A. Fair: Bats Fly at Dusk

“Oh, I wouldn’t want a thing for the nerve shock, just for the loss of time and my doctor’s bills.”

“Well, of course,” Bertha explained, “when you start collecting from an insurance company, there are certain expenses involved, and people usually try to get all they can, so that enough will be left after they pay expenses. But think it over, dearie. You have my card, and you can always get in touch with me.”

“You’re very kind, Mrs. Cool. Saturday and Sunday didn’t count, so I’ve only lost three days, so far. I get thirty a week, so the three days would amount to fifteen dollars, and the doctor charged ten. I’d want to collect twenty-five dollars from the insurance company.”

Bertha paused, her hand on the knob of the door. She said, “Don’t be a dope—” when knuckles sounded on the outside, a somewhat timid venturesome knock.

Josephine Dell said, “Open it, please.”

Bertha Cool opened the door.

A mild-mannered little man of fifty-seven or — eight, with a sandy moustache, slightly stooped shoulders, and blue eyes smiled at her. “You’re Miss Dell, aren’t you? I’m Christopher Milbers. I got through the outer door because I rang the wrong apartment. I’m sorry. I should have gone back out after I realized my mistake. I wanted to talk with you about my cousin. It was so sudden—”

“Not me,” Bertha said, standing to one side so that the man could see past her into the room. “This is Miss Dell. I was just calling on her.”

“Oh,” the man said apologetically.

“Come on in,” Josephine Dell called. “I won’t get up if you don’t mind, Mr. Milbers. I’ve been in an automobile accident. Nothing serious, but the doctor told me not to get up and down any more than necessary. I really feel that I know you. I’ve written quite a few letters to you at your cousin’s dictation.”

Milbers entered the room, beamed at Josephine Dell, and said solicitously, “You’ve been in an accident?”

She gave him her hand. “Just a minor accident. Do sit down.”

Bertha said, “Well, I’ll be going,” and started across the threshold.

“Just a moment, Mrs. Cool,” Josephine Dell said. “I think I’d like to talk with you some more about getting a settlement. Could you wait just a few moments?”

Bertha said, “I’ve really told you all I have to say. Only don’t be silly about the damages. If you want to go ahead with a really worth-while claim, get in touch with me. My telephone number’s on my card.”

“All right. Thank you, I will.”

Sitting in the early morning sunlight, his back against the granite blocks of the bank building, the blind man seemed even more frail than he had when Bertha Cool had seen him on the occasion of her previous report.

Bertha Cool tried to fool him as she approached by changing the tempo of her steps.

He said, without looking up, “Hello, Mrs. Cool.”

She laughed. “Thought I might fool you by changing my steps.”

“You can’t change the distinguishing features,” he said. “I knew you were walking differently, but I knew who it was. Have you found out anything?”

“Yes, I’ve located her.”

“Tell me, is she all right?”

“Yes.”

“You’re certain? She wasn’t badly hurt?”

“No, she’s all right now.”

“You have the address?”

“The Bluebonnet Apartments on Figueroa. She was working for a man who died.”

“Who was he?”

“A man named Milbers. He was a writer. Had some theories on history he was trying to incorporate into a book when he died.”

“The office was near here?” the blind man asked.

“Yes. Around the corner of the next block in the old loft building.”

“I remember the place — I mean what it looks like. It was there before I went blind.”

There was silence for a moment. Kosling seemed to be searching his memory as though trying to dig up some half-forgotten fact. Abruptly, he said, “I’ll bet I know who he was.”

“Who?”

“Her boss. He must have been the old man with the cane who walked with that peculiar dragging shuffle of the right foot. I’ve often wondered about him. It’s been about a week since I last heard him going past. A man who kept very much to himself. Been going past here for over a year now, but he’s never spoken to me, never dropped anything in the cup. Yes, that must have been Milbers. You say he’s dead?”

“Yes.”

“How did he die?”

“I don’t know. The girl told me he died. I gathered it was rather sudden.”

The blind man nodded his head. “He wasn’t in good health. That dragging of the right foot kept getting worse, particularly the last month or six weeks. You told her how you happened to be looking for her?”

“Yes,” Bertha said. “You didn’t tell me not to, and I thought it was all right. She kept thinking I was representing the insurance company and was going to offer to make a settlement for the automobile accident, so I told her about how I happened to be employed. It was all right, wasn’t it?”

“It was all right. How do we stand on money?”

“All square,” Bertha said. “You’ve given me twenty-five bucks, and that’s the amount of my bill. Twenty-five dollars. I didn’t have any expenses.”

“All right, thank you. Now that you’ve got to know me, I hope you’ll stop and pass the time of day with me when you’re coming by. I miss your partner very much. You haven’t heard anything from him, have you?”

“No.”

“I’d appreciate it very much if you’d let me know when you do.”

“All right, I will. Well, good luck.”

Bertha moved on down the street to the entrance of her office building, went up in the elevator, and heard Elsie Brand clacking away on the typewriter. She opened the door of the entrance office, said, “Hello, Elsie. I just—” and stopped in the middle of the sentence.

The tall man with the droopy eyes and the pendulant cigarette was sitting slouched in an easy chair, his ankles crossed in front of him, his hands thrust down into his trousers pockets. He looked up with impudent appraisal at Bertha Cool and said, “How did you come out?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. Did you get the job of shaking down the insurance company?”

Bertha said, “That wasn’t what I went for.”

“I know, I know. How about it? Do we make a deal or not?”

Bertha said, “I tell you I hardly mentioned it.”-

“I understand. Twenty-five per cent. Is it a deal?”

Bertha said irritably, “You don’t listen when I tell you in English. I guess I’ll have to learn Chinese and see if you understand that any better.”

“It’d be the same in any language,” he told her.

Bertha said, “I’ll take a gamble with you. I’ll pay you twenty-five dollars cash money for the information.”

He laughed at her.

“Well, that’s all there is to it,” Bertha said. “I’d be paying that out of my own pocket, because she hasn’t hired me to do anything with the insurance company. Anyway, she wouldn’t want to stick ’em on a settlement, just her doctor’s bill and compensation for the time she’s lost. She figures the total at twenty-five dollars.”

“That’s what she wants?”

“That’s right.”

“You’d educate her, of course.”

Bertha said, “I probably won’t have anything to do with it.”

“Maybe the insurance company would like to buy my notebook.”

“Perhaps it would. Why don’t you try it?”

“I may at that.”

“You probably have.”

“No. I’m strictly on the up-and-up. I wouldn’t alter my testimony for anyone. That’s why I didn’t go to this girl direct and get a cut from her. Some lawyer would smoke out what I’d done and raise the devil with me. But some private, confidential arrangement with you would be different. Then when some mouthpiece asks me if the plaintiff has offered to pay me anything, I’d just look wise and say, ‘The usual witness fees is all.’ ”