Bertha Cool pressed her thumb against the bell marked Josephine Dell, picked up the earpiece, and placed her lips near the mouthpiece of the telephone so as to be in a position to answer as soon as she heard a voice. After seconds had elapsed, Bertha pressed her thumb against the button once more. A worried look appeared on her face.
When the third pressure against the bell brought no response, Bertha rang the bell marked Manager.
After a few moments, a heavy-set woman whose flesh seemed to have no more consistency than jelly on a plate opened the door and smiled at Bertha. “We have some very nice vacancies,” she said in a high-pitched voice as though reciting a piece she had learned by heart. “There’s one very nice southern exposure, another apartment on the east. Both of these get plenty of sunlight and—”
“I don’t want an apartment,” Bertha Cool said. “I’m looking for Josephine Dell.”
The cordiality left the manager’s face as though she had reached up and lifted off a mask. “Well, there’s her bell,” she said irritably. “Ring it.”
“I have. She isn’t home.”
“All right, there’s nothing I can do about it.”
She turned away.
Bertha Cool said, “Wait a minute. I’m trying to get some information about her.”
“What do you want?”
“It’s very important that I get in touch with her, very important indeed.”
“There’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Can’t you tell me where she is, where I could locate her, or how I could get a message to her? Hasn’t she left any instructions with you at all?”
“None whatever. She has a young woman in the apartment with her, Myrna Jackson. If anyone will know where she is, it’ll be Miss Jackson.”
“How can I reach Miss Jackson, then?”
“She isn’t in?”
“No. No one answers the bell.”
“Then she isn’t in. There’s nothing I can do. Good day.”
The door slammed.
Bertha scribbled a note on the back of one of her cards. Miss Dell, call me immediately. It’s very important. There’s money in it for you.
She dropped this note into the box and was turning away when a taxicab slewed around the corner and came to a stop.
The nameless young man who had answered Bertha’s ad calling for witnesses to the accident alighted from the cab, poked at the meter, and stood with his back to the sidewalk, raking change for the cab driver.
Bertha marched purposefully toward him.
The cab driver, seeing her approach and thinking he had another fare, jumped out from behind the wheel to run around and hold the door open.
Bertha was within three feet of the passenger when he turned around and recognized her.
Bertha Cool said, with every evidence of satisfaction, “Well, that’s about what I thought you’d do. It isn’t going to do you any good; I got here first.” There was consternation on the man’s face.
“Where to?” the cabby asked.
Bertha gave him the address of her office, turned to grin triumphantly at the droopy man.
“So you beat me to it?”
“Yes.”
“How much did they offer?”
“None of your business,” Bertha told him.
“You got her address from me on the distinct understanding that you weren’t going to represent her.”
Bertha Cool said, “I can’t help it if an insurance company comes in and drops things into my life...”
“That isn’t fair to me.”
“Baloney,” Bertha Cool said. “You tried to play both ends against the middle.”
“I’m entitled to be in on this.”
The cab driver said to Bertha, “Are you ready to start or do I charge waiting time?”
“I’m ready to start,” Bertha said.
“Wait a minute. This is my cab.”
“No, it isn’t,” Bertha told him. “You’ve paid it off.”
“Did you see her and actually get her signed up?” the man asked.
Bertha grinned at him, a grin of complete satisfaction. Then the man suddenly hopped into the cab beside Bertha and said, “All right. I’ll ride back. I want to talk with her. We’ll both take the cab. Go ahead.”
The cab driver slammed the door, walked around, and got in beside the wheel.
Bertha said, “I’ve got nothing to talk over with you.”
“I think I have.”
“I don’t.”
“You’d never have got in on this at all if it hadn’t been for me.”
“Baloney. I put an ad in the paper. You thought you could make something out of it. You’ve chiselled in all the way along the line, trying to cash in on something.”
“They offered a thousand, didn’t they?”
“What makes you think so?”
“From what the adjuster said.”
“Oh, you followed him from my office and pumped him then?”
“I rode down in the elevator with him.”
“I thought you would.”
“Now, look, you can’t do this to me.”
“Why not?”
“You can get more than a thousand if you play it right. I’ll bet you could get twenty-five hundred inside of ten days.”
“A thousand suits me,” Bertha said, “and suits my client. After all, a thousand berries for a headache isn’t to be sneezed at.”
“But she could get a lot more. I saw the whole thing.”
“Whose fault was it?”
“You can’t pump me on that. She’s entitled to a lot more She had concussion.”
“Who told you so?”
“Her room-mate.”
“Well, it’s all settled now,” Bertha told him, “so there’s nothing for you to worry about.”
“I ought to have something out of this anyway. It wouldn’t hurt you any to cut me in for a hundred dollars.”
“Cut yourself in,” Bertha told him.
“I may, at that.”
Bertha said, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll make you exactly the same proposition I made in the first place. Twenty-five dollars and you forget the whole business and fade out of the picture.”
He settled back against the cushions with a sigh. “Okay,” he said. “It’s highway robbery, but you’ve made a deal.”
Bertha Cool entered the office and said to Elsie Brand, “Elsie, make out a receipt for this man to sign. Twenty-five dollars in full for account of any and all claims of any sort, nature, or description covering present claims and any contingencies that may arise from future developments. Follow the form of that receipt Donald Lam made out for the man to sign in that case a couple of months back.”
Elsie Brand whipped a letter out of her typewriter, jerked a sheet of paper out of the drawer in her desk, fed it into the roller and said, “What’s his name?”
“Damned if I know,” Bertha said, turning to the man.
“What’s your name?”
“Jerry Bollman.”
Bertha Cool said, “Sit down. I’ll get you the twenty-five.”
Bertha went into her private office, unlocked the desk, took out the cash box, unlocked it, took out twenty-five dollars, but waited to take it back to the outer office until her ears told her that Elsie Brand’s typewriter had quit clacking. Then she came marching out, took the receipt Elsie handed her, read it, pushed it in front of Jerry Bollman and said, “All right, sign here.”
He read the receipt and said, “My God, this signs away my soul.”
“More than that,” Bertha told him facetiously. “Otherwise it wouldn’t be worth the twenty-five bucks.”
He grinned at her maliciously, saying, “You’re damn smart, aren’t you?” and took the fountain pen Bertha Cool extended him. He signed the receipt with a flourish, gave it to her with his left hand, and held out his right for the two tens and the five which Bertha gave him.
Bertha handed the receipt to Elsie Brand. “File this.”
Bollman said, “I could go broke working for you.”
Bertha said, “Most witnesses tell what they know just by way of being decent.”
“I know,” Bollman said wearily. “I got cured of that a long time ago. Well, I’ll go down and buy a package of cigarettes. That and the expenses will just use up the twenty-five. Perhaps we can do business again some day.”
“Perhaps,” Bertha said, and watched him walk out.
“Thank God, he didn’t want to shake hands,” she told Elsie Brand. “Now ring up the residence of Harlow Milbers. Ask for Mrs. Nettie Cranning. Tell her Bertha Cool wants to speak with her on the telephone. Buzz my office when you get her.”
Bertha went into her private office and settled down to% a cigarette in her long, carved ivory holder. When the buzzer sounded, she picked up the receiver, said, “Hello,” and heard Mrs. Cranning’s voice saying, “Hello, Mrs. Cool.”
Bertha instantly radiated cordiality. “How do you do, Mrs. Cranning? I’m very sorry I bothered you, but I wanted to get in touch with Josephine Dell right away. I thought she might be out there. I hope I haven’t bothered you.”
“Not at all,” Mrs. Cranning said with equal cordiality. “She was here until about half an hour ago, then a man rang up and asked her to meet him. I didn’t get all that it was, but it was something very important about an automobile accident.”
“A man?” Bertha Cool asked.
“Yes.”
Bertha Cool was frowning. “You didn’t catch the name, did you?”
“Yes, I did, but I’ve forgotten it. I remember she wrote it down. Wait a minute— Eva, what was that name, the one who called Josephine Dell? How is that? Okay, thanks. Mrs. Cool wanted to know.”
Mrs. Cranning said into the telephone, “I have that name for you, Mrs. Cool. It was Mr. Jerry Bollman. She went somewhere to meet him.”
Bertha said, “Thank you,” hung up the telephone, and was halfway through the outer office before she realized the futility of her errand.
“What’s the matter?” Elsie Brand asked.
“The dirty, damn, double-crossing, two-timing pretzel. That guy’s so crooked he could use a corkscrew, for a straight edge.”
“What did he do?” Elsie Brand asked.
“Do!” Bertha said, her eyes glittering cold fire. “He invested fifty cents in taxicab fare to hook me for twenty-five smackers. He knew where I’d be. Probably followed me. Just because I saw him getting out of the taxicab and fumbling around for the fare, I thought he was one step behind me. In place of that, he was two paragraphs ahead.”
“But I don’t get it,” Elsie Brand said.
“Right now,” Bertha Cool said, “that guy is getting Josephine Dell’s signature on a dotted line that cuts himself a piece of cake to the tune of five hundred dollars. I thought I’d fooled him by pretending to be coming out of Josephine Dell’s apartment. I pretended I had her all signed up. He knew all along she wasn’t home. It was damn sharp practice — a dirty crook.”
“Who’s a crook?” Elsie asked.
“He is, Jerry Bollman. The son of a bitch deceived me.”