“Promise first.”

“No.”

She dug fingers into my arm and asked sharply:

“You’ve already gone to Noonan?”

“Yeah.”

She let go my arm, frowned, shrugged, and said gloomily:

“Well, how can I help it?”

I stood up and a voice said:

“Sit down.”

It was a hoarse whispering voice⁠—Thaler’s.

I turned to see him standing in the dining room doorway, a big gun in one of his little hands. A red-faced man with a scarred cheek stood behind him.