I didn’t see Babe snatch a water carafe off a busboy’s stand and whirl it against the back of my head. The ceiling caved in . . . and when I woke up, it was a different ceiling. I came to my senses stretched on the divan of my apartment in the Poinsetta, with Shona making cold wet towel passes over my face and giving out pitying croons.
“Your poor mouth,” she babbled.
“It’s the back of my coco that hurts . . . what happened?”
I was feeling lower than a snake’s belly, not so much from the aching noggin, for my memory stopped with swinging on Nick Alession. I had the idea the bouncer must have nailed me with a surprise sneak punch or kick, and the last thing I wanted to take away from ’Diego was the knowledge I’d been polished off by that musclebound jerk.
Shona told me about Babe and the carafe, and I felt better. Not so quick, and not so damned much better, but good enough after a while to sit up on the divan. I didn’t hold it against Babe, I’d so many other recollections of Babe that I could stand to live with this one. Especially when Shona added that Nick was in worse shape than I was. He’d been laid out cold waiting for the ambulance when Babe sent me home propped between a pair of busboys. It seemed I’d been out on my feet, glassy-eyed but able to stagger, and hadn’t actually collapsed until I landed on the divan.
“I guess I’m a better man than I realized.”
“Don’t talk . . . your mouth’s starting to bleed all over again. A piece of flying glass must have struck you there.”
“No, that’s where Perry landed.” I put up my hand and sure enough, the bee-stung spot was leaking blood It puzzled me. I hadn’t thought Felix Perry was capable of mangling a mouse, bareknuckled.
“Mr. Moran, really, you ought to see a doctor. That could leave a lasting scar.”
“Face like mine, who could tell the difference? Stick on a Band-Aid, forget it,”
“I’ll see if I can find one.”
She’d already located the bathroom, and she carried the wet towel back in there. I fingered the swollen spot on the corner of my mouth, tongued the inside of it, and there seemed to be a hole all the way through.
It occurred to me that maybe the scum-sheet scribbler had been clutching a penknife or a nail file in his fist. To make sure of it, I got up and walked into the bathroom.
All I’d intended was to have a look-see in the mirror. But the medicine cabinet mirror door was hanging open with Shona in front of it. She stood on tiptoe, leaning across the lavatory basin and searching the upper shelves for a Band-Aid.
For a second or so, I was riveted . . . stunned by the form of her hips, the taut dancer’s shape that I sensed could kindle into atomic passion. I kindled, blazed with a fire that burned the headache clean out of me. I stepped across the tiled floor, pressed myself hard against the curves inside the yellow dress, and reached my hands around to the other curves in front of her.
She stood completely still, kind of paralyzed. In a ragged whisper she breathed out, “Mr. Moran.”
“Call me Joe.”
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Didn’t a man ever make a pass at you before?”
“Not like this!”
“What’s wrong with this? Don’t you know real lovemaking begins where the movies leave off? No reason we should waste time on a routine of photogenic poses. We’re two human beings got to find out fast how much we could mean to each other.”
She stopped standing on tiptoe, even seemed to allow herself a slight wiggle on the way down.
“See, Shona. We’re a swell fit, huh?”
“Wait. What do you mean, we have to find out fast?”
“You didn’t notice any razor, shave cream, talc, or toothbrush up there in the medicine cabinet. Reason is, all that stuff’s packed. . . . I’m blowing this town . . . and it’s going to keep something a lot more emotionally satisfying than fifty bucks cash to change my plans.”
Shona straightened. She’d a queer, benumbed feeling inside my arms now.
“Didn’t I make myself clear, Joe? I’m not peddling sex.”
“Okay by me! Question is, do I stand a chance, or have you got a romantic interest in this retired lonely-heart from Chicago or Seattle or where the hell?”
“Me—in love with Mr. Westburne?” she gasped.
“Yeah. Damned if I’ll stick my neck in a noose to find that guy so you can fall into his arms.”
“Joe, I swear . . .” but I couldn’t hear what she was swearing because right then a knocking started that threatened to lift the apartment door off its hinges.
“Wait, hold it.”
I stepped that way, opened the door, and was face-to-face with a pair of uniformed squad-car bulls.
One of them rolled out in a bass-drum voice:
“Moran, you’re under arrest.”
It was no use trying to slam the door in their faces. They’d bust in, anyway, really take the place apart if I tried that.
From the tail of my eye I saw Shona framed in the bathroom doorway, quivering like a scared rabbit.
I whipped my hand into my pocket and fished out Elmer Hoke’s sap. A billy’s a concealed deadly weapon, same as a gun, that’d earn me at least time in the road camp if I got picked up toting it. I flipped the wicked little baton to Shona . . . saw her catch it and whirl out of sight behind the closing bathroom door. I stepped out into the hall to give myself up to the cops.
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