He spun around, marched out, and slammed the door viciously.
Her attempt to smile at me was truly ghastly. Her mouth wouldn’t hold together. “Hope you didn’t mind me… hope it was all right to…” Then the mouth broke and she sprang up and went, “Wow! Hoo Oh waw,” as she hobbled into the bathroom.
Fort Courtney was nice enough if you didn’t mind it being full of sobbing women trotting into your bathroom, fifty percent of them running with a limp. I took the ice bucket outside and dumped the water out of it and scooped more cubes out of the machine. I thought of dumping out the spiked gin, then changed my mind, capped it, and put the bottle in a back corner of the closet alcove. I unwrapped a fresh glass and opened the second bottle of Plymouth and fixed myself a drink. When she finally came out, slumped, small and dispirited, I offered her a drink.
“Thanks, I guess not. I’d better be going.”
“Got a car here?”
“No. Rick dropped me off. My car is over at my place. I can phone for a cab from the office.”
“Sit down for a minute while I work on this. Then I’ll drive you home.”
“Okay.” She wandered over and got a cigarette from her purse and lit it. She picked up the thick red-blond wig between thumb and finger like somebody picking up a large dead bug. She dropped it back onto the countertop and said, “Fifteen ninety-eight, plus tax, to try to look like a sexpot.”
“You didn’t do badly.”
“Forget it. I’ve got freckles, straw hair, short fat legs, and a big behinder. And I’m clumsy. I keep falling over things. And people. Lucky little old me, falling for Rick Holton.” She hesitated. “Maybe I’ll change my mind about the drink. Okay?”
I unwrapped the last glass and fixed her one, turned, and handed it to her. She took it over to the chair. “Thanks. Why should you do me favors, though? After what I tried to do to you.”
“Guilt syndrome. I clobbered your romance.” She frowned. “It hurts. I know. I walked into it expecting to get hurt. You didn’t do it, really. You just brought it to a head a little quicker. He’s been beginning to want out. I could feel it. He was looking for a great big reason. Jesus, you made him mad!”
“I think I was a little irritated too. I couldn’t find out what your plans were unless I faked you out.”
She looked into her glass. “You know something? I think I ought to get smashed. I don’t have to drive. And from the way this one is making me feel numb around the mouth already, it shouldn’t take much.”
“Be my guest. Just don’t sing.” I started to get her glass but she waved me off and went over and fixed her own.
“You sure you don’t mind, McGee? Drunk females are horrid. I learned that from working the emergency ward.”
“Look, how can you two be so sure that the doctor didn’t kill himself?”
“Perfect health. Loved his work and his little projects. He had enthusiasm about things. Like a kid. And I know how he felt about the attempted suicides. Well, like Tom Pike’s wife. It just baffled him. He couldn’t understand how anybody could take their own life.”
“He treated her?”
“Both times. And it was close both times. If Tom hadn’t been on the ball, she would have bought it. He phoned the doctor when he couldn’t wake her up, and the doctor told him to rush her down to the emergency room. He met them there and pumped her out and gave her stimulants and they kept walking her and slapping her awake until she was out of danger. The other time Tom had to break the bathroom door down. She’d lost a lot of blood. There were two of those… hesitation marks, they call them, on her left wrist, where she couldn’t make herself cut deep enough. Then she cut deep enough the third time. It’s slower bleeding from a vein, of course. She’s a nice standard type, and Doctor Sherman put four pints back into her and did such a good job on her wrist I’ll bet that by now the scar is almost invisible.”