The Second Confesion

“Of course it is,” Jimmy said rudely. It was the rudeness of a guy scared absolutely stiff. “It's the fifth floor. Come on, we can't just stand here.” Steps went to the front, to the living-room. I whispered to Saul to tell him who they were, and added, “If they came after something they're welcome to anything they find.” I opened the door to a half-inch crack, and we stood and listened. They were talking, and, judging from other sounds, they weren't anything like as methodical and efficient as Saul and I had been. One of them dropped a drawer on the floor, and a little later something else hit that sounded more like a picture.

Still later it must have been a book, and that was too much for me. If Saul and I hadn't been so thorough it might have been worth while to wait it out, on the chance that they might find what they were after and we could ask them to show us before they left; but to stand there and let them waste their time going through those books when we had just flipped every one of them-it was too damn silly. So I opened the bathroom door, walked down the hall into the living-room, and greeted them.

“Hello there!” Some day I'll learn. I thought I had Jimmy pretty well tagged. I have a rule never to travel around on homicide business without a shoulder holster, but my opinion of Jimmy was such that I didn't bother to transfer the gun to my pocket or hand. However, I have read about mothers protecting their young, and have also run across it now and then, and I might at least have been more alert Not that,a gun in my hand would have helped any unless I had been willing to slam it against her skull. Happening to be near the arch when I entered, she had only a couple of yards to come, just what she needed to get momentum… She came at me like a hurricane, her hands straight for my face, screeching at the top of her voice, “Run run run!” It didn't make any sense, but a woman in that condition never does. Even if I had been alone, and she had been able to keep me busy enough long enough for her son to make a getaway, what of it? Since I was neither a killer nor a cop, my only threat was the discovery that Jimmy was there, and since I had already seen him she couldn't peel that off of me no matter how long her fingernails were.