“What am I to do?” I asked.

“Find him,” she said, and slid the papers across the desk to me.

I picked up the papers. There was an original summons in the case Birks versus Birks, and a copy of the summons to which was attached a copy of the plaintiff’s complaint.

Mrs. Cool said, “You don’t have to be an officer to serve a summons. Any citizen of the United States over the age of twenty-one years and not a party to the action can make the service. Find Birks, serve him. When you make the service, you hand him the copy of the summons and the complaint. You show him the original summons, then you come back here and make an affidavit.”

“How do I go about finding him?” I asked.

Miss Hunter said suddenly, “I think I can help you.”

“And when I’ve found him,” I asked Mrs. Cool, “will he resent—?”

Miss Hunter interrupted quickly, “And I know he will. That’s the thing I’m afraid of. Mr. Lam might get hurt. Morgan is—”

Mrs. Cool interposed a calm, matter-of-fact, “My God, Donald, that’s your headache. What the hell do you want us to do? Go along with you so you can hide behind our petticoats when you poke the summons out at him?”

I made up my mind she was going to fire me sooner or later anyhow. It might as well be now. “I was asking,” I said, “for information.”

“Well, you got your information.”

“I don’t think I did,” I told her, “and in case you’re interested, I don’t like the way it was given.”

She didn’t even turn her eyes toward me. “I’m not interested,” she said, and lifted the lid from the cigarette case on her desk. “Want to smoke, Miss Hunter—what the hell’s your first name, dearie? I don’t go much for last names.”

“Alma.”

“Want to smoke, Alma?”

“No, thank you. Not right now.”

Mrs. Cool picked up a match, scraped it explosively against the underside of the desk, held it to the cigarette, and said, “As I was saying, Donald, you’ll find Birks and serve the summons on him. Alma’s going to help you find him—oh yes, you’ll want to know where Alma fits into the picture. She’s a friend of the wife—or is it a relative, dearie?”

“No, just a friend,” Alma Hunter said. “Sandra and I roomed together before she got married.”

“How long ago was that?” Mrs. Cool asked.

“Two years.”

“Where are you living now?”

“With Sandra. She has an apartment with two bedrooms. I’m staying with her, and her brother is coming out from the East—you see, Morgan just packed up and left, and—”

“You know Morgan, of course?” Mrs. Cool interrupted.