The Valentine Estate

by Stanley Ellin

  Then, as apologetically as if she had just knocked a ball out of bounds, she told him what was in the deal for him.

  She knew the magic number all right.

  And when she spoke it, he knew, no matter how Dom might feel about it – how he himself felt about it, for that matter – that she wouldn’t have to buy herself another boy.

  3

  He woke at dawn, blear-eyed and heavy-headed, found there was no use trying to get back to sleep, and, after a cup of black coffee, drove up to Cobia. The ground-keepers were not yet at work around the main building of the spa or its cabanas, but beyond the grove of casuarina trees which served as a windbreak between the bayfront and the cabanas there was the usual early morning activity.

  This was Frenchy’s territory. The main building and cabanas were the charge of Augie Bloom who fronted for McClure, the money man of the enterprise, but everything beyond them – the outdoor pool, the building housing the indoor pool and sauna and gym, the pitch and putt green, the largely unused handball courts, the marina, and especially the dozen flawlessly surfaced en-tout-cas tennis courts which made Cobia Spa a magnet for the tennis crowd – all this was Frenchy’s private concession.

  The tennis shop was as Chris had left it the night before. The freshly strung racket on the work bench – he must have been in a complete daze after the girl left because he couldn’t even remember finishing the stringing job – the litter of bills and equipment orders on the desk, the loaded ashtrays, the empty cognac bottle. That was something else. He had been grateful for McClure’s regular gifts of the Hine V.S.O.P., but from now on he could afford to buy his own.

  He looked at his watch. It was a little after six-thirty. At eight, so Elizabeth Jones had assured him, she would meet him as usual for the daily tennis lesson. The thought of the meeting tightened his nerves and added to the queasiness of his hangover.

  For one thing, the embarrassing details of when and where and how he’d get his share of the jackpot had to be worked out. All right, he hadn’t gone to the girl looking for the deal, she had come begging to him, but that wouldn’t make getting down to the fine print any less embarrassing.

  For another thing, the girl would be Mrs Christopher Monte very soon, even if only on a marriage licence, which raised some delicate questions. What to call her, for instance. Miss Jones, as he had up to now? Elizabeth? Hey, you?

  Could he even continue to bill Prendergast, her boss, for the future Mrs Monte’s tennis lessons? That wasn’t as foolish as it sounded. He was at the usual financial low, a fifty per cent cut of each lesson plus any tips coming his way made up most of his income, and he had the house to keep up and Dom to provide for. To take off from the job now and make that trip to London he’d need a large chunk of cash. But his credit was shot with everyone who knew him. Frenchy, Augie Bloom, all of them. They wouldn’t lend him a dime any more, figuring he was odds on to blow it on the horses or jai-alai before it had a chance to cool in his pocket. McClure? No, McClure’s business was lending money, but not in a nice way. I lend you five this week, you pay me back six next week or you get your arms broken. He was a great guy with the handouts, McClure, with the cognac and the hundred dollars alibi money, but he was an unhealthy character to do business with. If the fifty thousand didn’t materialize, and McClure didn’t get his money and interest back –

  When the nerves reached a certain tension – Chris always thought of it as sixty-five pound pressure, just a little more than the best racket could bear in the stringing – and when there was no way of releasing the tension by hitting the bottle or taking off on the motor cycle, there was one sure treatment left. He cleaned up the shop in slapdash style, took a pair of rackets and his kit-bag, and hied himself off to the building housing the indoor pool. There, after a quick plunge, he put on shorts, socks, and sneakers, and carefully wound the elastic bandage around the treacherous left knee. Ready now for the familiar, soothing treatment in self-hypnosis, he walked over to the handball courts.

  One court, the last in line, was his private preserve. On its concrete wall he had painted a broad white stripe representing the tape of a tennis net. Dead centre in the far backcourt on what would be the baseline, he had painted a circle. He took his position in it, flexed his arms to loosen the tight muscles, and served underhand at a point in the middle of the wall, a foot above the broad white stripe. He flubbed the serve, the ball coming back too short and wide, and served again, this time right on target. The ball came back hard and flat to his backhand, he pivoted smoothly to meet it and drill it back against the wall again, full power. The angle of the return was measured perfectly. The ball came into the forehand now, he pivoted, drove it back like a bullet, and, planted within the marked circle, was caught up completely in the potent, relentless rhythm of forehand – pivot – backhand – pivot – each shot flat and hard, each shot taken as a half volley the instant it exploded off the ground, the edge of the racket no more than an inch or two from the ground as it met the bounce of the ball.

  It was hypnosis. The air was humid, the sun already high enough to make it oven hot, so that he was soon drenched with sweat, droplets of it spraying from his body with every pivot and drive. Back and forth the ball went endlessly, the twang of it against the racket, the answering thud against the wall weaving a spell like a drum beat. Then he felt the first warning signs of cramp in the leg. The spell was broken. He chopped the next return with vicious resentment, and the ball soared back lifelessly into his waiting hand.

  ‘That was beautiful. Just beautiful.’

  He turned. Elizabeth Jones was standing behind the back-court screening, her fingers twined in the wire mesh. He glanced at his watch. He was supposed to meet her over on the tennis courts at eight, and it was already well past that.

  He shook his head in self-reproach, and she said breathlessly, ‘Really, it doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t even be bothering you like this while you’re practising, but I heard the way the ball was being played, and I couldn’t resist coming over to peek. It was just great. It made me feel absolutely hopeless.’

  No, not absolutely, he thought. Not with a million dollars waiting. He regretted not being able to say that aloud. It might have been the opening for what they had to discuss.

  ‘Come on around here,’ he said.

  As she walked around the screening and approached him, he took a good, hard, objective look at her. He had been giving her lessons every day for two weeks, but all he had taken note of up to now was that she had a tennis player’s build – very tall, slim, and long-legged – and, judging from her habitual slouch, that she was distressed by her height.

  Now he observed that she had good features and even better than average eyes, large and darkly lustrous. Yet she somehow shaped up all wrong. Her hair, a mousy shade of brown, was skinned back tightly from her forehead and bound into a heavy chignon which exposed her ears too nakedly. She wore no make-up as far as he could see, and she needed some, especially on the sunburned tip of her nose. Her tennis dress managed to look dowdy on her; it seemed more like a nurse’s uniform than a tennis dress.

  All wrong.

  On the other hand, her boss’s daughter, the blonde, blue-eyed, luscious little Mrs Hilary Prendergast Talbot whose lessons were booked for eleven – prime time – always arrived unrepentantly late for them, flawlessly made up and wearing something aimed to distract everyone in eyeshot as she daintily ran, breasts and buttocks dangerously close to total exposure, after any ball she considered near enough to be worth running for. (‘She ’ave all the queepmen,’ Frenchy had remarked acidly because he was strictly business on the courts, was Frenchy, ‘only not for tennis.’) Still, it would be something if Elizabeth Jones were more the Hilary Talbot type. Even a little more.

  The girl stood waiting, racket in hand, and he tossed her the ball and pointed to the circle on the ground.

  ‘You try it,’ he said.

  Obediently, she did, making an effort to remain planted in the circle. But while she got g
ood length to her returns they came back each time wider and wider of the mark until she was desperately scrambling back and forth for them. She finally pulled up winded, her face flushed, the chignon sagging badly.

  ‘Hell,’ she said ruefully, ‘I’ll never make a tennis player.’

  ‘Yes you will. You’re built for it, and you’re willing to chase the ball. Most women aren’t. Did you ever notice how Mrs Talbot looks on the court?’

  ‘Who hasn’t?’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ Chris said. ‘She’s too worried about looking graceful all the time. You have to be willing to look ungraceful sometimes if you want to play the game right.’

  ‘That’s me,’ the girl said. ‘Willing and ungraceful.’

  ‘No, just chicken. Instead of playing the ball, you let the ball play you. This we will now correct. Stand in that circle again.’

  When she was in position he stood close behind her, almost body to body, clamped one hand on her left hip and gripped the wrist of her racket arm with the other. It was the first time he had ever used this method of instruction on her because it was a method strictly verboten before an audience by Frenchy, and for good reason. It would have been flagrantly indecent with some highly responsive type like Hilary Talbot.

  Elizabeth Jones was not that type. She instantly went rigid at his touch.

  ‘Relax,’ he said.

  ‘Sing, Trilby,’ she said, but her wrist went flaccid in his grip.

  ‘That’s a good girl. Now serve the ball and remember I’m at the wheel. You’re just along for the ride.’

  She served, allowing his arm to provide all the impetus. The ball rebounded almost to her feet, and as she hastily stepped back to get room for her return she rammed hard into Chris. The ball bounced high into the backcourt screening and fell dead there.

  ‘There it was,’ said Chris. ‘You let the ball play you. You were backing up for the high bounce instead of taking a half volley off your foot.’

  ‘I know, but half volleys are just too daring for me. I guess I was born cowardly.’

  Suddenly he had his fill of this constant, niggling, half-humorous self-deprecation. He released the girl, walked over to where he had left his kit-bag, pulled his towel from it, and mopped himself off.

  The girl stood watching him.

  ‘Is that it for today?’ she said at last.

  ‘That’s it. We’ll forget the charge.’

  ‘So I really am pretty hopeless as a tennis player. I had a feeling you’d catch on to that sooner or later.’

  ‘No, you’re not hopeless, Miss Jones. It’s just that I wish to hell you’d stop knocking yourself. In this world, there are always people willing to take care of that for you.’

  ‘I’ll make a note of that,’ she said gravely. ‘No more overweening humility.’

  ‘That’s a good idea. Anyhow,’ he said, much as he disliked saying it, ‘I have that deal we arranged last night on my mind. I don’t have anyone booked for the next hour. How about sitting down in private right now and settling all the details?’

  ‘I can’t right now. Mr Prendergast’s mail must be here already. I’m supposed to take care of it first thing.’

  That bemused him.

  ‘You mean you’re still on the job?’

  ‘Yes. After all, I don’t have any of the inheritance yet. Besides, I’m terribly obligated to Mr Prendergast. When he asked if I’d stay on a few more days until he finds a replacement I couldn’t say no. He’s been very good to me. The whole family has, for that matter.’

  This, Chris thought wonderingly, in the face of the treatment he had witnessed them dishing out to her. She seemed to be their full-time slavey as well as Prendergast’s overworked secretary.

  ‘Oh, I know they’re all heart,’ he said. ‘Still, we should get together and settle things as soon as possible.’

  ‘We can at eleven. Mrs Talbot won’t mind skipping her lesson with you if I tell her why. We can meet with the lawyer in my room.’

  ‘Fine. You square it with Mrs Talbot, and I’ll be there.’

  ‘And I’d better get back there right now and do something about myself before I report on duty.’ The girl pressed a hand to the disintegrating chignon. ‘I must be a mess.’

  From any other girl, he thought, this would be an unsubtle angling for a compliment. But not from this one.

  At least, it made a change.

  4

  Her room, charged to the account of Joseph Prendergast, was one of the small singles in the main building. When Chris arrived there, freshly showered and suitably dressed, the girl opened the door to him, but what he saw over her shoulder pulled him up short. The night before, she had made much about keeping the marriage deal a private matter. Mr Warburton, the lawyer from England, had urged that, she said. Now, from the doorway, he saw she had some strange ideas about privacy. The prepossessing gent in the room had to be Warburton, of course, but also present were the Prendergasts, husband and wife.

  ‘What are they doing here?’ Chris said.

  The girl put a warning finger to her lips and drew him out into the corridor.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I invited them. You don’t have to look like that about it.’

  ‘What made you invite them?’

  ‘The fact that when it comes to legal talk, Mr Monte, I am strictly non compos. When I mentioned that to Mr Warburton he said I ought to have some good friend standing by as interpreter in case I needed one, and I don’t have a better friend in the world than Mr Prendergast. He even phoned London at his own expense yesterday just to check on Mr Warburton and make sure he’s no gold brick salesman.’

  ‘And how did he check out?’

  ‘Just fine, thanks. It seems he’s a highly reputable lawyer there. Now come in and meet him. He’s pretty improbable really.’

  Simon Warburton was pretty improbable at that. A huge man with long, silvery hair combed back in graceful wings, an aristocratic beak of a nose, and glassy, ingenuous blue eyes, he was dressed in a way to suggest that a few minutes before he had been strolling down the Strand on a chilly London morning. It was all there in the heavy-weight, severely-tailored black suit with its fine pinstripe, the gleaming white shirt with its high, tight collar, the handsome cravat, and, parked on a chair, in those perfect finishing touches, black bowler, rolled umbrella, and well-worn attaché case.

  Despite his formidable get-up, Warburton proved to be all jovial good-nature, in contrast to the Prendergasts who were, in their way, as improbably New England as he was old England. A bleak, frozen-faced couple, they had distinguished themselves at Cobia by the grim way they sunbathed, dabbled in the pool, and played shuffleboard every afternoon, as if having paid for these entertainments they damn well intended to get full value for their money.

  It came as no surprise to Chris to get from them the same fishy eye and vague nod of recognition that a bellhop might get in answering their call for room service. It made Warburton’s cordial greeting that much more gratifying.

  ‘This is a pleasure, Mr Monte. I’m very keen about tennis – played miserably and watched passionately – and I saw you put on a splendid show at Wimbledon four or five years ago.’

  ‘Seven years ago.’

  ‘Was it that far back? Good God, it seems hardly that long ago I was watching Fred Perry in the centre court. You reminded me of him. I’ve always felt one had to be British to give the game the truly stylish touch, but you were the rare exception.’

  ‘Maybe not. After all, I’m half British.’

  ‘You are?’

  Not only Warburton, but all of them were looking at him with startled interest, Chris saw.

  He said uncomfortably, ‘My father was British. He was with the Royal Air Force on duty in Bermuda when the war started. He put in two weeks furlough in Miami here, and he and my mother met each other and got married the second week. Then he went back to England and was killed in the Battle of Britain.’

  ‘Like many another good man,’
Warburton said soberly. ‘God rest them all. Could I have known him by some remote chance?’ He frowned reflectively. ‘An airman named Monte –’

  ‘His name wasn’t Monte. It was Walker. Frederick Walker. Victor Monte was the man my mother married afterwards. He adopted me legally, too.’

  ‘Ah, so you’re only half an exception to my theory then,’ said Warburton. ‘I mean about British players having style. Yes, indeed, but this is rather a digression, isn’t it. We must get to our business before I talk you to death about tennis. In a way, our business, concerning as it does the whys and wherefores of the late Clive Valentine’s will, makes quite as intriguing a subject.’ He looked from one to another of the company arranged around the room. ‘Quite as intriguing. I suppose anything to do with Clive would be. I’ll spare you the de mortuis. He was a detestable man. Wholly detestable. Violently eccentric, and with a disposition that could curdle milk.

  ‘My candid opinion is that religious fanaticism was his undoing. I’ve always felt a civilized man should take his religion like good tea, with a bit of cream and sugar to set it off properly, and Clive took his like raw gin. He worshipped some kind of horrifying deity out of the Old Testament who evidently frowned on every human diversion as a ticket to Hades.

  ‘However, the important thing to us is that this had not always been the case. In his youth he had been quite the gaudy rakehell until on a trip to this country he underwent an amazing conversion. He met a clergyman in Boston, a young man named Lucas Jones –’ Warburton nodded in the girl’s direction ‘– the father of our young lady here, who worked some sort of miracle on him. When Clive returned to England he was a changed man. A thundering Puritan, in fact.’