“What did you intend to tell me?”
“Simply this. George Nunnely is in a jam. He’s been lifting money from another associate, and this time he wasn’t clever enough, or else the other man was smarter than I was. Anyway, he’s got Nunnely right where he wants him.”
“What does that have to do with you?”
“Nunnely has to have twenty-five hundred dollars or he’s going to the penitentiary. He has to have it within the next two or three days.”
“And you want me to go to him?” Bertha asked.
“Yes”
“And dangle a sum of cash in front of his eyes?”
“That’s right.”
“To settle the judgment?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think that he’ll settle a twenty-thousand-dollar judgment for twenty-five hundred dollars?”
“I’m certain of it.”
“Then why don’t you ring him up and offer to settle?”
“That’s the embarrassing part of it, Mrs. Cool.”
“What is?”
“I’m not supposed to have any money. Don’t you see, if I offered to make a settlement, it would be equivalent to an admission that I had money. My lawyer has warned me against that. I’m supposed to be flat broke.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
“Why not have your wife make an offer of settlement?”
Belder rubbed his fingers along the side of his chin. “Well, you see, Mrs. Cool, there’s a personal angle.”
“I don’t see,” Bertha said crisply. “But I don’t know as I need to. Any particular approach you want me to use?”
“I have the thing all blueprinted for you, Mrs. Cool.”
“You don’t need to blueprint it for me,” Bertha said. “I’ve forgotten more about these things than you’ll ever know. A judgment creditor hates to think the debtor is getting off too easy. If I tell him I can get twenty-five hundred dollars as a settlement of a twenty-thousand-dollar judgment, no matter how badly he wants to settle, he’ll feel you’re getting off too easy; but if I tell him that I can get five thousand out of you, that I’m going to keep twenty-five hundred and give him twenty-five hundred, he’ll be twice as apt to agree to it. In that way he thinks you’ll be getting stuck for five thousand dollars cash.”
Belder’s eyes sparkled. “That’s an excellent point, Mrs. Cool, an excellent point. I can see that you are a woman of experience and discernment.”
Bertha brushed his praise to one side. Her chair creaked as she swivelled so that her hard, intense eyes were beating her client into a psychic submission.
“Now then,” she asked, “what’s in it for me?”
2
Short But Not Sweet
George K. Nunnely’s secretary had the unsure attitude which characterizes a new employee who is afraid of making a mistake.
“You have an appointment with Mr. Nunnely?” she asked. Bertha Cool glared just long enough for the other woman’s gnawing uncertainty to put her on the defensive. Then she said, “Tell Mr. Nunnely Mrs. Cool wants to see him about turning dubious assets into cold, hard cash. Hand him my card. Tell him I don’t work unless I’m paid, but I don’t ask pay unless I produce results. Think you’ve got that?”
The girl looked at the card. “You’re — you’re Mrs. Cool?”
“That’s right.”
“A private detective?”
“Yes.”
“Just a moment.”
The secretary was back within a matter of seconds. “Mr. Nunnely will see you.”
Bertha sailed through the door which the secretary held open. The man at the desk didn’t even look up. He signed a letter, blotted it, opened a drawer in the desk, dropped the letter into the drawer, took out a day-book, opened it, picked up a desk-pen, made a notation. Every motion was calm and unhurried, yet there was no hesitation between separate acts. Each thing that he did flowed into a part of a perfect pattern of continuous work.
Bertha Cool watched him curiously.
It was nearly a minute before he methodically blotted the entry he had made in the day-book, closed it, carefully returned it to the drawer in the desk, closed the drawer with the same tempo which had characterized everything he had done since Bertha had entered the office, then raised his eyes and confronted Mrs. Cool with a perfectly calm expression of poker-faced politeness. “Good morning, Mrs. Cool. The message you gave my secretary was rather unusual. May I ask for an explanation?”
Under the cool, almost impersonal inspection of pale green eyes, Bertha Cool found it, for a moment, a little difficult to carry out her plan of campaign. Then she twitched angrily as though shaking off the man’s influence, and said, “I understand you need money.”
“Don’t we all?”
“You in particular.”
“May I ask the source of your information?”
“A little bird.”
“Am I expected to show interest or indignation?”
Bertha Cool’s personality broke from its shell to rise superior to the man’s cool detachment. “I don’t give a damn what you do. I’m a sharpshooter. When business gets quiet with me, I go out and make business.”
“Very interesting.”
“I’ll put my cards on the table. You’ve got a judgment against a man by the name of Belder. You haven’t collected. You can’t collect. You’ve had attorneys bleeding you white. They can’t get to first base. I can’t afford to split my take with a lawyer. I’m not going out and grab the gravy and then hand a percentage on a silver platter to some lawyer. I can’t afford to. And when you do business with me, you can’t afford to either. Fire your lawyers, put yourself in a position where you can deal with me without anybody else butting in, and I can make you some money.”
“What’s your proposition?”
“You’ve got a judgment for twenty thousand. You can’t collect it. You never will collect it.”
“That’s a matter that is open to argument.”
“Certainly it’s open to argument. You and your lawyers argue one way, and the other man and his lawyers argue the other. You keep paying your lawyers, he keeps paying his lawyers. What he pays isn’t deducted from the twenty thousand he owes you and what you pay is water down the rat hole. You think you have a twenty-thousand-dollar asset, but so far it’s simply been an opportunity to pay out lawyer’s fees.”
“A very interesting way of looking at the situation, Mrs. Cool. May I ask specifically what is your proposition?”
“You can’t get the whole twenty thousand. But you could get some of it. I could settle that case if I had a free hand. You’ll have to knock off some.”
“How much?”
“A lot — and then I’ll take my cut.”
“I think not, Mrs. Cool.”
“Think it over. As it is, it’s costing you money. I can make Belder pay a sizeable chunk of money. You get yours and the thing’s all finished.”
“How much can you get?”
“Five thousand.”
Nunnely’s eyes remained steadily fixed on Bertha Cool, but he slowly lowered and raised his eyelids. There was no other trace of emotion or expression on his face. “Net to me?” he asked.
“Gross,” Bertha said.
“Your cut?”
“Fifty per cent.”
“Leaving me twenty-five hundred net?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not interested.”
Bertha Cool heaved herself up out of the chair. “You’ve got my card,” she said. “Any time you change your mind, ring me up.”
Nunnely said, “Wait a moment, Mrs. Cool. I should like to talk with you.”
Bertha waded on past the deep-carpeted luxury of the office to the door, turned in the doorway and delivered her parting shot. “I’ve said all I have to say. You could have said either of two things. You said no. There’s nothing more to talk about. If you change your mind and want to say yes, call me.”