The terrible thing about working with women is that you can never count on them to think like men.
He watched silently, and he cursed the sailor.
Where had the fool materialized from? How could he get that purse now? Of all the goddamn rotten luck, the first good thing that had come along on his first night out since the papers started that Jeannie Paige fuss, and this stupid sailor had to come along and louse it up.
Maybe he’d go away.
Maybe she’d slap him across the face and he’d go away.
Or maybe not. If she was a prostitute, she’d take the sailor with her, and that would be the end of that.
Why did the police allow the Navy to dump its filthy cargoes into the streets of the city, anyway?
He watched the wiggle of the girl’s backside, and he watched the swaying, bobbing motion of the sailor, and he cursed the police, and he cursed the fleet, and he even cursed the redhead.
And then they turned the corner, and he ducked through the alley and started through the backyard, hoping to come out some two blocks ahead of the pair, hoping she’d have gotten rid of him by then, his fingers aching to close around the purse that swung so heavily from her left shoulder.
“What ship are you on?” Eileen asked the sailor.
“USS Huntuh,” the sailor said. “You-all beginnin’ t’take an intrust in me, redhaid?”
Eileen stopped. She turned to face the sailor, and there was a deadly glint in her green eyes. “Listen to me, sailor,” she said. “I’m a policewoman, understand? I’m working now, and you’re cluttering up my job, and I don’t like it.”
“A what?” the sailor said. He threw back his head, ready to let out a wild guffaw, but Eileen’s cold dispassionate voice stopped him.
“I’ve got a .38 Detective’s Special in my purse,” she said evenly. “In about six seconds, I’m going to take it out and shoot you in the leg. I’ll leave you on the sidewalk and then put in a call in to the Shore Patrol. I’m counting, sailor.”
“Hey, whut you—”
“One…”
“Listen, whut you gettin’ all het up about? Ah’m on’y—”
“Two…”
“I don’t even believe you got an’ ol’ gun in that—”
The .38 snapped into view suddenly. The sailor’s eyes went wide.
“Three…” Eileen said.
“Wal, ah’ll be—”
“Four…”
The sailor looked at the gun once more.
“G’night, lady,” he said, and he turned on his heel and began running.
Eileen watched him. She returned the gun to her purse, smiled, turned the corner, and walked into the darkened street. She had taken no more than fifteen steps when the arm circled her throat and she was pulled into the alleyway.
The sailor came down the street at such a fast clip that Willis almost burst out laughing. The flap of the sailor’s jumper danced in the wind. He charged down the middle of the asphalt with a curious mixture of a sailor’s roll, a drunk’s lopsided gait, and the lope of a three-year-old in the Kentucky Derby. His eyes were wide, and his hair flew madly as he jounced along.
He skidded to a stop when he saw Willis, and then, puffing for breath, he advised, “Man, if’n you-all see a redhaid up theah, steer clear of her, Ah’m tellin’ you.”
“What’s the matter?” Willis asked paternally, holding back the laugh that crowded his throat.
“Whutsamatter! Man, she got a twenty-gauge shotgun in her handbag, tha’s whutsamatter. Whoo-ie, Ah’m gettin’ clear the hell out o’ here!”
He nodded briefly at Willis and then blasted off again. Willis watched his jet trail, indulged himself in one short chuckle, and then looked for Eileen up ahead. She had probably turned the corner.
He grinned, changing his earlier appraisal of the sailor’s intrusion. The sailor had, after all, presented a welcome diversion from this dull business of plodding along and hoping for a mugger who probably would never materialize.
She was reaching for the .38 in her purse when the strap left her shoulder. She felt the secure weight of the purse leaving her hipbone, and then the bag was gone. And just as she planted her feet to throw the intruder over her shoulder, he spun her around and slammed her against the wall of the building.
“I’m not playing around,” he said in a low, menacing voice, and she realized instantly that he wasn’t. The collision with the wall of the building had knocked the breath out of her. She watched his face, dimly lighted in the alleyway. He was not wearing sunglasses, but she could not determine the color of his eyes. He was wearing a hat, too, and she cursed the hat because it hid his hair.
His fist lashed out suddenly, exploding just beneath her left eye. She had heard about purple and yellow globes of light that followed a punch in the eye, but she had never experienced them until this moment. She tried to move away from the wall, momentarily blinded, but he shoved her back viciously.
“That’s just a warning,” he said. “Don’t scream when I’m gone, you understand?”
“I understand,” she said levelly. Willis, where are you? her mind shrieked. For God’s sake, where are you?
She had to detain this man. She had to hold him until Willis showed. Come on, Willis.
“Who are you?” she asked.
His hand went out again, and her head rocked from his strong slap.
“Shut up!” he warned. “I’m taking off now.”
If this were Clifford, she had a chance. If this were Clifford, she would have to move in a few seconds, and she tensed herself for the move, knowing only that she had to hold the man until Willis arrived.
There!
He was going into it now.
“Clifford thanks you, madam,” he said, and his arm swept across his waist, and he went into a low bow, and Eileen clasped both hands together, raised them high over her head, and swung them at the back of his neck as if she were wielding a hammer.
The blow caught him completely by surprise. He began to pitch forward, and she brought up her knee, catching him under the jaw. His arms opened wide. He dropped the purse and staggered backward, and when he lifted his head again, Eileen was standing with a spike-heeled shoe in one hand. She didn’t wait for his attack. With one foot shoeless, she hobbled forward and swung out at his head.
He backed away, missing her swing, and then he bellowed like a wounded bear, and cut loose with a roundhouse blow that caught her just below her bosom. She felt the sharp knifing pain, and then he was hitting her again, hitting her cruelly and viciously now. She dropped the shoe, and she caught at his clothes, one hand going to his face, trying to rip, trying to claw, forgetting all her police knowledge in that one desperate lunge for self-survival, using a woman’s weapons — nails.
She missed his face, and she stumbled forward, catching at his jacket again, clawing at his breast pocket. He pulled away, and she felt the material tear, and then she was holding the torn shield of his pocket patch in her hands, and he hit her again, full on the jaw, and she fell back against the wall and heard Willis’s running footsteps.
The mugger stooped down for the fallen purse, seizing it by the shoulder straps as Willis burst into the mouth of the alley, a gun in his fist.
Clifford came erect, swinging the bag as he stood. The bag caught Willis on the side of the head, and he staggered sidewards, the gun going off in his hand. He shook his head, saw the mugger taking flight, shot without aiming, shot again, missing both times. Clifford turned the corner, and Willis took off after him, rounding the same bend.
The mugger was nowhere in sight.
He went back to where Eileen Burke sat propped against the wall of the building. Her knees were up, and her skirt was pulled back, and she sat in a very unladylike position, cradling her head. Her left eye was beginning to throb painfully. When she lifted her head, Willis winced.