I got to the phone before she did. Stood in front of it and glared down at her. “Who do you think you’re going to call?”
“I don’t know. The police, I suppose.”
I put my hands on her shoulders and shook her. I guess I must have looked like hell. It had been a long hard night. She wasn’t afraid — just contemptuous.
“Get away from the phone.” I gave her a push. “You’re not going to call anyone. You’re going to sit down and answer some questions.”
“I won’t sit down, and I won’t answer questions.” The robe slipped away from her fingers when I pushed her. The blue nightie was fragile and form fitting. She saw something in my eyes that made her reach for the robe to pull it together.
Something snapped inside my brain. Everything went flooie for a moment. I got hold of her before she managed to get the robe shut. I’ll give her the credit due her. She didn’t try to cry out. She fought me with all she had, but she fought fair.
I got up and went out to the other room. I felt like hell.
Laugh it off? That’s something that’s easier said than done. I slumped into a chair by the door, lit a cigarette and smoked and listened for some sound to come from the room I’d just come out of.
I don’t know what I expected. I guess I thought she’d have to blow up after it was all over. I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear her start yelling bloody murder. I wouldn’t have jumped more than an inch or two out of my chair if a gun had gone off in the bedroom.
Neither of those things happened. Nothing happened. I couldn’t hear a sound from her. I sat tight and let my imagination play hell with my nerves. Maybe she had passed out. Maybe she had just lain there and died.
I was able to conjure up all sorts of thoughts — none of them pleasant. Sweat was running off my forehead. I decided to go in to her and try to convince her that it wasn’t as bad as it seemed.
I didn’t move out of my chair. I couldn’t. It’s one thing to rape a girl and another to tell her it isn’t important after you’ve done it.
Then I heard her drag herself to her feet and switch on the light. I listened to every sound from her and translated them into actions.
She was moving across the room. A bureau drawer squeaked. She was moving back. I heard a door open and close softly. The bathroom door.
Well, that was natural. I strained my ears for the sound of running water and got panicky when I couldn’t hear it. Goddamn it, I sat there with my eyes open and saw the interior of Dolly Meade’s bathroom as it had been the afternoon I visited her and found June Benton suicided.
Girls use razors too. Safety razors. But a safety razor blade was plenty big enough to slit a soft throat like Cherry’s.
Was that what the squeak of the bureau drawer meant? I suppose I went slightly nuts. I was in there and had the bathroom door open before I knew I was on my way.
Cherry was standing before the mirror powdering her face. She had put on a white silk slip and seemed perfectly composed. She turned her head slightly when I threw the door open.
“Can’t you even leave me alone in here?”
I turned around and went back to the living room. I was sitting there when she came out ten minutes later, fully dressed and with a queer smile touching her lips.
I think I tried to apologize, but she laughed at me. It was laughter but there wasn’t any mirth in it.
It hit me harder than almost anything else would have. I was beginning to feel like getting down on my belly and wriggling out the door when I remembered what I had come for.
That brought me up short. I quit feeling sorry for Cherry. To hell with her. Unless I was badly mistaken, she deserved all she had gotten.
“Sit down and quit your goddamned silly giggling,” I told her.
She did both. Folded her hands and watched me.
“I told you,” I started, “that I had come here to get the answer to some questions.”
“I’m ready to answer them now. I want to answer them.”
“That’s swell. You’ve almost gotten me killed twice tonight. Why?”
“Perhaps it’s because I knew you were a louse, and tried to get you out of the way before you could do what you’ve just done.”
That hurt. It hurt like hell. I was beginning to find out Ed Barlow wasn’t quite as tough as I had thought he was.
I said: “Maybe not. What other good reason have you got for wanting me out of the way?”
“I don’t think I need any other reason.”
“You’re lying like hell. You couldn’t have known what was coming because I didn’t know it myself.”
She didn’t answer that. I tried another track: “You told me before that you weren’t on the inside... that you didn’t even know where Sandra hung out.”
“Well?”
“You seemed pretty much at home there tonight... you and your stinking little shyster.”
She stared at me with her gray eyes held wide open. There wasn’t the slightest trace of any emotion in them.
“Speak up. What have you got to say to that?” I was beginning to get mad again. The regret at what I had done was receding. She took it so calmly that it was beginning to seem unimportant.
She saw the ugliness creeping on me. She said quietly: “None of it’s any of your concern, but I’ll answer to get rid of you. Mr. Blattscomb came to me because he knew I’d been a friend of Lucile’s. I thought his information was important enough to pass on to Sandra. I was taken to her tonight for the sole purpose of warning her against you.”
“You hate me, don’t you?”
“Yes.” She nodded her head. “Though I didn’t until tonight.” She spoke calmly enough. “From what Blattscomb told me, I guessed that you were dangerous to us.”
“You didn’t seem to impress Sandra such a lot.”
Cherry compressed her lips. “No. I was afraid it would be that way. She can’t resist a man... any man.”
“You admit that you didn’t have any other reason except to get me in bad with her?”
“Of course.” Cherry’s eyes widened. “And I was glad to have a chance to do something to show her I’m looking out for her best interests. I hope to be assigned to Lucile’s place.”
“All right. This other matter,” I barked. “Why did you set him on me?”
“Who?”
“You know who damned well enough. Benton.”
“Oh. Did he find you?”
“He came to my room with a loaded gun and a burning desire to put me away.”
“You must have a charmed life,” she murmured.
She was hard. I was just beginning to find out how hard a woman can be. I thought I had known some tough ones before, but I hadn’t.
“You sent him there to kill me?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “It’s too bad he bungled the job.”
I got up. “All right. Those are all the answers I wanted.”
She sat in her chair and didn’t look at me. I started toward the door and her voice drifted to me faintly:
“You’ve gotten everything you wanted from me, haven’t you? I’ll mark that down in my book. Don’t think you won’t pay for it.”
She didn’t sound like a raped virgin.
I went out without talking back to her. There wasn’t, after all, very much for me to say.
Chapter 22
I woke up with someone pounding on my door. The sun was up pretty high, slanting across the foot of my bed. I cocked one eye at the door and wondered if whoever it was would go away if I kept quiet.
I kept quiet and the pounding didn’t let up. So I got the other eye open and went across to jerk the door open with a, “What the goddamned hell you want?”
It was Ellsworth Grange. Managing editor of the Bugle. I stared at him with my lower jaw dropped and he pushed me aside with his protruding belly and came in. His underlip was pouting more than usual and I noticed that his eyes were sort of greenish. I kicked the door shut with my bare foot and went across to the liquor cabinet for a drink.