I went down in one of those falls that get pugs called quitters—my eyes were open, my mind was alive, but my legs and arms wouldn’t lift me up from the floor.
Tennant took my own gun out of a pocket, and with it held on me, sat down in a Morris chair, to gasp for the air I had pounded out of him. The girl sat in another chair; and I, finding I could manage it, sat up in the middle of the floor and looked at them.
Tennant spoke, still panting.
“This is fine—all the signs of a struggle we need to make our story good!”
“If they don’t believe you were in a fight,” I suggested sourly, pressing my aching head with both hands, “you can strip and show them your little tummy.”
He leaned down and split my lip with a punch that spread me on my back.
“And you can show them this!”
Anger brought my legs to life. I got up on them. Tennant moved around behind the Morris chair. My black gun was steady in his hand.
“Go easy,” he warned me. “My story will work if I have to kill you—maybe work better.”
That was sense. I stood still.
“Phone the police, Cara,” he ordered.
She went out of the room, closing the door behind her; and all I could hear of her talk was a broken murmur.