Spelman smirked. "So you couldn't be working alone this time. That Chinese gal was killed almost an hour and a half after your flight took off."
"Oh?" I caught myself. It occurred to me that if Spelman thought I had other people working with me, it could buy me some time. I might even be able to implicate some of the legitimate members of Franzini's family. They might prove it a hoax soon enough, but it would cause some consternation at least.
I put that last thought out of my mind. My first job was not to cause consternation. It was to get the hell out of here alive. Right now, the odds didn't look too good.
"If I did have anyone working with me," I fenced, "why do you think I'd tell you?"
The muzzle of the Luger described a small circle in the air. "Popeye Franzini is gonna want the whole story," he said. Another little circle in the air. "And when I go tell him, I'm gonna give him every little bit of it."
Another point in my favor! Spelman hadn't told anyone yet. If I could just get rid of him before he got rid of me, things might start looking up. Starting from an unarmed semi-prone position on a soft bed was not my idea of a good start, but I was going to have to do something.
I had to get him close enough to make a grab at him and the only way I would be able to do that would be if I could provoke him into attacking me. The idea of deliberately provoking an attack from an armed, flying heroin addict wasn't the happiest one I had ever had. My chances were extremely slim. On the other hand, I didn't see any alternative.
"You're an ass, Spelman," I said.
He jerked the gun at me. It seemed to be his favorite gesture.
"Start talking, jerk, or you're going to die."
"Shove it!" I exploded. "You can't kill me until you know who I'm working with. You know that. Popeye wouldn't like that, Larry. Use your head — if you've got one with that snootful of horse running through your veins."
He thought about that one for a moment. Under normal circumstances, I think Larry Spelman was a reasonably bright man. Walking on a cloud of heroin, he was having trouble shifting the direction of his thoughts.
I kept talking. The more I talked, the longer I would live. "How did a nice Jewish boy like you get in the Mafia, Larry?"
He ignored me.
I tried another gambit. "Does your mother know she raised a heroin addict, Larry? She must be proud of herself. How many other mothers can say their sons turned out to be dope addicts who spend most of their lives pushing around a fat old man in a wheelchair? I'll bet she talks about you all the time, you know: 'My son the doctor, 'My son the lawyer, then your old lady pops up with 'My son the addict'…"
It was childish and it was hardly throwing him into an insane rage. But it did annoy him, if only because my voice was interrupting his junk-shrouded thinking.
"Shut up!" he ordered calmly enough. He took a half step out of the chair he was sitting on and almost casually smashed at me with the side of the Luger.
But this time I was ready.
I twisted my head to the right to avoid the blow and on the same instant flicked my left hand upward and outward, catching his wrist with a jarring karate chop that should have caused him to drop the gun, but didn't.
I rolled left on the bed, catching his wrist in my grip and pressing it palm-up against the white sheets, then lowering my shoulder over my upper arm to apply maximum pressure. His other arm circled my waist, trying to pull me back off the pinned hand.
He had my right arm immobilized against my own body. I made a quick, convulsive move, arching my back and getting one knee underneath me for leverage, and was able to free my arm. Now I had both hands free to work on his gun hand, the left one pressing his wrist flat in the tightest grip I could manage, the right one clawing at his fingers, trying to bend them back away from the gun.
I pried one finger loose and began bending it back slowly, inexorably. His fingers were fantastically strong. The pressure around my waist suddenly eased. Then his free hand snaked over my shoulder, and long bony fingers clawed at my face, hooking under my jawbone and yanking my head back, trying to break my neck.
We struggled silently, grunting with the effort. I worked on that gun finger, striving for leverage, while at the same time using every bit of my will power and muscles to keep my head down.
I gained an eighth of an inch with the finger, but at the same time I could feel my head being forced back. Spelman's fingers dug deep into my throat under my jaw, pressing my mouth grotesquely out of shape, his palm flattening my nose. In a moment, with the carotid artery cut off, I would lose consciousness.
A pink haze clouded my eyes and white streaks of pain flashed through my brain.
I opened my mouth and bit down hard on one of Spelman's fingers, feeling my teeth slicing into it like it was a piece of barbecued rib. Hot blood welled into my mouth as my teeth ground into his knuckle, seeking the joint's weakness, then slashing through the tendons, crushing the delicate bone.
He screamed and jerked his hand free, but my head went with it, cocked into his finger by my teeth. I ripped at it savagely, like a dog with a bone, feeling the blood smear ray lips and face. At the same time I increased the pressure on his gun hand. His finger was bending now, and I only had to snap it backward.
But my aching jaws were weakening and I started losing my grip on his finger. With a sudden wrench, he tore free, but simultaneously, the fingers of his other hand loosened their grip on Wilhelmina and the Luger fell to the floor next to the bed.
Locked in each other's arms, we writhed on the bed in straining agony. His fingernails sought my eyeballs but I buried my head in his shoulder for protection and grabbed for his groin. He twisted his hips to protect himself and we rolled off the bed, onto the floor.
Something sharp and unyielding jammed into the side of my head and I realized that I had hit the corner of the bedtable. Now Spelman was on top, his sharp-featured face inches from mine, his teeth bared in a maniacal grin. One fist slammed into the side of my face, while the other hand pressed against my throat in a choke hold, weakened by his savaged finger.
I tucked my chin into my neck the best I could and stabbed at his eyes with extended fingers, but he twisted his head at the last minute to protect them, shutting them tightly.
I grasped one big ear and jerked savagely, twisting. His head snapped back around and I slammed the palm of my hand into his beaky nose. I could feel the cartilage snap loose under the force of the blow, and blood spurted out over my face, blinding me.
Spelman let out an agonized cry as I pulled loose from his grasp and rolled free. For a moment we faced each other on all fours, panting, gasping for breath, blood-smeared, two wounded animals in a confrontation.
Then I spotted Wilhelmina off to the side and near the bed table. From my hands and knees I went into a headlong dive, sliding forward on my stomach as I hit the floor, arms outstretched, fingers grasping for the gun. My fingernail scratched against the butt of the pistol and I lunged again. I felt a great exultation as my palm came flat down on the grip and my fingers circled it familiarly.
I had the gun, but like some big bony cat, Spelman was on top of me, his big hand pinning my outstretched arm, his other fist slamming like a piston into my ribs. I twisted onto my back, rolling my shoulder from left to right and pulling up my knees so that my legs were doubled against my chest.
Then I shoved violently outward with my feet, like an uncoiling spring. One foot caught Spelman in the stomach, the other in the chest, and he flew backward, breaking his grip on my wrist. He landed on his butt, the momentum carrying him over on his back. Then he rolled to the right, twisting his head down and under and came up on all fours, facing me.