Bertha Cool looked at me with eyes that were bugged out in astonishment, said softly under her breath, “I’ll be a dirty name!”
Chapter twelve
We went down to Bertha Cool’s office. Bertha Cool got rid of the lawyer, and we went into the private office and sat down. Bertha brought out a bottle of whisky from the lower drawer of her desk. “God, Donald,” she said, “that was a close squeak.”
I nodded.
“That damn lawyer wasn’t worth his salt. Served a couple of papers, and then didn’t know what to do next-like a bum card player who plays all of his aces, and then crawls under the table.”
“How did you happen to get him?” I asked.
“I didn’t get him. For Heaven’s sake give me credit for some sense! I’d never get a boob like that.”
“Ashbury?” I asked.
She poured out two slugs of whisky, then corked the bottle, started to put it away, and said, “Hell, I’m twice as big as you. I need twice as much to keep me going.” She added another two fingers to her glass. “Well,” she said, “here’s how.”
I nodded, and we drank.
“That Ashbury is a good guy,” she said. “He rang me up as soon as the officers loaded you in the car. He figured there was a plane waiting. He told me to get hold of this lawyer, explain what was happening, and go out to the airport armed with the necessary papers, so that we could be on the job.”
“How did you know which airport?” I asked.
“Hell, lover, do I look as dumb as all that? I found out what charter planes were out, what field this flyer had taken off from, and put through a telephone call to the field up north to be notified as soon as he left there; then I rounded up the lawyer, and we all went down. So you got that little blonde in your pocket, too? My God, Donald, how they fall for you is—”
“Be your age, Bertha,” I said. “She didn’t fall for me.”
“Any time you think she didn’t. I’m a woman. I can tell when I see that look in a woman’s eyes.”
I jerked my thumb toward the telephone. “What do you think I’m doing here?”
“Drinking whisky and relaxing,” she said.
“I’m waiting for that phone to ring,” I told her. “The blonde won’t do it until she’s certain no one’s on her trail.”
“You mean it’s business with her?”
“Of course.”
“How much will she want?”
“Probably not money. Something else.”
“I don’t care what she asks for,” Bertha insisted, eyeing her empty whisky glass in thoughtful contemplation. “She’s fallen for you, hard.”
I lit a cigarette and settled back to the cushioned comfort of the chair.
The telephone rang sharply just as Bertha Cool was getting ready to say something. Bertha grabbed the telephone, jerked the receiver off the hook, put it to her ear, said, “Hello,” then, “Who is this calling? All right. He’s sitting here waiting for you.”
She handed me the telephone. I said, “Hello,” and Esther Clarde’s voice said, “You know who this is?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I have to see you.”
“I figured you’d want to.”
“Are you free to leave?”
“Yes.”
“Can I come to your apartment?”
“Better not.”
“You had better not come to mine. Perhaps I can meet you somewhere.”
“Name the place.”
“I’ll be at the corner of Tenth and Central in fifteen minutes. How’ll that be?”
“Okay. Now listen. If I’m being tailed when I leave here, I’ll try and ditch the shadow. If I can’t do it, I’ll take him for a run-round and be back in half an hour. If I don’t meet you at Tenth and Central in fifteen minutes, you ring me here in exactly thirty minutes. Got that?”
“Got it,” she said, and hung up.
I nodded to Bertha Cool.
Bertha said, “Watch your step, lover. You’re in the clear now. After what she said, she can’t ever back up on her testimony, and it wouldn’t do them much good to have the clerk identify you now. The woman who was standing in the door couldn’t see straight up without her glasses. I’ll bet she couldn’t identify me twenty feet away.”
“What are you getting at?”
“Tell that blonde to go jump in the lake. If she’s sucker enough to put all the cards in your hands, go ahead and play them.”
“That’s not the way I play, Bertha.”
“I know it isn’t. You’re too damn soft and sentimental — I don’t mean you should give her the go-by entirely. Get Ashbury to slip her a little piece of change, but don’t go sticking your neck out.”
I got up and put on my hat and coat. “I’m going to take your coupe. You can go home in a taxi. I’ll be seeing you in the morning.”
“Not until then?”
“No.”
“Donald, I’m worried about this. How about coming by my apartment later on?”
“I will,” I said, “if anything turns up.”
She reached in the desk drawer. I could tell from the slope of her shoulder and the rigid angle of her arm that she had her fingers clasped around the neck of the whisky bottle all ready to lift it out as soon as I’d left the office.
“Good-night, lover,” she said.
I walked out.
I made a figure eight around a couple of blocks, found out I wasn’t being followed, and started down to Tenth and Central. I spotted Esther Clarde walking along on Central, midway between Eighth and Ninth, but didn’t give her a tumble. I ran around the block twice to make certain she wasn’t being followed. When she got to Tenth and Central, I picked her up.
“Everything all clear?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Was that you in the car that went by a couple of times just now?”
“Yes.”
“I thought it was. I didn’t want to seem interested. No one on my tail, is there?”
“No.”
“What kind of a job did I do for you tonight?”
“Swell.”
“Grateful?”
“Uh-huh.”
“How grateful?”
“What do you want?”
“I thought perhaps you could do something for me.”
“Perhaps I can.”
She said, “I want to get out of here.”
“Out of where?”
“Out of the city. Out of the country. Away.”
“From what?”
“From everything.”
“Why?”
“I’m in a jam.”
“How come?”
“You know, the police. They’ll get after me. Honestly, Donald, I don’t know what made me do what I did tonight. I guess it was because you were so decent to me — I just couldn’t rat on you to the bulls.”
“All right,” I said. “Go home and forget it.”
“No, I can’t. They’ll check up on me.”
“How?”
“With Walter.”
“The night clerk?”
“Yes.”
“What about him?”
“He’ll identify you.”
“Not if you tell him not to.”
“What makes you say that?”
I had been driving aimlessly. Now I pulled in to the kerb, and stopped where I could look at her face while I was talking, “He’s pretty sweet on you.”
“He’s frightfully jealous.”
“You don’t need to tell him the truth. Just tell him that I’m not the man.”
“No, that won’t work. He’d be suspicious — think I had a crush on you or something. It would make him all the worse.”
“How much,” I asked, “do you want?”
“It isn’t a question of money. I want to get out of here. I want to take a plane for South America. I can take care of myself after I get there, but I need some get-away money, and I need somebody to engineer it who’s smart, someone who knows the ropes. You can do it.”