Owls Don't Blink

Chapter Seven

We sat in the hotel waiting for the telephone call to be completed. Central had reported that no one was at Hale’s office, and the house as yet hadn’t answered.

Bertha said into the telephone, “We don’t know just what time he’ll get home. It’ll be sometime tonight. Keep trying.”

I said to Bertha, “I want something to eat while we’re waiting. It’s my dinner time.”

Bertha wouldn’t think of letting me go out. “I want you here when this call comes through. Have something sent up.”

I told her it would probably be midnight before we heard from him, but had a waiter bring up a menu. Bertha looked it over, and decided she’d have a shrimp cocktail while I was having my steak dinner.

“You know I just can’t sit and watch you eat,” she said.

I nodded.

The waiter seemed solicitous. “Just a shrimp cocktail?” he asked.

“What are those oysters Rockefeller?” Bertha inquired.

“Baked oysters,” he said, his face lighting with enthusiasm. “The shells are placed in hot rock salt. There’s a little touch of garlic and a special sauce. That sauce is something of a secret. And then they’re baked, right in their shells.”

“It sounds good,” Bertha said. “I’ll try half a dozen-no, make it a dozen. Put some French bread in the oven, toast it brown, put on lots of melted butter, and bring me a pot of coffee with a big pitcher of cream and lots of sugar.”

“Yes, madam.”

Bertha glowered at me. “Pure coffee,” she snapped.

“Yes, madam. Some dessert?”

“Well, I’ll see how I feel when I get done with that,” Bertha said.

After the waiter had gone. Bertha looked at me, waiting for me to say something. When I didn’t, she brought it up herself. “After all,” she said, “you can only put on just so much weight in any one day. I see no reason for counting calories, now that I’ve already put all the food into my system it can possibly absorb for one day.”

I said, “It’s your life. Why not live it the way you want?”

“I think I will.”

There was silence for a few moments; then she said in a low voice, “Look, lover, there’s something I want to say to you.”

“What?”

She said, “You’re a brainy little cuss, but you don’t know a damn thing about money. It takes Bertha to handle the finances.”

“What now?”

Bertha said, as though afraid she was starting an argument, “Since you left Los Angeles, we’ve gone into a new business.”

“What is it?”

There was that cunning look on Bertha’s face which comes when she’s putting something over, “The B. Cool Construction Company. I’m the president and you’re general manager.”

“What do we construct?”

“Right now,” Bertha said, “we’re working on a military housing job. It’s a very small job, something that we can handle all right. You won’t need to bother with it much. It’s a subcontract.”

“I don’t get it,” I said.

Bertha said, “I thought we shouldn’t have too many eggs in one basket. You can’t tell what’s going to happen, the way things are going now.”

“But why pick up this construction job?”

“Oh, I just saw an opportunity to get in on something.”

“That doesn’t sound convincing to me.” I waited.

Bertha took a deep breath. “Dammit,” she said, “I’ve got a lot of executive ability. Since you came in as a partner, I have been doing too much deep-sea fishing. Sitting out there on the barge, and thinking about the way that young boys are dying, just because us older folks haven’t carried out our share of the responsibility— Well, we’ve gone into this construction business, and that’s all there is to it. Don’t bother too much about it. I’ll call on you from time to time for anything I need, but for the most part Bertha can handle it.”

The telephone rang before I could say anything.

Bertha snatched up the receiver with an eagerness which showed how much she welcomed the interruption. She held it to her ear, said, “Hello! Oh, hello — I was trying to get you. Where are you... No, no. I was trying to get you... Oh, you did. Well, isn’t that strange? Well, tell me what you have to say first... Oh, all right, if you insist. Better brace yourself. We’ve got some news for you... That’s right. We’ve found her. Down at the Gulfpride Apartments on St. Charles Avenue... No. The Gulfpride. G-u-l-f-p-r-i-d-e. That’s it... Oh, that’s a professional secret. We’ve got our way of uncovering leads. It was a pretty cold trail, but we’ve been working like dogs ever since you left. You’d be surprised at the number of leads we’ve run down... No, I haven’t talked with her yet. Donald did... Yes, my partner, Donald Lam.”

There was an interval during which I could hear the rasping, metallic sound of his voice coming through the telephone transmitter. Bertha sat there and listened. She said, “Well-yes-I guess I can.”

She looked at me, hurriedly thrust her palm over the transmitter, and said, “He wants me to go down there and see her early in the morning.”

“Why not?”

She hastily removed her hand from the mouthpiece, said, “Yes, Mr. Hale, I understand,” clapped her palm back over it, and said, “He wants me to cultivate her, win her confidence, pump her.”

“Watch out,” I warned. “She’s no one’s fool. Don’t guarantee any particular results.”

Bertha said into the transmitter, “Well, that will be fine, Mr. Hale. I’ll be very glad to do the best I can. Yes, I’ll take Donald with me. We’ll leave early in the morning, just as soon as she’s up. She doesn’t go to work until nine, and that means she’d leave the house about eight-thirty. We could be waiting to pick her up with a cab. What is it you want me to tell her?”

There was another interval during which the metallic sounds of the telephoned instructions were almost audible. Then Bertha said, “Very well, Mr. Hale, and I’ll let you know. Do you want me to wire you or... I see. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. We think we’re pretty good, too... Yes, I told you he was short on weight, but long on brains. Well, good night, Mr. Hale — oh, wait a minute. When they ring you on my call, tell them the call is canceled. They have a great way of trying to put through two calls by trying to get you to talk on my call as well as on yours. I’ll ring up and cancel it, but don’t let them stick you by making you think it’s another call... All right, good-by.”

Bertha hung up the telephone, jiggled the receiver, said, “Hello, hello. Hello, Operator. This is Mrs. Cool in Mr. Lam’s room... Yes, that’s right, Mr. Lam’s room... No, I checked out and have my baggage in Mr. Lam’s room. That’s right. I had a call in for Mr. Hale at New York. Cancel it. That’s right. Cancel it... No, I just talked with him... Well, it was on his call... Oh, hell, cancel it and don’t go prying into — just cancel it!”

Bertha slammed up the receiver, turned to me, and said, “My God, the telephone company must ride these girls every time a call gets canceled. You’d think I was jerking the food out of their mouths. His plane was grounded somewhere. I didn’t get the name of the place. Where the hell do you suppose our food is? I—”

The waiter tapped discreetly on the door.

“Come in,” I said.

Bertha doesn’t like to talk when she’s eating. I let her go ahead and eat.

“What time do you want to try Roberta Fenn?” I asked when she pushed her plate back.

Bertha said, “I’ll get up and come to the hotel. I’ll be here at seven o’clock. You be in the lobby all ready to go. Now be certain you’re there. I don’t want to do any waiting around, with a taxicab meter clicking. The minute you see me drive up, hop out, and get in the car. Seven o’clock. Understand?”

“On the dot,” I told her.

Bertha sat back with a smile of calm contentment, and blew smoke up at the ceiling.

The waiter appeared with a menu. Bertha didn’t even bother to look at it. “Bring me a double chocolate sundae,” she ordered.