“Don’t do that,” she said suddenly.
“What’s the matter?”
“I don’t want you to touch me.”
Carmody took his hand away from her slowly. “I’m not good enough, is that it?”
“Don’t make a big thing out of it,” she said wearily. “I just don’t want you to touch me, that’s all. Not because I think you aren’t good enough and not because I don’t like it.” She looked at him, her face a small white blur in the dim room. “Can’t you understand that?”
“Wait until you’re asked before you say no,” he said, wanting to hurt her as she had hurt him.
“That’s a cheap thing to say. It isn’t what I meant, Mike, I was just—”
“Cheap?” he said, cutting across her sentence. “That sounds funny coming from you.” There had been a delayed reaction to the feel of her body under his hand; now the memory of it crowded sharply and turbulently against his control. “What about Danny Nimo?” he said, his voice rising angrily. “Would you call that just a little cheap around the edges?”
“Oh, damn you, damn you,” she said, pounding a fist against her knee. “That’s all you’ve got on your mind. You’re infatuated with evil. Goodness bores you. Because the devil is more exciting to you than God. He’s your kind of people, a real sharpie. All right, I’ll tell you about Danny Nimo.”
“I don’t want to hear about it.”
“Oh, yes you do. It’s low and depraved. It’s your meat, Mike.”
“Stop it,” he said sharply.
“I lived with Danny Nimo for a year,” she said. “This was six years ago. Then there was the automobile accident. Danny paid the bills and took care of me for two years although I was in a cast most of that time. That was goodness of a sort, although you’d never understand it. During that time I had plenty of time to think about myself and Danny. I tried to understand why I had got mixed up with him. But I couldn’t figure it out. Not neatly and simply, anyway. My father was an electrician, my mother was a good-hearted woman and I’d had a fair education. And I had a little talent for music. It didn’t add to the way I was living. Maybe it was the fun of being a racketeer’s girl. Living high without working for it. Being on the inside. I don’t know. But I did know that I’d taken a big step in a direction I didn’t want to go. So when I was well enough to walk I told him how I felt and left him. There’s the whole story. Did you get a kick out of it?”
The bitterness in her voice confused him. “I’m sorry I spoke out of turn,” he said slowly. “Who am I to be judging people?”
“Excuse me,” she said and stood quickly. He saw that she was close to tears.
“Wait a minute. Please. Is it that easy to get out? Like you did, I mean?”
“Easy?” She was silent a moment. Then she laughed softly. “Try it, if you think it’s easy. Just say, ‘Forgive me, I’ve been wrong.’ That’s all. But keep a drink close by. The words may choke you a little.”
“ ‘Forgive me,’ ” he said quietly. “Who do I say that to?”
“To whatever you’ve got left. Maybe yourself.”
Carmody shook his head slowly. He couldn’t say he’d been wrong and mean it. And how could anybody forgive himself? It was too simple and pat.
Nancy stirred on the couch, and then sat up suddenly, her eyes bright with fear.
“Relax, everything’s all right,” Karen said gently. “Lie down and finish your sleep.”
Nancy recognized Carmody and drew a long, relieved breath. “Old tough Mike,” she said, and put her head down on the pillow. She laughed softly. “I guess I had a bad dream.”
Carmody sat beside her and took one of her hands. She looked cool and comfortable under the single white sheet.
“How do you feel?” he asked her. He heard Karen cross behind him and leave the room.
“Pretty good, I guess.”
“Ackerman is afraid of you,” he said. “What have you got on him, baby?”
She smiled at him but it was a shaky effort. “My mother told me a man could get anything from a woman if he called her baby,” she said.
“Don’t play around, please,” he said. “You told Fanzo’s men you were going to send Ackerman to jail. What did you mean by that?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “I’m afraid, Mike. I don’t want to get mixed up in it.”
“They can’t hurt you,” he said. “You’re safe here.”
“You don’t know them, Mike.”
“I know them,” he said. “They’re scared and on the run. If you keep them running you’ll be safe. But if they beat this trouble you’re in a bad spot. Don’t you see that?”
Karen returned and sat at the foot of the couch. For a moment Nancy stared at her in silence, her eyes round and frightened in her childish face. “Should I tell him?” she said softly.
“I think so,” Karen said. “It would be a big thing to do.”
“All right,” Nancy said, the words tumbling out rapidly. “Ackerman is afraid of a man named Dobbs. Dobbs lives in New Jersey. That’s all I know, Mike, I swear it.”
“Dobbs?” The name meant nothing to Carmody. “How did you find this out?”
“Beaumonte told me. When he was drunk one night. You see, something had gone wrong and Ackerman phoned him and raised the devil for fifteen or twenty minutes. When it was all over Dan was in a terrible mood. He drank a full bottle of whiskey, and then started knocking the furniture around and smashing bottles and records all over the place. I never saw him so wild. When I finally got him to bed, he started talking about Dobbs. He didn’t know what he was saying, I knew. But he said that Dobbs was the only guy smarter than Ackerman, the only guy Ackerman was afraid of. It meant nothing at all to me. The next day I pretended I’d been drunk too. Beaumonte seemed a little scared. He asked me half-a-dozen times if I remembered what he’d been talking about, but I played dumb. Listening out of turn is just as bad as talking out of turn.”
“You must have used Dobbs’ name with Fanzo’s men,” Carmody said.
“I guess I did,” Nancy said sadly.
“And it went back to Ackerman.” Carmody stood up and turned the name around in his mind. He knew men named Dobbs but none who fitted the role of Ackerman’s blackmailer. “Where’s the phone?” he asked Karen.
“In the kitchen.”
Carmody went into the tiny kitchen, took the phone from the wall and dialed his Headquarters. When the clerk answered, he said, “I’m looking for George Murphy, the reporter. Is he around?”
“Well, he was here half an hour ago. He said he was going up to the press room, I think. Wait, I’ll switch you.”
The clerk transferred the call and another voice said, “Press room.”
“Is George Murphy around?”
“Hold on. He’s talking to his desk on another phone.”
“Okay.”
Murphy came on a moment later. “Hello?”
“Mike Carmody, George. Are you busy right now?”
“Nothing that won’t keep. What’s up?”
“I want to talk to you. Can you meet me at the South end of City Hall on Market Street in about fifteen minutes?”
“Sure, Mike. I’ll be the man with the press card in his hatband.”
Carmody walked into the living room and said to Karen, “I’m going now.” His whole manner had changed; the lead was in his hands and his hunter’s instincts had driven everything else from his mind.
“Be careful, Mike,” Nancy said. Karen watched him in silence.