After a while she said, almost musingly as though thinking out loud, “For a little runt, you draw a hell of a lot of water.”
“What do you mean?”
She said, “I was running a detective agency. It was a run-of-the-mill agency. Most of the better-class outfits won’t handle political stuff, and won’t handle divorce stuff. I’d handle anything. My business wasn’t always the most savoury, but it was a nice, routine business. I made some money out of it, not a hell of a lot, but enough to get by. You enter the picture. I hire you to work for me, and the first thing I know, you’re dragging me so deep into murder cases that I’m in right up to my neck. I’ve ceased to be a detective and become an accomplice. The tail’s not only wagging the dog, but it’s shaking hell out of him.”
I said, “Forget it. You’re making money, aren’t you!”
Bertha Cool looked down at her big, firm breasts, at her big thighs, and said, “I hope I don’t lose weight worrying. I was so comfortable the way I was — just like a foot in an old shoe, and now look at me. Lover, do you know that if we don’t pull this case out of the fire, we’re going to be in jail?”
I said, “There’s lots of ways of getting out of jail.”
Bertha said, “Put that in writing and send it to the guys up in San Quentin. They might be interested.”
I didn’t say anything, and we sat for a while in silence. First Bertha’d look at her wrist watch, then I’d look at mine. Then I’d look out of the window, and Bertha would light another cigarette.
The street in front of the hotel furnished the only variation. A bakery wagon made some deliveries. An occasional housewife would sally forth to do some shopping. A couple of elderly people who looked like tourists spending a few months in Southern California strolled out of the hotel, got in a car with a New York licence plate, and drove leisurely away. The sky was blue and cloudless. The sun beat down, throwing intense, black shadows which gradually shortened.
I went back to the bed, propped myself up with pillows, and read the rest of the news in the paper. Bertha Cool sat in the chair, to all outward appearances calmly serene.