Bertha said, “Keep your shirt on, lover. She’s all right.”
“What makes you think so?”
“The only person she could have identified was our client. You know that he wouldn’t do anything like that.”
I read through the article and said, “There was blood in the apartment!”
Bertha Cool said, “Don’t worry, Donald. She’s all right. If they’d wanted to kill her, they’d have simply killed her there in the apartment, and the police would have found her body. The fact that she isn’t there means that she’s alive. The police will find her. They’re pretty thorough, you know, when they get on the job.”
I started pacing the floor and said, “I’d like to think you’re right.”
“Don’t get all stewed up,” she said. “There’s nothing you can do to help. We’ve got this other thing to handle. You’ve got to keep your mind clear.”
I paced the floor for a while, smoked a couple of cigarettes, and went back to read the paper again, and then went and stood looking out of the window.
Bertha Cool smoked in comfortable silence. After a while she called the office and talked with Elsie Brand. She hung up and said, “The cops are looking for you at the office, lover. I guess those boys in Santa Carlotta mean business.”
I let on that the information didn’t even interest me.