"No."
"Suppose," I said thinly. "Your handsome husband did kill Regan?
Or suppose Canino did, without Eddie's knowing it.
Just suppose.
How long will you last, after turning me loose?"
"I'm not afraid of Canino.
I'm still his boss's wife."
"Eddie's a handful of mush," I snarled. "Canino would take him with a teaspoon. He'll take him the way the cat took the canary.
A handful of mush. The only time a girl like you goes for a wrong gee is when he's a handful of mush."
"Get out!" she almost spit at me.
"Okey." I turned away from her and moved out through the half-open door into a dark hallway.
Then she rushed after me and pushed past to the front door and opened it.
She peered out into the wet blackness and listened. She motioned me forward.
"Good-by," she said under her breath. "Good luck in everything but one thing.
Eddie didn't kill Rusty Regan.
You'll find him alive and well somewhere, when he wants to be found."
I leaned against her and pressed her against the wall with my body. I pushed my mouth against her face.
I talked to her that way.
"There's no hurry.
All this was arranged in advance, rehearsed to the last detail, timed to the split second.
Just like a radio program.
No hurry at all.
Kiss me, Silver-Wig."
Her face under my mouth was like ice.
She put her hands up and took hold of my head and kissed me hard on the lips.
Her lips were like ice, too.
I went out through the door and it closed behind me, without sound, and the rain blew in under the porch, not as cold as her lips.
29
The garage next door was dark.
I crossed the gravel drive and a patch of sodden lawn.
The road ran with small rivulets of water. It gurgled down a ditch on the far side.
I had no hat.
That must have fallen in the garage.
Canino hadn't bothered to give it back to me.
He hadn't thought I would need it any more.
I imagined him driving back jauntily through the rain, alone, having left the gaunt and sulky Art and the probably stolen sedan in a safe place.
She loved Eddie Mars and she was hiding to protect him.
So he would find her there when he came back, calm beside the light and the untasted drink, and me tied up on the davenport.
He would carry her stuff out to the car and go through the house carefully to make sure nothing incriminating was left.
He would tell her to go out and wait.
She wouldn't hear a shot.
A blackjack is just as effective at short range.
He would tell her he had left me tied up and I would get loose after a while.
He would think she was that dumb.
Nice Mr. Canino.
The raincoat was open in front and I couldn't button it, being handcuffed.
The skirts flapped against my legs like the wings of a large and tired bird.
I came to the highway.
Cars went by in a wide swirl of water illuminated by headlights.
The tearing noise of their tires died swiftly.