“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.”
Bertha watched him with the intent speculation of a cat concealed in the shadows watching a bird hopping around in the nearby sunlight.
Jack’s head nodded a couple of times, jerked forward, then snapped back and his eyes popped open with instant wakefulness.
Bertha picked up the pencil and started on her triangles. She was, she realized, having some trouble getting the lines of the triangles to meet. There was a roaring in her ears, and when she turned her head quickly, the room had a tendency to keep on spinning for a moment after she brought her head to a rest; but her mind was perfectly clear.
“Did Sellers arrest Imogene Dearborne?” she asked.