A. Fair - Owls Don't Blink

I thanked her and went back to the apartment. Bertha Cool was lounging back in a chair, smoking a cigarette, with a glass of Scotch and soda on the little table by the side of the chair.

“How you doing?” she asked.

“Not too good.”

“Like hunting for a needle in a haystack,” Bertha said. “My God, Donald, I’ve found the most wonderful restaurant.”

“Where?”

“Right up the street here.”

“I thought you’d had your one meal for the day. I didn’t know you were hungry. I just came back now to see if you wanted something to eat.”

“No, lover, not now. I find I get along better if I don’t let myself get too hungry. Just eat a little something to take the keen edge off my appetite.”

I nodded and waited.

A dreamy look of satisfaction came over Bertha’s face. She all but smacked her lips. “Gumbo with rice,” she said, “I thought it would be light.”

“Was it?”

“It was a meal, but what a meal.”

“Had enough?” I asked. “Want to go out for a bite to eat with me now?”

“Don’t you say food to me again, Donald Lam! I’ve had my quota for the day. I’ll have some tea and toast tonight and that’ll be all.”

I said, “Well, I’m going to grab a bite to eat and stay on the job.”

“What can I do?”

“Nothing yet.”

Bertha said, “I don’t know why I’m here.”

“Neither do I.”

She said, “That lawyer insisted on my coming. He said that after you’d found her I could talk with her better than you could. He had the money to pay for it, and since he was giving the party, I decided to attend.”

“That’s right.”

Bertha said, “It would be swell if we could get that bonus.”

“Wouldn’t it?”

“How do things look?”

“I can’t tell yet. Well, I’m on my way.”

I went back to Royal Street and walked down toward Canal, picking my way along the sidewalk which had been paved years ago by embedding huge, flat-surfaced rocks in the dirt and connecting them with cement. Some of the rocks had sunk more than others. Some of them had tilted slightly. The general effect was artistic, but not conducive to blind walking.

I was halfway to Canal Street when the idea struck me. I went into a telephone booth and started calling the business colleges.

The second one gave me everything I needed. No, they didn’t know any Edna Cutler, but a Miss Fenn had taken a course and had been a very apt pupil. Yes, they’d been able to place her. She was in one of the banks. She was secretary to the manager. Just a minute and they’d give me the address.

It was that simple.

The manager of the bank was a human sort of chap. I told him that I was trying to get some information which would enable me to close up an estate and asked him if I might talk with his secretary. He said he’d send her out in a few minutes.

Roberta Fenn looked exactly like her pictures. She was perhaps twenty-six from the standpoint of statistics, but she looked around twenty-two or perhaps twenty-three. She had a quick smile, clear, alert eyes, and a well-modulated, pleasant voice. “Something that you wanted to know?” she asked. “Mr. Black said you were trying to close up an estate.”

“That’s right,” I said. “I’m an investigator. I’m trying to find out something about a man who’s connected with a family named Hale.”

Her eyes showed me I’d drawn a blank.

I said, “He has a relative whose name I don’t know, but I believe you’re acquainted with him. I’m not certain exactly how he’s related to Hale.”

“You don’t know this man’s name?”

I said, “No.”

She said, “I don’t have a very wide circle of acquaintances here.”

I said, “This man is tall. He has a high forehead, rather bushy eyebrows, and his hands are very thin with long, tapering fingers. His arras are long. He’s about fifty-five.”

She was frowning thoughtfully as though searching her mental card index.

I watched her closely, said, “I don’t know whether it’s just a habit or whether his teeth don’t fit. Whenever he smiles, he—”

I saw the expression change on her face.

“Oh,” she said and laughed.

“You know who I mean?”

“Yes. How did you happen to come to me?”

I said, “I heard he was in New Orleans and someone said he was going to look you up on a matter of business.”

“But you don’t know his name?”

“No.”

She said, “Archibald Smith is his name. He’s from Chicago. He’s in the insurance business up there.”

“Do you have his Chicago address?”

“Not with me,” she said. “I have it written down at home.”

“Oh!” I let my face show disappointment.

“I could look it up and have it for you tomorrow.”

“That would be fine. Have you known him long, Miss Fenn?”

She said, “No. He came to New Orleans about three or four weeks ago and was here for a couple of days. A friend of mine had given him a letter to me — asked me to show him around a little bit, and I showed him some of the more typical sights — you know, the restaurants and bars and things a tourist wants to see.”

“The French Quarter?” I asked.

“Oh, yes.”

I said, “I suppose that’s rather an old story to you people who live here, but it’s interesting to the tourists.”

She said, “Yes,” noncommittally.

I said, “I’d like very much to get in touch with Mr. Smith. I feel quite certain that he’s related to the party I’m looking for. I wonder if it would be possible for me to get that information this evening.”

“Why — I could get it for you after I went home.”

“Do you have a telephone?”

“No. There’s a booth in the building, but it’s hard to call in there. I could call out all right.”

I glanced at my wrist watch, a glance which brought her back to the realization that she was a working girl and this time was being taken from the bank. I saw her shift her position uneasily as though anxious to get the interview over with.

I said, “I don’t want to be persistent. Is your apartment near here?”

“No. It’s pretty well out on St. Charles Avenue.”

I said suddenly, “Let me be here with a taxicab when you get off work. You can jump in the taxi, and I’ll drive down to your apartment house. You can give me the information I want. It won’t take you as long to go down in a cab as it does in a streetcar, and—”

“All right,” she said, “I’m off work at five.”

“The bank will be closed then?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Where shall I meet you — if the bank isn’t open?”

“Right by that street door over there.”

I said, “Thank you very much, Miss Fenn, and I appreciate what you’ve done very much.”

I raised my hat, walked out of the bank, went up to the hotel, put a Do Not Disturb sign on my room, rang up the telephone operator, told her to call me at 4:30, and tumbled into bed for a two-hour sleep.

Roberta Fenn was on time to the minute. She came out looking trim, tailored, and cool. Her steady, hazel eyes were amused about something, as though there were a joke she might have shared if she’d wanted to.

I motioned to the cab driver who was waiting at the curb, and he jumped out and held the door open for us.

Settled back against the cushions, Roberta flashed me a quick glance and said, “So you’re a detective?”

“Uh huh.”

She said, “I’d always had ideas about detectives.”

“What sort of ideas?”

“Oh, big, powerful men who try to browbeat you, or sinister people in disguises.”

“It’s hardly safe to generalize.”