"Late in the afternoon.
When he took her down to those old wells to teach her to shoot and put up a can somewhere and told her to pop at it and stood near her while she shot.
And she didn't shoot at the can.
She turned the gun and shot him, just the way she tried to shoot me today, and for the same reason."
She moved a little and the gun slid off her knee and fell to the floor. It was one of the loudest sounds I ever heard. Her eyes were riveted on my face.
Her voice was a stretched whisper of agony.
"Carmen!
Merciful God, Carmen! . . .
Why?"
"Do I really have to tell you why she shot at me?"
"Yes." Her eyes were still terrible. "I'm — I'm afraid you do." "Night before last when I got home she was in my apartment.
She'd kidded the manager into letting her in to wait for me.
She was in my bed — naked.
I threw her out on her ear.
I guess maybe Regan did the same thing to her sometime.
But you can't do that to Carmen."
She drew her lips back and made a half-hearted attempt to lick them.
It made her, for a brief instant, look like a frightened child.
The lines of her cheeks sharpened and her hand went up slowly like an artificial hand worked by wires and its fingers closed slowly and stiffly around the white fur at her collar.
They drew the fur tight against her throat. After that she just sat staring.
"Money," she croaked. "I suppose you want money."
"How much money?" I tried not to sneer.
"Fifteen thousand dollars?"
I nodded.
"That would be about right.
That would be the established fee. That was what he had in his pockets when she shot him. That would be what Mr. Canino got for disposing of the body when you went to Eddie Mars for help.
But that would be small change to what Eddie expects to collect one of these days, wouldn't it?"
"You son of a bitch!" she said.
"Uh-huh.
I'm a very smart guy. I haven't a feeling or a scruple in the world. All I have the itch for is money. I am so money greedy that for twenty-five bucks a day and expenses, mostly gasoline and whiskey, I do my thinking myself, what there is of it; I risk my whole future, the hatred of the cops and of Eddie Mars and his pals. I dodge bullets and eat saps, and say thank you very much, if you have any more trouble, I hope you'll think of me, I'll just leave one of my cards in case anything comes up.
I do all this for twenty-five bucks a day — and maybe just a little to protect what little pride a broken and sick old man has left in his blood, in the thought that his blood is not poison, and that although his two little girls are a trifle wild, as many nice girls are these days, they are not perverts or killers.
And that makes me a son of a bitch.
All right.
I don't care anything about that. I've been called that by people of all sizes and shapes, including your little sister.
She called me worse than that for not getting into bed with her.
I got five hundred dollars from your father, which I didn't ask for, but he can afford to give it to me.
I can get another thousand for finding Mr. Rusty Regan, if I could find him.
Now you offer me fifteen grand.
That makes me a big shot.
With fifteen grand I could own a home and a new car and four suits of clothes.
I might even take a vacation without worrying about losing a case.
That's fine.
What are you offering it to me for?
Can I go on being a son of a bitch, or do I have to become a gentleman, like that lush that passed out in his car the other night?"
She was as silent as a stone woman.
"All right," I went on heavily. "Will you take her away?
Somewhere far off from here where they can handle her type, where they will keep guns and knives and fancy drinks away from her?
Hell, she might even get herself cured, you know.
It's been done."
She got up and walked slowly to the windows.