The Fall-Guy
Spade, with his arms around Brigid O’Shaughnessy, smiled meagerly over her head and said: “Sure, we’ll talk.”
Gutman’s bulbs jounced as he took three waddling backward steps away from the door.
Spade and the girl went in together. The boy and Cairo followed them in. Cairo stopped in the doorway. The boy put away one of his pistols and came up close behind Spade.
Spade turned his head far around to look down over his shoulder at the boy and said: “Get away. You’re not going to frisk me.”
The boy said: “Stand still. Shut up.”
Spade’s nostrils went in and out with his breathing. His voice was level. “Get away. Put your paw on me and I’m going to make you use the gun. Ask your boss if he wants me shot up before we talk.”
“Never mind, Wilmer,” the fat man said. He frowned indulgently at Spade. “You are certainly a most headstrong individual. Well, let’s be seated.”
Spade said, “I told you I didn’t like that punk,” and took Brigid O’Shaughnessy to the sofa by the windows. They sat close together, her head against his left shoulder, his left arm around her shoulders. She had stopped trembling, had stopped panting. The appearance of Gutman and his companions seemed to have robbed her of that freedom of personal movement and emotion that is animal, leaving her alive, conscious, but quiescent as a plant.