“No.”
“Okay,” Mason said. “Pretend I’m your boy friend, and you’re making a date.”
“I can’t tonight,” she said. “I think I’m going to have to work. There’s been a bunch of stuff at the office I can’t understand. The boss is in some sort of a jam, and the place is lousy with detectives. They get in my hair… What’s that?… Well, I’m just talking to a boy friend. Haven’t I got a right to tell him why I can’t make a date?… Baloney, Mister. You mind your business, and I’ll mind mine… Hello, Stew, I guess I’m not supposed to talk. Anyhow, I can’t make it tonight.”
Mason said, “Della Street had a body to bury. Heard anything from her?”
“Uh huh.”
“An address?”
“Uh huh.”
Mason said, “Go down the hall to the rest-room, and then duck out to a telephone where you won’t be heard. Ring her and tell her to grab a portable typewriter and meet me at the St. Germaine Hotel just as soon as a taxicab can get her there. Got that straight?”
Gertie said, “Well, I’ll do it just this once, but don’t think you can pull that line on me all the time. You’re always having cousins come in from the country that need to be entertained. What did you try to date me up for if you knew she was coming?… It’s getting so that every time I check back on you, you’re chasing around to night spots with some dizzy blonde, and she always turns out to be a cousin or a sister-in-law. If you ask me, you’ve got too much of a family — all blondes.”
Mason chuckled and said into the telephone, “Well, you have to admit, Gertie, that it’s always a new one. You shouldn’t get peeved as long as I’m playing the field.”