“I’m sorry,” I said, and waited to be invited in.
She stood in the doorway. Over her shoulder I caught a glimpse of a folding wall-bed let down, the covers rumpled and the pillow-cases wrinkled.
She continued to stand in the doorway doubt, hostility and avarice all showing in her manner. “All I want is a cheque,” she said.
She was blonde, and I couldn’t see any dark line near the roots of her hair. She was wearing wrinkled orange pyjamas, a dressing-gown thrown over her shoulders and loosely held in front with her left hand. The back of the hand said she was about twenty-seven. With make-up, her face could have passed for twenty-two. I couldn’t get much of an idea of her figure, but she stood with the balanced posture of one who is young and lithe.
She said, “Oh, well! Come on in.”
I walked on in. The apartment was smelly with sleep. She jerked the covers back into position, propped herself on the edge of the bed, and said, “The comfortable chair’s over there in that corner. Drag it out. I have to move it when I let the bed down. What do you want?”
“I want to get some more particulars on your claim.”
“I’ve given you all the particulars,” she said. “I should have asked for two hundred dollars. Then you’d have settled for seventy-five, which is my actual damage. If you’re trying to chisel, don’t waste your time and mine. And don’t ever call me before three in the afternoon.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
There was a package of cigarettes and an ash-tray on a stand by the head of the bed. She reached out for a cigarette, lit it, and sucked smoke down deep into her lungs. “Go ahead,” she said.