I picked up my hat. Bertha Cool struggled into her coat, put on a hat, and then looked at the two glasses of cognac on the table. She picked up one of the glasses, and motioned me towards another.
I said, “It’s a crime to drink that stuff fast.”
Bertha said, “Well, it would be a greater crime to let it go to waste.”
We exchanged glances over the glasses, and drank the smooth, clear, amber liquid.
On the way down, in the elevator, Bertha Cool said, “Every step we take gets us in that much deeper, Donald. We’ve got our necks stuck out pretty damn far.”
“It’s too late now to pull them back in,” I said.
She said, “You’re a brainy little squirt, all right, but the trouble with you is you don’t know when to stop.”
I didn’t argue it. We got a taxi and drove over to where the agency car was parked. We went out to the Normandie address in the agency car. Bertha spotted the operative. He said, “The man I was tailing went out. I followed your instructions and let him go.”
I said, “All right. Stay on the job. If a woman about fifty-five with grey hair, black eyes, and weighing about a hundred and sixty pounds comes out, tail her. Station your partner in the alley. If he sees any woman who answers that description, leave the house, have him tail her.”
“Check,” he said.