When the door had closed behind them, Bertha turned to me. “I like him,” she said.

  I said, “Yes. He does have a pleasing voice, and—”

  “Don’t be a damn fool,” Bertha said. “Not Cutler. Goldring.”

  “Oh.”

  “Cutler is a damn mealy-mouthed hypocrite,” Bertha announced, “No one who’s that polite can be sincere about it, and being insincere is just another way of being a damn hypocrite. Goldring is the one I like. He doesn’t beat around the bush with a lot of palaver.”

  I tried imitating Goldring’s voice. “Dat’s right,” I said.

  Bertha glared at me. “At times you can be the most exasperating little shrimp that ever wore out good shoe leather. Come on. Let’s call Hale. He should have reached New York by this time. At any rate, we can leave a call for him.”

  Chapter Seven

  WE SAT in the hotel waiting for the telephone call to be completed. Central had reported that no one was at Hale’s office, and the house as yet hadn’t answered.

  Bertha said into the telephone, “We don’t know just what time he’ll get home. It’ll be sometime tonight. Keep trying.”

  I said to Bertha, ‘7 want something to eat while we’re waiting. It’s my dinner time.”

  Bertha wouldn’t think of letting me go out. “I want you here when this call comes through. Have something sent up.”

  I told her it would probably be midnight before we heard from him, but had a waiter bring up a menu. Bertha looked it over, and decided she’d have a shrimp cocktail while I was having my steak dinner.

  “You know I just can’t sit and watch you eat,” she said.

  I nodded.

  The waiter seemed solicitous. “Just a shrimp cocktail?” he asked.

  “What are those oysters Rockefeller?” Bertha inquired.

  “Baked oysters,” he said, his face lighting with enthusiasm. “The shells are placed in hot rock salt. There’s a little touch of garlic and a special sauce. That sauce is something of a secret. And then they’re baked, right in their shells.”

  “It sounds good,” Bertha said. “I’ll try half a dozen-no, make it a dozen. Put some French bread in the oven, toast it brown, put on lots of melted butter, and bring me a pot of coffee with a big pitcher of cream and lots of sugar.”

  “Yes, madam.”

  Bertha glowered at me. “Pure coffee,” she snapped.

  “Yes, madam. Some dessert?”

  “Well, I’ll see how I feel when I get done with that,” Bertha said.

  After the waiter had gone. Bertha looked at me, waiting for me to say something. When I didn’t, she brought it up herself. “After all,” she said, “you can only put on just so much weight in any one day. I see no reason for counting calories, now that I’ve already put all the food into my system it can possibly absorb for one day.”

  I said, “It’s your life. Why not live it the way you want?”

  “I think I will.”

  There was silence for a few moments; then she said in a low voice, “Look, lover, there’s something I want to say to you.”

  “What?”

  She said, “You’re a brainy little cuss, but you don’t know a damn thing about money. It takes Bertha to handle the finances.”

  “What now?”

  Bertha said, as though afraid she was starting an argument, “Since you left Los Angeles, we’ve gone into a new business.”

  “What is it?”

  There was that cunning look on Bertha’s face which comes when she’s putting something over, “The B. Cool Construction Company. I’m the president and you’re general manager.”

  “What do we construct?”

  “Right now,” Bertha said, “we’re working on a military housing job. It’s a very small job, something that we can handle all right. You won’t need to bother with it much. It’s a subcontract.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said.

  Bertha said, “I thought we shouldn’t have too many eggs in one basket. You can’t tell what’s going to happen, the way things are going now.”

  “But why pick up this construction job?”

  “Oh, I just saw an opportunity to get in on something.”

  “That doesn’t sound convincing to me.” I waited.

  Bertha took a deep breath. “Dammit,” she said, “I’ve got a lot of executive ability. Since you came in as a partner, I have been doing too much deep-sea fishing. Sitting out there on the barge, and thinking about the way that young boys are dying, just because us older folks haven’t carried out our share of the responsibility— Well, we’ve gone into this construction business, and that’s all there is to it. Don’t bother too much about it. I’ll call on you from time to time for anything I need, but for the most part Bertha can handle it.”

  The telephone rang before I could say anything.

  Bertha snatched up the receiver with an eagerness which showed how much she welcomed the interruption. She held it to her ear, said, “Hello … Oh, hello– I was trying to get you. Where are you … No, no. I was trying to get you … Oh, you did. Well, isn’t that strange? Well, tell me what you have to say first… . Oh, all right, if you insist. Better brace yourself. We’ve got some news for you… . That’s right. We’ve found her. Down at the Gulfpride Apartments on St. Charles Avenue No. The Gulfpride. G-u-l-f-p-r-i-d-e. That’s it… . Oh, that’s a professional secret. We’ve got our way of uncovering leads. It was a pretty cold trail, but we’ve been working like dogs ever since you left. You’d be surprised at the number of leads we’ve run down… . No, I haven’t talked with her yet. Donald did… . Yes, my partner, Donald Lam.”

  There was an interval during which I could hear the rasping, metallic sound of his voice coming through the telephone transmitter. Bertha sat there and listened. She said, “Well-yes-I guess I can.”

  She looked at me, hurriedly thrust her palm over the transmitter, and said, “He wants me to go down there and see her early in the morning.”

  “Why not?”

  She hastily removed her hand from the mouthpiece, said, “Yes, Mr. Hale, I understand,” clapped her palm back over it, and said, “He wants me to cultivate her, win her confidence, pump her.”

  “Watch out,” I warned. “She’s no one’s fool. Don’t guarantee any particular results.”

  Bertha said into the transmitter, “Well, that will be fine, Mr. Hale. I’ll be very glad to do the best I can. Yes, I’ll take Donald with me. We’ll leave early in the morning, just as soon as she’s up. She doesn’t go to work until nine, and that means she’d leave the house about eight-thirty. We could be waiting to pick her up with a cab. What is it you want me to tell her?”

  There was another interval during which the metallic sounds of the telephoned instructions were almost audible. Then Bertha said, “Very well, Mr. Hale, and I’ll let you know. Do you want me to wire you or … I see. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. We think we’re pretty good, too… . Yes, I told you he was short on weight, but long on brains. Well, good night, Mr. Hale—oh, wait a minute. When they ring you on my call, tell them the call is canceled. They have a great way of trying to put through two calls by trying to get you to talk on my call as well as on yours. I’ll ring up and cancel it, but don’t let them stick you by making you think it’s another call… . All right, good-by.”

  Bertha hung up the telephone, jiggled the receiver, said, “Hello, hello. Hello, Operator. This is Mrs. Cool in Mr. Lam’s room… . Yes, that’s right, Mr. Lam’s room… . No, I checked out and have my baggage in Mr. Lam’s room. That’s right. I had a call in for Mr. Hale at New York. Cancel it. That’s right. Cancel it… . No, I just talked with him… . Well, it was on his call… . Oh, hell, cancel it and don’t go prying into— just cancel it!”

  Bertha slammed up the receiver, turned to me, and said, “My God, the telephone company must ride these girls every time a call gets canceled. You’d think I was jerking the food out of their mouths. His plane was grounded somewhere. I didn’t get the name of the place. Where the hell do you suppose our food is? I—”

  The waiter tapped discreetly on the door.

  “Come in,” I said.

  Bertha doesn’t like to talk when she’s eating. I let her go ahead and eat.

  “What time do you want to try Roberta Fenn?” I asked when she pushed her plate back.

  Bertha said, “I’ll get up and come to the hotel. I’ll be here at seven o’clock. You be in the lobby all ready to go. Now be certain you’re there. I don’t want to do any waiting around, with a taxicab meter clicking. The minute you see me drive up, hop out, and get in the car. Seven o’clock. Understand?”

  “On the dot,” I told her.

  Bertha sat back with a smile of calm contentment, and blew smoke up at the ceiling.

  The waiter appeared with a menu. Bertha didn’t even bother to look at it. “Bring me a double chocolate sundae,” she ordered.

  Chapter Eight

  BERTHA seemed surprised when she saw me coming out to meet her cab as it pulled in at the curb, promptly at seven o’clock. Her diamond-hard eyes were glittering angrily at the world.

  “Did you sleep well?”

  “Sleep!” she said and made it sound like an expletive.

  I gave the cab driver the address out on St. Charles Avenue. “What’s the matter?” I asked. “Was it noisy?”

  She said, “When I was a girl, women used to let their seductions be carried on usually with secrecy, and al-in silence.”

  “Why? What’s the matter? Did you hear a seduction last night?”

  “Did I hear a seduction!” Bertha exclaimed. “I heard a whole damn medley of seductions. I realize now why they talk about the young man of today tomcatting around. When they say that they don’t mean a guy’s prowling around so much as that he’s getting out in some public place and yowling about it.”

  “I gather that you didn’t sleep well.”

  Bertha said, “I didn’t. I can assure you of one thing, though.”

  “What?”

  “I gave a group of young women a lungful of advice from that balcony.” , “How did they react?”

  Bertha said, “One of them got mad. One of them looked ashamed and went home, and the others stood there and laughed at me—starting to pass wisecracks right back at me.”

  “What did you do then?” I asked.

  “I blasted ‘em,” Bertha said with a vicious snap of her words.

  “Did they stay blasted?”

  “No.”

  I said, “No wonder you didn’t sleep.”

  Bertha said, “It wasn’t the noise. I was just too damned mad to sleep. The idea of little hussies prowling around the street with no sense of shame. Oh, well, we live and learn.”

  “Are you going to check, out of that apartment?” I asked.

  “Check out of it!” Bertha exclaimed. “Don’t be a fool I The rent’s paid!”

  “I know, but after all there’s no use staying in an apartment where you can’t sleep.”

  Bertha’s lips came together in a firm, straight line. “Sometimes I could grab you and shake the teeth out of you. One of these days your damned extravagance will bust this partnership.”

  “Are we going broke?” I asked.

  “We won’t go into all that again,” Bertha said hastily. “You’ve been lucky. Some day you’ll quit being lucky, then you’ll come whining to me, asking me to put up cash to finance the partnership over a tough spot. Right then’s when you’ll learn something about Bertha Louise Cool, and don’t you ever forget it.”

  I said, “It’s an intriguing thought. It makes the possibility of bankruptcy sound almost alluring.”

  She deliberately averted her head, pretending to stare out at the scenery along St. Charles Avenue. After a moment she said, “Got a match?”

  I handed her a match and she lit a cigarette. We rode in silence until we came to the Gulfpride Apartments.

  “Better have the cab wait,” I told Bertha. “It’s hard to get a cab here. We may not be long.”

  “We’re going to be quite a while,” Bertha said, “a lot longer than you think. We aren’t going to have any taxi meter playing tunes while we’re talking.”

  Bertha opened her purse, paid off the cab driver, and said, “Wait here until after we’ve rung the bell. If we get a buzz to go on up, don’t wait. Otherwise, we’ll go back with you.”

  The cab driver looked at the ten-cent tip Bertha had given him, said, “Yes, ma’am,” and sat there, waiting.

  Bertha found the button opposite the name of Roberta Fenn and jabbed her thumb against it with sufficient force to make it seem she was trying to flatten the bell button.

  “Probably isn’t up yet,” Bertha snorted. “Particularly if she was out last night. I wouldn’t doubt if she was one of them that was making that whoopee under my window. Apparently things don’t really get going in this town until around three o’clock in the morning.”

  She speared the button with another vicious thumb jab.

  Abruptly the buzzer on the door made noise. I pushed against the door, and the door moved inward. Bertha turned and waved dismissal at the taxicab driver.

  We started up the stairs. Bertha pushing her chunky hundred and sixty-five pounds with slow deliberation up the steep flight, I moving along behind her, letting her set the pace.

  Bertha said, “When we get up there, lover, you leave the talking to me.”

  “Know what you’re going to talk about?” I asked.

  “Yes. I know what he wants me to find out. Think they have the steepest stairs in the world in New Orleans—damned outrage!”

  I said, “It’s the second one on the left.”

  Bertha wheezed up the last few stairs, marched down the corridor, raised her knuckles to tap on the door, and stopped, holding her hand motionless for a half second as she noticed that the door was open about a half inch.

  She said, “Evidently she wants us to walk right in,” and pushed the door open.

  “Wait a minute,” I said, and grabbed her arm.

  The door swung open under the impetus of the push Bertha had given it. I saw a man’s feet propped at a peculiar angle. The swinging door gradually brought the body into view, a body that was sprawled half on and half off a chair, the head down on the floor, one foot hooked up under the arm, the other leg bent around the arm support. A sinister red stream had flowed from a hole in his left breast down across the unbuttoned vest, down through the cloth of the coat, to spread out in a pool on the floor. A singed soft cushion showed how the shot had been muffled.

  Bertha said under her breath, “Fry me for an oyster!” and took a quick step forward.

  I still had hold of her arm. I used all my strength to pull her back.

  “What’s the idea?” Bertha said.

  I didn’t say anything, just kept pulling.

  For a moment she was angry; then she caught a glimpse of the expression on my face and I saw her eyes widen.

  I said, in a rather loud tone of voice, “Well, I guess there’s no one home, after all.” All the time I was tugging at her arm, dragging her toward the stairs.

  Once she got the idea, she moved quickly enough. We moved silently along the carpeted corridor, and I all but pushed Bertha past the head of the stairs, where she wanted to stop and argue.

  We pell-melled out onto the street, and I pulled Bertha back against the wall and started walking rapidly down St. Charles Avenue.

  Bertha collected her thoughts sufficiently to start pulling back. “Say, what’s the idea?” she asked. “What in the world’s got into you? That man was murdered. We should have notified the police.”

  “Notify the police if you want to,” I said, “but don’t be dumb enough to think you could have gone into that room and come out alive.”

  She stopped walking to stand stock-still, her feet rooted with surprise, staring at me. “What on earth are you talking about?” she demanded.

  “Don’t you get it?” I asked. “Someone pressed the buzzer for us to come on up. Then that someone left the door slightly ajar.”

  “Who?” she asked.

  I said, “You have two guesses. Either the police were in there waiting for someone to show up, which, under the circumstances, is rather unlikely, or the murderer was waiting patiently to claim his second victim.”

  Her hard little eyes stared at me, fairly sparkling with the intensity of her thought. She said, “Pickle me for a peach! I believe you’re right, you little bastard.”

  “I know I’m right.”

  “But it’s hardly possible that we could have been the ones he was laying for.”

  “We would have been,” I said, “once we entered that room.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’d have seen who he was then. We might not have been the ones he expected, but once we got in there, he couldn’t afford to let us get out-not after we’d seen his face.”

  I saw Bertha’s color change as she realized the narrow escape she’d had. She said, “And that was why you were doing all that talking about no one being in?”

  “Certainly. There’s a restaurant across the street. We’ll telephone the police from there and also keep a watch on the apartment so we can see anyone who comes out.”

  “Who was that person?” Bertha asked. “Do you know him—the dead man?”

  “I’ve seen him before.”

  “Where?”

  “He came to call on Roberta Fenn last night. I think his visit was unexpected and unwelcome—and I’d seen him once before that.”

  “Where?”

  “The other night. I couldn’t sleep. I walked out on the balcony. He was just coming out of a bar across the street. Two women were with him, and someone was waiting for them in an automobile.”

  Sudden recollection of the night before stabbed at Bertha’s memory. She said, “Was it one of the horn-blowing brigade?”