The skull-cracker took the girl’s side of Red, and he and I carried the giant up to a room where the little man was scurrying around with basins and cloth. Flora and Nancy Regan followed us. We spread the wounded man face-down on the bed and stripped him. Blood still ran from the bullet-hole. He was unconscious.
Nancy Regan went to pieces.
“He’s dying! He’s dying! Get a doctor! Oh, Reddy, dearest—”
“Shut up!” said Big Flora. “The damned fool ought to croak—going to Larrouy’s tonight!” She caught the little man by the shoulder and threw him at the door. “Zonite and more water,” she called after him. “Give me your knife, Pogy.”
The ape-built man took from his pocket a spring-knife with a long blade that had been sharpened until it was narrow and thin. This is the knife, I thought, that cut the Motsa Kid’s throat.
With it, Big Flora cut the bullet out of Red O’Leary’s back.
The ape-built Pogy kept Nancy Regan over in a corner of the room while the operating was done. The little scared man knelt beside the bed, handing the woman what she asked for, mopping up Red’s blood as it ran from the wound.
I stood beside Flora, smoking cigarettes from the pack she had given me. When she raised her head, I would transfer the cigarette from my mouth to hers. She would fill her lungs with a draw that ate half the cigarette and nod. I would take the cigarette from her mouth. She would blow out the smoke and bend to her work again. I would light another cigarette from what was left of that one, and be ready for her next smoke.
Her bare arms were blood to the elbows. Her face was damp with sweat. It was a gory mess, and it took time. But when she straightened up for