She closed her notebook, dropped it into her purse, smiled at the cab driver, and said to me, “None of your lip, Donald.” As soon as the cab driver had pulled away from the curb, she grabbed my arm and swung me around. “All right, Donald, darling, let’s go. We’ll cash in on this.”

“Going to Sandra?” I asked.

“No, no,” she said. “To Dr. Holoman. We’ll make him jump through hoops.”

Chapter Ten

CHAPTER TEN

IT WAS getting daylight. Somewhere over behind the wall of gray, toneless buildings was a streak of dawn-colored sky. Colorless gray light filtered into the street. Buildings seemed shadowy and unreal, but bulked high against the sky.

We walked three blocks before we found a cruising cab. While Bertha Cool was getting in, I said to the cab driver, “Get us to the nearest place where we can find a telephone directory.”

He tried to run us to the Union Depot, but Bertha Cool spotted an all night restaurant and said to me, “Slide back that glass, Donald, dear, and let me talk to that son of a bitch.”

I slid back the glass.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” she asked the driver. “Turn around and go back to that restaurant. When I say the nearest phone, I mean the nearest.”

The driver mumbled something about having to watch for traffic and swung the car. Bertha said to me, “Look under the classified lists, Donald. Find a Holoman who’s a doctor. And remember this cab is costing me waiting time—don’t take all day.”

“I don’t think he’s a full-fledged doctor yet. He won’t have an office. I’ll have to call the hospitals. I’ll need some nickels.”

She sighed, dug four nickels out of her purse and said, “For God’s sake, Donald, get some action. I can’t charge this as an expense, This is a gamble. I’m using my money.”

I took the coins, went in and started calling hospitals. The second one was the Shelley Foundation Hospital. The girl said they had an Archie Holoman serving as an interne.

I thanked her, hung up and told the scowling taxi driver to take us to the Shelley Foundation Hospital and climbed back in beside Bertha Cool.

It was a short run, and the cab driver made it fast. Mrs. Cool said, “He probably isn’t on duty now, Donald. Get his home address—unless he happens to be living at the hospital. I’ll wait here.”

I ran up the marble stairs and into the hospital. It was rapidly growing lighter. The freshness of dawn in the air made the interior of the hospital seem steeped with the exudations of sickness and death. A tired-eyed nurse, sitting behind a desk, looked up at me. Daylight streaming through an easterly window, mingled with the lamp light on her face, made it gray and pasty.