“I thought you weren’t charging me any waiting time.”
“Not out there. I charged you waiting time here while you were telephoning the police and waiting for the squad car.”
“Well, I won’t pay it,” Bertha said indignantly. “The idea of charging waiting time on anything like that—”
“What did you expect I was going to do, stick around here and keep myself out of circulation? You’re the one that stopped and—”
“Give him one eighty-five,” Sergeant Sellers said to Bertha Cool.
“I’ll be damned if I do,” Bertha blazed. She took a dollar and fifty cents from her pocket, handed it to the cab driver, and said, “Take it or leave it. It’s all one with me.”
The cab driver hesitated a moment, looked at the police sergeant, then took the dollar and a half. When it was safely in his pocket, he delivered his parting shot. “She was in the house quite a while, Sergeant,” he said. “When she came out, she was running, but she was certainly in there long enough.”
“Thanks,” Sellers said.
Bertha glared at the cab driver as though she could have slapped his face.
“All right,” Sellers said to Bertha, “let’s go.”