Don't Dare a Dame (27 page)

Thirty-two

   
The pain of the punch revived my fading consciousness. My lungs worked independently of my brain, gasping air to replace the breath driven out of me. It cleared my head enough to take in disconnected images like those from a movie reel jumping off its sprockets.

   
There were several people in the room besides the woman. The one in front of me, a short mug with a bulldog jaw, drew back his arm to hit me again. I grabbed for the front of his shirt and my weight, added to momentum from his swing, pulled him off balance. It spared me the worst of the punch, but that didn’t win me any favors.

   
“Hold her arms!” he snarled.

   
Someone — two someones — imprisoned my arms.

   
“Smart girl, huh?”

   
This time he slugged me in the face. I turned fast enough that the blow caught my cheek instead of my nose, and felt my lip split. I’d been worked over before, but never by fists this lethal. My cottony brain told me this one was wearing brass knuckles.

   
“Too bad you’re not smart enough to keep your nose out of places it don’t belong.” Bulldog thrust his face forward, taunting. “You’ve been asked nice, but you must not hear good. Don’t dig up the past.”

   
I had to fight now, before the metal encasing his fist began to break bones. As his arm drew up and he leaned in for another punch, I toppled back onto the arms of the goons restraining me as if onto a bed. In the same movement, with my top half momentarily supported, I drew my knees up and drove my feet out toward Bulldog’s belly.

   
They didn’t connect hard enough to do much except surprise him. The men behind me crashed down on the floor in a tangle, bringing me with them. The pileup freed my arms, though. I rolled over one of the goons so I was no longer between them.

   
The guy with the knuckles, the one who was calling the shots, half tripped over one of the men on the floor as he swore and aimed a kick at me. I tried to scoot away but wasn’t fast enough, and it got my ribs. Pain immobilized me. His foot drew back and he planted another one. I heard a whimper which I knew came from me.

   
He straddled me, reaching down to yank me upright for another taste of brass knuckles. Bursts of black distorting my vision, and flat on my back, only self-preservation gave me strength to push up with my elbows. I threw my left arm in front of me, maybe to ward him off, maybe in an attempt to distract — my brain didn’t know.

   
My right hand went beneath me. Found the reassuring contours of my gun. Brought it around. Without aiming, I fired at the man above me.

   
I heard a high-pitched howl.

   
I felt a spurt of wetness on my hand.

   
I heard a woman’s scream, and high-heels clattering off in retreat.

   
I fired again.

   
“She’s nuts!” a man’s voice cried. “The dame’s gone crazy!”

   
“Shut up. I’m hit,” another voice gasped. “Oh, Christ, I’m hit bad! Get me out of here!”

   
I wanted to fire again so nobody took another punch at me. Instead, I sagged back and lost track of everything.

***

   
I came to long enough to see a woman’s shape hovering in the doorway to the landing. It wasn’t the thin brunette who’d let me in. My unfocused vision managed to make out that the woman looking in at me was dumpy and her hair had the tight little knobs of a perm.

   
“What are you doing in Lucille’s apartment?” she demanded shrilly.

   
“Some men beat me up,” I managed through swollen lips.

   
“You don’t belong here,” she said as though she hadn’t heard me. “Lucille moved out last week, and you don’t belong here. I heard gunshots, too. I’m calling the police.”

   
“Yeah, fine,” I mumbled, and closed my eyes.

   
When I came to again, no cops were in evidence. I knew time had passed, but I didn’t know how much. I hurt too much to check the pretty lapel watch pinned under my jacket. Blinking my eyes a few times cleared my vision enough to see it was twilight outside. The attack which had seemed to go on for hours had probably lasted only a matter of minutes. At least half an hour had passed since the men responsible fled. It must be around five.

   
An interval elapsed while I gathered all my willpower to make myself move. Gritting my teeth, I sat up. My head throbbed. So did the side of my face. My ribs felt several times worse. Trickling around them, nudging the pain back like a snake oil tonic that worked, was my anger.

   
I scooted on my haunches until I reached a chair. Gripping the seat for support, I pushed myself up. Then I sat for a minute. I’d gotten worse knocks on the head than this latest one, and was increasingly able to think. Just as well the woman who’d peered at me hadn’t called the cops like she’d threatened. It saved time and questions. The woman must be the other renter up here, the widow who lived in the back apartment.

   
With several pauses to lean on the wall, I made my way to her door. I put all the pep I had into knocking. After a minute the door opened just wide enough for her to peer out. Right away she tried to close it, but I had my foot in. If she nudged my toes just a little, I’d fall flat, only she didn’t know that.

   
“I’ll give you four bits if you call a taxi and help me downstairs,” I said as well as I could through lips the size of sausages.

   
I thought it would either appeal to her greed or shame her. All it did was make her hesitate in her attempts to force the door closed.

   
“If I don’t, some cops are going be visiting to ask why you didn’t call them when you heard shots.”

   
She stopped torturing my foot.

   
“You better not come back making any more trouble,” she said sticking her hand out. I dropped the change into her waiting palm. “And you can get downstairs yourself.”

   
The door slammed.

   
I leaned against the wall to recoup my strength. Then I walked to the stairs and sat on the top one. Still on my backside, I made my way down, setting my jaw at every bump.

   
When I stepped out into what was left of daylight, I noticed a dark stain on the back of my hand. I remembered the spurt of blood from the man with the brass knuckles. My bullet had hit him somewhere in the groin, I guessed. Maybe the femoral artery. Since I wasn’t inclined to use my skirt, I wiped the worst of the residue off on the wall of the stairwell. Taxi drivers take it badly if you get blood on their seats.

***

   
At the end of the previous year, when my bank account had been flush from a big case, I’d bought myself some Blue Cross insurance. The patching up I got at the hospital seemed likely to make it money well spent. A sawbones whose gray hair and world-weary face assured me he knew his business put some stitches in my lip and poked and prodded. He said two ribs were either cracked or broken.

   
“As long as they didn’t puncture your lung, the treatment’s the same,” he said giving my thigh a cheerful pat. “Nurse Molloy will hold your arms up for me while I tape the ribs nice and tight.”

   
Nurse Molloy had been in the same class with me at Julienne. She’d been shy and we hadn’t said ‘boo’ to each other, but at least I hadn’t antagonized her. She hovered, removing my blouse and my slip and standing by the whole time the doctor worked on me. When he finished taping my waist so tightly I could scarcely breathe, she gave me a packet of painkillers and helped me to a chair where she whispered something to the nurse working at a desk beside it.

   
“Who shall I call to come get you?” the new nurse asked

   
Exhaustion was catching up with me, and maybe the little paper cup of something liquid the doc had told me to swallow as well. I tried to think.

   
I wasn’t about to upset Billy or Seamus by letting them see the shape I was in. I didn’t know Rachel’s number at home. None of the girls at Mrs. Z’s had a car. That left one person. Swallowing pride couldn’t feel half as bad as brass knuckles or stitches, so I gave her Finn’s number.

   
“Hiya, Rose. Connelly around?” I asked as casually as I could.

   
“Maggie?”

   
“Yeah.”

   
“You sound strange. Hang on. Let me fetch him.”

   
Briefly I heard the comforting sound of glasses and voices.

   
“Maggie? What is it?” asked Connelly’s baritone. He knew I wouldn’t be calling without a good reason.

   
“I had a flat. Can you borrow a car?”

   
“Sure. Where are you?”

   
“Miami Valley.”

   
I heard his sharp intake of breath as he guessed the truth.

   
“Be there directly,” he said.

***

   
I was half asleep in a chair in the waiting area when he arrived. He was noiseless as fog, but I sensed his presence before my eyes opened. Muted profanities issued under his breath.

   
“Who did this to you, Maggie?”

   
I started to shake my head, but it hurt too much.

   
“Don’t know,” I said thickly. “But you might ask a nurse if anyone’s been in who got shot in his thigh or groin.”

   
He strode off buttoning his collar. Much as I tried to deny it, Connelly in uniform was an impressive sight. He wasn’t especially tall or muscular, but there was a hardness about him which other cops lacked. It had been forged by what he’d witnessed, and done, growing up in Ireland. Within minutes he came striding back.

   
“Nope,” he said, “and I hope the s.o.b. bleeds to death.” His voice turned gentle. “Let’s get you home then.”

Thirty-three

   
Genevieve helped me upstairs and into bed. She said I cussed a lot. All Wednesday I took pills from the doctor that made me woozy. In between them I slept. Thursday morning Mrs. Z. let Ginny make me a coddled egg with some bread crumbled in it, which was about all my sore lips, not to mention my jaw, could handle. After I finished it, I slept some more.

   
By Thursday noon I was bored. More than that, I was angry, impatient to nail the men who had caused my suffering. I’d settle for whoever sent them.

   
“Maggie, don’t be a fool,” chided Ginny as she helped me dress. “You’re in no shape to go to your office.”

   
“I’ll take a cab. There’s an elevator. I’ll only stay there a couple of hours.”

   
I’d taken only half a pain pill that morning. My head felt clearer. A mug or two of coffee would make it feel even better.

   
“You’re weak as a kitten,” she argued.

   
“I won’t get any better if I baby myself.”

   
“How would you know? You haven’t tried it since I’ve known you.”

   
In the end I won. It required agreeing that Genevieve could accompany me. By the time we got downtown, I was glad she had. She settled me at my desk and went across the street for my java.

   
“Promise you’ll call if you start feeling wobbly,” she said when she’d delivered it.

   
I nodded. “Thanks, Ginny. You’re a pal.”

   
When she’d gone, I sat sipping coffee. The solidness of my desk, the street sounds, the familiar knock of my radiator all seeped into me. Strange tonic, maybe, but one that worked for me. My ribs still screamed and the cut on my lip burned like it was fresh, but knots eased out of my muscles and I felt steadier. In control again.

   
Whoever had sicced those men on me in the vacant apartment had sent me a warning in very large letters. Too bad I wasn’t in the mood to read. Not when logic was telling me I got the rough treatment only after I’d begun asking about the little girl. That, on top of Theda’s frightened departure, made me think I was getting close to whatever someone didn’t want me to find.