“It isn’t so,” she said dully. With dangerous dullness, still looking down.
“I’ll get it eventually. It’ll suddenly come to me when I least expect it. Maybe five minutes from now. Maybe later on tonight, before the party’s over. Maybe not for days. What’s the matter? You’re looking a little pale.”
“It’s so stuffy in here. And that red wine, I’m not used to it — especially on an empty stomach, you know.”
“You haven’t eaten?” he said with extravagant concern.
“No, I was posing, you know, when they broke in on us, and I haven’t been able to get away since. He doesn’t seem to feel it, but I haven’t had anything since ten this morning.”
“Well, er, how about coming out and having something with me now? Even though I don’t exactly seem to have made a hit—”
“Why shouldn’t I go with you? I have nothing against you. All contributions gratefully accepted.”
“Don’t say anything to the rest of them or they’ll gang up on us.”
“No,” she agreed, “it would be better if we’re not seen leaving—”
“Have you got everything? I had a hat out there somewhere in that pile. I’ll see if I can dredge it up on the q.t. Meet me over by the door; we’ll make a break and run for it.”
Their crafty preparations for impending departure did not go as unnoticed as they had hoped. Sonya chugged past at random, trailing clouds of cigarette smoke after her like a straining locomotive on an upgrade.
“Watch yourself with him,” she said curtly over her shoulder.
The overshadowed figure behind her murmured with a gleam of eyes, “I’ll make sure he doesn’t get very far past just telling me where it is he thinks he saw me before.”
“And just in case your hands slip off the throttle, here — take down my address. You can come around and have a nice long cry at my place tomorrow. There’s nothing like a good stiff cry for washing down a seduction. And I’ll make you some of my own special borscht.”
“I’ll watch out,”
Sonya wasn’t being flippant, far from it. “No, the reason I warn you is he’s got such a direct approach that no one ever takes it seriously — until it’s over. A girl I used to go around with — she laughed her head off at him all night long at a party one night. She only let him take her as far as her door. Then the next day she came around and ate borscht.”
She went chugging off again billowing plumes of smoke. You almost expected to hear a train whistle blow.
They’d got as far as the foot of the outside stairs when they were stopped again. There was a thundering stampede behind them that sounded like six people in pursuit. It was only Ferguson.
“Say, will you do your foraging someplace else? I need her for a picture.”
“Do you own her soul?”
“Yes!”
“Fine. Well, then, it’s just the body I’m taking with me. You’ll find her soul up there on the canvas.”
Ferguson straightened his tie determinedly. “Well, then, we’re both going with the body.”
They weren’t openly truculent about it, but both were in that mercurial state of mind where there is no longer much of a borderline between horseplay and hostility.
The girl surreptitiously sliced her hand against the side of Corey’s arm, as if asking him to leave this to her, drew Ferguson a few steps away, out of earshot.
“I’m going with him — to get rid of him. This is the simplest way there is. See if you can clear the rest of them out up there; I’ll come back later and we’ll finish the picture. Or have you had too much to drink?”
“This red ink? This isn’t drink.”
“Well, don’t drink any more then. I’ll be back in an hour — in an hour and a half at the latest. Be sure you have them out by then. Wait up there for me.”
“Is that a promise?”
“That’s more than a promise, it’s a dedication.”
He turned and, without another word, tramped stolidly up the stairs.
Corey prodded a wall switch, and a small apartment living room lit up. “After you,” he said with mock gallantry.
She took two bored steps forward into the place and let her eyes stray halfheartedly around, without any real interest. “Well, now what do we do here?” she asked abruptly.
He shied his hat off someplace where there was nothing to catch it. “You don’t seem to get the hang of things very easily, do you?” he said, thin lipped with annoyance. “Do you have to have outline drawings?”
She turned her face aside to her shoulder an instant. “Don’t. I hate that word.”
She moved ahead toward a dark opening. “What’s in there?”
“The other room,” he said disgruntledly. “Go ahead in and see it by yourself if you want to. I’m warning you, you’re rushing things. That doesn’t come for about another ten minutes yet.”
It lighted up and she passed from sight. It darkened and she came in again to where he was. He was swirling a coil of rye around in the bottom of a glass. “Aren’t you terrified?” he sneered. “It was a bedroom!”
A scornful catch sounded in her throat. “You’re the one seems to be terrified. What do you have to do, build up your courage with that stuff?”
“Well take that up in a few minutes — if you’ve got breath enough left to ask it.”
She went over to a kneehole desk, shot open a drawer or two. “Desk,” he said scathingly. “You know, four legs, something you write on.”
He put his glass down. “Lemme get something straight, just for the record. What was your idea was going to happen when you O.K.’ed coming up here with me? You were willing enough when I first put it up to you.”
“Because you were too willing to see me back to my place otherwise. My willingness beat yours to the punch, that was all.”
“And what’s over at your place that you’re leery of?”
She shot open a third drawer, shot it closed again. “You name it. My dear old mother. A six-month-old kid that I support by my modeling. Or maybe it’s just that the washbasin is cracked.”
He loosened his collar so abruptly the button flew off. “Well, the hell with your background, I’m going to give you a future. This is the works — now.”
She shot open a fourth drawer, looked down, smiled a little. “I knew there was one someplace around here. I saw a box of the cartridges in the bureau drawer inside.” She came up with an automatic.
He kept coming on over, necktie cockeyed. “Put that down! D’ya want to have an accident?”
“I don’t have accidents,” she murmured placidly. She measured the weapon lengthwise in the flat of one hand, thumbed the trigger.
“It’s loaded, you damn nitwit!”
“Then don’t try jerking it away from me, that’s what always sets them off. The safety’s down now, too.” She laid it down on the desk before her, but without taking her finger out of the trigger scabbard. He was in a state of mind where an antiaircraft gun wouldn’t have been able to do much with him. He caught her from behind in a double-furled embrace and hid her face under his own. Her hand stayed motionless on the desk, hooked in the gun, the whole time.
His face got out of the way finally — he had to breathe himself — and hers came into view again.
She drew her free hand across it with a grimace that wasn’t calculated to do his ego any good. “Don’t kiss me, you fool. I’m not out for love.”
“What are you out for then?”
“Nothing — as far as you’re concerned. You have nothing that I want, you have nothing that — is coming to me.
Her attitude shriveled him like a June bug in a match flame. He rammed his hands into his pockets with force enough to drive them in almost up to his elbows.