Chapter 21 Chapter 21: Elona Halton
Mary Nunes arrived at 7:30 the next morning.Mitch Linehan drove Mrs. Herman to Quesada and back with McMahon and a load of groceries.
McMahon, a former soldier, was broad and straight-backed.Ten years of living on the island had tempered a dark oak-colored stern face, with a strong jaw and a tight mouth.He was the perfect soldier: he went where he was told, and stayed where he was told, with no will, no possibility of doing anything but your orders.
He handed me the apothecary's package.I took ten grains of morphine and went upstairs to Gabriel.She was eating breakfast in bed with watery eyes and a damp gray face.Seeing the package in my hand, she pushed aside the tray and reached out eagerly, twisting her shoulders.
"Will you come back in five minutes?" she asked.
"You can suck in front of me and I won't blush."
"But I will," she said, and really blushed.
I went out, closed the door, leaned in, and heard the crackling of paper and the clink of spoons against water glasses.Not long after, she called out, "Okay."
I went in again.One packet of morphine was a crumpled white mass on the tray, and the others were gone.She leaned against the pillow, her eyes half-closed, contented like a cat that has swallowed a goldfish.She smiled lazily at me, and said:
"That's kind of you. Know what I want to do today? Grab some lunch and go rowing—floating in the sun all day."
"It should be good for you. You can take Linehan or McMahon, you can't go alone."
"What are you going to do?"
"Take a ride to Quesada, then go to County Hall, possibly into town."
"Can't I go with you?"
I shook my head and said, "I have work to do, and you have to rest."
"Oh," she said, and reached for her coffee.I turn to the door. "The rest of the morphine," she said, "are you in a safe place where no one can find it?"
"Yeah." I patted my coat pocket and grinned at her.
I spent half an hour talking to Rowley at Quesada and reading the San Francisco papers.Reporters have begun to make hints and questions against Andrew - just not guilty of defamation.This helps me a lot.The deputy sheriff did not provide me with any new information.
I went to County Hall.Vernon in court.I talked to the sheriff for twenty minutes, to no avail.I called the agency again to talk to the old man.He said we were still working on the case, and our client, Herbert Collinson, was rather surprised, because he thought Whedon's death had cleared up the cause of his son's death.
"Tell him it's okay," I said. "Eric's killing has a lot to do with Gabriel's troubles. One of them is out of order, and the other is out of the question. I'm afraid I'll need another week. Collinson's all right," I assured the old man. Said, "After explaining it clearly to him, he will definitely support it."
The old man said, "I really hope so." His tone was quite cold—five detectives would work on a case, and the person who should be regarded as the employer might not want to pay. Of course, he was not very keen.
I drove to San Francisco, had dinner at St. Germaine's, went to my room, grabbed another suit, packed a bag of clean shirts and other clothes, and returned to the house on the Bay just after midnight.While I was tucking the car—we still had a Fitzstephan's—under the shed, McMahon came out of the shadows and said it was business as usual in my absence.We went into the house together.Mickey yawned in the kitchen and mixed himself a drink, waiting for McMahon to take over his shift. "Is Mrs. Collinson in bed?" I asked. "The light in her room was still on and she didn't show up all day." McMahon and I drank with Mitch and went upstairs.I knocked on the girl's door. "Who is it?" she asked.I answered.She said, "What's the matter?" "There will be no breakfast tomorrow morning." "Really?" Then she said, as if thinking of something she had almost forgotten, "Oh, I've decided not to bother you to fix me." She opened the door and stood in the doorway, smiling unnaturally at me , pressed his finger on the place he read in the book, "Did you have a good trip?" "Fine," I said, taking the rest of the morphine out of my pocket and handing it to her, "then I won't have to walk around with this." She didn't answer, but smiled at me and said, "You're such a heartless person, aren't you?" "Well, this is your treatment, not mine." I put the item back in my pocket, "If you—" I stopped talking and listened, the boards in the corridor creaked.The voice then became softer, as if someone was walking slowly with bare feet. "That's Mary who nursed me," whispered Gabrielle cheerfully. "She made a bed in the attic and wouldn't come home. She didn't think I was safe with you and your friends. She warned I said you were—what was it? Oh, yes—perverts. Is that so?” "Exactly. Don't forget - no breakfast in the morning."
I gave her the first dose Vic Dallas had made the next afternoon, and gave her another dose every two hours, a total of three times.She stayed in the room that day.It was Saturday. On Sunday she smoked ten grains of morphine and was in high spirits all day, feeling almost cured. On Monday she took the rest of Vic's prescription, which was not much different from Sunday.Mitch Linehan brought word from the County Hall that Fitzstephan was conscious, but too weak and bound up to be able to speak even with the doctor's permission; and that Andrew was again at St. O went to see Elona Halton, who also went to the hospital for Fink, but the sheriff's men wouldn't let her in. Tuesday will be much better. Gabriel was up and dressed when I brought her breakfast of orange juice.Her eyes lit up, she fidgeted, she babbled, and she laughed at every turn—until I unexpectedly mentioned that she couldn't take any more morphine. "You mean, forever?" Her expression and voice were very panicked, "No, you don't mean that, do you?" "I'm." "But I'm going to die." Tears filled her eyes and ran down her pale face.She wrung her hands together, and she looked really pitiful.I had to remind myself that tears were one of the side effects of quitting morphine. "You know it can't be like this. I didn't say to keep the same amount as usual. I understand that I have to reduce the amount every day. But you can't stop and stop. You are joking! It will kill me." She thought Will die, cry a little harder. I make my smile sympathetic and playful. "Nonsense," I said brightly. "Your biggest problem is that you will be too lively these days. It will be over in a few days." She bit her lip, finally forced a smile, and held out her hands to me. "I'm going to believe you," she said. "I really believe you. I'll believe anything you say." Her hands were sticky and wet.I squeezed it hard, and then said: "Great, go to bed now. I'll come and see you every once in a while, and if you need anything during the period, just call me." "Aren't you going out today?" "No." I promised her. She was doing well all afternoon.Of course, she was forced to laugh at herself when the sneezing and yawning came and went, but the point was that she was trying to laugh. Madison Andrew came over between five and five-thirty.As soon as I saw him drive in, I stood on the front porch to greet him.The rosiness on his face had faded to a pale orange. "Good night," he said politely, "I want to call on Mrs. Collinson." "I can pass on a message," I said. His two white eyebrows drooped, and the rough red color on his face returned a little. "I want to see her." It was an order. "She doesn't want to see you. Got a message?" The red tides are all back; his eyes are burning.I stood between him and the door, which prevented him from entering.For a moment he looked like he wanted to push me aside.That didn't worry me—he was twenty pounds heavier and twenty years older than me, no advantage. He retracted his mandible into the flesh of his neck and said authoritatively: "Mrs. Collinson must come back to San Francisco with me. She cannot stay here. This arrangement is simply absurd." "She's not going to San Francisco," I said. "The D.A. can hold her as a witness if necessary. Whatever statute you want to argue against, we'll make you go. I'm telling you, Just want you to know where we stand. We can prove that you could be a danger to her. How do we know you didn't tamper with her property? How do we know that you're not trying to take advantage of her current predicament to escape financial distress yourself ? And, man, you might even be planning to put her in a madhouse so you can monopolize her property." There was haggardness in his eyes, but other than that, he still held his ground in the face of this series of attacks.After he caught his breath and swallowed once, he asked, "Does Gabriel believe this too?" His face turned purple. "Who said anyone believed it?" I tried to be as deadpan as possible. "I'm just telling you what we can charge you. You're a lawyer and you understand that court evidence and truth are two different things—and so is the news." The fatigue spread from his eyes, forcing back the blood on his face and the stubbornness in his face.Yet he stood up straight and managed to keep his tone steady. "You can tell Mrs. Collinson," he said, "that this week I will return the will papers to the court, with an attached list of property, and a dictionary." "Great," I said, but I felt a little bit of sympathy for the dude as he shuffled to his car and climbed up. I didn't tell Gabrielle he was here. Between yawns and sneezes, she now began to grunt now and then, and the tears kept flowing; face, hands, body were covered with sweat.She cannot eat.I kept her full with orange juice.Sounds and smells—no matter how faint, however pleasant—became pain to her, and she was convulsing and writhing incessantly in the bed. "Can it get any worse than this?" she asked. "It's not too bad, there's nothing you can't stand." Mitch Linehan was already there when I went downstairs. "That Mexican woman hid a knife," he said cheerfully. "Oh?" "Yeah. The one I used to peel lemons - just to taste the cheap gin I got you. Or did you borrow it and the original owner knew you'd take it back because everybody drank it No? It’s a fruit knife with a stainless steel blade four or five inches long—if she puts it on your back, your vest will not be stained with rust. I can’t find the knife. I asked her where it was, and she said she didn’t know it at all. , and didn't stare at me like she was looking at some gangster. It was the first time she didn't stare at me like that, so I knew she took it." "You're smart enough," I said, "well, just be careful with her, she doesn't like us." "Want me to do this?" Mickey grinned. "Everyone has to watch out for themselves, I guess. Since you're the one with the most attention, I think you're the one who's most likely to get stabbed. What did you do to her?" Are you stupid enough to play with the feelings of a Mexican lady?" He may have been joking, but I didn't find it funny.
Elona Halton arrived just before dark, in a Lincoln.The driver, a black man, honked his horn as he swerved into the lane.I was in Gabrielle's room when the thing went off loudly.She nearly bounced off the bed, and the sound, past her oversensitive ears, must have become a hellish noise, scaring her out of her wits. "What's the sound? What's the sound?" she kept shouting, her teeth chattering, her body trembling on the bed. "Hush—" I comforted her.Now my nursing skills are getting better and better. "It's just a car horn. There are visitors, I'm going to go down and chase them away." "You won't let others see me?" she begged. "No. Be a good girl and wait for me to come back." Elona Halton was standing by the limousine talking to McMahon when I went out.In the dim twilight, her face was embedded between the black hat and black fur coat, like a hazy oval mask.But her bright eyes were alive enough. "Hello," she said, holding out a hand.There's something in her voice that sends waves of warmth down your back. "I'm so glad you're here, Mrs. Collinson. She and I both know your methods of guarding well, and we all owe you our lives." You're right, but it's an old saying.I gestured that it was a trivial matter, and beat her by saying, "Sorry she can't see you. She's not feeling well." "Oh, but I really want to see her, in a minute. Don't you think it would be good for her, too?" I said I was sorry.She looked as if she was about to give up, but went on: "I've come all the way from the city to see her." I tried to speak: "Didn't Mr. Andrew tell you..." The words were still full of meaning. She did not say whether Andrew had told her.She turned and began to walk slowly across the grass.I can only walk beside her.It will be dark in a few minutes.Not long after, when we were thirty or forty feet from the car, she said, "Mr. Andrew thinks you're suspicious of him." "He's right." "What do you suspect him of?" "Property fraud. It's an idea, I don't actually know if it works, but I do doubt him." "real?" "Really," I said, "nothing else." "Oh, that's enough." "That's enough for me, I'm afraid it's not enough for you." "Would you please repeat that?" I don't like to confront this woman.I'm afraid of her.I sift through the known facts, fill in some guesswork, and go all in on it. "When you came out of the prison, you asked Andrew to go over and ask him everything he knew. Later, when you learned that he had tampered with the girl's property, you immediately thought that you could use this opportunity to fish in troubled waters and blame him. That old rascal is obsessed with sex, he can't handle a woman like you. I don't know what you're going to do with him, but you've got him in the water and the reporters are after him. I think it's you who revealed He's in debt, isn't he? That's not good, Mrs. Halton. Give it up, it won't work. You can make him lose his mind, yes, and you can make him do something illegal, so he can't afford it. Go on. He is now the target of public criticism and there is no hope. However, no matter what he does now, it cannot cover up what others have done before. He has promised to sort out and hand over the property. Don't bother him anymore, that won't work .” We walked another dozen steps, during which she didn't speak.A path appeared beneath our feet.I spoke again. "The path leads right up to the cliff where Eric Collinson was pushed off. Do you know him?" She took a sharp breath, almost choking in her throat.But her voice was smooth and quiet when she answered, crisp and sweet. "You know I do. Why ask that?" "Detectives like to ask questions they already know the answers to. Why did you come here, Mrs. Halton?" "Do you know the answer to this question?" "I know you have a reason or two for coming." "yes?" "First of all, you want to know how close we are to the answer, right?" "Of course I'd be curious too," she admitted. "I'd be happy to help you do that. I know the answer." She stopped on the path and faced me, her eyes shining in the deep twilight.She put one hand on my shoulder and the other in her coat pocket.She is taller than me.She brought her face close to mine and spoke slowly, as if she had to endure great pain to make me understand. "Tell me honestly, stop pretending. I don't want to make unnecessary mistakes. Wait, you wait - think before you say it. Believe me, this is not the time for jokes, lies and bravado. Now please Just tell me the truth: do you know the answer?" "yes." She smiled slightly, took her hand off my shoulder, and said, "Then we don't have to argue anymore." I lunge at her.If she'd shot straight out of her pocket, she'd probably have shot me.But she tried to get the gun out, and by that time I had twisted her wrist, and the bullet went into the ground between our feet.The nails of her free hand made three red marks on the side of my face.I put my head on her chin, squeezed her hips before she could raise her knees to kick me, then turned and pulled her around the waist with one arm against me, pulling her gun hand behind her back.She let go of the gun as we fell.I was on top of her, and I didn't move until I found the gun.I was getting up when McMahon arrived. "Everything is going great," I tell him, my voice a little out of control. "Do you want to give her a shot?" He asked, looking at the woman who was still lying on the ground. "No, she's fine. Keep an eye on that driver." McMahon walked away.The woman sat up on her knees and rubbed her wrists.I said: "That's the second reason why you're here—though I thought your target was Mrs. Collinson." She stood up without saying a word.I didn't help her because I didn't want her to know how much I was shaking now. "Now that we've gotten to this point, it shouldn't be any worse to talk, and maybe some good," I said. "I don't think it's helpful to talk about anything now." She straightened her hat, "You say you know everything, so lying is useless, and only lying can help me." She shrugged, "So, what do you want now? ?” "Not much—as long as you remember that the hopeless stage is over. This sort of thing usually happens in three stages—arrest, trial, and confession. Admittedly there's not much we can do about the first stage, and—well , and you know what's going on with the courts and jails in California." She looked at me curiously and asked, "Why are you telling me this?" "Because I hate it when people shoot me, and because I want everything cleared up when I'm done, so I'm done. I'm not interested in accusing you of what you did in this scam, and now I'm bringing you into it It's also troublesome and will make things more complicated. Go home and don't act rashly." Neither of us spoke again until we walked back to the car.Then she turned, held out her hand to me, and said, "I think—I'm not sure—I feel like I owe you more now than I did before." I didn't say anything, and I didn't shake her hand.Perhaps because she was still outstretched, she asked, "Can I return the pistol?" "no." "Would you give my regards to Mrs. Collinson and tell her how sorry I didn't see her?" "Row." "Goodbye," she said, and got into the car.I took off my hat and she drove away.
I drove to San Francisco, had dinner at St. Germaine's, went to my room, grabbed another suit, packed a bag of clean shirts and other clothes, and returned to the house on the Bay just after midnight.While I was tucking the car—we still had a Fitzstephan's—under the shed, McMahon came out of the shadows and said it was business as usual in my absence.We went into the house together.Mickey yawned in the kitchen and mixed himself a drink, waiting for McMahon to take over his shift. "Is Mrs. Collinson in bed?" I asked. "The light in her room was still on and she didn't show up all day." McMahon and I drank with Mitch and went upstairs.I knocked on the girl's door. "Who is it?" she asked.I answered.She said, "What's the matter?" "There will be no breakfast tomorrow morning." "Really?" Then she said, as if thinking of something she had almost forgotten, "Oh, I've decided not to bother you to fix me." She opened the door and stood in the doorway, smiling unnaturally at me , pressed his finger on the place he read in the book, "Did you have a good trip?" "Fine," I said, taking the rest of the morphine out of my pocket and handing it to her, "then I won't have to walk around with this." She didn't answer, but smiled at me and said, "You're such a heartless person, aren't you?" "Well, this is your treatment, not mine." I put the item back in my pocket, "If you—" I stopped talking and listened, the boards in the corridor creaked.The voice then became softer, as if someone was walking slowly with bare feet. "That's Mary who nursed me," whispered Gabrielle cheerfully. "She made a bed in the attic and wouldn't come home. She didn't think I was safe with you and your friends. She warned I said you were—what was it? Oh, yes—perverts. Is that so?” "Exactly. Don't forget - no breakfast in the morning."
I gave her the first dose Vic Dallas had made the next afternoon, and gave her another dose every two hours, a total of three times.She stayed in the room that day.It was Saturday. On Sunday she smoked ten grains of morphine and was in high spirits all day, feeling almost cured. On Monday she took the rest of Vic's prescription, which was not much different from Sunday.Mitch Linehan brought word from the County Hall that Fitzstephan was conscious, but too weak and bound up to be able to speak even with the doctor's permission; and that Andrew was again at St. O went to see Elona Halton, who also went to the hospital for Fink, but the sheriff's men wouldn't let her in. Tuesday will be much better. Gabriel was up and dressed when I brought her breakfast of orange juice.Her eyes lit up, she fidgeted, she babbled, and she laughed at every turn—until I unexpectedly mentioned that she couldn't take any more morphine. "You mean, forever?" Her expression and voice were very panicked, "No, you don't mean that, do you?" "I'm." "But I'm going to die." Tears filled her eyes and ran down her pale face.She wrung her hands together, and she looked really pitiful.I had to remind myself that tears were one of the side effects of quitting morphine. "You know it can't be like this. I didn't say to keep the same amount as usual. I understand that I have to reduce the amount every day. But you can't stop and stop. You are joking! It will kill me." She thought Will die, cry a little harder. I make my smile sympathetic and playful. "Nonsense," I said brightly. "Your biggest problem is that you will be too lively these days. It will be over in a few days." She bit her lip, finally forced a smile, and held out her hands to me. "I'm going to believe you," she said. "I really believe you. I'll believe anything you say." Her hands were sticky and wet.I squeezed it hard, and then said: "Great, go to bed now. I'll come and see you every once in a while, and if you need anything during the period, just call me." "Aren't you going out today?" "No." I promised her. She was doing well all afternoon.Of course, she was forced to laugh at herself when the sneezing and yawning came and went, but the point was that she was trying to laugh. Madison Andrew came over between five and five-thirty.As soon as I saw him drive in, I stood on the front porch to greet him.The rosiness on his face had faded to a pale orange. "Good night," he said politely, "I want to call on Mrs. Collinson." "I can pass on a message," I said. His two white eyebrows drooped, and the rough red color on his face returned a little. "I want to see her." It was an order. "She doesn't want to see you. Got a message?" The red tides are all back; his eyes are burning.I stood between him and the door, which prevented him from entering.For a moment he looked like he wanted to push me aside.That didn't worry me—he was twenty pounds heavier and twenty years older than me, no advantage. He retracted his mandible into the flesh of his neck and said authoritatively: "Mrs. Collinson must come back to San Francisco with me. She cannot stay here. This arrangement is simply absurd." "She's not going to San Francisco," I said. "The D.A. can hold her as a witness if necessary. Whatever statute you want to argue against, we'll make you go. I'm telling you, Just want you to know where we stand. We can prove that you could be a danger to her. How do we know you didn't tamper with her property? How do we know that you're not trying to take advantage of her current predicament to escape financial distress yourself ? And, man, you might even be planning to put her in a madhouse so you can monopolize her property." There was haggardness in his eyes, but other than that, he still held his ground in the face of this series of attacks.After he caught his breath and swallowed once, he asked, "Does Gabriel believe this too?" His face turned purple. "Who said anyone believed it?" I tried to be as deadpan as possible. "I'm just telling you what we can charge you. You're a lawyer and you understand that court evidence and truth are two different things—and so is the news." The fatigue spread from his eyes, forcing back the blood on his face and the stubbornness in his face.Yet he stood up straight and managed to keep his tone steady. "You can tell Mrs. Collinson," he said, "that this week I will return the will papers to the court, with an attached list of property, and a dictionary." "Great," I said, but I felt a little bit of sympathy for the dude as he shuffled to his car and climbed up. I didn't tell Gabrielle he was here. Between yawns and sneezes, she now began to grunt now and then, and the tears kept flowing; face, hands, body were covered with sweat.She cannot eat.I kept her full with orange juice.Sounds and smells—no matter how faint, however pleasant—became pain to her, and she was convulsing and writhing incessantly in the bed. "Can it get any worse than this?" she asked. "It's not too bad, there's nothing you can't stand." Mitch Linehan was already there when I went downstairs. "That Mexican woman hid a knife," he said cheerfully. "Oh?" "Yeah. The one I used to peel lemons - just to taste the cheap gin I got you. Or did you borrow it and the original owner knew you'd take it back because everybody drank it No? It’s a fruit knife with a stainless steel blade four or five inches long—if she puts it on your back, your vest will not be stained with rust. I can’t find the knife. I asked her where it was, and she said she didn’t know it at all. , and didn't stare at me like she was looking at some gangster. It was the first time she didn't stare at me like that, so I knew she took it." "You're smart enough," I said, "well, just be careful with her, she doesn't like us." "Want me to do this?" Mickey grinned. "Everyone has to watch out for themselves, I guess. Since you're the one with the most attention, I think you're the one who's most likely to get stabbed. What did you do to her?" Are you stupid enough to play with the feelings of a Mexican lady?" He may have been joking, but I didn't find it funny.
Elona Halton arrived just before dark, in a Lincoln.The driver, a black man, honked his horn as he swerved into the lane.I was in Gabrielle's room when the thing went off loudly.She nearly bounced off the bed, and the sound, past her oversensitive ears, must have become a hellish noise, scaring her out of her wits. "What's the sound? What's the sound?" she kept shouting, her teeth chattering, her body trembling on the bed. "Hush—" I comforted her.Now my nursing skills are getting better and better. "It's just a car horn. There are visitors, I'm going to go down and chase them away." "You won't let others see me?" she begged. "No. Be a good girl and wait for me to come back." Elona Halton was standing by the limousine talking to McMahon when I went out.In the dim twilight, her face was embedded between the black hat and black fur coat, like a hazy oval mask.But her bright eyes were alive enough. "Hello," she said, holding out a hand.There's something in her voice that sends waves of warmth down your back. "I'm so glad you're here, Mrs. Collinson. She and I both know your methods of guarding well, and we all owe you our lives." You're right, but it's an old saying.I gestured that it was a trivial matter, and beat her by saying, "Sorry she can't see you. She's not feeling well." "Oh, but I really want to see her, in a minute. Don't you think it would be good for her, too?" I said I was sorry.She looked as if she was about to give up, but went on: "I've come all the way from the city to see her." I tried to speak: "Didn't Mr. Andrew tell you..." The words were still full of meaning. She did not say whether Andrew had told her.She turned and began to walk slowly across the grass.I can only walk beside her.It will be dark in a few minutes.Not long after, when we were thirty or forty feet from the car, she said, "Mr. Andrew thinks you're suspicious of him." "He's right." "What do you suspect him of?" "Property fraud. It's an idea, I don't actually know if it works, but I do doubt him." "real?" "Really," I said, "nothing else." "Oh, that's enough." "That's enough for me, I'm afraid it's not enough for you." "Would you please repeat that?" I don't like to confront this woman.I'm afraid of her.I sift through the known facts, fill in some guesswork, and go all in on it. "When you came out of the prison, you asked Andrew to go over and ask him everything he knew. Later, when you learned that he had tampered with the girl's property, you immediately thought that you could use this opportunity to fish in troubled waters and blame him. That old rascal is obsessed with sex, he can't handle a woman like you. I don't know what you're going to do with him, but you've got him in the water and the reporters are after him. I think it's you who revealed He's in debt, isn't he? That's not good, Mrs. Halton. Give it up, it won't work. You can make him lose his mind, yes, and you can make him do something illegal, so he can't afford it. Go on. He is now the target of public criticism and there is no hope. However, no matter what he does now, it cannot cover up what others have done before. He has promised to sort out and hand over the property. Don't bother him anymore, that won't work .” We walked another dozen steps, during which she didn't speak.A path appeared beneath our feet.I spoke again. "The path leads right up to the cliff where Eric Collinson was pushed off. Do you know him?" She took a sharp breath, almost choking in her throat.But her voice was smooth and quiet when she answered, crisp and sweet. "You know I do. Why ask that?" "Detectives like to ask questions they already know the answers to. Why did you come here, Mrs. Halton?" "Do you know the answer to this question?" "I know you have a reason or two for coming." "yes?" "First of all, you want to know how close we are to the answer, right?" "Of course I'd be curious too," she admitted. "I'd be happy to help you do that. I know the answer." She stopped on the path and faced me, her eyes shining in the deep twilight.She put one hand on my shoulder and the other in her coat pocket.She is taller than me.She brought her face close to mine and spoke slowly, as if she had to endure great pain to make me understand. "Tell me honestly, stop pretending. I don't want to make unnecessary mistakes. Wait, you wait - think before you say it. Believe me, this is not the time for jokes, lies and bravado. Now please Just tell me the truth: do you know the answer?" "yes." She smiled slightly, took her hand off my shoulder, and said, "Then we don't have to argue anymore." I lunge at her.If she'd shot straight out of her pocket, she'd probably have shot me.But she tried to get the gun out, and by that time I had twisted her wrist, and the bullet went into the ground between our feet.The nails of her free hand made three red marks on the side of my face.I put my head on her chin, squeezed her hips before she could raise her knees to kick me, then turned and pulled her around the waist with one arm against me, pulling her gun hand behind her back.She let go of the gun as we fell.I was on top of her, and I didn't move until I found the gun.I was getting up when McMahon arrived. "Everything is going great," I tell him, my voice a little out of control. "Do you want to give her a shot?" He asked, looking at the woman who was still lying on the ground. "No, she's fine. Keep an eye on that driver." McMahon walked away.The woman sat up on her knees and rubbed her wrists.I said: "That's the second reason why you're here—though I thought your target was Mrs. Collinson." She stood up without saying a word.I didn't help her because I didn't want her to know how much I was shaking now. "Now that we've gotten to this point, it shouldn't be any worse to talk, and maybe some good," I said. "I don't think it's helpful to talk about anything now." She straightened her hat, "You say you know everything, so lying is useless, and only lying can help me." She shrugged, "So, what do you want now? ?” "Not much—as long as you remember that the hopeless stage is over. This sort of thing usually happens in three stages—arrest, trial, and confession. Admittedly there's not much we can do about the first stage, and—well , and you know what's going on with the courts and jails in California." She looked at me curiously and asked, "Why are you telling me this?" "Because I hate it when people shoot me, and because I want everything cleared up when I'm done, so I'm done. I'm not interested in accusing you of what you did in this scam, and now I'm bringing you into it It's also troublesome and will make things more complicated. Go home and don't act rashly." Neither of us spoke again until we walked back to the car.Then she turned, held out her hand to me, and said, "I think—I'm not sure—I feel like I owe you more now than I did before." I didn't say anything, and I didn't shake her hand.Perhaps because she was still outstretched, she asked, "Can I return the pistol?" "no." "Would you give my regards to Mrs. Collinson and tell her how sorry I didn't see her?" "Row." "Goodbye," she said, and got into the car.I took off my hat and she drove away.