The Valentine Estate

by Stanley Ellin

  ‘Tamiami Trail to Naples.’

  ‘Naples? Isn’t that over on the Gulf?’

  ‘It’s only a hundred miles, and the Trail is dead this time of night. Once we’re out of town we can really move. I’ll be with you in a minute. I have to lock up in front.’

  He locked the front door and windows of the shop and switched out the overhead light, but before he could get back to Hilary there was a sharp rapping of knuckles on the door. Resignedly, he opened it and switched on the light again. Elizabeth Jones stood there on the verandah.

  ‘I’m glad I caught you in,’ she said. ‘I was on the phone with Mr Warburton –’

  Her voice faded out. Her eyes were fixed beyond him.

  ‘Hilary?’ she said. ‘But, Hilary, you told me –’

  ‘I asked Chris to take me for a little ride, Elizabeth. I thought it might make me feel better to get a little fresh air.’

  ‘Yes, I see. Of course.’ The girl took a backward step as if getting ready to run for it and would have gone sprawling over the lounger behind her if Chris hadn’t grabbed her arm in time. She hastily pulled the arm free. ‘Thank you. I guess I’m clumsy in more ways than one. Oh –’ She dug into her carry-all and came up with an envelope which she thrust at Chris. ‘You’d better take care of this before I lose it. And Mr Warburton said he’d like us to have lunch with him tomorrow. One o’clock at the Columbus.’

  ‘All right, I’ll be there.’ Chris followed her as she retreated to the verandah steps. ‘You don’t mind if we skip the lesson in the morning, do you? There’s something I might –’

  But she was already down the steps and off into the darkness.

  Hilary shook her head sadly.

  ‘Hell and damnation,’ she remarked. ‘Doesn’t she have a sense of timing though?’

  ‘What about it? We had all our clothes on.’

  ‘Not from her viewpoint. I told her I had a headache and wanted to get to bed early, so I could duck out of a bridge game with her and the folks and get here on time.’

  ‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave,’ Chris said. ‘Why didn’t you just tell her the truth?’

  ‘The way she feels about you? Or are you suggesting you don’t know how she feels about you?’ She scanned his face. ‘Golly gee, I do believe you are.’

  ‘You believe right. What makes you so sure I turn her on?’

  ‘The fact that she shyly confided it to me. What’s in that envelope anyhow?’

  The envelope the girl had thrust on him was unsealed. He pulled out its contents. A pair of Miami-London airline tickets dated the coming week, one made out to Mr Christopher Monte, the other to Mrs Christopher Monte. Even more gratifying, a certified cheque for a thousand dollars made out to Mr Christopher Monte. He looked closer. The cheque was signed, not by Simon Warburton, but by Joseph Prendergast.

  He showed the signature to Hilary. ‘You know anything about this?’

  ‘Oh, that. Warburton put dad up to it. It’s an instalment on expense money. Elizabeth doesn’t rate as an heir until she’s married, so she can’t get an advance from the estate. Dad said he’d take care of it.’

  ‘He’s a man of his word. That reminds me. You said I owed you this ride tonight. Were you the one –?’

  ‘I said I’d uncork at the end of the line. The sooner we get started, the sooner we get there.’

  Riding pillion, she paid him the compliment of showing a relaxed confidence in him. He took his time going over the causeway and south to the Trail, and on the opening stretch of the Trail with its ugly sprawl of neon-lit service stations, used-car lots, diners and shops, he still kept throttled down to the tempo of the traffic around him, knowing how happy the cops would be to nail him any way they could because of the McClure alibi. But once out of the city into the desolation of the Everglades, the headlight beam lighting up only emptiness ahead, he shifted into fourth gear and gunned the motor wide open.

  ‘Hang on,’ he called to Hilary over his shoulder.

  She nodded, slid forward in the saddle to close the small gap between them, and locked her arms tight around him. As the bike picked up speed, he became aware of the breasts cushioned against his back, the thighs vibrating against his buttocks. Very nice. It was the speed which sent you, which really took you out of yourself, but this kind of passenger was the dividend, the egg in the beer.

  There were forty miles of straightway where he kept the speedometer well over the hundred mark, the thick humid air turned into a gale wind which buffeted him at times like a fist, the occasional insects drawn by the headlight stinging his face like airgun pellets. Then out of Dade County into Collier and the north-west swing carrying them at reduced speed past the unlit huddle of Ochopee and at full speed again through the final run into Naples. A neat little place. Seaside Toytown, U.S.A. He pulled the machine up at the edge of the beach on the far outskirts of town and cut the motor. They were the only ones there. Only twelve-thirty at night and the whole town seemed to be already in bed.

  Hilary dismounted stiffly and peeled off the helmet and goggles. She looked around into the darkness.

  ‘Naples, and not a Neopolitan in sight. And that’s the Gulf of Mexico, I suppose. All right, which’ll it be, skinny dip or panty plunge? What I’m wearing underneath could pass for a bikini in case somebody evil-minded comes along.’

  ‘Sorry, ma’am, no dip and no plunge. Not unless you’ve got some way of seeing jellyfish in the dark. Let’s talk instead.’

  ‘If that’s the way you want to waste this starry night.’

  She kicked off the sneakers and walked out on the beach. He followed, and when she flopped down on the sand he sat down beside her.

  ‘You were the one who told Elizabeth to pick me for the marriage deal, weren’t you?’ he said.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Because you knew she had a thing going for me.’

  ‘Nope. I was only the finger-man. It was dad who thought of you first when Warburton broke the big news. He sort of gave me the elbow in the ribs about it, and I just passed the thought along to Elizabeth. She’ll do whatever he says.’

  ‘So I’ve noticed. Why will she?’

  ‘Gratitude, I suppose.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Look, mister, she’s the one to ask about it.’

  ‘I’m asking you.’

  ‘Oh, all right. But if you ever let my father know I breathed any of this to you, I’ll slit your throat. Dad’s old-fashioned about some things. Like, for instance, advertising his good works.’

  ‘Meaning Elizabeth?’

  Hilary drew a crumpled pack of cigarettes from beneath the waistband of the stretch pants. She lit one for each of them.

  ‘There’s this character sometimes shows up in Li’l Abner,’ she said, ‘always goes around with a little black cloud over his head. That’s Elizabeth. The bad luck kid herself, from as far back as I knew her until Warburton walked into the picture.’

  ‘How far back does that go?’

  ‘About eight years. We took freshman year together at Boston U. She used to help me bone up for exams, and I had a car so I’d even it up by dropping her off at her house after classes every day. God, what a dismal house that was. But dismal. Her father was minister of some genteel, oddball denomination with almost no congregation so they were dirt poor, and what money there was went to taking care of her mother who was always sick. No kidding, it was like something out of Dickens.’

  ‘I got the impression she thought a lot of her father.’

  ‘She did, poor girl. I hated him. He was one of those saintly characters with the Big View of everything and a brain like an encyclopedia. He could put you down with a word, and he certainly put Elizabeth down every way he could. Last time I ever saw him, I said something to Elizabeth about taking her shopping in Filen’s for a new dress because she was always wearing those awful Little Orphan Annie outfits, and he put on that saintly smile and said to the wall, “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity”. That settled her new dress all
right. Fact is, he didn’t like real live sexy women, and Elizabeth was always trying to make herself into the kind of woman he might like. Sometimes I had her over to our place to show her the other side of the moon, and my folks were fascinated by her and her problems. I guess it was like soap opera to them. Then her father died of a heart attack around the end of freshman year, and she quit school to get a job, so we drifted apart.’

  ‘What brought you back together?’

  ‘Well, once or twice a year when I felt guilty about it I’d get in touch with her, and about six months ago when I had her over to the house for dinner with the folks, she was really desperate. Her mother had gone from bad to worse and was in a public institution where the treatment was rotten, but there was no money at all for a private institution. Dad must have given that a lot of thought, he couldn’t seem to get Elizabeth off his mind all that week, and then he finally came up with the idea of taking her on as his private secretary, having her move in with us so she could cut down on all her expenses, and, besides that, laying out the money to keep her mother in a decent place. Decent, meaning expensive. It comes to at least a thousand a month.’

  ‘You mean her mother’s still alive?’

  ‘That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? What makes you think she wouldn’t be?’

  ‘Because in the will Warburton had her draw up today, she named your father as residuary legatee, not her mother. Now I see why. I’ll have to admit he’s a lot more charitable than he looks.’

  ‘More than you even know so far,’ said Hilary. ‘Do you have any idea why we’re down here in Miami Beach?’

  ‘Sure. Because it’s cold around Revere Beach this time of year.’

  ‘No, because of Elizabeth. That’s the most fantastic part of her falling into this legacy and having to get married and all. My folks always take their vacations in some tedious old folk’s delight in Maine where they can play bridge all day and put down the younger generation. Then it dawned on them that there wasn’t one man in Elizabeth’s life. Absolutely not even one. And she’s twenty-five now, it’s time she at least started to hold hands. So that’s why we trekked down here, to find her a handholder. And then look what happened!’

  ‘Meaning she might have found more than just a hand-holder?’

  ‘Let’s face it, Christopher. You’re signing on as a husband.’

  ‘Temporarily.’

  ‘That’s what you say now. And I know about the fifty thousand dollars you’re getting for it. But what happens when you wake up one morning after the will is all settled, and you realize you’re married to a million dollars? And that your wife is a big-eyed innocent who’d flipped so hard for you that it’s practically your own million as long as you stay married to her?’

  ‘I see. Is that why you married Talbot? Because he had a million dollars?’

  ‘No, he married me because he thought my father had it, and he took off into the distance as soon as he learned different. Come to think of it, he was one hell of a tennis player, too. Not in your class, of course, but good. And snotty, like all good tennis players. What makes them that way? You take golfers or baseball players or any other kind of athlete, and most of them seem real human. Not tennis players. They’re all such arrogant bastards.’

  ‘Including me?’

  ‘Especially you, with that large, economy-size chip on your shoulder. It’s a break for you there are some women weak-minded enough to like being put down by the type. Me, for instance. Oh, crap,’ she said, as a brilliant glare of headlights swung along the beach. ‘More sinners come to roost.’

  It wasn’t. It was a police car which pulled up beside the Harley-Davidson, its red warning light blinking rhythmically, its headlights blinding them when they turned to face the pair of men striding through the sand towards them.

  ‘Looks like the joint is raided,’ said Chris.

  He got to his feet, turning his back to the headlights, but when the men came up to him one of them promptly beamed a flashlight into his eyes, blinding him again.

  ‘Stay where you are, Monte,’ the other man said. ‘Put your hands on your head.’

  It was a shock hearing his name. Then the shock became cold anger. The Dade County cops had warned they’d make him sweat blood for getting McClure off his murder rap. Now the word must have been passed from Dade to Collier, and the motor cycle’s licence plate was the giveaway. Rousting was the word for it. Keep pushing a man until he either left the territory or did something he could be nailed for.

  He set his teeth and clasped his hands on his head. The man frisked him thoroughly, removing everything from his pockets. Wallet, keys, handkerchief, change, cigarette pack, and the envelope containing the airline tickets and Prendergast’s cheque. Everything but the wallet and envelope was shoved back into his jacket pocket.

  ‘What the hell is this all about?’ Hilary demanded.

  ‘You’ll find out. Turn around, Monte.’

  He did. Now the glare of headlights was full on his face.

  ‘Stay like that,’ the man in charge said. He went off to the car. After a while, there was the sound of the car door slamming, and he reappeared.

  ‘Sit down and take off those boots,’ he said.

  When they were off, the man thrust a hand deep inside each one, then tossed the boots on the sand at Chris’s feet and the wallet and envelope beside them. No, Chris thought, this has nothing to do with McClure. These men weren’t just putting pressure on him, they were really searching for something.

  ‘Now listen close,’ the man said. ‘There’s a guy sitting in that car says when he came out of a diner in Ochopee an hour ago a pair just like you was parked on a motor cycle there. Before he knew what happened, he was slugged and had his money lifted. Right now he ain’t sure it was you who did it, but if you want to be nasty about it, he’ll be very sure. At least enough to have you booked for assault and robbery. Is that clear?’

  ‘Clear?’ Hilary said in outrage. ‘Mister, we never even –!’

  ‘Shut up,’ Chris said. ‘Yes, it’s clear,’ he told the man.

  ‘Good. And in case you want to make a stink about this to my department, my name is Cox. Lieutenant Thomas Cox. Only thing is,’ the man said with slow, meaningful deliberation, ‘you could spoil your chance of coming into a lot of money by doing something stupid. You know what I mean?’

  That was a jolt. It was like a fist slammed into the diaphragm.

  Chris sat there thinking hard, watching Cox and his henchman trudge back to the car. The car moved off quickly and quietly.

  ‘You’re not serious,’ Hilary burst out. ‘You don’t really mean to let that bastard get away with this, do you?’

  ‘You heard what he said. I make trouble, he makes trouble.’

  Hilary digested this in silence.

  ‘It’s too much for me,’ she finally said. ‘He knows about your deal with Elizabeth, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And who you are. But how does he know that? And if somebody is slugged and robbed –’

  ‘Nobody was. As far as knowing who I am, we must have been followed from Cobia until we got out on the Trail, and then a phone call to this end of it would have them watching for us to come along. That’s the easy part to figure out. The hard part is about the deal with Elizabeth. Unless your father changed his mind about my marrying her and put some big shot –’

  ‘Not a chance,’ Hilary said flatly. ‘He doesn’t do things that way. He’d tell you whatever he felt right to your face.’

  ‘I got that impression, too. But that leaves this whole thing up in the air. All I’m sure of is that whoever was in that car had those cops in his pocket, and he was using them to get a good look at me and go through everything I had on me. He could even be somebody I know, because he sure as hell didn’t want me to see him.’

  ‘But what could you be carrying on you he’d want to search you for?’

  ‘Beats me. Not weed or acid because then we’d both have gotten a lo
t more intimate going-over than we did. I mean both of us, baby.’

  ‘You’re giving me the creeps,’ Hilary said. She scrambled to her feet and tugged at his hand. ‘Let’s get out of here. I don’t like this place.’

  The saddle bag of the Harley-Davidson was open when they got back to it, the tools and roadmaps that had been stored in it lying scattered on the ground. Chris put them back where they belonged and swung into the saddle. He froze there, the vaguest outlines of a picture emerging from the fragments of the puzzle.

  The runt with the jughandle ears outside Elizabeth’s room.

  The mysterious passenger in the police car.

  The late unlamented Clive Valentine –

  ‘Well, what are we waiting for?’ said Hilary.

  He turned to face her.

  ‘I want you to do something for me. I’m booked for a couple of lessons tomorrow morning, so you’re the one who has to do it. There’s a library on the Beach down at 21st Street with a pretty good reference department. I want you to be there as soon as it opens in the morning and dig up whatever you can about Clive Valentine. Anybody leaves that much money has to be on the record somewhere. Then meet me in the tennis shop by eleven and tell me what you’ve got. Will you do that?’

  ‘All right,’ Hilary said. ‘But why?’

  ‘No questions. Just do it and keep it to yourself along with what happened here tonight.’

  ‘That’ll be the hard part,’ said Hilary.

  7

  ‘Favour?’ McClure said vaguely. ‘What kind of favour? Say, what the hell time is it anyway?’

  McClure was squatty and solid, red-headed and with a mat of red hair on his barrel chest. Even yawning loudly, sitting half-asleep on the edge of his bed in pyjama pants, he was impressive the way a grizzly bear suddenly roused out of its winter’s sleep would be impressive.

  ‘About four o’clock,’ Chris said.

  ‘Four a.m.? You must be stoned to the ears. Go on, beat it. Come back a sensible time.’

  ‘Now,’ said Chris.

  You weren’t supposed to talk like that to McClure. He was high up in the rackets, he had a temper to go with his red hair, and if it suited him, he’d get as much pleasure from having both your arms broken as the thugs he’d hire to do it. But he wasn’t all animal. He had a streak of human curiosity in him.