“They don’t fall for me,” I said. “I was just kidding her along. I don’t even know whether she liked it.”
“Nuts,” Bertha said, and fitted a cigarette into her cigarette holder.
I walked over to the bed where she’d placed the morning paper and opened it. The news was on the front page. A key witness whom the district attorney’s office had been keeping under cover in the Evaline Harris murder case had disappeared. Circumstances made the police believe she’d been the victim of foul play. Police were “combing the city”. There was the usual amount of newspaper hooey: The police were following a definite lead and expected to have important disclosures to make before midnight. The witness, it seemed, had disappeared just as the police were ready to “break” the case. The police had hinted that developments of a most startling nature were to be anticipated.
I put on an act for Bertha. “My God,” I said, “if anything’s happened to her! Do you suppose the police were so damn dumb they didn’t anticipate something like this? Good God, here they were dealing with a murderer, and this girl was the key witness, and they left her entirely unguarded. Of all the damn fool plays I’ve ever heard or seen, that takes the cake!”
Bertha said, “Keep your shirt on, lover. She’s all right.”
“What makes you think so?”
“The only person she could have identified was our client. You know that he wouldn’t do anything like that.”
I read through the article and said, “There was blood in the apartment!”
Bertha Cool said, “Don’t worry, Donald. She’s all right. If they’d wanted to kill her, they’d have simply killed her there in the apartment, and the police would have found her body. The fact that she isn’t there means that she’s alive. The police will find her. They’re pretty thorough, you know, when they get on the job.”
I started pacing the floor and said, “I’d like to think you’re right.”
“Don’t get all stewed up,” she said. “There’s nothing you can do to help. We’ve got this other thing to handle. You’ve got to keep your mind clear.”
I paced the floor for a while, smoked a couple of cigarettes, and went back to read the paper again, and then went and stood looking out of the window.
Bertha Cool smoked in comfortable silence. After a while she called the office and talked with Elsie Brand. She hung up and said, “The cops are looking for you at the office, lover. I guess those boys in Santa Carlotta mean business.”
I let on that the information didn’t even interest me.
After a while she said, almost musingly as though thinking out loud, “For a little runt, you draw a hell of a lot of water.”
“What do you mean?”
She said, “I was running a detective agency. It was a run-of-the-mill agency. Most of the better-class outfits won’t handle political stuff, and won’t handle divorce stuff. I’d handle anything. My business wasn’t always the most savoury, but it was a nice, routine business. I made some money out of it, not a hell of a lot, but enough to get by. You enter the picture. I hire you to work for me, and the first thing I know, you’re dragging me so deep into murder cases that I’m in right up to my neck. I’ve ceased to be a detective and become an accomplice. The tail’s not only wagging the dog, but it’s shaking hell out of him.”
I said, “Forget it. You’re making money, aren’t you!”
Bertha Cool looked down at her big, firm breasts, at her big thighs, and said, “I hope I don’t lose weight worrying. I was so comfortable the way I was — just like a foot in an old shoe, and now look at me. Lover, do you know that if we don’t pull this case out of the fire, we’re going to be in jail?”
I said, “There’s lots of ways of getting out of jail.”
Bertha said, “Put that in writing and send it to the guys up in San Quentin. They might be interested.”
I didn’t say anything, and we sat for a while in silence. First Bertha’d look at her wrist watch, then I’d look at mine. Then I’d look out of the window, and Bertha would light another cigarette.
The street in front of the hotel furnished the only variation. A bakery wagon made some deliveries. An occasional housewife would sally forth to do some shopping. A couple of elderly people who looked like tourists spending a few months in Southern California strolled out of the hotel, got in a car with a New York licence plate, and drove leisurely away. The sky was blue and cloudless. The sun beat down, throwing intense, black shadows which gradually shortened.
I went back to the bed, propped myself up with pillows, and read the rest of the news in the paper. Bertha Cool sat in the chair, to all outward appearances calmly serene.
When I threw the paper down and went to stand at the window again, she said, “For Pete’s sake, quit fidgeting. It doesn’t get you anywhere. You’re too nervous, too intense. Sit down and relax. Rest while you can. You’ve been working on this case day and night. You’re nervous. There’s no percentage in getting nervous.”
I went back to the bed, punched the pillows into shape, stretched myself out, and said, “I’m going to try and get forty winks. I don’t think I can, but there’s a lot of work ahead of us. Lord knows when I’ll have a chance to sleep again.”
Bertha Cool said, “It’s a good idea. Hand me the financial section, lover — not that it means a damn thing. Those financial writers diagnose history with a condescending attitude that makes you think they knew what was going to happen all along, but try and pin them down to anything definite in their predictions. Listen to this. ‘In the event the European situation remains static, it is the consensus of opinion that the market has a healthy tone and securities are due for a steady, persistent advance. The domestic political situation, while still far from reassuring, shows evidences of a trend towards the better, at least the swing of the pendulum to the left has been checked. However, it is to be remembered that business generally is far from optimistic, and the attempts of various parties to gain political power or perpetuate the powers already enjoyed will doubtless exert a retarding influence upon any recovery which might be expected.’ ”
She said, “Bah,” and dashed the paper to the floor.
I made myself comfortable as I could on the bed, but knew I couldn’t sleep. My brain was racing as though I’d had an overdose of coffee. My mind picked up a dozen different possibilities of the situation, carried them through to disastrous conclusions, and then dropped them to pick up some other possible development. I tried lying on my left side for a while, then rolled over to my right side. Bertha Cool said, “For Pete’s sake, stay in one position. You can’t sleep rolling around that way.”
I tried staying in one position. I looked at my watch. It was almost eleven.
Bertha Cool said, “Perhaps we’d better ring the Key West again.”
I said, “I don’t think so. We don’t want to make the clerk suspicious. Remember, he’s in love with Frieda Tarbing, and inclined to be jealous. Probably they don’t allow her to make personal calls while she’s on duty.”
Bertha said, “For Pete’s sake, shut up and go to sleep.”
I lay there thinking. I’d turned the heat on Harbet, and Harbet had turned the heat on me. Taken by and large, there was a lot of fire, and someone was due to get his fingers burned. I thought of Dr. Alftmont sitting up in Santa Carlotta on the eve of election with a sword hanging over his head. I thought of the woman who was posing as Mrs. Alftmont, the wife of an eye, ear, nose, and throat specialist who had built up a good practice, who had achieved some social recognition in the inner circle of a snobbish city, wondered what she was thinking as she waited — waiting without knowing what was going on.
It occurred to me that those people could rest more easily because they had confidence in me. Even Bertha Cool was able to shift part of her responsibilities to my shoulders. I had no one to whom I could pass even a part of the load.