You never know how much power there is in Psi until you use it without restraint. I threw the crowd back away from us with a lift that nearly blacked me out, and had Pheola on the wet boards of the floor before she could blink. She had only seconds to live unless I blocked all circulation to and from her arm. I found the spots in her armpit and lifted the veins and arteries into a complete block.
A whiff of garlic told me that Simonetti had reached the table. He'd been watching on the TV monitor, of course. He knelt down beside us.
"A doctor, quick," I said. "She's been pinked with nerve poison."
"She's gone, then," he said huskily. "Who done it?"
"Fowler Smythe," I said bitterly. "A snake within the Lodge. You might try to stop him. But your partner, Rose, is the real crook. Get the doc, then tie up Rose."
"She's gone," he insisted. "Nerve poison kills right now."
"He's right, Billy Joe," Pheola said softly. "I'm going numb all over."
"What did I tell you?" Simonetti husked at me. I had enough left to hit him sharply over the temples with a lift. "A doctor. With antidote," I snapped. He trotted away.
"Darlin' Billy!" she said, and her heart stopped. She was dead. I picked her up in my arms and carried her to the same sawdust-strewn private dining room where I'd given Barney the Blackout.
I had to split the lift. The tourniquet was an absolute necessity, or more of the nerve poison would enter her system. But her heart couldn't stop. The brain can only stand a few seconds of that. I hadn't let it miss three beats. Even as I carried her from the casino, I lifted the main coronary muscle and started a ragged pumping, maybe forty beats a minute. Once in the smaller room I began artificial respiration with my mouth.