A. Fair - Bats Fly at Dusk

Elsie Brand hurried through the door.

Bertha Cool pushed the typewriter chair back in front of Elsie’s stenographic desk, marched back into her own office, picked up the half-burned cigarette in the holder, fitted it to her lips, and dropped into the big swivel chair.

She was puffing slightly from her exertion.

“That little bastard,” she muttered to herself. “Joining the Navy! God, how I miss him! He’d have handled that without any fuss.”

Elsie Brand was back within thirty minutes. “Get him?” Bertha Cool asked.

Elsie Brand shook her head. A frown of annoyance crossed Bertha Cool’s forehead. “Why not?”

“Because,” Elsie Brand said, “I’m not Donald Lam. I’m not a detective; I’m a stenographer. What’s more, I think he was wise to me all the way.”

“What did he do?”

“Walked down to the corner, stopped in front of the blind man who’s our client, and dropped silver dollars into the cup — five of them.”

“Bowed his head every time a dollar hit the tin cup, and said, ‘Thank you, brother.’ He said it five times, very seriously and with considerable dignity.”

“And then?” Bertha asked.

“Then he crossed the street, started walking very fast. I stretched my legs, trying to keep up with him. He kept going until he caught a signal just as it was changing. Then he scooted across the street. I tried to follow him. The cop pushed me back, gave me a bawling out. A streetcar came along, and my man was gone.”

Bertha Cool said, “You should have gone after the street-car and—”

“Wait a minute,” Elsie Brand interrupted. “A taxi-cab was standing halfway down the block. I made frantic signals, and the driver came up. I climbed aboard and had the cab driver pass the streetcar three times. Every time we went past, I studied the passengers. I couldn’t see our man on the streetcar, so then I had the cab driver take me ahead of the street-car for two blocks and stop. I paid him off and caught the streetcar as it came along. Our man wasn’t aboard.”

Bertha said, with deep feeling. “Fry me for an oyster.”

It was exactly nine minutes before five o’clock when Elsie Brand opened the door of. Bertha Cool’s private office. She was quite evidently trying to keep excitement from her demeanour until after the door had been closed behind her. Then she said breathlessly, “He’s back.”

“Who’s back?”

“That witness who saw the accident.”

Bertha Cool gave that thoughtful consideration for several seconds before she said, “He wants to give in. He’s a dirty, damn blackmailer. I shouldn’t even give him the satisfaction of seeing him.”

Elsie Brand waited, saying nothing.

“All right,” Bertha said, “send him in.”

The man was smiling and affable as he entered the office. “Rather crude,” he said, “that shadowing job you tried on me. No hard feelings, eh, Mrs. Cool?”

Bertha didn’t say anything.

“I’ve been thinking things over,” the man went on. “Perhaps you were telling the truth. I’m going to make you a deal. The girl doesn’t know who hit her. I guess I’m about the only one who does. Now, that information isn’t doing me any good locked up in my notebook so I’m going to give you the girl’s name and address. It won’t cost you a cent. Go see her. Talk with her. She’s got a swell cause of action. Twenty-five per cent is what I want.”

“Twenty-five per cent of what?” Bertha asked.

“Of what she gets from the man who was driving the car. He’s probably insured. There’ll be a settlement.”

“I don’t have anything to do with that,” Bertha said. “I told you that before.”

“I know. You told me that. No argument about that. Forewarned is forearmed. But I’m telling you that if she wants to find out who hit her, it’s going to cost her a fat slice of her settlement. I’ll have a lawyer draw up an agreement all shipshape. Is it a deal?”

Bertha Cool clamped her lips together, shook her head with dogged obstinacy.

Her visitor laughed. “Don’t kid me. Of course, it’s a deal. You may not be interested in the lawsuit now, but you will be after you think it over. Well, you can always get me by putting an ad in the personal column.”

“What’s your name?”

“Opportunity — Mr. John Q. Opportunity.”

Bertha Cool said, “I tell you—”

“Yes, yes, I know,” he interrupted smoothly. “The girl you want is Josephine Dell. She lives in the Bluebonnet Apartments on South Figueroa Street. She didn’t go to a hospital at all.”

“Why not?” Bertha asked. “The man was going to take her to a hospital.”

“That’s right,” her visitor said. “He was going to. He wanted to see that she was examined by a doctor so that he’d know she wasn’t hurt, but for some reason she didn’t. The accident was Friday night. Saturday morning she woke up feeling stiff and sore. She telephoned the place where she worked and was told to stay home that day. Sunday she stayed in bed. She could get a few hundred for a settlement — but she doesn’t know who hit her.”

The man got up, lit a cigarette, took a deep drag. His droop-lidded eyes regarded Bertha Cool speculatively. “Now,” he said, “you see where I come in.”

Bertha Cool glanced toward the door, started to say something, then checked herself.

Her visitor smiled. “Going to make the old crack about where I go out, I suppose, and caught yourself in time. After all, Mrs. Cool, you can’t very well get along without me. Well, I’ll be rambling along. No charge for that information. It’s what you might call a free sample of my wares. When you want to get the information that will make real money, let me know. Good afternoon.” He sauntered on out of the office.

Bertha was ready for the street within ten seconds of the time the door had closed on her departing visitor.

Elsie Brand was closing up her typewriter desk as Bertha Cool came out of the other office. She glanced at her employer curiously, seemed on the point of asking whether Bertha had acquired the desired information, then apparently changed her mind. Bertha Cool volunteered no information.

The Bluebonnet Apartments was a typical Southern California apartment building containing for the most part, single apartments renting from twenty-seven-fifty to forty dollars a month. The sides were covered with brick. The front had a white stucco finish with little ornamental roofs projecting a few feet over doorways and windows. These roofs were covered with conventional red tile. The building was fifty feet wide and three stories in height. There was no lobby, and a list of names and buttons on the outside of the front door flanked the mailboxes.

Bertha Cool ran her eve down the list of names, catching that of Josephine Dell about midway in the column. Bertha’s competent, pudgy forefinger speared the button. She picked the earpiece from the hook, listened.

A young woman’s voice said, “Who is it, please?”

“A woman who wants to see you about your accident.”

The voice said, “All right,” and a few seconds later, the electric release on the door catch buzzed a signal for Bertha to enter.

It was a walk-up, and Bertha climbed the stairs with the slow-deliberation of one who is determined to conserve wind and energy, leaning slightly forward as she negotiated the steps, getting her legs upward, giving to her climb a peculiar jerky motion. She arrived at the apartment, however, without being out of breath and her knuckles pounded authoritatively on the door.

The young woman who opened the door was about twenty-five. She had red hair, an upturned nose, laughing eyes, and a mouth which seemed naturally inclined toward smiles.