Chapter 13 Chapter Thirteen Two Hundred Dollars and One Dime

I was unbuttoning my vest when the phone rang. It was Dinah Bland, complaining that she had been calling me since ten o'clock. "What did you do?" she asked. "It's in progress, it doesn't seem too bad. I'll check it out this afternoon." "Wait, wait until I see you. Can you come over now?" I looked at the empty white bed and said coldly: "Yes." Another cold shower did little to help me, I almost fell asleep in the tub. After ringing the bell at the girl's house, Dan Rolfe opened the door for me.From his appearance and behavior, it seemed that nothing unusual had happened the night before.Dinah Bland came to the porch to help me take off my trench coat.She was wearing a tan wool dress with a two-inch split at one shoulder seam.

She led me into the living room, sat down on the couch next to me, and said, "I want to ask you to do something for me. You should be very happy?" I agree.Using her warm forefinger to pinch the knuckles of my left hand one by one, she explained, "I hope you don't go any further into what I told you last night. Take it easy, wait until I'm done. Dan's right, I Don't betray Max like that, it's really nasty. Besides, Noonan is the one you really want, isn't it? So, if you will do me a favor and let Max go, I will give you enough to make Noonan Unturned news. You prefer that, don't you? And you like me too much to take advantage of my ramblings when I'm mad at something Max said, do you?"

"What did Noonan do?" I asked. She pinched my muscles and murmured, "You agreed?" "No." She pouted at me and said, "I'm done with Max. There's no lie. You have no right to turn me into a traitor again!" "What happened to Noonan?" "Promise me first." "no." She poked her fingertips into my arm and asked sharply, "Have you looked for Noonan?" "Ok." She let go of my hand, frowned, shrugged, and said sadly, "Oh, what am I going to do?" I stood up, and a voice said: "Sit down."

A deep, hoarse voice—it was Thaler. I turned and saw him standing at the entrance to the dining room with a big gun in one small hand.Behind him stood a red-faced man with a scar on his cheek. As I sat down, another passage - the one leading to the porch - was also occupied.The big-mouthed, jawless, what the Whispers called Jerry stepped forward, and he had two guns in his hands.The scrawny, blond kid from King Street clung close behind him. Dinah Brand stood up from the couch, her voice hoarse with anger, her back turned to Thaler and to me. "This has nothing to do with me. He came by himself, apologizing for what he said before, telling me that I could make a lot of money by handing Noonan to you. The whole thing was a scam, and I fell for it. I swear to God, I told He's supposed to be waiting upstairs while you're talking, I don't know about the others. I didn't—"

Jerry said calmly and slowly, "If I shoot her down, she's going to sit down and shut up...right?" I couldn't see the Whisperer because the girl was between us.But I can hear his voice: "Not yet. Where's Dan?" "Lying on the floor of the bathroom upstairs, I had to knock him out," said the skinny blond. Dinah Brand turned to face Thaler.The seams of stockings meandered over her plump calves. She said, "Max Thaler, you dirty little—" He lowered his voice and said very seriously: "Shut up! Get out of the way!" To my great surprise, she did both, and listened quietly to him talking to me.

"You and Noonan want to impose his brother's death on me, don't you?" "It's not imposed, it's a fact." He curled his thin lips at me and said, "You are just as dishonest as him." I said, "You know better than I do. I stood by you when he tried to frame you. This time he has a legitimate reason to arrest you." Dinah Bland broke out again, standing in the middle of the room waving her arms and yelling, "Get out! Get out, you all! Why the hell am I meddling in your business? Get out!" The blond boy who had knocked out Rolf squeezed past Jerry, walked into the room laughing, grabbed the girl's flailing arm, and bent over her back.

She turned around and punched his stomach hard with her other hand.A very laudable punch - manly.The blond boy had to let go of her hand and took two steps back. The young man took a deep breath, pulled out a short leather-wrapped stick from behind his buttocks, and then took another step forward.The smile on his face had disappeared. Jerry laughed, and what was left of his short chin was gone. Thaler lowered his voice and shouted sharply: "Stop!" The boy didn't hear, he was yelling at the girl. She looked at him with a face as stiff as a silver coin.She stands still with most of her body weight on her left foot.I guess the blond kid will kick her down when he gets close.

The blond boy pretended to grab her with his free left hand, and then raised his short stick to hit her in the face. Thaler yelled again under his breath, "Stop!" and fired. The bullet landed just below the right eye of the blond boy, who was sent spinning in a circle and fell backward into Dinah Bland's arms. Everything happens in an instant, or even less than an instant. When the sword was on the brink, I reached into my back pocket, drew my gun, and shot Thaler in the shoulder. Miscalculated.If I aim well, I might hit him in the arm.It's a pity that chinless Jerry didn't go blind with laughter, he shot before me.One shot hit me in the wrist and I missed my aim.But while Thaler was missed, the bullet hit the red-faced man behind him.

I didn't know how bad the wrist was, so I immediately switched the gun to my left hand. Jerry shot me again, and this time the girl blocked it with a dead body.The dead man's blond head hit Jerry's knee, and I jumped forward as he lost his balance. The jump also helped me dodge Thaler's bullet, while Jerry and I fell into the hallway, entangled. Jerry wasn't hard to deal with, but I had to be quick because Tarrell was behind me.I punched Jerry twice, kicked him, kneed his ass once or twice, waited for the opportunity to bite him when he was down at my feet, and jabbed again where his chin was supposed to be- ok He's not pretending.Then I crawled down the corridor on all fours, away from the door.

I crouched against the wall, aimed my gun at Thaler, and waited.For a moment all I could hear was the sound of blood singing in my head. Dinah Bland came out the door I had just rolled out of, looked at Jerry, then at me.She stuck out her tongue with a smile, tilted her head to signal me, and then went back to the living room.I followed her warily. The Whisperer stood in the middle of the room, his hands empty and his face expressionless.Except for the thin, tight lips, he looked like a mannequin used to display suits in a clothing store window. Dan Rolfe stands behind him, with a gun pointed diagonally at the gambler's left waist.Rolf's face was covered in blood, and the blond boy -- now the body lay between me and Rolf -- beat him badly.

I smiled at Thaler and said, "Oh, that's good." Then I saw that Rolf still had a gun in his hand, pointed at my fat belly, which was not very good.But I also had a gun in my hand, so at least it was a tie. Rolfe said, "Put down your gun." I looked at Dinah, puzzled.She shrugged and said to me, "Looks like Dan is the owner." "Really? Someone should tell him I don't like this game." Rolf said again: "Put down your gun." I said angrily, "Put the gun down and I'm dead! I lost twenty pounds trying to catch this bird, and can drop another twenty pounds." Rolfe said: "I'm not interested in anything between the two of you, and I don't intend to give either of you—" Dinah had wobbled across the room.When she got behind Rolf, I interrupted him and said, "If you don't listen to him now, you'll get two good friends—me and Noonan. You can't trust Thaler any more. So there's no point in helping him." She laughed and said, "Honey, let's talk about money!" "Dinah!" Rolf protested.He's caught - she's right behind him and strong enough to take him.There was no way he could have shot her, and nothing else could have stopped her from doing what she set her mind to do. "One hundred dollars." I offered. "My God!" she exclaimed, "I heard you pay cash. Too bad it wasn't enough." "two hundred." "You're getting more and more open. It's a pity I can't hear you." "That's about it," I said. "For me, that's the price to take the gun out of Rolf's hand without firing a shot, and no more." "Great start, don't be discouraged. Add more!" "Two hundred dollars and a dime, that's all." "You big bastard," she said, "I won't do it." "Whatever you want," I reminded Thaler with a grimace, "no matter what happens, don't you fucking move!" Dinah yelled, "Wait! You really know how to do it, don't you?" "No matter what, I'm going to take Thaler out with me." "Two hundred dollars and a dime?" "right." "Dinah," Rolf yelled, still staring into my face, "you don't—" But she smiled and leaned against his back, wrapping her strong arms around him, pulling his arms down and jamming them at her sides. I pushed Thaler out of range with my right hand and wrested the weapon from Rolf, keeping my gun pointed at Thaler the entire time.Dinah let go of the tuberculosis patient. He took two steps towards the door leading to the dining room, said wearily, "There's no need to—" and collapsed on the ground. Dinah ran to him.I pushed Thaler down the corridor, past Jerry, who was still awake, until I went to the small hallway at the bottom of the stairs before I saw a phone. I called Noonan and told him I had Thaler and where I was. "Holy Mary!" he said, "don't kill him until I come."