“Go on,” he said, his hand on her back.
She was in the act of stepping over the sill when she turned and looked at him, their eyes almost on a level; then her hand flicked toward his armpit.
He caught her wrist; the other hand flicked toward him.
He caught that one too in his soft, cold hand.
They looked eye to eye, her mouth open and the rouge spots darkening slowly on her face.
“I gave you your chance back there in town,” he said.
“You took it.”
Behind her the music beat, sultry, evocative; filled with movement of feet, the voluptuous hysteria of muscles warming the scent of flesh, of the blood.
“Oh, God; oh, God,” she said, her lips scarce moving.
“I’ll go.
I’ll go back.”
“You took it,” he said.
“Go on.”
In his grasp her hands made tentative plucking motions at his coat just out of reach of her finger-tips.
Slowly he was turning her toward the door, her head reverted.
“You just dare!” she cried.
“You just—” His hand closed upon the back of her neck, his fingers like steel, yet cold and light as aluminum.
She could hear the vertebrae grating faintly together, and his voice, cold and still.
“Will you?”
She nodded her head.
Then they were dancing.
She could still feel his hand at her neck.
Across his shoulder she looked swiftly about the room, her gaze flicking from face to face among the dancers.
Beyond a low arch, in another room, a group stood about the crap-table.
She leaned this way and that, trying to see the faces of the group.
Then she saw the four men. They were sitting at a table near the door.
One of them was chewing gum; the whole lower part of his face seemed to be cropped with teeth of an unbelievable whiteness and size.
When she saw them she swung Popeye around with his back to them, working the two of them toward the door again.
Once more her harried gaze flew from face to face in the crowd.
When she looked again two of the men had risen.
They approached.
She dragged Popeye into their path, still keeping his back turned to them.
The men paused and essayed to go around her; again she backed Popeye into their path.
She was trying to say something to him, but her mouth felt cold.
It was like trying to pick up a pin with the fingers numb.
Suddenly she felt herself lifted bodily aside, Popeye’s small arms light and rigid as aluminum.
She stumbled back against the wall and watched the two men leave the room.
“I’ll go back,” she said.
“I’ll go back.”
She began to laugh shrilly.
“Shut it,” Popeye said.
“Are you going to shut it?”
“Get me a drink,” she said.
She felt his hand; her legs felt cold too, like they were not hers.
They were sitting at a table.
Two tables away the man was still chewing, his elbows on the table.
The fourth man sat on his spine, smoking, his coat buttoned across his chest.
She watched hands: a brown one in a white sleeve, a soiled white one beneath a dirty cuff, setting bottles on the table.
She had a glass in her hand.
She drank, gulping; with the glass in her hand she saw Red standing in the door, in a gray suit and a spotted bow tie.