Kerman chortled.
“Lady,’ I said, “maybe you don’t run after men, but a mousetrap doesn’t have to run after mice, either.’ Smart, huh? Well, it killed her. You needn’t look so damned sour. Maybe you have heard it before, but she hadn’t, and it knocked her dead.”
Then before I could hide the highball the door jerked open and Paula swept in.
Paula was a tall, dark lovely, with cool, steady brown eyes and a figure full of ideas my ideas, not hers. She was quick on the uptake, ruthlessly efficient and a tireless worker. It had been she who had encouraged me to start Universal Services, and had lent the money to tide me over for the first six months. It was entirely due to her ability to cope with the administrative side of the business that Universal Services was an established success. If I were the brains of the set-up, you could call her the backbone. Without her the organization would have folded in a week.
“Haven’t you anything better to do than sit around and drink?” she demanded, planting herself before the desk, and looking at me accusingly.
“What is there better to do?” Kerman asked, mildly interested.
She gave him a withering stare and turned her bright brown eyes on me again.
“As a matter of fact, Jack and I were just going out to beat up some new business,” I said, hastily pushing back my chair. “Come on, Jack. Let’s go and see what we can find.”
“And where are you going to look—Finnegan’s bar?” Paula asked scornfully.
“That’s a bright idea, sourpuss,” Kerman said. “Maybe Finnegan will have something for us.”