“I know her very well.”
“I don't mean like knowin' someone works the opposite shift from you. I got a reason for asking.”
“I said very well, didn't I? She used to live with me.”
“She did? I never knew that. Where?”
“Right here. Till just before you decided you wanted to play house.”
Johnny stared, then rolled slowly toward her. “You mean she had this place with you, and you busted her out to make room for me?”
Sally smiled up at him. “Johnny, you child. Do you think only the men have a union in the war between the sexes? Myrna's a realist. Neither she nor I is the type to be cut in on every dance at the senior prom; far from it. So when she began to think from watching you that you were beginning to get ideas about me, she suggested that she step out and give me a little elbow room. Greater love hath no woman … for another.”
He whistled shrilly through his teeth. “By God, it's against the articles of war. Sherman didn't know the half of it. Wait'll the next time I get hold of one of these free-will advocates. It's a cinch that crowd never run up against a coupla ninety five pound designin' females.” He grinned suddenly, and dropped back on the pillow.
“Why did you say you had a reason for asking, Johnny?”
He frowned, and his eyes returned to the ceiling. “I need a stakeout on that board on her four-to-twelve shift.” He raised up to look down at Sally again. “You figure she's safe, then? I can ask her to do a little business with us?” He watched Sally's pursed lip hesitation. “What's the matter?”
“Well… she thinks a little… oddly.”
“Like what?” he demanded.
“She's… well, money conscious. She's … oh, stop pinning me down!” A clear, bright color invaded the thin features. “Let's just say she thinks like an adding machine.”
He stared down at her. “Let's just say instead that her practical nature moved her out of here so I could keep you in befittin' style? That she couldn't see you passing up this golden-”
“Johnny!”
“Well?”
She refused to look at him. “She thinks like that, that's all. And if she thought there were any money connected with anything like that you asked her to do at the hotel-”
Johnny grimaced. “Rembrandt couldn't give me a better picture, ma. I sure as hell don't want her shoppin' around for a higher bidder. Still, I need her so bad I'll just have to figure an angle.” He stared at the wall behind her, lost in thought.
“Johnny-”
He looked down suddenly at the timidity in the soft voice.
“Johnny-”
“-you don't think I'm… that I feel-”
In a swooping lunge his arms burrowed beneath her, circled, and tightened, and her breath whuffed from her lungs. “Hell, ma, you haven't got brains enough to feel like that.” He buried his face in the little hollow between the slim neck and the slightly angular shoulder, and she squirmed.
“Your breath tickles!” He lipped at her neck, and she stiffened. “Johnny! I don't want to have to wear a high-necked collar in all this heat!” When she felt his purposeful movement she placed a palm against the big chest. “Let me up first. The door's unlocked.”
Reluctantly he let her go, and she slid off the bed; her voice drifted back to him from the other room. “Mrs. Hogan told me they're taking up some kind of a collection in the neighborhood. There was a knock on the door just before you came, but there wasn't anyone there when I opened it. They'll be back, though.”
She dropped back down on the bed beside him, and he reached for the slim body, the bass voice a buzzing vibrancy. “Put this on the collection plate, ma.”
He was just out of the shower when he heard Sally's voice at the bathroom door. “I think that's the collectors at the door now. Don't come out unless you're decent.”
At the mirror he ran a hand over his chin and decided against shaving. Have to shave again before he went on duty anyway. You need a haircut, too, he told the face in the mirror. You've got time for everything but that.
He became conscious of the hum of a masculine voice carrying through the bathroom door. He couldn't hear Sally replying. He smiled; must be a good man out there if he could keep Sally from getting a word in for herself. Still, collectors. If they couldn't talk, what could-?
A Neanderthalic sub-current stirred the short hairs on the back of his neck, and his scalp tightened. Sally-
He gave himself no time to think; he snatched up the wet towel and knotted it around his waist, and quietly opened the bathroom door. He couldn't see the apartment door, but he could see Sally. She was backed out into the center of the living room, eyes enormous, and with her clenched knuckles pressed tightly to her lips. He could hear plainly now the snarling cadence.
“-big bastard to keep his nose where it belongs. The boss don't like it, and I got a word or two for him myself. We aren't fooling. You get him off the grass he's on, or we're comin' after the pair of you. You tell him-”
Johnny had crossed the bedroom and appeared soundlessly in the doorway. Sally's expression froze at the sight of him, and the redheaded man from the street scene of two evenings ago whirled to face the doorway. He stood just inside the partly ajar apartment door, a hand on its knob, the other hand deep inside a jacket pocket.
“Why don't you tell him yourself, Eddie?” Johnny inquired softly, and dropped his hands to the top of the straightback chair just inside the living room.
The red-haired man stared morosely, obviously reviewing his orders. “Don't push your luck, mister. If I had my way I'd grease the chute for you right this minute. Don't you get any-”
His right arm relaxed and dropped to his side, and in one fluid motion Johnny picked up the chair upon which his hands rested and with every ounce of strength in his body slammed it across the room in the direction of the red-haired man. Sally's choked scream coincided with Eddie's instinctive snatch at the doorknob in his hand as the dark blur of the chair flew at him knee high, and the door flared out like a bullfighter's muleta and caught and deflected the chair to the wall. It splintered itself with a shocking crash, and plaster flew in a powdery haze.
Johnny's barefooted follow-up rush foundered on the throw rug just inside the door which dropped him heavily. From his knees he struggled upright, the drumming sound of running feet echoing in his ears.
“Johnny! You can't chase him like that-!”
From the door he looked down at his loincloth and bare feet, hesitated, and then returned to Sally still in the room's center. He put his arm around her; he could feel the trembling of her body through the thin robe, and after a moment he picked her up and sat down on the couch with her on his lap. She clung to him tightly, but in a little while the trembling stopped. “That's better, ma. You all right?”
She nodded. Tears flooded the brown eyes and spilled over. “I thought he was going to s-shoot you,” she whispered. “He came in with the gun in his h-hand-”
“He didn't even know I was here, Sally. The whole show was supposed to scare you into callin' me off. It takes a certain kind of adrenalin to use a gun in the daylight, and besides, you could see he wasn't told to go that far. I'll tell you one thing-I don't care if it takes a.30–30 at a thousand yards, I'll sicken that little rat the next time I lay eyes on him.”
“You don't like guns, you s-said,” Sally sniffled, and he smiled down at her. “For him I'd make an exception. You sure you're all right?”
“Yes.” Her voice strengthened, then rose in alarm as he lifted her up and set her on her feet. “Where are you going?”
“Over to see Joe Dameron.”
She followed him into the bedroom. “Why? I thought you didn't like him?”
“I can get along with him.” He skimmed into his clothes, fixing Sally with a hard eye. “Listen. New ground rules around here. Door stays locked all the time. You don't open it till you see who it is out there. That's what they put the one way glass in for. Think you can remember that?”