Then I went into the bathroom and took a look at my face. I had to give a grin. I certainly looked as if I’d walked into a something this time. My nose was still bleeding a little, and I was getting what looked like q swell black eye. I ran the water and began to bathe my face. When I was through, I went back to the bedroom. She was still out.
I lit a cigarette and sat down. My knees were a bit shaky. It had certainly taken it out of me, and I was mighty glad to see her helpless. The waiter at the Hotcha Club had said she was tough, but he had underestimated. Tough? That’s a laugh. She’d scare the pants off Strangler Lewis.
I wasn’t going to take the room to pieces until I’d been able to talk to her first. Tied up, she might be made reasonable.. Anyway, that’s the way I liked to talk to dames like her.
After I had got through half the cigarette, she began to rise to the surface. I watched her with interest. Her eyes opened, blinked in the light, then shut. Her head moved uneasily on the pillow. The bed looked as if an earthquake had hit it, but I wasn’t going to waste my time tucking a baby like this in.
She suddenly snapped out of it, and tried to sit up. The look she gave me would have burnt a hole in a sheet of asbestos. I grinned at her. “Sorry to be so rough, sister,” I said, “but you certainly asked for it.”
She began to call me names again. Well, names don’t break bones, but after a minute of it I got mad. That dame had about the dirtiest mouth I’d ever run into. I got out of the chair and grabbed a pillow. I slapped the pillow down hard on her face and held it there. I gave her a few seconds, then took if away.
“Cut that stuff out,” I said grimly, “or you’ll get smothered.”
She lay there, her eyes stormy, and I could see by her wriggling she was doing her best to bust loose. I wasn’t worrying about that. I knew how to tie a knot, and if she did get her hands free I could always put her out again. I wasn’t having any more gentle stuff with this dame… she was poison.
I sat on the bed beside her.
“Now you an’ I are goin’ to have a little chat,” I said. “If you don’t cough up what I want to know, it’s goin’ to be too bad for you. I’ve played ball up to now, but a floozie like you deserves to get the dirty end of any deal, an’ I’m goin’ to see you get it.”