Owls Don't Blink

Chapter Six

My feet on the steep, wooden stairs sounded like a herd of horses walking over a wooden bridge. I fitted my latchkey and opened the door of the apartment.

Bertha Cool was stretched out in the easy chair. Her thick, capable legs were thrust out straight in front of her, the feet propped on a cushioned ottoman.

She was snoring gently.

I switched on the lights in the center of the room. Bertha slept on peacefully, her face relaxed into a smile of cherubic contentment.

I said, “When do we eat?”

She awoke with a start. For a moment she was blinking the lights out of her eyes, taking in the strange surroundings, trying to find out where she was and how she’d got there. Suddenly realization dawned, and her hard little eyes glittered into mine. “Where the hell have you been?”

“Working.”

“Well, it’s a wonder you wouldn’t let me know.”

“I’m letting you know now.”

She snorted.

“What have you been doing?” I asked gently.

Bertha said, “I never was so damn mad in my life.”

“What happened?”

“I went to a restaurant.”

“Again?”

“Well, I thought I’d better look around. I don’t know how long I’m going to be here, and I’ve heard so much about some of the famous places in New Orleans.”

“What happened?”

“The food was wonderful,” Bertha said, “but the service—” She snapped her fingers.

“What was wrong with it? Wasn’t there enough of it?”

“There was too damn much! It was one of those places where the waiters try to make you feel on the defensive. They treat you as though you were a worm in an apple. ‘Now, Madame should have this,’ ” she said, in an attempt to imitate a waiter speaking with a French accent. “ ‘Madame wall, of course, want white wine with the fish, and red wine with the meat. Perhaps, if Madame is not familiar with the vintages, Madame will accept my selection?’ ”

“What did you tell him?” I asked, grinning.

“I told him to go to hell.”

“Did he?”

“He did not. He hovered around the table, sputtering and telling me what I should eat. I wanted some tomato catsup on my steak, and what do you think he told me? He told me that he wasn’t allowed to bring tomato catsup for steaks. I asked him why not, and he said because it would hurt the chef’s feelings. The chef made such a marvelous sauce; it was world-famous. Putting catsup on steaks was only done by the very crude persons who had no palate.”

“And then?”

“Then,” Bertha said, “I pushed back my chair and told him if the chef was so damned solicitous about the steak, he could eat it. And to present the check to his chef along with the steak.”

“And you walked out?”

“Well,” Bertha said, “they stopped me before I got to the door. There was quite a fuss. I finally compromised by paying for the part of the dinner I’d eaten. But I was damned if I’d pay for the steak. I told them that belonged to the chef.”

“Then what?”

“That was all. I started back here, but stopped in at a little restaurant up on the corner, and really enjoyed myself.”

“The Bourbon House?”

“That’s it. Damn these places where they try to put the customer on the defensive.”

“They want you to realize you’re eating in a world-famous place. They cater only to the élite,” I pointed out.

“The hell they do! The place was jammed with tourists. They’re the ones the place caters to. Phooey! Telling me what I’m going to eat and what I’m not going to eat, and then expecting me to pay the bill. Famous eating place, eh? Well, if you ask me—”

I settled down on the studio couch, reached for a cigarette, said, “Can you reach Hale by telephone in New York?”

“Yes.”

”At night?”

“Yes. I’ve got his residence number, as well as his office number. Why?”

I said, “Let’s go back to the hotel and call him.”

“What do you want to call him about?”

“To tell him we’ve found Roberta Fenn.”

Bertha jerked her feet down off the cushion. “I don’t suppose this is one of your attempts at being funny?”

“It isn’t.”

“Where is she?”

“In an apartment house down on St. Charles Avenue, the Gulfpride.”

“Under what name?”

“Her own.”

Bertha said softly, “Fry me for an oyster! How did you do it, lover?”

“Just leg work.”

“There’s no question it’s this same girl?”

“She matches her photographs.”

Bertha heaved herself up out of the chair. “Donald,” she said, “you’re wonderful! You certainly do have brains! You’re marvelous! How did you do it?”

“Just running down a lot of clues.”

She said, with genuine fondness in her voice, “I don’t know what I’d do without you. You’re marvelous, lover! I mean you really are! You — why, dammit to hell!”

“What’s the matter?”

Her eyes glittered. “This damned apartment. You said you rented it by the week?”

“Yes.”

“We can’t get any money back if we move out.”

“I guess not.”

“Well, of all the damn fools! I might have known you’d do something like that. Honestly, Donald, I sometimes think you’re crazy when it comes to money matters. We’ll probably be leaving here tomorrow, and here we are stuck with this apartment for a whole week.”

“It’s only fifteen bucks.”’

“Only fifteen bucks,” Bertha said, her voice rising. “You speak as if fifteen dollars were—”

I said in a low voice, “Hold it. People coming up the stairs.”

She said, “I think that’s the outfit on the second floor. There’s a man and woman who—”

The steps paused abruptly. Knuckles sounded on our door.

I said hurriedly, “Answer the door. It’s your apartment from now on.”

Bertha marched across the apartment, her heels pounding the floor. She put her hand on the doorknob, paused, and asked, “Who’s there?”

A man’s voice, cultured, well modulated, said, “We’re strangers. We’d like to ask you a question.”

“What about?”

“I think it would be better if you opened the door so we didn’t have to shout.”

I could see Bertha thinking things over. There were two of them, whoever they were. Long training had made Bertha cautious. She sized me up as though wondering just how much help I’d be in a fight, then slowly opened the door.

The man who made a smiling bow was evidently the owner of the well-modulated voice. His companion, standing a pace or two behind, wouldn’t go with that type of voice.

The man in front held his hat in his hand. The man behind kept his hat on, his eyes studying Bertha Cool, taking in every detail of her appearance. Abruptly he saw me, and his eyes jumped to mine with a startled quickness which indicated apprehension.

The man who had been doing the talking said, “You’ll pardon me, I’m certain. I’m trying to get some information, and I think perhaps you might be able to help me.”

“More probably not,” Bertha said.

He wore a suit of clothes which had netted some tailor at least a hundred and fifty berries. The hat he was holding in his hand was a pearl-gray Homburg which had set him back around twenty bucks. Everything about the man spoke of quiet class. He seemed to have dressed with the scrupulous care he’d have taken in arraying himself for an Easter-morning parade. He was slender, graceful, suave.

The man who was standing behind him wore a suit which was in need of pressing. It was a ready-made, obviously tailored for a man of different build, and re-tailored in a haberdashery fitting room. He was in the fifties, barrel-chested, tall, tough, and watchful.

The man with the well-modulated voice was saying quite persuasively to Bertha, “If we could step inside for just a moment, we’d prefer that the other tenants in the building didn’t hear what we’re discussing.”

Bertha, blocking the door, said, “You’re doing the talking. I don’t give a damn how many people hear me listen.”

He laughed at that, a cultured laugh which showed genuine amusement. His eyes took in Bertha’s gray-haired belligerency in a survey which showed awakening interest.

“Go ahead,” Bertha said, irritated at his appraisal. “Either drop a nickel or hang up.”

He took a card case from his pocket with something of a flourish, jerked a card halfway out as though intending to give it to Bertha Cool, then let it stay there. “I’m from Los Angeles. My name is Cutler, Marco Cutler.”

I looked at Bertha’s face to see if she got it. From all I could see, she hadn’t.

Cutler said, “I am trying to get information concerning my wife.”

“What about her?”’ Bertha asked.

“She lived here.”

“When?”

“As nearly as I can tell, it must have been around three years ago.”

Bertha, caught off guard, said, “Oh, you mean she — that is—”

“Exactly. Right here in this apartment,” Cutler said.

I moved forward. “Perhaps I can be of some assistance. I’m subletting the apartment to this lady. She’s just moving in. Do I understand that you were living here also?”

“No. I was in Los Angeles, carrying on my work. My wife came on here and had this address. As I understand it, she lived in this very apartment.”

He whipped some folded papers from his inside pocket, unfolded them, looked at something, nodded, and said, “That’s right.”

The big man standing behind him seemed to feel called upon to say something.

“Dat’s right,” he agreed.

Cutler turned to him quickly. “This is the place, Goldring?”

“This is the place. I was standing right here when she opened—”

Cutler interrupted hastily: “I appreciate, of course, that it’s a forlorn chance, but I couldn’t locate the landlady tonight, and I was thinking that perhaps you might have been here for some time, might have known something of the previous tenants, and would be willing to help me.”

Bertha said, “I’ve been here about five hours—”

I laughed and said, “I’m the one that’s been here for some time. Wouldn’t you gentlemen care to come in and sit down for a moment?”

“Thank you,” Cutler said. “I was hoping you’d suggest that.”

Bertha Cool hesitated a moment, then stood to one side of the door. The two men came in, glanced quickly at the bedroom, walked across to the room which looked out on the balcony over the street.

Goldring said, “That’s Jack O’Leary’s Bar over there.”

Cutler laughed. “I recognized it, but I was trying to reconstruct in my mind the roundabout method by which we arrived. The street seems to be running about ninety degrees off.”

Goldring said, “You’ll get used to it,” appropriated the comfortable chair in which Bertha had been sitting, raised his feet to the ottoman, and said, “Don’t mind if we smoke, do you, lady?”

He scratched a match on the sole of his shoe before Bertha had a chance to reply. She said, rather shortly, “No.”

Cutler said, “Won’t you be seated. Miss — or is it Mrs.?”

I interrupted hurriedly before Bertha could give her name, “It’s Mrs. Won’t you gentlemen be seated?”

Goldring shifted his eyes and looked at me through cigarette smoke as though I’d been a fly crawling along the top of a piece of pie he had intended to eat.

Cutler said, “I’m going to be frank with you — very frank. My wife left me some three years ago. Our domestic life hadn’t been entirely happy. She came here to New Orleans. It was only after some difficulty that I found her.”

“Dat’s right,” Goldring said. “I sure had to work on dat dame.”

Cutler went on, in that velvet-smooth voice, “The’ reason that I was so anxious to find her is that I’d come to the conclusion our marriage would never again be a happy one. Much as I regretted to do so, I decided to divorce her. When love ceases to exist, marriage becomes—”

Bertha sat down uncomfortably on the studio couch, interrupted to say, “Forget it! You don’t need to palaver around with me. She left you, and you decided to change the lock on the door so she couldn’t come back. I don’t blame you. What’s that got to do with me?”

He smiled. “You’ll pardon me if I comment upon your refreshing individuality. Yes, I won’t bother about mincing words, Mrs. — er—”

I said, “Okay then, let’s get to the point, because we were just going out to dinner. You decided to file suit for divorce. I take it Goldring here found her and after he found her, served the papers.”

“Dat’s right,” Goldring said, looking at me with puzzled respect as though trying to find out how I knew.

“And now,” Cutler said with a subtle note of indignation creeping into his voice, “years after the matter has been entirely disposed of, I understand my wife is intending to claim the papers were not actually served upon her.”

“Indeed,” I said.

“Exactly! It is, of course, preposterous. Fortunately, Mr. Goldring remembers the occasion very vividly.”

“Dat’s right,” Goldring said. “It was about three in the afternoon on the thirteenth of March, 1940. She came to the door, an’ I asked her was her name Cutler an’ did she live here. She said she did. I’d found out before de apartment was rented to Edna Cutler. Then I asked her was her name Edna Cutler, an’ she said, ‘Yes,’ an’ then I took the original summons, the copy of the summons, an’ a copy of the complaint, an’ I soived the papers on her right while she was standing in that door.”

Goldring motioned toward the door which led to the hall.

Cutler said, “My wife now claims that she wasn’t even in New Orleans at the time. However, Mr. Gold-ring has identified a picture of her.”

Bertha started to say something, but I nudged her leg with my knee, cleared my throat, frowned at the carpet as though trying to recall something, and said, “I take it, Mr. Cutler, what you want to do is to prove definitely that it was your wife who was living in this apartment?”

“Yes.”

“And was soived with papers,” Goldring said.

I said, “I have been here only a short time, on this trip; but I’m quite well acquainted around New Orleans, and I’ve been here several times. I think I was here two years ago. Yes, I think it was exactly two years ago. I was living in an apartment across the street. Perhaps I could identify Mrs. Cutler’s picture.”

His face lit up. “That’s exactly what we want. People who can prove that she was living here at the time.”

He flashed a slender, smooth-skinned hand to the inside of his coat, emerged with a small envelope. From this he took three photographs.

I studied the photographs a long time. I wanted to be certain I’d know this woman when I saw her again.

“Well?” Cutler asked.

I said, “I’m just trying to place her. I’ve seen her somewhere, but I don’t think I have ever met her. I’ve seen her before. That’s certain. I can’t remember whether she had this apartment. It may come to me later.”

I nudged Bertha to get a good look at the pictures. I needn’t have bothered. Cutler reached out his hand for the photographs. Bertha snatched them from me and said, “Let’s take a good look at her.”

We studied the pictures, looking at them together. I have a habit of trying to reconstruct character from photographs. This girl was about the same build as Roberta. The faces were only vaguely similar. Roberta had a straight nose, eyes that could be quizzical or thoughtful. This girl looked more of the light-headed, light-hearted type. She would laugh or smile or cry just as the mood happened to strike her, but she wouldn’t have thought about what was coming next. Roberta might laugh, but she’d be thinking while she was laughing. Roberta wouldn’t let herself go — not all the way. She’d always have a hand on the emergency brake somewhere. This girl in the picture was a reckless gambler. She’d risk everything on the turn of a card, would take it for granted if she won, and would have stared in stupefied disbelief if she’d lost. She’d never consider the possibility of losing while she was gambling. Roberta was the type who would never risk anything on a gamble that she couldn’t afford to lose.

So far as build and figure and complexion were concerned, it looked as if they were sufficiently similar to wear each other’s clothes.

Bertha handed the pictures back to Cutler.

“Seems rather young,” I said.

Cutler nodded. “She’s ten years younger than I am. I suppose that may have had something to do with it. However, I don’t want to bore you with my troubles. I came here to see if I could get some proof that she was living here. I should be able to find someone who knows.”

“I’m sorry I can’t be of more help,” I told him. “Perhaps it will come to me later on. Where can I reach you?”

He gave me his card, Marco Cutler, Stocks and Bonds, Hollywood. I put it in my pocket and promised I’d communicate with him if I found myself able to remember anything more about the tenant that had been in the apartment three years ago.

Goldring said, “I’m in the telephone book. Give me a ring if you get any dope before Mr. Cutler goes back. An’ if you’ve got any papers you want solved, give me a chance at ‘em.”

I said I would, then to Cutler, “Can’t you force your wife to admit she was here? It would seem that she’d have to show all the details of where she was-if she claims the papers weren’t served.”

Cutler said, “That is not as easy as it sounds. My wife is inclined to be rather baffling and secretive. Well, thank you very much.”

He nodded to Goldring. They got up. Goldring gave a quick look around the apartment and started for the door. Cutler paused. “I don’t know how to thank you for your co-operation,” he said. “I realize, of course, that something which seems very grave and very important to me is a minor matter to a person who knows none of the parties. I certainly appreciate your courtesy.”

When the door had closed behind them, Bertha turned to me. “I like him,” she said.

I said, “Yes. He does have a pleasing voice, and—”

“Don’t be a damn fool,” Bertha said. “Not Cutler. Goldring.”

“Oh.”

“Cutler is a damn mealy-mouthed hypocrite,” Bertha announced, “No one who’s that polite can be sincere about it, and being insincere is just another way of being a damn hypocrite. Goldring is the one I like. He doesn’t beat around the bush with a lot of palaver.”

I tried imitating Goldring’s voice. “Dat’s right,” I said.

Bertha glared at me. “At times you can be the most exasperating little shrimp that ever wore out good shoe leather. Come on. Let’s call Hale. He should have reached New York by this time. At any rate, we can leave a call for him.”