He wiped her face clean with a handkerchief and began applying cosmetics. The result was no happier for he wasn’t any more sober than she.
They drank and he said: “A fine thing. A nurse getting drunk.”
“I’m not really a nurse. After I was cured I just stayed on to help as a sort of orderly. Kiss me.”
“I thought you weren’t interested in men.”
“I wasn’t. Howard cured me of a lot of things. Even of life until I learned better tonight.”
“What changed your mind?”
She trembled in recollection. “Did you see Fields dead in the bathroom? Did you see the knife in the poor man who was tied up? I couldn’t bear it.” She shuddered and threw one arm around his neck as the other reached for the bottle. She drank, then sighed happily.
Cellini tried to pull away but her arm tightened. He asked: “Did you ever before see the man who was knifed?”
“Often. He used to come to visit Howard. I’m going to live again. Why don’t you help me?”
Cellini considered it and decided not to help her live again. He pulled away and sat down on a case with his bottle. He sat there for five minutes. It had needed some good liquor to do it but now he was suddenly thinking with a beautiful clarity. He was beginning to see sense in everything.
He rose, gathered up an armful of bottles and lurched out
As Cellini Smith again reached the first-floor corridor he found himself facing Howard and Freddy.
“I knew I’d find you here, Smith,” Howard snapped. “I’m locking you up till the police get here. You’re under arrest.”
Freddy said: “Put up your hands, Smith.” There was a .38 automatic in his hands to lend persuasion to his words.
Cellini raised his hands and the bottles of Scotch crashed to the floor. The attendant began to step forward when Duck-Eye Ryan, attracted by the breaking glass, appeared in back of them.
It was the sort of situation that Duck-Eye understood, one of the few things to which he could react quickly. He bounded forward, his huge paw closed over the gun and twisted it from Freddy’s hands. Howard fled.
Duck-Eye beamed with self-pride. “Should I do something else, Cellini? I mean to this guy?”
“No.” Cellini remembered Freddy working over the helpless Mario. “No. I want to do it myself.” He leaned against the wall, sorry that he had had so much to drink. “O.K., Freddy. Let’s see how good you are with someone who’s not in a straitjacket.”
Cellini moved in to be jarred back by a blow on his chest. Freddy sensed his advantage and struck rapidly. Cellini could feel the blows but they did not hurt. They seemed almost pleasant, like the stinging effect of an after-shave lotion. He knew there was a cut over one eye and he could taste blood on his lips. He hit at the face in front of him but he met only air. Why had he drunk so much?
Duck-Eye circled in unbelieving horror as Freddy moved in for the kill. Cellini decided to stop hitting at the face. It was too small There was no percentage in it. He kept taking blows as he tried to remember how he could hurt Freddy most. Then it came to him. By now, the attendant was not concerned with defending himself and he stepped back for the finishing blow. Suddenly, Cellini ducked and lunged at his opponent’s groin.
There was an agonized scream from Freddy and he dropped. The blood tasted salty on Cellini’s lips. His mind’s eye saw Freddy hammering at the bound Mario. This was not enough punishment. He took careful aim and kicked Freddy’s jawbone. He heard a satisfying crack.
“Gee,” said Duck-Eye, “you look like a mess.”
Cellini felt happy and exhilarated. His face was still pleasantly numb and did not hurt. With the one eye that was not closed he gazed ruefully at the broken bottles. He needed more.
He pushed through the group of chattering and excited patients, who had gathered toward the end of the fight, and made his way down to the cellar again. Miss Banks was now lying on the floor where she had passed out. He gathered up another armful of bottles, stumbled out.
The sound of approaching sirens came to Cellini Smith as he kicked at Ivy Collins’ door.
She gasped with delight as he entered, and helped relieve him of the bottles. “This is wonderful. All for me?”
“For us,” he corrected. “I’m not getting anything out of this job so at least Howard can pay me off this way.”
She fetched two glasses and they sat down on the carpet. “Your kisser sure looks like beef hash. That’s one thing you got out of it.”
He opened a bottle. “Freddy also got something — a cast on his jaw for a few weeks.”
“Here’s to the next one to die,” she said and they clicked glasses in a toast.
“There won’t be any next one. What happened to the boy-friend?”
“Larry? I guess I convinced him there was no business and he went away.” She giggled and held out her glass. “Some more please. Anyway, you’re cuter than him.”
“It’s just as well. I know your boy-friend didn’t do it.”
“Why not?” she asked in a disappointed tone.
“Motive. He had plenty reason to kill Fields on account of you but there was no reason for Mario. Besides, Coomb stayed in a guest room last night and he had a phone there. He didn’t have to go to the office.”
“A phone yet,” she said. “You’re drunk.”
“Sure. So are you. The motive behind Mario’s killing is missing for you, too. And as for Fields, he wasn’t worth anything to you dead, either.”
“I’d kill for you, Cellini. I’m currrazy about you.”
Cellini shook his head and refilled the glasses. “It all gets back to the stock that Fields optioned. And we mustn’t forget the business about Thursdays.”
“Yes,” agreed Ivy. “We must always remember Thursdays.”
“You see, I don’t like coincidences and three Thursdays in a row is too much. Henry Fields was admitted here from the Kitty Klub on a Thursday. Mario’s night off as bartender was a Thursday. The guy who visited Fields, claiming he was Cellini Smith, came on a Thursday.”
“Pour some more and tell me what all that proves.”
“It proves that the imposter who impersonated me was Mario. Fields didn’t know Mario because he came here from the Klub on a night when Mario was off. And later, Mario was able to leave the Klub and pose as me because that was his night off, too.”
“I don’t care even if I don’t understand you,” she said. “You’re cute but you got blood in your hair.”
“Fields thought Mario got in as a visitor from you but you had no visitor that Thursday. It had to be someone who could come and go from this prison as he wished and Mario had that privilege because he was a regular visitor. He used to come here to get payed off.”
“I like money.” She poured some Scotch onto his head and began shampooing his hair.
“Mario not only got wages as a bartender but he also got a percentage for steering people to this joint. He worked hand in glove with Howard. I think I’ll get Howard and ask him.”
“No you don’t,” said Ivy firmly. “I’m trying to clean your hair out and you’re staying.”
“Say, maybe I can get Howard here without leaving.” Not trusting himself to stand, he crawled on hands and knees to the radiator grill and felt behind it. It was there.
“One, two, three, four,” said Cellini. “One, two, three—”
Ivy asked: “Have you gone nuts?”
“I’m just testing the dictaphone. All right, Howard. I know you’re listening in on all this so you better get over here. And come with Sprigley and Haenigson. I know Haenigson’s there because I heard the sirens twenty minutes ago. If he won’t come, Haenigson, then bring him. That corpse he just showed you had a straitjacket on it a little while ago. I’ll tell you more when you get here.”