I said, "He'd be a damn sight sorrier if he'd hit me when I was looking!"
"Paul! You're not being nice. Please, darling… Go on, Harold."
She smiled at him sweetly until he mumbled something; then she made us shake hands like two quarrelsome boys. Finally she asked him to pull up a chair and join us. It wasn't the most pleasant breakfast I've ever eaten, but she enjoyed it thoroughly. She had a fine time making him squirm. It was a side of her character I hadn't seen before, and it made me feel better. A girl with that much acid in her system wasn't going to be hurt as easily as I'd feared.
Finally she pushed back her chair and patted my hand. "You finish your coffee, darling. I'm going upstairs to pack." She turned to Harold. "Why don't you come up and watch me, Harold. There's something I want to tell you.',
I watched them rise together. Being just a slob of a Denver reporter, I didn't get up. "I'll be along as soon as I've finished," I said.
She leaned over and kissed me on the mouth, "Don't hurry," she said, laughing, "and don't be jealous, darling. I'm perfectly safe with Harold, aren't I, Harold?"
Harold didn't answer. He was taking in the kiss and the endearments. He'd already spotted the unaccustomed lipstick and the way she couldn't seem to keep her hands off me, and he was obviously wishing he'd taken the opportunity to jump up and down on me with both feet last night. Whether he was truly jealous, or whether I was interfering with plans that had nothing to do with love, remained to be seen.
I watched them leave together. Olivia was prattling away happily, making him wait for the big news until they were alone. She obviously had no doubt about the nature of his feelings, and she was getting a big kick out of being able to announce her forthcoming marriage to him and tell him that he really hadn't hurt her a bit. Quite the contrary, he'd helped her, like the ugly duckling, to discover her true, swanlike self in marriage to a fine man like me.
Well, she had it coming. It was her payment for helping us. She'd probably earn every happy, sadistic moment of it before she was through. But it was also revealing, and I couldn't help thinking wryly that Olivia Mariassy was turning out rather different from the cool, detached, scientific personality with whom I'd been expecting to work.
The waitress refilled my coffee cup, but it just wasn't my morning to finish anything, shaving or eating, for that damn instrument invented by Alex G. Bell. I'd just taken a couple of sips when a phone buzzed in the corner. The girl who answered it looked around, spotted me sitting there alone, and came over.
"Are you Mr. Corcoran? You're wanted on the house phone."
I went over fast, but not fast enough to keep from realizing that I'd slipped badly. Daylight and Kroch's continued absence had made me careless, and I'd let Olivia go upstairs without protection, unless you wanted to count Mooney, who might be just the opposite.
"Yes?" I said into the mouthpiece. "Corcoran here."
"Paul?" It was Olivia's voice, but very different from the gay, bright, malicious tone she'd been using when last heard. "Paul, come up to my room right away, please!"
"Sure."
I took the stairs rather than wait for the elevator. I had the little knife in my hand as I approached the door. It's not a switchblade, but there are ways of opening it fast, one-handed, just the same. I knocked on the door and went through it fast and hard when it started to open.
I could have saved myself the melodrama. There were only two people inside, Olivia and Mooney. She was the one who'd let me in. There was blood on her hands. He was lying on the bed with his coat off and his shirt-sleeve ripped away. His face was gray. There was a hotel towel under his bare arm to catch the blood that dripped from a bullet hole in his biceps.
XII
OLIVIA closed the door gingerly, leaving smears on the knob nevertheless.
I said, "So he's a heel. You didn't have to shoot him." She glanced at me irritably. "Don't be silly. Where would I get a gun?"
I could have told her. She hadn't been far from the one I carry in my suitcase on several occasions during the night. But even supposing she could have swiped it for purposes of vengeance or something, one blast from that sawed-off regulation cannon would have aroused the whole hotel. It also would have nearly torn Mooney's arm off. He'd obviously been shot with something considerably smaller and quieter than a.38 Special. I remembered that there was a man around who specialized in small-caliber weapons, according to the report I'd just received that morning.
"Olivia…!" That was Mooney's voice, weak and panicky.
"It's all right, Harold. You're not really losing much blood. Let it wash itself out." She turned to me. "Help me off with my dress, please. Be careful, my hands are kind of messy. I don't want to get blood all over it." She waited while I unfastened the belt and zipper and worked the dress down her arms and, cautiously, over her hands; then she stepped out of it while I held it low. "Hang it over that chair and get my bag out of the closet, a brown leather bag," she said.
I glanced toward Mooney. "Hadn't he better have a tourniquet or something?"
She said, "Get the bag, Paul. Leave the practice of medicine to me, please."
"Sure."
She was in charge, there was no doubt about it. There was no seductive lingerie today, just a white slip without frills. Although a little bare on top, it could have been a surgeon's gown the unselfconscious way she wore it. By the time I'd got the bag, she was sitting on the edge of the bed, examining the wound. Mooney gasped with pain and she shook her head irritably.
"Don't be such a baby, Harold." She glanced at me as I came up. "Just put it down there and open it. Then follow my directions carefully…
"Wait a minute!" I said, remembering that, as far as Mooney was concerned, I was supposed to be a reasonably law-abiding character, as least where serious matters like gunshot wounds were concerned. "Wait a minute. I don't know what the hell happened in here, but hadn't we better call the police?"
"It was a man," Mooney whispered. "A big, bald man with protruding ears. I'd recognize him anywhere. He was hiding in the bathroom. I told him… I protested…"
Olivia said, with a meaningful glance at me, "That's right, Paul. It was a prowler. I haven't had time to see if anything is missing, and I haven't anything worth stealing anyway. I can't imagine what he was doing here, maybe just working from room to room."
Her voice was cool and matter of fact. She was pretty damn good, I had to admit. She might have been clumsy yesterday evening but she was catching on fast.
I said in my innocent role, "Sure, but what about the cops? They like to be notified in cases like this. It's a notion they have."
She looked at the man on the bed. Her voice was tart. "I don't really think Harold wants the folks back in Pensacola to read in the papers that be was shot in my hotel room in New Orleans, no matter how innocently he happened to be there."
Mooney shook his head quickly. "No. Please. If we can avoid publicity-"
"I'm quite capable of fixing up a little bullet hole," Olivia said. "Now please open my bag, Paul, and get the bottle of peroxide, hydrogen peroxide, and the applicators
Oh, and twist up a towel or something for Harold to bite on when he feels like screaming, will you? We're going to have to do this without anesthesia, and Harold is rather sensitive about pain, aren't you, Harold? I mean, his own pain, of course."
Her face was expressionless, but the peroxide bubbled viciously as it hit the raw flesh of the wound. Actually it doesn't really sting, not like iodine or Merthiolate, but watching it you'd think you were being consumed alive. Mooney started by watching the proceedings bravely enough, but he quickly turned his face away, looking sick.