1972 - Just a Matter of Time (2 page)

‘I understand.’ He was now a little dubious. This was his responsibility. He mustn’t make a mistake. Yet he wanted this woman to get the job. He wanted to see her again. At least three times a week, he had to visit Mrs. Morely-Johnson and that would mean he would be able to see Sheila Oldhill at least three times a week, and this, he realized, was what he wanted. There was this sensual thing in this woman who was sitting so quietly that set him on fire. Compared to the other women he had known, loved and forgotten, she was like a 1929 Claret compared to a Coke.

Women played an important role in Patterson’s life. Being assistant manager of the bank and living in this small, gossip-ridden city, he was always careful and selective. Most of the women he went with lived in the adjacent town, some fifteen miles from his hometown and all of them were married. They had to be as careful as he. His thoughts were so far away that for a moment he had forgotten her when he was aware she had said something. He looked up.

‘Sorry . . . I was thinking . . . what did you say?’

‘Perhaps you don’t think I am suitable?’ she repeated.

They looked at each other.

‘I think you are, but I just don’t know how Mrs. Morely-Johnson will react when I tell her you are so young. How old are you, if I may ask?’

‘Thirty-two.’

‘Would you mind if I told her you are thirty-eight?’ He smiled. ‘It could make a difference and you see . . . she doesn’t see very well.’

‘I don’t mind.’

He wished she would smile. She was so serious, quiet and calm.

‘I tell you what I will do. I have to see her this afternoon. I’ll explain who you are and so on. If she’s interested, I’ll arrange for you to see her some time tomorrow. How’s that?’

A faint sparkle came into the smoky blue eyes and the firm lips curved into something Patterson thought was a smile: whatever it was he liked it.

‘Thank you, Mr. Patterson,’ she said and got to her feet.

He looked at the tall, firmly built body and again he felt the surge of blood run through him.

‘I hope I can fix it. I think I can.’ He got to his feet. ‘You haven’t asked what the pay would be.’

She began to move slowly to the door.

‘I am sure it will be adequate. I’d rather not be told until I know the job is mine.’ She reached the door and put her hand on the doorknob. ‘That way I won’t be disappointed.’

He came around the desk and approached her.

‘As soon as I know I’ll tell you,’ he said. ‘Will you be at your hotel say around seven o’clock?’

‘I could be.’

‘I pass your hotel on my way home . . . suppose I look in?’

‘If you haven’t any good news for me then I won’t expect you.’

‘I’ll drop by . . . good or bad news. I think it will be good.’

She studied him in her calm remote way, nodded, turned, opened the door and walked out into the busy stream of people passing up and down the broad aisle of the bank. Patterson closed the door. He stood for a long moment staring down at the thick green pile of the carpet, pressing his forefinger against his dimple, then he walked back to his desk, sat down and drew Bernie Cohen’s portfolio towards him. The long list of securities and bonds meant nothing to him.

He could only see the smoky blue eyes and that firm mouth floating on the page. He sat there for half an hour doing nothing but thinking of her, then seeing the time, he shoved the portfolio into a drawer in his desk, got to his feet and left the bank.

He drove fast towards the Plaza Beach Hotel.

* * *

Seaview Boulevard began in luxury and slowly deteriorated as it wound its way along the coast to mediocrity and then finally to slum conditions. The boulevard was two miles long. It began with the Plaza Beach Hotel with its own private beach, gay sun umbrellas, a thatched roof bar and restaurant, its boutiques and a jeweller’s shop whose windows blazed with diamonds. Several yards further on, past an ornamental public garden with tropical flowers and graceful palm trees was the Splendid Hotel, not quite so grand as the Plaza Beach but still expensive and with a smaller private beach. Further on still was the Ambassador Hotel which had no private beach and its frontage needed a coat of paint. Then came the tourist shops and also further deterioration.

A mile from the Plaza Beach was the Franklin Hotel, strictly a family hotel, inexpensive, shabby but comfortable. Beyond the Franklin was the harbour and the fishermen’s huts, bars, cheap seafood restaurants, and still further on were the tenement blocks housing those who scratched up some kind of living along the waterfront.

Gerald Hammett sat on the balcony that ran the length of the Franklin Hotel and watched the fishing boats and the bustle of the harbour with bored indifference. From time to time he glanced at his cheap wristwatch with an impatient frown.

Gerald Hammett was twenty-six years of age, slimly built, his blond hair resting on the collar of his red and white striped shirt, open at the neck. His carefully cultivated sideboards like right angle triangles with the peaks at his ears and the bases reaching the corners of his mouth linked up with a thick, droopy moustache, gave him a slightly sinister appearance. His eyes were small, steel grey and restless; his mouth thin, his nose short and blunt. He looked what he was: a typical product of instability, dissatisfied with his way of life, groping, not knowing what he wanted, unsure of himself but with a latent viciousness that could be sparked off should he encounter any kind of opposition or criticism.

Carrying a shabby holdall, he had arrived at the hotel the previous evening. Sheila Oldhill had been in the lounge, but they had been careful not to look at each other. As he passed her, she traced with her finger on the open page of her novel the figure 3, telling him she was booked in on the third floor. The hotel was half-empty and he had no difficulty getting a room on the third floor. He engaged the room for a week and added he might need it longer. The reception clerk said it would be their pleasure and personally conducted him to the room.

Sheila and Hammett had agreed it wouldn’t be safe for them to be seen together. After midnight when the rest of the people staying at the hotel were asleep and only the Negro night porter dozed in the lobby, Hammett had slipped from his room, crossed the corridor and slid into Sheila’s room. There, they had sat on the bed and had talked in low whispers. Although he wanted to stay longer, she wouldn’t let him and this put him in a surly mood. He had spent an uneasy night wondering about this plan, if she would succeed and wishing he hadn’t agreed to go along with her. But he wanted her . . . he needed her and he knew if he wanted to keep her, he had to cooperate.

She had left the hotel when Hammett had come down to breakfast and he had spent the morning wandering around the town. It was a nice town, but it quickly bored him. He was short of money (when wasn’t he?) and it irked him not to be able to go into the Plaza Beach Hotel bar and having to make do with a Coke in a sleazy waterfront bar crammed with sweaty, loud-mouthed fishermen.

He had returned to the Franklin for a poor lunch and had now been sitting on the balcony for the past two hours. Sheila had said she would be back by 16.00. It was now 16.20 and there was still no sign of her.

He took from his hip pocket a thin roll of dollar bills and furtively counted them. They amounted to $55. Sheila had about the same amount. If she didn’t pull this off, he thought, they would have to move fast. With the prices as they were in this luxury tourist trap, a hundred dollars would last no time.

Then he saw her as she came along the wide sidewalk and he felt his heartbeat quicken. He couldn’t judge from her expression whether she had been successful or not. She always looked the same: calm, quiet and remote, and this often infuriated him. Even when she was angry with him, she always remained calm, only the tone of her voice sharpened and the smoky blue eyes became more alive.

Without hurrying, she came up the steps leading to the lobby and went past him without looking at him. He felt a surge of exasperated rage rush through him and he had to restrain himself from jumping to his feet and going after her. She was like an iceberg, he thought. Nothing ever moved her! She must know how the past hours had dragged for him! Couldn’t she have given him just a slight hint of success as she had gone by?

He looked around and through the dirty window and into the lobby. She was standing at the reception desk, waiting for the old Negro clerk to give her her key. Again Hammett had to restrain himself from getting up. He fumbled for a cigarette and with an unsteady hand he struck a match and lit the cigarette. He looked at his chewed fingernails and the yellow nicotine stains on his slender fingers and he grimaced.

He sat there for five long, nerve-tearing minutes, then forcing himself to act casually, he got to his feet and wandered into the lobby.

There were four or five elderly people sitting in ancient bamboo chairs, gossiping and he was aware the hum of their voices died as he crossed the lobby. Get stuffed, you old ruins, he thought. Go, climb into your goddam coffins!

‘Room thirty-two,’ he said, coming to rest at the reception desk.

‘Yes, sir. Thirty-two it is, sir.’

A gnarled black hand slid the key across the scratched surface of the desk.

‘Would you be in for dinner tonight, sir?’ The old Negro beamed at him. ‘It’s a good dinner. I’ve seen it. Soup, nice fried fish and ice cream.’ There was a yearning note in his voice as if he longed to have this for himself.

Hammett winced. He had no alternative but to take the dinner. He was there on full pension which offered the cheapest rates.

‘I’ll be there,’ he said and picking up his key, he made his way towards the ancient elevator.

He walked along the deserted corridor of the third floor, paused outside his room, looked right and left, then moved swiftly to Sheila’s room, two doors further down the corridor. He turned the handle, felt the door yield and slid into the room shutting the door softly behind him.

Sheila was standing before the open window. She had on a transparent cotton wrap. With the light against her, he could see her long, shapely legs and the curve of her firm buttocks through the flimsy material. This sight always affected him, but this wasn’t the time for such feelings.

She looked around, then aware he was staring, she moved to a chair and sat down. It was the only chair in the room, a sagging thing that creaked under the weight of her body.

‘I asked you not to come here until after midnight,’ she said quietly. ‘Can’t you ever do what I ask?’

He sat on the bed.

‘It’s all right. There’s no one up here. What happened?’

‘We must wait and see. At least, I know now he is on my side.’

Hammett frowned.

‘You mean Jack was right? He’s got this creep lined up?’

‘I think so.’

The flat note in her voice made him look sharply at her.

‘What’s biting you? Why are you looking so goddamed depressed?’

‘Am I?’

‘Oh, for God’s sake! Is something wrong?’

She looked directly at him.

‘Not so far. It just isn’t settled yet. They want an elderly woman. He said he would try to persuade her, but that doesn’t mean he will.’

Hammett ran his fingers through his dirty hair.

‘So what? He’ll persuade her. Jack says she has the hots for him. Anything this creep says goes with her.’

‘An old woman of seventy-eight?’

Hammett grinned.

‘I know my aunt. She has always had the hots for men like this creep . . . suave, sexy and handsome. She has never been able to resist them. If Jack says she has the hots for this guy Patterson that’s what she’s got, so what Patterson says will be okay with her.’

Sheila leaned back in her chair.

‘How stupid can you be?’ she said quietly. She crossed her long legs, adjusting her wrap. ‘He sees a lot of her. A woman like that would want always to be the centre of attraction. She might not care to have a young woman around who might catch Patterson’s eye. Now, do you understand why I’m doubtful?’

Hammett began to chew his thumbnail.

‘So what? I keep telling you . . . I don’t like this. Let’s get out of this stinking town. Let’s go to L.A.’

‘Patterson said he would tell her I am thirty-eight,’ Sheila went on ignoring what he had said. ‘He knows the danger, but even thirty-eight could be too young. She could kill this stone dead.’

‘All right. . . so she kills it! I . . .’

‘Be quiet, Gerry!’

‘Oh, the hell with it! Let’s get out of here!’

Sheila glanced at her wristwatch.

‘Patterson is coming here when he has seen her. I want to take a shower. I think he is going to take me out to dinner. He said he would drop by whether the news was good or bad. Run along, Gerry. I have to dress.’

He stared sullenly at her, then moved to the door. As he turned the handle, he paused, looking at her.

‘Sometimes I think I’m crazy in the head to have hooked up with you,’ he said savagely. ‘Do you have to be so goddamn coldblooded . . . like a goddamn Mona Lisa?’

‘Run along, please. I want to change,’ she said after staring at him for a brief moment, then moving past him, she went into the shower room.

* * *

As Patterson pulled up outside the Franklin Hotel in his red Wildcat coupe, he saw Sheila Oldhill sitting on the veranda and he waved to her. She got to her feet and came down the steps as he slid out of the car, holding the offside door open. It was nearing 20.00 and everyone, including Hammett, was in the dining room.

Patterson’s eyes went over her as she crossed the sidewalk.

She wore a simple white dress with a gilt chain around her slim waist and she carried a white plastic handbag. He thought she looked terrific.

‘Hello,’ he said with his warm smile. ‘There’s lots to talk about. Will you please have dinner with me? I’m starving, and as I said . . . there’s lots to talk about.’

Her smoky blue eyes opened a trifle wider. She appeared to hesitate, then she nodded.

‘Thank you. Yes, I would like to.’

‘Then hop in. Do you like seafood?’