All Grass Isn't Green

16

Bertha Cool was in rare form. She teetered back and forth in her squeaky swivel chair; her eyes were as hard as the diamonds on her hands.

“Now, you listen to me, Mr. Milton Carling Calhoun,” she said. “You’re supposed to be a big businessman. You’re supposed to know your way around.

“What the hell was the idea of coming in here and getting us to go on a wild-goose chase, looking for Colburn Hale when what you really wanted was to find his girlfriend?”

Calhoun squirmed uneasily.

“I had heard that private detective agencies sometimes blackmailed their clients,” he said. “So I tried to conceal my background. I simply couldn’t afford to have my name associated with that of Nanncie Beaver. If I had told you what I really wanted... Well, I would have left myself wide open.”

“So,” Bertha Cool said, “you led with your chin. And what makes me sore is that fact that you came in here trying to put us on the defensive, pretending that you didn’t know anything about the agency, pretending that Donald was too slight to do the work, and that I wasn’t any good because I was a woman.

“Get out your checkbook, Mr. Milton Calhoun. I’m going to hit you between the eyes.”

“You agreed to a certain per diem,” Calhoun said weakly. “I will boost that, of course, but after all...”

Bertha came forward in her chair with a thump, leaned her elbows on the desk, glittered at Calhoun. And what happened?” she said. “You lied to us. You threw us off on a false track. You put Donald in terrific danger. You...”

“I know, I know. I’m sorry,” Calhoun said, “I’m prepared to pay something extra.”

“How much?” Bertha Cool asked.

“Bearing in mind that Donald Lam gave me the best legal advice I ever had,” Calhoun said, “I had intended to add a gratuity to the amount of the bill.”

“How much?”

Calhoun took a deep breath. “I want your complete silence,” he said. “No word of what I wanted must ever come out of this. I must have complete secrecy.”

“How much?” Bertha Cool asked.

Calhoun reached in his pocket and pulled out a check book. “I have made out a check for ten thousand dollars,” he said, “which I hope will cover the per diem expenses and the gratuity.”

Bertha’s jaw sagged open for a minute. She blinked her eyes a couple of times.

“Fry me for an oyster,” she said.

And then there was a flash of light as her jeweled hand reached for the check.

“And, for your confidential information,” Calhoun went on, “I am completely changing my life. I am sick and tired of the artificial existence I have been living thinking only of money, money, money.

“From now on I am going to try to develop m creative energy. In short, I am going to take up writing and I have a new address. It is Eight-seventeen Billinger Street. I am moving into the apartment vacated by Colburn Hale.”

And the guy positively beamed at us.

Bertha Cool folded the check and said, “Fry me for an oyster — no, damn it, poach me for an egg!”

Calhoun grinned. “Without breaking the yolk — sunny side up,” he said.

I reached across and shook the guy’s hand.