1972 - Just a Matter of Time (7 page)

‘Gerry. . .’ She stood in the bathroom doorway, looking at him. ‘I haven’t much time, but we must talk. This is a big operation. You have to agree to it. Bromhead knows his business. I know my business. We could be rich for life and this is what I want. You must stop behaving like an idiot child. You ask what is going to happen to you. You are important to this plan, but you have a waiting part. If you can’t think what is going to happen to you, then I can make suggestions.’

Gerald dabbed at his nose with the bloodstained tissue.

‘So what are your goddamn suggestions?’

‘I will give you seventy dollars a week: that is half what I’m being paid,’ Sheila said. ‘You must leave here . . . it’s too expensive. You must find a cheap room. With seventy dollars a week you should be able to manage. You could even get a job.’

Gerald dropped the tissue on the floor. He sniffed, rubbing the back of his hand across his nose and then looked suspiciously to see if his hand was bloody.

‘Job? What are you talking about? What the hell could I do?’

She regarded him.

‘All right . . . never mind. You must manage on seventy dollars a week . . . a lot of people do.’

‘And in the meantime this banker bastard will be screwing you?’

‘Gerry . . . will you please leave me? I have to pack. Tomorrow, you leave here. This is the beginning of an operation that could change our lives. Will you please try to act like an adult?’

He glared at her.

‘Suppose I don’t want this money?’ he said. ‘Money can bring trouble. Get on that bed, baby, I want you.’

Still the calm expression, but the smoky blue eyes came alive.

‘Get out!’ There was a sudden snap in her voice that scared Gerald. ‘I must pack!’

He got reluctantly to his feet.

‘How am I to find a room?’ There was now a whine in his voice. ‘It’s fine for you, living in luxury with that old cow and having it off with that banker bastard . . . how do I find a room?’

‘Gerald! Will you get out!’ She looked around, caught up her handbag, opened it and tossed money on the bed. ‘There . . . seventy dollars! You won’t get any more until this day week!’

He looked at the bills lying on the bed, hesitated, then picked them up and shoved them into his hip pocket.

‘The trouble with you is you only think of money,’ he said.

‘Is that what you think? You have to have money to live. The trouble with you is you don’t think of money - you rely on me to keep you.’

‘We were happy as we were,’ he said, moving to the door. ‘I hate this goddamn thing you’ve got mixed up with.’

‘Send me your new address at the Plaza Beach Hotel,’ she said not looking at him. ‘I’ll call you.’

He stood by the door, hesitating, then he said, ‘Come on, baby, before I go . . . drop your pants.’

She stared at him, calm and remote.

‘Please go, Gerry . . . I have to pack.’

It was the coldness in her voice and the indifference in her smoky blue eyes that told him he could have lost her and he felt suddenly scared and insecure. Knowing it would be useless to try to persuade her when she was in this mood, he went out, slamming the door.

She listened as he stamped down the corridor. When his door slammed, she sat on the edge of the bed, surrounded by the boxes of clothes she had bought, and pressed her hands to her eyes.

* * *

Around 11.00 the following morning, Patterson parked the Wildcat outside the Plaza Beach Hotel. He walked up the impressive flight of marble steps that led to the hotel lobby.

The doorman saluted him. He was a big, red-faced man who had adapted himself to the whims of the rich old freaks - as he regarded them - who lived in the hotel.

‘Morning, Mr. Patterson.’

‘Hi, Tom.’ Patterson paused. He believed in being friendly with underlings. It cost him nothing and it paid dividends.

‘How’s the wife?’

The doorman grimaced.

‘Like me, Mr. Patterson . . . getting no younger.’

‘Oh, nonsense. Talking about getting ‘no younger, did you hear the one about. . .’ and he recounted the raw story he had heard from a client just before leaving the bank. The doorman spluttered with laughter as Patterson entered the lobby.

As he crossed to the elevators, he ran into Herman Lacey, the Director of the hotel. Lacey was tall and thin with a balding head, white sideboards and a hawk-like face that made him look like a successful senator.

The two men shook hands.

‘How’s Mrs. Morely-Johnson?’ Patterson asked.

Lacey took a personal interest in all his clients. He lifted his elegant shoulders.

‘Very blind now. I wish you would talk to her. An operation these days is so simple. Otherwise, I would say she is well. She seems pleased with her new companion. I would have thought a woman a little older . . . but Mrs. Morely-Johnson seems satisfied.’

Again he shrugged his shoulders.

‘I wish I could persuade her about the operation,’ Patterson said in all sincerity. ‘But that is a topic that doesn’t go down well. As for Miss Oldhill . . . I persuaded the old lady to take her. They are both musicians and I think it will give the old lady an extra interest.’

‘I didn’t know. Yes . . . I see . . . a musician? How interesting.’

The door of the elevator swung open. Patterson shook hands and leaving Lacey, he was whisked to the 20th floor of the hotel and to the penthouse.

As the elevator mounted, he again felt a rush of blood run through him at the thought of seeing Sheila again. He had been disappointed and irritated that she hadn’t contacted him. He had expected her to telephone him - he felt that was the least she could have done - to tell him that she had got the job which, after all, had been entirely due to his influence.

He had had the news from Mrs. Morely-Johnson, but Sheila - he was thinking of her now as Sheila - surely could have found time to have told him herself and to have thanked him.

Leaving the elevator, he crossed the small vestibule and pressed the bell push of the penthouse. As he stood waiting, he was aware that his heartbeat had accelerated and his hands had become clammy.

Sheila opened the door.

‘Good morning, Mr. Patterson . . . please come in.’

He stood there, looking at her. He scarcely recognized this tall, severe-looking woman with her glasses, her hair dressed in an unbecoming style. She was wearing a white blouse with a high collar and a black skirt. She looked immaculate, efficient, sexless and remote.

As she stood aside, Patterson, a little dazed by this unexpected transformation, walked into the lobby.

‘Is that you, Chris?’ The raucous squawk came from the living room: the door stood open. Without looking at him, Sheila moved to the door.

‘It’s Mr. Patterson,’ she said and stood aside for Patterson to pass her. Again he tried to catch her eye, but she was already walking into the room that was used as her office and he had no alternative but to walk into the living room.

Mrs. Morely-Johnson was sitting in a lounging chair in this big, elegant room with its six windows looking out onto the terrace with its mass of flowers and that overlooked the Pacific ocean and the town.

Mrs. Morely-Johnson was a bird-like woman with bright, alive blue eyes and a deeply tanned skin that was creased like old, well-worn leather. She made no attempt to conceal her age. She could have afforded the most expensive facial treatments but these she shunned. She was confident that her personality was so strong that she could ignore wrinkles and a leathery skin and yet still be attractive to young men. It wasn’t her personality that attracted them - it was her money, but this she was vain enough not to believe. She loved diamonds and her beautiful long fingers carried many flashing rings. Her thin, wrinkled wrists carried platinum and diamond bracelets. The jewels she festooned herself with every morning were often worth more than $300,000. The cataract on her eyes had worsened, but she was still able to see, although print and handwriting now floated in an out-of-focus haze. This didn’t worry her. She could still make out people’s faces and with the aid of her powerful spectacles the beauty of the young male wasn’t denied her.

She regarded Patterson, leaning forward and peering at him, as he came into the room. He was really the most attractive man she had known, she thought. His warmth, his handsomeness and his easy manner delighted her.

‘Chris!’ She extended her beautiful hand, flashing with diamonds. ‘So you have come to worry me?’

The roguish note in her voice made Patterson’s heart sink.

She was in one of those moods.

‘Just a few transfers,’ he said, seating himself beside her, but not before he had brushed her hand with his lips: a gesture he knew pleased her and something he had cultivated as part of his charm. ‘But first tell me . . . how are you?’

‘Me?’ She waved her hands and the sparkle of the diamonds made flashes of light on the ceiling. ‘I’m an old woman, Chris, but I can’t complain. I’m very well and thanks to you, I am happy with Miss Oldhill. We are already great friends. She reads beautifully, and she is so quiet and calm. This is something I need - quiet and calm. I must tell you: she bought me a present. I sent her out shopping yesterday - her clothes were . . . well, never mind. I sent her out shopping and she thought of me. She gave me the Beethoven piano trios - Kempff, Szeryng and Fournier.’ She smiled happily at Patterson. ‘Kempff! What a master! I spent most of the morning in bed listening . . . I can’t thank you enough, Chris, for finding her for me.’

‘I thought she was right for you,’ Patterson said, a little stunned that Sheila should have done this.

There was more chitchat, then he laid the transfers on the table and she signed them. Her signature was a blind scrawl, but he was used to that. Then he handed over $5,000 in $100 bills.

‘You asked for this, Mrs. Morely-Johnson.’

The old lady took the money and stowed it away in her handbag.

‘I am always needing cash and Miss Oldhill explained to me that I should have cash in my bag . . . that’s right, isn’t it, Chris?’

Patterson hesitated.

‘A cheque is safer.’ So it was Sheila who had sold this idea to the old lady. ‘Still, you have it now.’

Mrs. Morely-Johnson tapped his wrist with her long fingers.

‘You mustn’t treat me like a child.’

Patterson forced a laugh.

‘The last thing in the world I would think of doing.’ His mind suddenly uneasy. He knew he had been treating this old lady like a child. He had been in complete control of her money and now this sudden discordant note.

‘I mustn’t waste more of your time, Chris,’ Mrs. Morely-Johnson was saying. ‘I am also keeping Bromhead waiting. Life is such a rush, isn’t it? I have a lot of shopping to do.’ Again she patted Patterson’s wrist. ‘Some time next week you must dine with me. I will ask Sheila to call you.’

‘I would like that very much.’

Patterson got to his feet. He felt uneasy and frustrated. He had no excuse to see Sheila. As he went out into the lobby he found Jack Bromhead standing by the front door: immaculate in his uniform, his cockaded hat under his arm. He gave Patterson a slight bow and opened the front door for him.

‘Morning, Mr. Patterson,’ he said in his beautifully modulated voice. ‘Did you find madam well?’

Patterson, always conscious that underlings were important, gave Bromhead his warm smile.

‘She looks wonderful,’ he said, slightly raising his voice in the hope Mrs. Morely-Johnson might hear him. ‘What a great personality!’

Bromhead inclined his head, seeing through Patterson’s act and going along with it.

‘You are right, sir . . . a remarkable personality.’

Mrs. Morely-Johnson listened. What dear men these two were! she thought.

As Patterson left the elevator, feeling frustrated and not a little worried, he saw Sheila at the bookstall, buying a copy of Life. This was no accidental meeting. Bromhead had arranged it and his timing had been perfect. Listening at the door, and when he had heard Mrs. Morely-Johnson telling Patterson she had shopping to do, he had signalled to Sheila who had left the penthouse and had taken the elevator to the lobby. She had gone to the bookstall and had glanced through the magazines, watching the lighted indicator that told her the elevator was returning to the penthouse. Then when she saw the elevator was descending, she selected Life magazine and was paying for it as Patterson came out of the cage.

She turned and walked towards him, leafing through the magazine, apparently unaware that she was approaching him.

‘Sheila.’

She paused, then looked up.

‘Why . . . Chris.’ She gave him a ghost of a smile. ‘I was hoping to have a word with you.’ She moved closer to him. ‘I wanted to thank you for . . .’

‘Never mind that,’ Patterson said, his breathing uneven. ‘Let’s take the thanks as written. The old lady will be down in a few minutes. When do I see you, Sheila?’

The smoky blue eyes opened wide.

‘See me? Why . . . you’re seeing me now.’

Was she conning him? Patterson wondered.
But I pay my
debts
. She had said that. What was this? He stared at her, trying to see any sign of promise, but the calm face and now the spectacles and the severe hairdo which he had suggested presented a baffling barrier to him, but he was sure still, if he pressed the right button, she was there to be had.

‘I would like to take you out again.’

‘That’s very kind of you.’

There was a long pause while he waited hopefully but as he realized she wasn’t adding to this impersonal statement, he said, ‘Fine. I know a very good restaurant not far from here. When can you fix it?’

‘I don’t know. I’m not free now. I’ll call you.’

‘You get a day off . . . the other one had Sundays. Suppose we make it next Sunday?’

‘It’s very nice of you, but I may have things to do on my day off. I don’t know.’ She gave him the faint smile again. ‘I’ll call you. I must go. While Mrs. Morely-Johnson is out, I have a lot of things to do for her. I’ll call you.’ She moved around him, lifting her hand in a little wave of farewell, then she entered the elevator and the doors closed.