'Oh, God!' I said. 'She was nobody. Just a girl in a trattoria.'
The door at the top of the stairs opened and Dave Tanner's voice called down sharply, 'What the devil are you doing, girl? Come and fix this arm before I lose any more blood.' His figure was black against the light from the room behind. The wide shaft of light showed the grey cupids on the peeling wall-paper. Across it sprawled his shadow. He was in his shirt sleeves and held a bloodstained towel to his left arm. His hair was damp with the rain, or maybe it was sweat. 'Who the hell was it anyway?'
'It's all right, Dave,' she answered. 'It's a friend of yours. I'll come and fix that arm now.'
'A friend of mine?' he echoed.
'Yes,' I called up to him. 'It's me — Jim Pryce.'
'Jim Pryce!' He peered down into the unlighted hallway. His face caught the light. It was drained of all colour, the bones standing out like a caricature in marble. 'A helluva moment you've chosen to come visiting,' he said. Then impatiently: 'Well, come on up, man. Don't stand there gaping at me as though I were Jesus Christ.'
The girl suddenly came to life and hurried up the stairs. I followed her. We went into the bedroom and she shut the door and started to work on his arm. 'What happened?' I asked.
'Oh, just a spot of trouble,' he said vaguely and his face contracted with pain as the girl dabbed iodine into what was obviously a bullet wound.
'Who was Maria?' the girl suddenly asked.
'That's a pretty nasty wound,' I said quickly.