“Detective did you say?” Ashbury asked.
Hashita said, “Now I show you slowly please.”
Bertha Cool kept her eyes on us. “Yes. B. Cool Confidential Investigations. That’s Donald Lam doing the wrestling.”
“He’s working for you?”
“That’s right.”
Hashita took a rubber-bladed dagger from his loincloth and presented the hilt to my fingers.
“He’s a little runt, but he’s brainy,” Bertha Cool went on, talking over her shoulder. “You wouldn’t believe it, but he was a lawyer, got admitted to the bar. They kicked him out because he told someone how to commit a murder and go scot-free. Smart as a steel trap—”
Hashita said, “Stab please with knife.”
I grabbed the knife and doubled my right arm. Hashita stepped smoothly in, caught my wrist, and the back of my arm, pivoted, and I went up in the air.
As I got to my feet I heard Bertha Cool say, “... guarantee satisfaction. A lot of agencies won’t handle divorce cases and politics. I’ll handle anything there’s money in. I don’t give a damn who it is or what it is, just so the dough’s there.”