Kept Women Can’t Quit

“Oh,” I said, “it didn’t amount to anything. It was a guy with a small collection job.”

“Donald,” Bertha said, “you can’t turn down all those small jobs. I’ve told you time and time again that there’s money in those small things.”

“Not in this one,” I said. “The bill was only a hundred and twenty-five dollars and he didn’t know where the debtor was living. We’d have to find the debtor first and then we’d have to collect.”

“Well, we could have at least looked into it,” Bertha said. “You can get those things on a fifty percent commission and—”

“He told me twenty-five was his limit, so I told him to beat it.”

Bertha heaved a sigh. “Can you imagine the way these bastards want to chisel these days?”

Sellers looked around the office. “Where’s your secretary?”

I jerked my head. “Down the hall, I guess. Why? You want her?”

“No,” Sellers said, “I’m just checking.”

He jerked the soggy cigar out of his mouth and dumped it in my ash tray. I let it stay there because the odor of moist tobacco served somewhat to kill the perfume which had emanated from Hazel Downer. Sellers’ nose was too paralyzed with the cigar odor for him to notice, but I thought Bertha had given a suspicious sniff when Sellers had first jerked the door open.

“All right, Frank,” Bertha Cool said. “You know we won’t try to cut any corners.”

“I know you won’t,” Sellers said, “but I’m not so sure about Pint Size here.”

I said, “Look, Sergeant, if there’s fifty grand in it, why don’t you encourage her to come and see us and see what she has to say? We might be able to help you.”

“You might and again you might not,” Sellers said. “If you ever tied up with her she’d be your client and you’d be representing her interests.”

“All right. What are her interests?” I asked.

“To get away with the fifty G’s.”

I shook my head and said, “Not if it’s hot. We could help her make a deal with the police. Perhaps the armored car outfit would give us five G’s as a reward. Then you’d be off the spot and she could be in the clear.”

Sellers said, “When I need your help I’ll ask for it.”

“All right, keep your shirt on,” I told him.

“What was an armored truck doing with a hundred one-thousand dollar bills?” I asked.

Sellers said, “The stuff had been ordered by the Merchants’ Manufacturers and Seamans’ National. They tell us the order came from a depositor and won’t go any further than that. We think it was a big bookmaking concern, but we can’t prove it. Anyhow, the money was in the truck, and now it’s gone... You got any ideas?”

“None you’d want,” I said. “Or are you asking for help now?”

“Go to hell,” Sellers said, and walked out.

Bertha waited until the door had closed, then said, “Don’t try to handle Sergeant Sellers that way, Donald. You deliberately made him mad.”

“So what?” I said. “Here we are fooling around with fifty grand in money and Sergeant Sellers is in a spot. Suppose we can solve his problem, recover fifty G’s for the insurance company and cut ourselves a piece of cake.”

Bertha’s eyes glittered greedily for a minute, then she shook her head apprehensively. “We can’t do it.”

“Why not?”

“Because they’d nail us to the cross, that’s why.”

“For what?”

“For compounding a felony, being an accessory after the fact, and—”

“You’re going to tell me about the law?” I asked.

“You’re damn right,” she said. “I’m telling you about the law.”

I said, “I know a little law myself, Bertha. Suppose Sellers is barking up the wrong tree. Suppose this man Baxley had just been trying to date this jane, but suppose she knows something about him. Suppose if we treated her nice she could give us a clue?”

Bertha thought it over, then shook her head, but this time the shake wasn’t quite so emphatic.

“Sergeant Sellers can’t tell us what to do and what not to do,” I said. “He’s got a theory, that’s all. What has he got to tie it to? Nothing except a telephone number.”

“With the whole damn Police Department back of him,” Bertha said. “When you get to tangling with those boys they can be tough.”

“I don’t intend to tangle with them,” I said.

“Well, what do you intend to do?”

“Run my own business in my own way,” I told her.

Bertha slammed out of the office.

I waited two minutes, then opened the door and stepped out to the hall.

Sergeant Sellers was standing by the elevators.

“What’s the matter, Sergeant?” I asked. “The elevators on strike?”

“No,” he said, “I’m just keeping an eye on you, wise guy. There’s a gleam in your eye I don’t like. Where you headed?”

“Down to the john,” I said, jangling my keys. “You want to come?”

“Go to hell,” he told me.

I walked down the corridor. Sergeant Sellers followed me with his eyes.

I pretended to be inserting a key in the door while I tapped my code signal on the panels. I heard the bolt move on the inside. The door opened a bit and Elsie Brand’s frightened voice said, “Donald?”

I said, “Okay, baby, stand back,” and pushed my way into the room, closed the door behind me and shot the bolt.

“Well, I like this,” Hazel Downer said.

“What’s wrong with it?” I asked.

“The fixtures.”