I watched her eyes acquiring dangerous highlights. The temper that went with that hair was beginning to stir.
"Do you want to get in on the biggest deal that's ever been pulled off in space or don't you?" she said. "Or are you going to chicken out?" she added contemptuously.
I let it slide off my shoulders.
"I don't know," I said. I wanted to get a chance to really talk things out with her, and this wasn't the place for it. "Anyway, this is no place to talk business. Walk out of here as if I'd turned you down, and go up the street. I'll catch up to you."
"Okay." She got up and walked out.
"Sorry, Honey," I called after her, loud enough for everybody to hear. A snicker went up. I cut it off with a look at the characters lined up against the bar, and got back to my drink. I finished it casually, put it down, paid, and walked slowly to the door. I let everybody get a good look at me turning down the street in the opposite direction from the one Pat had taken.
I ducked into the first cross street and moved swiftly over to the alley that paralleled the street that Pat was on. I was thinking all the way.
Being a D.O. was one thing—getting into something solo was another. I could get killed, for all I knew, and maybe by a lawman's gun. That was a risk I ran on every job, but in this case, I didn't even know, yet, what was going on. The smart thing to do would have been to pass the word to my SBI contact, but that would take too much time. There was nothing I could do but dive into this mess head-on, and hope I'd have time to yell for help later.
I was about to turn into another alley that ran back to the main street when I heard the coughing of a Saro airgun and the faint sizzle of a Colt in reply.
Instantly, I was running silently up the alley. One hand unzipped the chest of my coverall, and the other one dove in and grabbed the butt of the heavy Sturmey that's my favorite man-killer. I reached the mouth of the alley and stopped abruptly in the shadows.