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right,” she whispered, without looking up, “all right, you’ve got me. You’ve got your gun. You’ve got your orders from Frankie. What are you waiting for?”
    Then she buried her face in her hands and began to sob. I dropped the revolver into my pocket, picked up the good-sized purse lying on the ground a few feet to one side, and slung it over my shoulder by the strap provided. I went, back to the girl, lifted her gently, and led her up the passageway and across the intersecting drive to the building beyond. We climbed the stairs and made our way along the balcony to my room at the end.
    I was beginning to feel a little disenchanted with the assignment. Except for Annette, who was no longer a participant, it had shaped up as a simple, rugged, masculine job of work. Now, suddenly, it had turned into a complicated coeducational caper involving not just one, not two, but three attractive females—well, I still hadn’t got a good look at the latest addition to the cast of female characters, but she had an intriguing little figure and under the circumstances it seemed unlikely that she’d be here if she were ugly.
    Please don’t get me wrong. I like girls. I just don’t like to have them coming at me, in the middle of a job at least, faster than I can count them.
    My damsel in distress offered no resistance or protest. Nobody came out to ask any questions. There hadn’t really been much noise to attract attention, just a scuffle, some gasps and whimpers, and a spoken word or two, not loud. I checked the door of my unit. I’d left a few indicators to tell if anybody had opened it in my absence. Apparently nobody had. I unlocked it, reached around to switch on the light, pushed the girl inside, and followed her, closing the door behind me.
    She turned slowly to look at me. After a moment she gave a little toss of her head to get the long straggling hair out of her eyes. She wiped her eyes and nose with the back of her hand, childishly. We faced each other in silence, taking stock of each other in the light.
    What she saw, I suppose, was a skinny, elongated gent wearing slacks that needed pressing after a hard day, a sports coat with a bulge in the pocket, and a suspicious expression. What I saw was a smallish girl with hazel eyes in an oval, small-featured face that was now rather tearstained and dirty. Her disordered hair reached well down her shoulders and was that reddish shade of coppery gold that’s almost always artificial, but it’s a pretty color anyway.
    As I’ve indicated, I kind of favor long-haired girls over girls who are so closely clipped or carefully pinned up or tightly curled, as to leave nothing blowing in the wind. On the other hand, given a choice, I’ll pick the ones in skirts over the ones in pants any day—or night—in the week.
    This one was wearing a ducky little pale green suit of thin wool, with sharply creased flaring trousers. There was also an immaculate white turtle-necked sweater or jersey. The suit itself wasn’t quite immaculate, having picked up some smudges from the driveway. The jacket had got pulled awry. Automatically, under my regard, she made as if to straighten it, but checked herself, glancing down distastefully at her hands, which were too grimy from the pavement to be allowed to make contact with her clothing. She looked at me once more.
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean…”
    “What didn’t you mean?” I asked when she stopped.
    “Back there,” she said. “I didn’t recognize you in the dark, Mr. Helm. I guess… I guess all I could see was the gun.”
    “How do you know my name?”
    “I was in the hospital waiting room this afternoon when you came in. I heard you tell the nurse who you were and whom you wanted to see. I was… I was waiting outside, here, to talk with you, just now, when those men grabbed me…” She shivered. “If you hadn’t come along, they’d have taken me away and killed me.”
    “Who wants you dead?” I asked.