She said, “I’ve got to go to the bathroom first.”
“Well, make it snappy,” Sellers said.
Mrs. Chester went into the bathroom and closed the door.
Sellers looked at me and said, “I’ll be damned! I thought you were giving me the runaround.”
“It’s on the up-and-up,” I told him.
“Well, it had better be and don’t think for a minute you’re going to get any breaks unless you come out of this with a clean nose. You’ve been cutting too many corners.”
I said, “People use me. I tried to find out what it was all about before I told you. That’s one thing about me, you know, I never gave you a bum tip. Whenever I tell you anything it pans out.”
He took a cigar from his pocket, shoved it into his mouth, said, “I’ll reserve judgment on you, Lam.”
We sat there waiting. Frank Sellers looked me over.
“You know, Pint Size,” he said, “I don’t know what kind of a game you’re playing but if it’s on the up-and-up, I’m going to play along with you.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“I felt sure you were giving me some kind of a runaround when you telephoned, but one look at that woman’s face told me that you were knocking her for a loop. Whatever kind of a deal it is you’ve cooked up, it isn’t a frame-up, not as far as she’s concerned,” Sellers said. “There’s more to this than meets the eye. Those damned cops in Denver claiming that the Eldon car was in Denver the afternoon of the accident — they’re all wet! You know and I know that car was involved in an accident.”
“Do we?” I asked.
He frowned and said, “Now, don’t start pulling that stuff, Pint Size, or I’m going to get mad all over again.”
I kept quiet.
He chewed on the cigar for a while.
“There’s something fishy about the whole deal,” he said after a while.
I said nothing.
“Say,” he said, “that dame’s been in the bathroom a long time.”
He lurched up out of the chair, pounded over to the bathroom door and said, “Come on, make it snappy.”
There was no answer.
Sellers looked at me with sudden consternation. “Hell, she couldn’t get out of the bathroom window dressed like that,” he said.
The sound of a toilet flushing came through the door.
Sellers grunted, went back and sat down.
There was more silence.
Finally Sellers got up and went over to the bathroom door again. “Come on out,” he said.
She said, “I can’t come out.”
“Come on out,” he told her, “you’ve been in there long enough. Let’s go.”
“I’m not ready.”
Sellers banged on the door. “Open it up.”
“I tell you I can’t.”
Sellers’ face flushed. “Say, what kind of gag is this?” he said. “Get the hell out of there. Open up.”
“Just a minute,” she said sweetly, “I’ll be there. Don’t hurry me too much.”
Sellers came back and sat down. He scowled at me.
I said, “She must have been in there ten minutes.”
“Well,” Sellers said.
I shrugged my shoulders.
We waited another minute or two.
“What does a cop do,” I asked, “when someone gives him a runaround by sitting in a bathroom?”
“I’ll show you what a cop does,” Sellers said, savagely. He got out of the chair, walked over to the bathroom door, said, “Open up.”
“Just a few minutes now,”
“Open up,” Sellers said.
“I’m not ready to open up.”
“Open that door,” Sellers said, “or I’ll kick it in.”
“You wouldn’t dare do that,” she said. “I have a right to go to the bathroom. I—”
Sellers stepped back, stood on his left foot, elevated his right foot and lashed out with a flatfooted impact, hitting the door just back of the doorknob.
The door shivered.
“Come on,” Sellers said, “I’ll bust it down.”
“I told you I can’t come out now.”
Seller cocked his right foot and gave another terrific blow.
The door shivered. There was a sound of splintering wood. The door slammed open, hit against a doorstop and vibrated.
Mrs. Chester was standing there with her robe around her, looking out of an open window. It was about eight feet to the ground.
“None of that,” Sellers said.
“How dare you!” she said. “How dare you break in on me this way.”
“You’ve been in here fifteen minutes already,” Sellers said, “that’s time enough to clean your teeth, brush your hair, powder your nose, take a shower and do everything else you needed to do ten times over. I don’t want a runaround, I want the truth. Now come out here.”
She gave one last look at the open window, then marched out.
Sellers dropped back into his seat, indicated a straight-back chair for her. “Sit down there,” he said. “Lam, you sit on the bed.”
Sellers turned to her, wolfed the cigar around in his mouth, said, “what about this hit-and-run business?”
“What hit-and-run?”
Sellers said, “You complained of a hit-and-run incident.”
“It was stupid of me,” she said.
Sellers frowned.
“Actually it was mostly my fault,” she said. “I turned around and wanted to see something and kept right on walking, and I walked right into this car.”
“You were in a pedestrian crossing?”
“Yes.”
“And the car was coming how fast?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m beginning to think the car was standing still.”
“What?” Sellers yelled.
She nodded and said to me, “I’m sorry I took advantage of you, Donald, because you’re a nice boy, but after all this is a cruel world. A person has to look out for number one.”
“What do you mean the car was standing still?” Sellers asked.
“I didn’t say it was. I said it might have been for all I know.”
“That isn’t the way you told it to the police,” Sellers said.
“The police never gave me a chance. They acted on the assumption that the car was moving just because I was hit on a pedestrian zone.”
“You were hit?”
“Well I may have hit the car, I don’t know. I was walking along and all of a sudden there was this impact on my shoulder and I went down and the next thing I knew people were running all around me and somebody shouted, ‘Get an ambulance,’ and—”
“And what happened to the car?”
“The car went away.”
“Then it was a hit-and-run,” Sellers said.
“Well,” she said thoughtfully, “it was a run, I guess.”
I said, “Did you give the driver of the car your name and address?”
“No, why?”
“But you went away in an ambulance?”
“Yes.”
“Did you need to?”
She smiled archly and said, “Now, I was afraid you were going to ask that question, Donald, and I’m just not going to answer it. After all, I’m a helpless, lone widow and I have to look out for myself.”
Sellers grunted.
“Now,” Mrs. Chester went on, “that’s the peculiar thing about the law. The law says that if a motorist hits a pedestrian he has to stop and give aid, but it doesn’t say anything about a pedestrian hitting a motorist having to stop and give aid. At least I don’t think it does.”
“You’ve looked up the law?” I asked.
“It’s been looked up,” she said.
“You let Donald Lam here make a settlement of ten thousand bucks on you?” Sellers asked.
“Now,” she said, “it wasn’t that way at all. Donald Lam will tell you the true facts.”
“I want you to tell me the true facts.”
“Well, Donald Lam called on me. At first he said he was selling magazines. Then I told him about the accident and he said he knew a person who sometimes bought up accident claims for cash and then filed suit and got a lot more money. I let him know that I would be interested.”