“Sure! Get in,” I urged her.
She bent her head to enter. I looped an arm over her neck, throwing her down across my lap. She squirmed and twisted—a small-boned, hard-fleshed body with strength in it.
I wrenched the gun out of her hand and pushed her back on the seat beside me.
Her fingers dug into my arms.
“Quick! Quick! Ah, please, quickly! Take me—”
“What about your friend?” I asked.
“Not him! He is of the others! Please, quickly!”
A man filled the open coupe door—the big-chinned man who had driven the Cadillac.
His hand seized the fur at the woman’s throat.
She tried to scream—made the gurgling sound of a man with a slit throat. I smacked his chin with the gun I had taken from her.
He tried to fall into the coupe. I pushed him out.
Before his head had hit the sidewalk, I had the door closed, and was twisting the coupe around in the street.
We rode away. Two shots sounded just as we turned the first corner. I don’t know whether they were fired at us or not. I turned other corners. The Cadillac did not appear again.
So far, so good. I had started with the Whosis Kid, dropped him to take Maurois, and now let him go to see who this woman was. I didn’t know