“So I’m too utterly filthy for you now, am I?”
He said evenly:
“I said to betray your friends to this chap would be utterly filthy, and it would.”
She caught one of his thin wrists and twisted it until he was on his knees. Her other hand, open, beat his hollow-cheeked face, half a dozen times on each side, rocking his head from side to side. He could have put his free arm up to protect his face, but didn’t.
She let go his wrist, turned her back on him, and reached for gin and seltzer. She was smiling. I didn’t like the smile.
He got up, blinking. His wrist was red where she had held it, his face bruised. He steadied himself upright and looked at me with dull eyes.
With no change in the blankness of his face and eyes, he put a hand under his coat, brought out a black automatic pistol, and fired at me.
But he was too shaky for either speed or accuracy. I had time to toss a glass at him. The glass hit his shoulder. His bullet went somewhere overhead.
I jumped before he got the next one out—jumped at him—was close enough to knock the gun down. The second slug went into the floor.
I socked his jaw. He fell away from me and lay where he fell.
I turned around.
Dinah Brand was getting ready to bat me over the head with the seltzer bottle, a heavy glass siphon that would have made pulp of my skull.
“Don’t,” I yelped.