He stamped down at Ryan with a heavy heel. Ryan writhed so that the heel grazed his hip painfully. He caught the pipe under the sink and yanked himself away from DuBrie. DuBrie, the lower half of his face masked in blood, moved over to try to kick down again. Ryan hooked his left foot around the back of DuBrie’s ankle, kicked hard at the knee.
DuBrie grunted in pain and fell onto his hands and knees. His eyes were small and dulled. Ryan rolled up onto his knees and hit the man in the mouth with his right fist, twice, as hard as he could swing. DuBrie shook off the blows. He slid back onto his haunches, his back against the door frame, and his big hand came out of the front of his coat with the police revolver in it. He could not miss at that range.
Gria, standing outside the bathroom, swung the metal base of the bedside lamp with both hands. It hit DuBrie on the crown of his head. He gave Ryan a puzzled look, the look of a man who has forgotten something. Gria, sobbing aloud, hit him again. DuBrie sighed wearily and toppled over onto his side, his cheek against the tile floor. Ryan reached out and took the revolver out of the slack hand. He broke it, ejected the shells onto the floor.
“Thanks,” he said.
She was close to hysteria. “I win your stupid fights and mail your stupid letters. All you do is—”
“Did you say mail my letters?”
“Of course!”
“Your father told me you went directly to him with the information.”
Her eyes widened. “But I... I wrote it right away. I gave Richardson the money to send it airmail special!”
“And Richardson, whoever he might be, gave it to your father.” Ryan held his torn hand under the cold water. “I’m sorry, Gria,” he said. “I should have realized that your father was lying.”
Her voice had a far-away sound. “He wanted too much, you know. They took it all away from him once and he decided that this time nobody would take it away from him. Nobody did. He died before they could.”
“Sit down,” he said. “I still have half a face to shave.”
He pushed DuBrie out of the way with his foot so that he could stand in front of the sink. He shaved quickly. When he went out, she turned toward the window. He put his fingertips under her chin, gently turned her face up, then bent and kissed her. Her lips were delicately warm, unresisting.
“I’m sorry that I had to be the one to blow your world up in your face, Gria.”
“Except for you, I might not have been around to see it blow up.”
“Come on. We’ll have to send somebody down for that unconscious animal.”
He ordered food for her and made her eat it. Then he walked her for long miles up and down the beach. He was inwardly amused at the tenderness he felt toward her. She was a misguided and wounded child. Nothing more. But, he could not forget, a child who had had the nerve to put DuBrie out of action.
Dusk was blue and the sea was black and the sunset was an impossible cerise. The wind came up.
“Better now?”
She held his hand. “A lot better, Ryan. A lot.”
He took her up to the hotel. A uniformed policeman stopped him in the lobby. “You’re not to leave the hotel, sir.”
“Isn’t this getting a little tiresome?”
“I can’t help that, sir. Lieutenant McCloud was shot and killed an hour ago. Mr. Riverside was killed on his way here.”
Gria’s fingernails bit into Ryan’s wrist. “Not... not—”
The patrolman shuffled his feet and blushed. “Yes, Miss Baidee. It was Essta all right. Mrs. McCloud saw him. He shot McCloud three times in the back as McCloud was walking up his own front steps.”
Gria swayed and Ryan caught her. She pushed his hands away. “No. Let me go. I’m all right,” she protested loudly.
“Do you know if Essta is alone?” Ryan asked.
The patrolman nodded. “He sure is. He’s flipped his wig. Everything blowing up in his face did it, I guess. Old Baidee kicking off that way and... Oh, I’m sorry, Miss Baidee. I didn’t...”
“Go ahead, please,” she said.
“Well, there were a bunch of us who never were on the inside. We’ve rounded up most of Essta’s boys. They say he’s gone crazy. They’re glad to be rounded up before he picks one of them. Every car is out hunting for him. They thought he might try to get you, Mr. Kestrick, or even Miss Baidee. You can’t tell what they’ll do once they get trigger-happy.”
Gria said in a low tone, “That was the only thing dad never liked about Rolph. That horrible temper of his. It... it’s close to madness when it gets into him.”
“You can’t go home, now,” Ryan said.
She shuddered. “I didn’t want to, anyway. I was going to get a room here. I don’t ever want to go back to that house.”
“Come on. You need a drink.”
The patrolman said reassuringly, “You don’t have to worry. We’ve got everything blocked off. He can’t get anywhere near the hotel. They’ll let me know just as soon as they grab him.”
They had drinks at the bar. They went out to the terrace dining room, overlooking the sea. The lights were soft. A small group played dinner music. The candle between them flickered in the wind. She shivered and her smile was a grimace.
“I’m not supposed to be out in public, I guess.”
He frowned. “I’ve been stupid. It would have been better to take a room and have dinner served there. We can have the rest of the meal served in the room.”
“No. No, please. I’m all right. I think I like having people around me.”
The music played and the breeze died down, and the surf, far below, was a soft murmuring. In candlelight she looked very young and very lovely.
He said, “You’ll have a great deal of money, Gria.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I was thinking of Mrs. McCloud. There are two children. You have no legal responsibility, of course, but—”
Her eyes had a stricken look. “Thinking about myself. Like a fool. How awful she must feel! Ryan, darling, I’ll see that she never wants for anything as long as I have a penny left.”
“You are a child! You just don’t do that for people. You make a job for her and give her the feeling of earning the money. I rather imagine, without ever having met her, that she’d throw any present right back in your face.”
“But—”
Their table was a dozen feet from the rough wall of the terrace. A slow movement caught his eye. He saw a hand reach up over the wall, grasp the inside edge. Even as his racing mind realized, from memory of the cliff face, that it was dangerous but surmountable, the other hand appeared with the automatic in it and Rolph Essta’s mad eyes, wide and staring, appeared over the edge of the wall, turning slowly toward them.
Ryan hooked his foot around her chair leg, pulled it violently toward him. Even in that moment of fear, he almost laughed at the look on her face as she dropped abruptly below the surface of the table.
He reached down, found a slim ankle, pulled her toward him as he tipped the round table over toward Essta.
The dishes made a loud crash. On the heels of the crash came the whip-crack sound that an automatic makes in the open air. Wood slivers from the table stung Ryan’s cheek. Two guests sat transfixed at a neighboring table. Ryan scrambled over, keeping low. He snatched the water pitcher from the serving table, whirled and threw it.
Rolph Essta, just climbing over the wall, saw it coming. He straightened up and the pitcher thudded against his chest. It dropped and shattered on the wall. Rolph tried to lift the automatic to fire at Ryan. But the instinctive desire to save himself carried his arm high in a struggle for balance.