I was almost as shocked as Muriel, although my anger covered it. Not only had the world changed, but I had too. I didn't back off though, and the English Rose before me wilted under the blast.
'You think you fooled me with all that stuff about seeing ghosts? Christ, I knew what you wanted soon as I opened the door. You and your friend, you just want a man around to look out for you, keep you out of danger, keep you fed. Well you picked the wrong guy, y'hear me? Maybe you better start cosying up to your friend Vilhelm. Sure, hell take care of you. Didn't you know he's the new Master Race?'
'Why are you so angry?' she pleaded. 'What have I done?'
Why? The heck of it was that I didn't know myself. Maybe I was scared of getting involved with other people after I'd spent so long looking out for myself. Was I angry at their intrusion, the sudden burden of having all these people around me? Or in truth, was I plain ashamed of myself for taking this girl to the same bed Sally and I had first made love in? I felt my face redden and it wasn't through rage. Yeah, that was it, or at least a big part of it Maybe it was foolish, but I felt I'd betrayed the one love of my life, someone I'd sworn eternal love for, no matter what. Stupid kid's stuff?
No, not really. Despite the war going on, and both of us knowing that we could die the next day or even that night, we'd made promises to each other that we vowed to keep. Not only had I broken my part of the deal, but I'd done it in the very bedroom Sally and I had honeymooned in. Although I'd had pangs of guilt at the time - all of them easily overwhelmed by the moment itself - the real sense of what I'd done had hit me with its full force when I'd opened the door to Suite 318-319 and found Muriel standing there.
Sure I was mad, madder than hell, but not at Muriel, not at Cissie, not at any of them ('cept Stern, but that was different). I was mad at myself. And I was ashamed. The combination was bad.
But I couldn't say all this to Muriel. No, instead I spun away from her and smashed the heel of my hand into the mirror over the washbasin, cracking the glass and fragmenting my image. I heard her give out a small scream and when I glared at her over my raised arm, my palm still pressed against the splintered glass, blood beginning to drip into the sink below it, she seemed about ready to run. I felt stupid, but I must have appeared insane.
I was ready to make some comment - it could've been an apology or a cuss - when Cagney started barking up a storm outside in the corridor. We heard shouting, more barking; something thumped against the bedroom door.
I moved fast, pushing Muriel aside and taking time to snatch the Colt from its holster inside my jacket.
Then I was at the door, yanking it open. I stopped dead, gun hand extended.
Cagney was upset. He was damn-near rabid. Crouched low, snout wrinkled over yellow teeth, haunches quivering, the dog was getting ready to launch itself at something or someone standing beside the door I'd just thrown open.
'It is wild.' Shit - vild.
I took a step forward into the corridor so that I could see him. The German had his back pressed against the wall and there was real fear in those pallid eyes of his. Like mine, one of his arms was outstretched, at the end of it the muzzle of a small automatic. He was pointing it at Cagney.
My reaction was almost instinctive, the thought and the movement instantaneous: I smashed my own weapon down hard on Stern's exposed wrist. Spittle shot from the German's open mouth with the shock and his gun clattered to the floor. He bent forward, clutching at his arm, and I brought my gun hand up again, catching him on the forehead so that he straightened and his head slammed against the wall behind.
He slid to the floor and I went with him, grabbing the lapel of his jacket and jabbing the Colt's muzzle into his scarred neck.
'Please stop.'
His jaw must've been numbed, because the two words weren't that coherent I understood them though.
'The animal...' he managed to blurt. 'It was ... it was going to attack me ... when I tried to enter your room.' That's what he tried to say, but it didn't come out quite that well. I couldn't have cared less anyway -I was ready to blow his brains out.
Female's voice, but I wasn't taking enough notice to decide whose. It was time to settle the score with the German and I was just mad enough to do it right then and there. Blood oozing from my cut hand made the gun's grip slippery, but still I pressed it into the flesh of his neck. A scream then and I glanced round to see Muriel standing in the doorway. It was Cissie who attacked me though.
Her knee connected with the side of my head, knocking me aside. Then her fingers tangled themselves in my hair and she pulled me backwards, so that I sprawled onto my back. She followed through by kneeling on my chest and grabbing at my gun hand, while Cagney leapt around us, yapping and too excited to figure out which one of us to attack. With a quick swipe of my other hand, I knocked Cissie away and raised my shoulders off the carpeted floor, the Colt finding its target once more.
Now it was Muriel who was getting in the way. She positioned herself between me and the stunned German and screamed down at me.
