I turned the corner. A taxicab hove into sight. I flagged it. ‘Where to?’ the driver asked.
‘Straight down the street,’ I said, ‘until I tell you to stop.’ It wasn’t until we’d got half a dozen blocks that I suddenly realized I hadn’t a cent to my name. I figured the meter would register about sixty-five cents getting to Bertha Cool’s address. I gave him the number and settled back against the cushions.
‘Wait here,’ I said, and got out of the cab, crossed the curb to the apartment house, found Bertha Cool’s name on the directory, and leaned against the door button.
There was going to be an embarrassing moment for me with that taxi driver if Bertha Cool wasn’t in.
To my surprise, the buzzer sounded almost immediately. I pushed against the door, and it opened, letting me into a dark hallway. I groped around, found a light switch, and located the elevator. Bertha Cool was on the fifth floor. I had no difficulty finding her apartment. The light was on. She opened the door as I tapped on the panel. Her hair was messed from sleeping and hung in strings around her face. Her features looked bloated, but her eyes were cold and hard as diamonds glittering out at me from above the puffy folds of flesh. A silk bathrobe was knotted around her waist. Through the opening in the top, I could see the sweep of her massive throat, a V-shaped section of her big chest.
‘You look like hell,’ she said. ‘Who beat you up? Come in.’
I entered the apartment, and she closed the door. It was a two room affair with a kitchenette opening from the back of the living room. The bedroom door was half open. I could see on the bed with the covers thrown back, a desk phone on a stand within a foot of the pillow, a pair of stockings thrown over the back of the chair, a wadded bundle of garments, which looked as though they’d been balled up and tossed onto the seat of another chair. The living room was close, and smelled of stale tobacco. She walked across to the windows, flung them open, looked at me sharply, and said, ‘What’s the matter? Been run over by a truck?’
‘Beaten up by mugs and pushed around by the police,’ I said.
‘Oh, like that?’
‘Yes.’
‘All right. Don’t tell me about it until I’ve found the cigarettes. Where in hell did I put those things? I had a full pack when I went to bed—’
‘In on the taboret by the bed,’ I said.
She looked at me sharply, said, ‘You seem to have an observing disposition,’ dropped down in a big overstuffed chair, and went on in a calm, matter-of-fact voice, ‘Run in and get them for me, Donald. Don’t try to talk to me until I’ve had a couple of good deep drags.’
I brought her the cigarettes, held a match, and when she motioned toward an ottoman, slid it toward her. She elevated her feet, kicked off her slippers, twisted in the chair until she found a comfortable position, settled herself, and said, ‘Go ahead.’
I told her everything I knew.
She said, ‘You should have telephoned me before you went to bed. You should have let me know right away.’
‘But he hadn’t been killed then,’ I said. ‘I only got the phone call—’
‘Oh, the murder,’ she interrupted. ‘To hell with the murder. The police can take care of that, but this gang that kidnaped you and wanted to get in touch with Morgan Birks sounds like ready money to me. You passed up a bet there. You—’ The telephone rang.
She sighed. ‘Donald, go get me that telephone. You can pull the jack out and plug it in here. There’s a long extension cord on it. Hurry before they hang up, dear.’
I ran into the bedroom, followed the extension cord to the wall plug, pulled it out, handed the telephone to Mrs. Cool, and plugged into the living room connection.
She picked up the receiver, said, ‘Bertha Cool talking,’ and waited.
I could hear the rattle of the diaphragm in the receiver as words poured into Bertha Cool’s ear. The twinkling eyes indicated she was enjoying the conversation.
‘What do you want me to do?’ she asked at length.
The receiver made more noise, and Bertha Cool said, ‘I’d want five hundred dollars, cash money. After that, I’ll probably want more. I can’t guarantee anything... Well, you’ll have to get it, dearie... Safety deposit boxes mean nothing to me. They’ll seal them anyhow... All right, dearie. Fifty dollars will be all right until tomorrow... I’ll keep him under cover. Yes, I hadn’t better come over there right away. Wait until the police get done. There’s no need of antagonizing them. What time is it now?... All right. Let’s say an hour or an hour and a half. You wait there for me unless they take you to headquarters. I don’t think they will.’
She hung up, and her lips twisted in a smile of satisfaction.
‘Sandra Birks,’ she said.
‘Wants you to investigate her husband’s death?’
‘Wants me to take care of Alma Hunter. They’re arresting her.’
‘They got a crust!’ I said. ‘He was trying to choke her, and—’
‘Don’t be so sure,’ she said. ‘Morgan Birks was shot in the back.’
‘In the back!’ I exclaimed.
‘Uh huh. He was evidently trying to get out the door when he was shot. The bullet went completely through and embedded itself in the door. Reconstructing the position of the body from the direction of the wound, the police figure he had his hand on the doorknob and was trying to get out when he was shot in the back.’
‘Well, what the devil business did he have coming in her room, anyway? What was he looking for?’
‘A drink of water probably,’ she said. ‘But the police don’t like to have girls shoot men in the back and then claim they were being attacked.’
‘It was dark in the room,’ I said.
‘He was trying to get out.’
‘He’d tried to choke her the night before.’
‘He had?’
‘Yes.’
‘Tell me about it.’
I told her. She listened carefully and said, ‘How does she know it was Morgan Birks who tried to choke her?’
‘It stands to reason,’ I insisted.
‘It takes more than that to sell the police on an idea,’ she said. ‘Donald, be a good boy. Ring up the motor-vehicle registration department at headquarters, tell them it’s the Cool Detective Agency, and get them to give you the registration of 5N1525 and 5M1525. I’m going to go get some clothes on.’
She pinched out the cigarette, exhaled a long last appreciative cloud of smoke, heaved herself from the chair, and strode out toward the bedroom, removing the silk robe as she walked. She dressed without bothering to close the door. I couldn’t see her, but I could hear her moving around; and she could hear me as I called the department of vehicular registrations and found out that 5N1525 was registered in the name of George Salisbery, 938 Main Street, Centerville, and 5M1525 in the name of William D. Cunweather, 907 Willoughby Drive.
I hung up the telephone after writing down the names and addresses, and Mrs. Cool called from the bedroom. ‘That Salisbery guy doesn’t sound so good. That Willoughby Drive address may be our meat. How does it seem to you, Donald?’
‘It could be. The house looked as though it were out around that section somewhere.’
‘Call a cab,’ she said.
‘I have one waiting downstairs.’
‘Are you sporting taxicabs for your private transportation?’ she asked. ‘Or did you think you were on an expense account?’
I flared up and said, ‘I thought I was on an expense account.’
She was silent for several seconds. I sat there wondering whether she was going to blow up and fire me or take it.
‘All right,’ she said in that maternal voice of hers. ‘We’ll go downstairs and take it, Donald, dear. I’ll make a note of whatever’s on the meter and take it out of your salary. Let’s go.’