“Within an hour,” Bertha answered for me.
Ashbury rippled his back in a contortion which enabled him to get his hands on the arms of the chair. Using his arms, he pushed himself up and to his feet. “All right, come in a taxicab. Mrs. Cool has the address. I’ll go out and pave the way... Now remember, Lam. No one’s to know you’re a detective. The minute anyone finds that out, your goose is cooked.” He spun to Bertha Cool, and said, “You remember that, too. Don’t make any false moves. Alta’s nobody’s damn fool. She’ll find out if you make a single stumble. One boob play, and you’ve kicked a hundred dollars a day out the window.”
So Bertha was getting a hundred dollars a day, plus expenses. She was paying me eight when I worked, with a monthly guarantee of seventy-five bucks.
Ashbury said, “Get there in an hour, Lam, and you can meet the family tonight — all except Alta. She’ll be out somewhere, won’t get in before two or three o’clock in the morning. We have our workout at seven-thirty, breakfast at eight-thirty. And I’m not kidding about having you show me some of that jujitsu stuff. I want to get my muscles built up. I’m too flabby.”
He wiggled his narrow shoulders inside the padded coat, and it was surprising to see, when the tips of his shoulders touched the cloth, how much the tailor had been able to do with padding.
“Donald will be there,” Bertha Cool said.
After he went out, Bertha said, “Sit down.”
I sat on the arm of the chair.
She said, “There’s a lot of expenses in connection with running this business that you don’t know a damn thing about: rent, secretarial salaries, social security, income tax, occupation tax, stationery, bookkeeping, lights.”
“Janitor service,” I suggested.