The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper by John D. MacDonald Page A

with both hands."
     
     
I obeyed, slowly and carefully. Penny was still on her back on the floor. She was making a horrid articulated sound with each inhalation. She had hiked her knees up. Her clenched fists were against her breast. The fall had knocked all the wind out of her.
     
     
He went over and looked down at her. Her breathing eased. He gave her his hand and he pulled her up to a sitting position, but she shook her head violently and pulled her hand away. That was as far as she wanted to go for the moment. She hugged her legs, forehead on her knees.
     
     
"Two hours you said," he whispered. "Or three."
     
     
"He... he must be resistant to it. He had enough for... a full-grown horse."
     
     
With his eyes on me, he moved the straight chair over and placed it about five feet from me, the back toward me. He straddled it and rested the short barrel on the back of the chair, centered on my chest. "We'll have a nice little talk, smartass."
     
     
"About what? This lousy setup? I've got eight hundred on me, so take it. Wear it in good health. Leave."
     
     
She got to her feet, took one step, and nearly went down again. She hobbled over toward the head of the bed, her face twisted with pain.
     
     
"My ankle," she said. She was having a clumsy evening.
     
     
"We are going to have a little talk about Doctor Stewart Sherman, smartass."
     
     
I frowned at him, my bafflement entirely genuine. "I never heard of the man in my life. If this is some variation of the badger game, friend, you are making it too complicated."
     
     
"And we are going to talk about how you are putting the squeeze on Tom Pike. Want to deny seeing him today?"
     
     
"I went to see Maurie and Biddy, the two daughters of Mick Pearson, a friend of mine who died five years, nearly six years ago, not that it is any of your business."
     
     
There was a look of uncertainty in his eyes for just a moment. But I needed more advantage than that and, remembering their very personal little squabble, and remembering how she had reported having no trouble at all with me, I thought of an evil way to improve the odds.
     
     
"Like I said. Take the eight hundred and leave. Your broad was pretty good, but she wasn't worth eight hundred, but if that's the going rate, let me pay."
     
     
"Now, don't get cute," he said. His voice was coming back.
     
     
"Man, the very last thing I am going to be is cute. My head hurts from whatever she loaded my drink with. We had this nice little romp and then, instead of settling down, she wants to go out to some saloon. She said we could come back afterward. So I get dressed and she wants a drink, so I fix two drinks and I drink mine, and the last thing I remember is seeing her watching me in a funny way as she's putting her clothes on. Then the lights went out."
     
     
"He's making it up! It wasn't like that at all, darling!"
     
     
I raised my eyebrows in surprise and tried to look as though a slow understanding was dawning on me. I nodded. "All right. If she's all yours, buddy, then I'm making it up and it wasn't like that at all. Never happened."
     
     
The shape of his mouth was uglier. Without taking his watchful stare off me, he said to her, "How could you figure he'd wake up? How could you figure he'd tell me? A little fun on the side, darling?"
     
     
"Please!" she said. "Please, you can't believe him. He's trying to--"
     
     
"I'm trying to be a nice guy," I said. "It never happened. Okay, Penny?"
     
     
"Stop it!" she cried.
     
     
"Maybe the only way you can keep me from using this gun is by proving it did happen. Tell me... some things you couldn't know otherwise, smartass."
     
     
"Pale yellow bra and panties with white lace. Freckles, very faint and small but lots of them, across the tops of her breasts. A brown mole, about the size of a dime, maybe a little smaller, two inches below her left nipple and toward the middle of her, like maybe at seven o'clock. And when she was making out, she called