Chapter Nine
Bertha Cool was dozing. She was fully dressed, and her door was unlocked. After I’d opened it, I stood on the threshold, watching her stretched out in a chair, her head tilted slightly to one side, her breath coming rhythmically in gentle snores.
I said, “Hello, Bertha. Been to bed and getting up, or just waiting—”
She jerked her eyes open, and sat up in the chair.
There was no period of transition while she was groggy with sleep. One second she had been snoring gently, her lips puffing slightly outward with every exhalation. Now, she was wide awake staring at me with those hard, glittering eyes. “My God, Donald, if this isn’t the damnedest town. Did they jerk you off the train?”
“Yes.”
“They told me they were going to. I said I’d sue ’em for damages if they did. What did you tell them?”
“Nothing.”
“You didn’t give them any satisfaction?”
“Not that I know of.”