“Missus?” Skinny demanded incredulously. “Did you say Missus?”
“Yes. She’s a woman. I’m tied up, but you’ve got her. I’m helpless, so you can have her. You might give me a cut of the ten grand.” The strangler made a movement. “Watch her!”
W-J, who had started for me and stopped, turned to face her. I had banged my head and it hurt. Skinny stepped to her, jerked both sides of her double-breasted coat open, released them, and backed up a step. “It could be a woman,” he said judiciously.
“Hell, we can find that out easy enough.” W-J moved. “Dumb as I am, I can tell that.”
“Go ahead,” I urged. “That will check her and me both. Go ahead!”
She made a noise in her throat. W-J got to her and put out a hand. She shrank away and screamed, “Don’t touch me!”
“I’ll be goddamned,” W-J said wonderingly.
“What’s this gag,” Skinny demanded, “about ten grand?”
“It’s a long story,” I told him, “but it’s there if you want it. If you’ll cut me in for a third it’s a cinch. If she gets out of here and gets safe home we can’t touch her. All we have to do is connect her as she is — here now, disguised — with Mrs. Homer N. Carlisle, which is what she’ll be when she gets home. If we do that we’ve got her shirt. As she is here now, she’s red hot. As she is at home, you couldn’t even get in.”
I had to play it that way. I just didn’t dare say call a cop, because if he felt about cops the way some rummies do he might have dragged me away from the door and let her go.