“What is it?” Bertha asked.
“May I come in, Mrs. Cool?” Elsie Brand asked.
Bertha moved toward the door. “What is it, Elsie?”
Elsie slid the door open a few inches, slipped through the opening, pulled the door tightly closed behind her.
“Nunnely’s out there,” she said in a low voice.
Belder twisted the fingers of his hands nervously. “Oh, my God!”
Bertha pushed back her chair. “You leave this baby to me,” she said to Belder. “He’s my meat.”
“Don’t let him know I’m here,” Belder said in a half whisper. “If he thinks we’re working together he—”
“I tell you to leave it to me,” Bertha said. She turned to Elsie Brand. “Tell him I’m busy, that I can’t see him at all today. If he wants to see me, he’ll have to make an appointment, and the earliest available moment I have open is at ten-thirty tomorrow morning.”
Elsie nodded, slipped quietly out through the door.