Erle Gardner - Turn on the Heat

After a while, a taxi drove up. Bertha stayed on inside, talking with the clerk. The cab driver went in. A few minutes later, Bertha Cool came out through the glass-panelled door to the sidewalk, walking in that smooth-flowing manner which was so characteristic of her.

The cab driver on one side and I on the other helped her get in the cab.

“Where to, ma’am?” the driver asked.

“Straight down the street,” I said. “Drive slow.”

I got in the cab. The driver pulled down the flag and started.

“Get them?” I asked.

“Yes, it’s easy.”

“Tell me about the day operator.”

“Her name’s Frieda Tarbing. She lives at 119 Cromwell Drive. She comes to work at seven o’clock in the morning and stays on until three in the afternoon. She’s a good scout with sex appeal. The afternoon operator’s a pill but highly efficient. Frieda Tarbing isn’t quite as skilful, but she’s easy on the eyes. The clerk is quite sure that she’s the one who is in love with my nephew, says the afternoon operator isn’t in love with anyone.”

“That,” I said, “makes it easier.”

I slid back the window in the partition and said to the cab driver, “119 Cromwell Drive.”

Bertha Cool settled back against the cushions and said, “I hope to God you know what you’re doing, lover.”

I said, “That makes two of us.”

She half turned her head, swung her eyes all the way around to look at me under half-closed lids. “You get me in any more jams, lover, and I’ll wring your damn neck.”

I didn’t say anything.

The cab made time through the deserted streets. The place we wanted was an apartment house with an individual bell signal on the front panel. I found the Tarbing name and held my finger against the button.

While I was ringing the bell, I said to Bertha Cool, “It’s up to you to get us in. Tell her you have to see her, that there’s money in it for her. She won’t let a man in at this hour of—” A speaking-tube next to Bertha’s ear shrilled into a whistle, and then a voice, which didn’t sound too annoyed, said, “What do you want?”

Bertha Cool said, “This is Mrs. Cool. I have to see you about a business matter — a chance for you to pick up some money. It’ll only take just a minute. I can run up and explain the situation to you and be out, all inside of five minutes.”

“What sort of a business proposition?”

“I can’t explain it to you here. It’s very personal, but there’s a chance for you to pick up a nice little piece of change.”

The voice through the speaking-tube said, “All right, I’ll bite. Come on up.”

The electric door-catch release buzzed into action. I pushed open the door, and held it for Bertha Cool.

Coming in from the fresh air of the night, the apartment-house corridor was thick with smell. We found an elevator, rattled up to the fourth floor, and walked back to Frieda Tarbing’s apartment. There was light showing over the transom, but the door was closed and locked.

Bertha Cool tapped on the panels.

“Who is it?” a voice asked.

“Mrs. Cool.”

The voice on the other side of the door said, “I’ll have a look at you first.”

The bolt turned, a chain rattled, and the door swing back about three inches, leaving a crack just big enough for a pair of dark, sparkling eyes to take in Bertha Cool’s big frame. Bertha moved her hand so the diamond glittered, and Frieda Tarbing rattled the chain loose, and said, “Come on in — good heavens, I didn’t know there was a man with you! Why didn’t you say so?”

Bertha Cool sailed on into the room and said, “Oh, that’s just Donald. Don’t mind him.”

Frieda Tarbing went back to the bed, kicked off her slippers, pulled the covers up, and said, “Find a couple of chairs that haven’t clothes on them. Perhaps you’d better close the windows.”

Her hair was too dark to be brown. It wasn’t exactly black. Her eyes were alert, curious, and bubbling with life. She’d wakened from a sound sleep looking as fresh as though she’d just come back from a morning walk. It was a face that could get by anywhere. She said, “All right. What is it?”

I said, “My aunt has just rented an apartment at the Key West Apartments.”

“What’s your aunt’s name?”

“Mrs. Amelia Lintig.”

“Where do I come in?”

I said, “My aunt is a widow. She has a lot of money and very little sense. A man who intends to grab off all her cash is making a play for her. I want to put a stop to it.”

The eyes looked me over without any particular enthusiasm. She said, “I see. You’re a relative. You hope that some day auntie will kick off and leave you the dough. In the meantime, she wants to play around and use it up. You don’t like that. Is that right?”

“That,” I said, “is not right. I don’t ever want a dime of her money. I just want her to be sure what she’s getting into. If she wants to marry this fellow on her own, that’s all right by me. But apparently he’s blackmailing her. He has something on her. I don’t know what it is. Probably it’s something serious. I think he’s convinced her that she could be called as a witness against him or he could be called as a witness against her on some kind of a criminal action, but I wouldn’t be knowing about it.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Listen in on her telephone tomorrow morning.”

“Nothing doing.”

I said, “You listen in on the switchboard when she talks with this chap. If they’re billing and cooing, that’s quite all right by me. I step out of the picture. But if he’s holding something over her head or talking about a crime, I want to know about it. There’s one hundred bucks in it for you.”

“That,” she admitted, “is different. How do I know there’s a hundred bucks in it for me?”

“Because,” I said, “you get the hundred bucks right now. It’s easier for us to take a chance on you than for you to take a chance on us.”

She said, “It would cost me my job if anyone knew about it.”

“No one,” I said, “will ever know about it.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Just notify me when she calls this man. If it’s a mushy conversation, I step out of the picture. If it’s blackmail, I want to put the cards on the table with her and say, `Look here, Aunt Amelia, you give me the lowdown on this before you do anything rash. ’”

Frieda Tarbing laughed, extended her hand, and said, “Gimme.”

I said to Bertha Cool, “Give her a hundred.”

Bertha, looking as though she had a mouthful of vinegar, opened her handbag, counted out a hundred dollars, and handed the bills over to Frieda Tarbing.

“When you see me,” I said, “don’t let on that you know me.”

She said, “Say, listen, if you think I’m that dumb, maybe I’d better coach you a bit. This is absolutely between us. I need the hundred bucks, but I need my job, too. Don’t make any dumb plays. The day clerk has been making passes at me, didn’t get to first base, and is just looking for a chance to trip me up on something.”

I said, “It’ll be okay. I’m going in to see Aunt Amelia early in the morning. When I go out, I’ll slip you a note with a number on it. When you get the dope, call me at that number. If the conversation sounds like a mushy, romantic one, you simply say, ‘You’ve lost that bet.’ If it sounds as though there s a crime mixed up in it, say, ‘You’ve won your bet.’ ”

“Okay,” she said. “Open that window as you go out, and switch out the light. I’m going to get another forty winks before the alarm goes off. Bye-bye.”

She rolled up the bills, shoved them in the pillow-case, and straightened out on the bed.