A. Fair - Cats Prowl at Night

“When he cleans up this angle of the case he’s working on now.”

Twice Bertha announced truculently she was going to the wash-room. Her bodyguard silently acquiesced, plodded along behind her, took up his station in the corridor from which he could watch the door of the ladies’ room, and waited until Bertha Cool emerged. Whereupon he escorted her back to the office.

Bertha did some office work, scribbled a few personal letters, and tried her best to appear that she wasn’t scared stiff.

About six o’clock the officer telephoned a restaurant in the neighbourhood, explained the circumstances, and the restaurant sent up sandwiches and coffee.

“One hell of a way to eat dinner,” Bertha growled belligerently as she pushed back the empty plate and drained the last of the lukewarm coffee from the pottery coffee-pot.

She couldn’t get an argument with her guard over that. He said, “Isn’t it? I don’t like it either.”

At seven o’clock the telephone rang.

“I’ll answer it,” the officer said. He picked up the receiver and said, “Hello... Yeah... Okay. Sarge, I get you... uh huh. How soon?... Okay, good-bye.”

He hung up the receiver.

Bertha tried to make her expression hopeful, but had to fight back panic in her eyes.

“No dice yet,” her bodyguard said. “The guy won’t confess. The Sarge says I’m to stay on here for an hour or so. If something doesn’t happen by that time, we’ll have to take you down to headquarters and book you. Sorry, we tried to give you the breaks.”

“The breaks!” Bertha snorted with sarcastic emphasis.

“That’s what I said.”

“I heard you the first time.”

“You just heard the words. You didn’t get the idea.”

The situation remained static for another half-hour and then the man began to grow more communicative. “Saturday afternoon,” he said. “I was due to have a half-day off. This isn’t any treat for me. I’ve been taking a cold all day, too.”

“As far as I’m concerned you can go now,” Bertha told him.

He grinned, said abruptly, “This man Belder seems to have cut a pretty wide swath.”

Bertha didn’t say anything.

“That last letter sure gave the Sarge a kick. I’ll bet it was a load off your mind.”

Bertha picked up a pencil and started making aimless lines on a scratch-pad, giving her an excuse to lower her eyes so he might not read the expression in them. “You mean that third letter?” she asked.

“Uh huh. The one that dragged Imogene Dearborne into the mess.”

Bertha said, “That little — estimable young thing. I only had a chance to glance at the letter before Sergeant Sellers took it.”

“Called the turn on her, all right,” the officer said.

“She’s suing me for a hundred grand. The little twir — estimable young lady.”

The officer threw back his head and laughed. “What the hell makes her so estimable?”

“My lawyer says she’s estimable.”

“I get you.”

Bertha said, “As I remember that last letter, it was just a little ambiguous. It didn’t offer anything you could use as definite proof.”

“Registration at an hotel,” the officer said. “I don’t know what more you’d want— Say, it’s cold here. I’m feeling chilly.”

“They shut the heat off Saturday afternoons.”

“Cripes, I wish I had a drink.”

Bertha made rapid little triangles on the scratch-pad. “I’ve got a bottle in the cloak closet,” she observed.

“I’m not supposed to touch the stuff when I’m on duty,” he said, and then added in a burst of confidence, “That’s my weakness. I can lay off the stuff for months at a time, just take a drink or two and leave it alone, or get along without touching it altogether. Then something snaps. I get started drinking and the more I drink the more I want. I get so I just have to have it. That’s what’s holding me back on a promotion. If it weren’t for a couple of binges I’ve been on, I’d be sitting pretty right to-day.”

Bertha kept her eyes on her moving pencil point. “I never touch the stuff myself unless I’m real tired, or feel that I’m catching cold. I think it’s a lot better to have a couple of drinks than to get laid up with a cold. A cold raises hell with me.”

“It does with me too. Say, if you’ve got a bottle here, bring it out. You look like a good scout. I guess I can trust you not to say anything about it.”

Bertha brought out the bottle and a couple of glasses. The officer tossed off his drink, licked his chops, and looked hungrily at the bottle. Bertha poured him another one. That went the way of the first.

“That’s good hooch,” he complimented her.

“The best money can buy,” Bertha agreed.

“Lady, you saved my life. I was just beginning to get a chill.”

“Probably the flu coming on. Go right ahead, help yourself. That bottle was given to me by a client.”

The officer looked longingly at the bottle. “Nope,” he said ruefully, “I don’t drink alone. I haven’t got that low yet.”

“I’m drinking with you.”

“You’re still nursing that first drink.”

Bertha tossed off the whisky, poured two more glasses.

Under the influence of the liquor her bodyguard became loquacious and human. His name, it appeared, was Jack. He felt certain that the Sarge was trying to give Bertha the breaks; that Bertha was in bad, but that the Sarge was working, trying to get her out. She’d helped him on that Bat murder case, and the Sarge wasn’t one to forget favors. But Bertha certainly was in bad. Everything depended upon what happened when Belder came clean. If he exonerated Bertha that would be good enough for the Sarge.

Bertha wanted to know if Belder was softening up any.

“I think he is,” Jack told her. “The Sarge couldn’t tell me much over the telephone, but he said that he was making headway. He said he was hoping he could turn you loose before midnight.”

“Midnight’s a hell of a long way off,” Bertha said.

“If he has to book you, it’ll be a lot of midnights before you’re back on the job,” Jack warned, and then added hastily, “There, there, now, don’t get worked up over it, Bertha. I didn’t mean it exactly that way. Don’t worry. The Sarge will get you out all right. The Sarge is strong for you. You know that.” Bertha poured another drink.

Another twenty minutes and Jack had gravitated into the position of custodian of the whisky bottle. He had apparently forgotten his earlier compunctions about having Bertha keep up with him on the drinks. He would fill her glass, and then splash liquor into his own. By taking only a few sips at a time, Bertha managed to consume about one-third of the whisky the plain-clothes officer was drinking.

“Wish I could sit and sip it that way,” he confided. “I can’t. I have to toss it off — down the old hatch — that’s me! Can’t do anything in moderation. You know, Bertha, you’re a good egg. No wonder the Sarge likes you. Guess they must have turned the heat back on, didn’t they? I thought it was cold here, but it’s warm now, getting hot. Kinda close here, don’t you think?”

“Just about right for me,” Bertha said, her eyes out from behind her mask now, watching the flushed face, the watery eyes, of the officer in the chair across the desk from her. Jack pushed his big hands down into his trouser pockets, slid down in the chair, stretched his long legs out in front of him, and crossed his ankles.

“You have to work nights?” Bertha asked.

“Uh huh.”

“Don’t you have a hard time sleeping when you’re working nights?”

“Oh, you get used to it.” Jack lowered his eyelids. “Worst of it is that it gets your eyes after a while — the lights hurt. Close ’em once in a while and rest ’em — does ’em good. Doctor says there’s nothing like giving your eyes a rest once’n while.”