"How long shall we stay here?" she asked, suddenly, abruptly.
I glanced at her. "There's no hurry," I said. "I want to get you well. We can stay here as long as you like."
She turned on her side so she could watch me.
"What's going to happen to us?" she asked, giving me her hand.
I frowned. "Happen? What should happen?"
"Darling, perhaps I haven't the right to ask, but is it going on between you and me?" Her face flushed.
"Do you want it to go on?" I asked, smiling at her. "I'm not much of a guy to go places with."
"I could stand it if you could," she said seriously.
"I'm crazy about you," I told her, "but I don't know how you would fit in with my kind of life. You see, I haven't learned to settle down. I can't imagine myself settling down. It wouldn't be much of a life for you."
She looked down at our hands, joined together.
"You're going back there, aren't you?" she said,
"Back where?" I asked sharply.
"Please, darling," she said, gripping my hands. "Don't be like that. You are going back there."
"You mustn't worry," I said, smiling at her. "I don't know what I'm going to do."
"But you will, when Tim comes. You're waiting for Tim, aren't you?"
"Well, yes," I said, looking out to sea. "I'm waiting for Tim."
"And when he comes, you'll go back with him?"
"I might."
"You will."
"I might," I repeated. "I don't know. It depends what's happened."
She gripped my hand hard.
"Darling, please don't go back. I didn't think we would get away. When I was in that awful jail I thought I should never see you again. I thought they would catch you and you'd be hurt. But we did get away, and I have you with me. It would be wicked to put all this in danger again, wouldn't it?"
"Don't worry," I said. "I have a job to finish. I like to dot my i's and cross my t's. It's the way I'm made."
"No, it isn't," she said. "No one's made like that." I am.
"Darling—don't do this." Her hands trembled in mine. "Let it go—please—this time . . ."
I shook my head slightly.
She took her hands away. "You and your pride," she said, her voice suddenly hard, angry. "You don't care about this. You don't care about us." She drew in a deep breath, burst out, "You've seen too many gangster pictures—that's what's wrong with you."
"It's not like that," I said.
"Yes, it is," she said. Her voice was now elaborately controlled. "Yon want revenge. You think Killeano has crowded you, and you have to shake your reputation in his face. You can't resist doing that. You like long chances. You think it's big and smart to go back alone against that mob who stop at nothing. Just because Bogart and Cagney do it for a living, you have to do it too."
I took a pull at my highball, shook my head.
"It wasn't as if they beat you, burnt you with cigarettes, took off your clothes and paraded you before a crowd of grinning prison guards," she went on, her voice low. "They didn't come into your cell at night, did they ? You didn't have a crazy woman whispering through the bars at you—awful, filthy whispering ..."
"Honey . . ."
"Well, did you? I'm the one who suffered, not you. I don't want revenge. I want you. I don't want anything or anyone but you. I'm out of it. I'm glad to be out of it. God! I'm glad to be out of it. But you want to go back. You want to fight them. You want to avenge me. But I don't want to be avenged." Her voice broke suddenly. "Darling—can't you think of me a little—can't you let this one thing go—for me? For us?"
I patted her arm, stood up.
There was a long silence, then I heard her get up. She came and stood by my side, slipped her arm through mine.
"Was that what you meant when you said I wouldn't fit in with your kind of life?" she asked.
I looked down at her, put my arm round her, pulled her to me. "Yeah," I said. "I'm not made to be pushed around. I'm sorry, kid, but I'm going back. I said I'd fix Killeano, and I'm going to fix him. I feel a heel doing this to you, but I have to five with myself, and I'd never forgive myself if I let that rat slip through my hands."
"All right, darling," she said. "I see how it is. I'm sorry I didn't understand before. Forgive me?"
I kissed her.
"Darling," she said after a while, "do you want me to wait for you?"
I stared at her. "You're certainly going to wait for me," I said.
She shook her head. "Not certainly," she said. "I'll wait, on one condition. Otherwise I won't be here when you come back. I mean it."
"And the condition?"
"You're not to kill Killeano. Up to now you have defended yourself. If you kill Killeano it will be murder. That mustn't be. Will you promise?"
"Now, I can't promise that," I said "He might get me in spot—–"
"That's different. I mean you're not to go gunning for him. If he attacks you, then that's different. But you're not to hunt him down and shoot him as you have been planning to do."
"Okay," I said. "I promise."
I held her close, then suddenly I felt her back stiffen. I looked over my shoulder.
Tim's boat was not more than a mile out to sea. He was coming fast.
2
Davis, Tim and I sat around the table in Tim's sitting-room, a bottle of Scotch within reach, full glasses in our hands.
Davis had just come in. It was early evening, and Tim and I hadn't been back long from Key West.
"I've been busy," Davis said, grinning at me, "but before I sound off, how's the kid?"
"She's all right," I said. "They gave her hell in that jail, but she didn't lie down under it. She's fine now."
Davis looked across at Tim, who shrugged.
"Of course, she didn't want me to come back," I said, rubbing my jaw, "but she'll get over that too."
"Well, so long as she's okay," Davis said, combing his hair and looking puzzled, "that's swell."
Tim said, "The trouble with this guy is he won't leave trouble alone. There was a sweet scene when Hetty heard he was coming back—–"
"All right," I interrupted curtly. "Let's skip the domestic details. What's new?"
"Plenty," Davis said, lighting a cigarette. "Flaggerty's dead for a start. Howja like that? He was killed by one of the convicts: cracked his skull with an axe."
"That's one less for me to bother about," I said.
"Yeah. And here's a juicy morsel. Killeano's taken over Flaggerty's job. He won't release the jail break to the press. I guess it's too close to the election for bad news to be told to the trusting public."
"What happened to Mitchell?"
"He skipped out. I saw him before he went, and he gave me the whole story. I hand it to you, pal. It was a pretty smooth effort. I wrote it up, but the editor killed it after consulting Killeano. The public doesn't know a thing about it."