“All right,” he said, and I faced him again.
He stepped back to the girl’s side, still holding the nickel-plated revolver on me. My own gun wasn’t in sight—in his pocket perhaps. He was breathing noisily, and his eyeballs had gone from pink to red. His face, too, was red, with veins bulging in the forehead.
“You know me?” he snapped.
“Yes, I know you. You’re Stanley Tennant, assistant city engineer, and your record is none too lovely.” I chattered away on the theory that conversation is always somehow to the advantage of the man who is looking into the gun. “You’re supposed to be the lad who supplied the regiment of well-trained witnesses who turned last year’s investigation of graft charges against the engineer’s office into a comedy. Yes, Mr. Tennant, I know you. You’re the answer to why Gilmore was so lucky in landing city contracts a few dollars beneath his competitors’. Yes, Mr. Tennant, I know you. You’re the bright boy who—”
I had a lot more to tell him, but he cut me off.
“That will do out of you!” he yelled. “Unless you want me to knock a corner of your head with this gun.”
Then he addressed the girl, not taking his eyes from me.
“Get up, Cara.”
She got out of her chair and stood beside him. His gun was in his right hand, and that side was toward her. He moved around to the other side.
The fingers of his left hand hooked themselves inside of the girl’s green gown where it was cut low over the swell of her breasts. His gun never wavered from me. He jerked his left hand, ripping her gown down to the waistline.