Bertha Cool was still down to her conservative 165. She’d put on a coat of sunburn from her deep-sea fishing, and the tanned skin contrasted with her gray hair. She came striding toward me with a push of muscular legs that made the New York lawyer lengthen his stride to keep up with her.
I moved forward to shake hands.
Bertha gave me a quick glance from those hard gray eyes of hers, said, “My God, Donald, you look as though you’d been drunk for a week.”
“It was the alarm clock.”
She snorted. “You didn’t have to get up any earlier than I did. This is Emory Hale, Emory Garland Hale, our client.”
I said, “How are you, Mr. Hale?”
He looked down at me, and there was a quizzical expression on his face as he shook hands. Bertha interpreted the expression. She’d seen it before on other clients.
“Don’t make any mistake about Donald. He weighs a hundred and forty with his clothes on, and his jack-knife and keys in his pocket, but he’s got an oversize brain, and enough guts for an army.”
Hale grinned then, and it was just the sort of grin I’d expected. He carefully placed the edges of his teeth together and pulled his lips back — probably just a mannerism, but you kept thinking he was afraid his dental plates would fall out if he gave them a chance.
Bertha said, “Where do we talk?”