"Okay," Frank replied hotly, "but talk for yourself. You're not making Minna stay!" Wilson's eyes narrowed. "I'm not? Look, buster--how about minding your own goddam business?" The vague feelings of disgust Frank had had now crystallized into words. "I won't let you get away with it! You think I'm blind? Hauling her into the back room every ten minutes! Don't you think I know why? You're nothing but a damn sex maniac! You've got her terrorized until she's afraid to open her mouth. She goes with us!" Jim Wilson was on his feet. His face blazed with rage. The urge to kill was written in the crouch of his body and the twist of his mouth. "You goddam nosey little squirt. I'll--" Wilson charged across the short, intervening distance. His arms went out in a clutching motion. But Frank Brooks wasn't full of knockout drops this time, and with a clear head he was no pushover. Blinded with rage, Jim Wilson _was_ a pushover. Frank stepped in between his outstretched arms and slugged him squarely on top of the head with the telephone. Wilson went down like a felled steer. The scream came from Minna as she sprang across the room. She had turned from a colorless rag doll into a tigress. She hit Frank square in the belly with small fists at the end of stiff, outstretched arms. The full force of her charge was behind the fists, and Frank went backward over the bed. Minna did not follow up her attack. She dropped to the floor beside Jim Wilson and took his huge head in her lap. "You killed him," she sobbed. "You--you murderer! You killed him! You had no right!" Frank sat wide-eyed. "Minna! For God's sake! I was helping you. I did it for you!" "Why don't you mind your business? I didn't ask you to protect me? I don't need any protection--not from Jim." "You mean you didn't mind the way he's treated you--" "You've killed him--killed him--" Minna raised her head slowly. She looked at Frank as though she saw him for the first time. "You're a fool" she said dully. "A big fool. What right have you got to meddle with other people's affairs? Are you God or something, to run people's lives?" "Minna--I--" It was as though he hadn't spoken. "Do you know what it's like to have nobody? All your life to go on and grow older without anybody? I didn't have no one and then Jim came along and wanted me." Frank walked close to her and bent down. She reacted like a tiger. "Leave him alone! Leave him alone! You've done enough!" Nonplused, Frank backed away. "People with big noses--always sticking them in. That's you. Was that any of your business what he wanted of me? Did I complain?" "I'm sorry, Minna. I didn't know." "I'd rather go into back rooms with him than stay in front rooms without nobody." She began to cry now. Wordlessly--soundlessly, rocking back and forth with the huge man's bloody head in her lap. "Anytime," she crooned. "Anytime I would--"