Albert could sense the appearance of a hustler no matter how well dressed and well mannered. He might not know all the high-class call girls in the neighborhood but they either had a date when they came in or they drank alone. Sanford had noticed Laura twice before the afternoon he spoke to her, and from the beginning she had been the object of some speculation. She sat alone at the front end of the bar, the dark glasses adding a touch of mystery to the attractive face with its high cheekbones and straight nose and full, lovely looking mouth. There was an air of casual elegance in her manner at all times that he found impressive, and something about her clothes and the way she wore them warned him that she was also expensive. She seemed always to be looking straight ahead as she sipped her one highball, and the glasses prevented him from knowing whether she was aware of him or not.
On this particular afternoon he had finished his drink and was backing toward the entrance as he made some parting comment to Albert. He had just reached the curved part of the bar when something fell beside him. He saw as he turned that the girl had knocked her handbag from the bar, and as she slipped from the stool to retrieve it she lost her balance. He caught her as she stumbled against him and for a moment she was very close. He knew then as he smelled her hair and saw the flawless smoothness of her skin, that she had a curved and supple body beneath her tailored suit.
He said “I’m terribly sorry,” and she said in a pleasantly husky voice: “It was my fault.” He let go and saw that the contents of the bag had spilled out and he said: “Let me help you.”
They knelt together and he was reminded again of his thought that she was expensive when he saw the gold cigarette case, and lighter and compact.
“Are you all right?” he said, knowing she was but not wanting to go. “Would you like to sit down a minute or”—he ignored Albert—“perhaps have another drink?”
“No thanks,” she said. “The way I staggered off that stool you might think I couldn’t handle even one.” She smiled as she spoke and just when he thought that was the end of it she added: “But you could get me a cab if you have the time.”
He opened the door and held it for her, hopeful now. “I’m Barry Sanford,” he said as they waited at the curb.
“Hello, Barry,” she said, very poised and self-contained as she looked past him up the street “Thanks for the assist.”
He saw a taxi angling in toward them and knew he had about run out of time. “I saw you here last week, didn’t I?”
“You could have.”
“I stop in every afternoon about this time,” he said. “Will I see you again?”
“Probably. Are you a patient man?” she said, her smile more noticeable now.
“When I have to be. Maybe next time we could have one together.”
“That might be fun,” she said as she opened the door and he handed her into the cab. “Thanks again, Barry.”
They had their drink together the following week and a few days later they had two under the watchful eye of Albert. But even then the routine of parting was the same. She told him that he could call her Laura but she was politely insistent when he wanted to take her home. She wanted a taxi but she would give the driver her own address; she would make no promises about seeing him again.
But she did. And the next time he talked her into having dinner with him. They rode downtown at her suggestion to an obscure place in the Village that he had never heard of before. As the weeks went by there were other restaurants that she suggested, all of which were either well uptown or downtown and unknown to him. Later there was an evening when they talked about music and decided they both liked certain kinds of jazz. This time she had gone with him to his small apartment where he made coffee and brought out brandy while he played his favorite records. It was then that she had let him kiss her when she left, and her responsiveness was encouraging and helped to offset his frustration at not knowing who she was or where she lived or what she did …
Aware of his own silence and the fact that she was watching him, he remembered that she had asked him a question but he could not remember it now.
“I’m sorry, Laura,” he said with some embarrassment. “I was thinking. What was it you said?”
“I asked you if you thought I was just being coy when I wouldn’t tell you who I was and you said ‘At first, maybe,’ and I asked what you thought after that.”
“I thought of a lot of things. I guess my imagination was pretty active most of the time. I have a part-time girl who won’t tell me anything about herself, who makes me promise not to try and follow her or find out who she is. I’m to be satisfied with what she’s giving me or write the whole thing off. I find myself starting to fall in love with this girl. It’s wonderful when I’m with her; when I’m not she seems like a phantom. I have the idea she likes me a little—”
“It was more than that and you know it.”
“—so I have to think that you’re married,” Sanford finished, ignoring the interruption. “Probably unhappily. If not that, you have to be pretty damn bored to be going out secretly now and then with a struggling young architect making $8,500 a year. I guess I was hoping that the marriage was unhappy, and that you were getting ready to break it off or get a divorce so I would have a chance.”
“You were right of course,” she said simply. “On all counts. I was unhappy and I was lonely and I did want some male companionship. Not just anybody …”
“Yeah,” Sanford said. “Some harmless jerk you could manipulate and keep dangling—”
“I deserve that. You have a right to be bitter so you might as well know the rest of it. I’ll try to keep it brief.” She glanced down at her handbag and rearranged it in her lap. “My father was a high school principal in a small town in Massachusetts. I went to a junior college after high school and then to Katharine Gibbs in Boston. Did you ever hear of it?”
“Yes,” Sanford said. “That’s the school where they turn out the proper, well-mannered secretaries for important businessmen, isn’t it?”
“I got a job in New York,” she said, not looking up. “Part-time secretary, part-time receptionist. The Hubbards did some business with the firm I worked for and that’s where Arthur Hubbard saw me. The first date was very proper and, as I soon found out, was set up at Arthur’s request. A member of the firm and his wife suggested that he and I join them for dinner—you know, sort of a blind date thing—and I couldn’t very well refuse. The next tune it was just the two of us and to use an overworked expression he bowled me off my feet. He was small and elegant like his brother but not as smart. I knew he was very rich and, like his brother, he had a great deal of surface charm when he was sober and wanted to use it.”
“King Hubbard has charm?” Sanford scoffed.
“A lot of charm. No one has better manners when he wants to use them and he’s always been very generous to those around him, maybe because he thought he had to buy their loyalty. He also had a well-nurtured supply of hate and vindictiveness which he saved for those who crossed him or got the best of him in any way. I guess it was his father’s fault. I guess he was brought up to believe that he would always be top dog and maybe that’s why his father called him King in the first place.”
“All right,” Sanford said. “I’m sorry I interrupted. Forget about King Hubbard. What about Arthur and your marriage?”
“It didn’t take. Arthur’s furious courtship paid off and the little country girl fell for it. But within two or three months after we were married I was just another one of his possessions. Until then I didn’t realize how much he drank and how little strength of character he had. I was only twenty-two and for quite a while I was too bewildered to know how to handle the situation. I finally discovered that he would have a new girl every two or three months. By that time I was very grateful because he never tried to bother me unless he was drunk. When that happened he wasn’t too hard to handle although I did get slapped around now and then.”
She stopped to accept the cigarette he offered
and again leaned forward to get a light. Looking right at him as she straightened, the green eyes wide open, she said: “Go ahead and ask me why I stuck it out.”
“Not just because he was rich,” Sanford said. “You must have had plenty of grounds for divorce. With that kind of money you should have been able to get a fat settlement.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Arthur didn’t have a lot of money.”
“Oh, come off it, Laura. Everybody knows the Hubbards have got millions.”
“In the estate, yes. But the father must have been very sold on his little boy, King. He’s older by five years than Arthur. He had complete charge of the Hubbard estate until Arthur’s thirty-fifth birthday. Arthur got all he needed from King, all he could spend. But not much in his own name. When his estate was settled, and the accounts cleared up and the taxes paid, there was something under thirty thousand left.”
“Oh,” Sanford said slowly. “I didn’t know.”
“Very few people did.” She hesitated, the red mouth tightening and a note of disgust creeping into her voice that apparently was directed inward. “I had been Mrs. Arthur Hubbard for nearly two years when I met you,” she said, “and I was determined I was going to get something more than a few dollars when I got my divorce. I’m not proud of it. In fact it makes me a little sick to think about it but it happens to be true. You say you had started to fall in love with me? Well, believe it or not, the feeling was mutual. I wanted to eat my cake and have it too. I wanted to keep you and I wanted to be paid. I was afraid to tell you the truth and I knew if Arthur found out about us that would be the end of it. I was waiting for the thirty-fifth birthday with both fingers crossed. I had about four months to go the night he was killed.”
“King Hubbard knew?”
“Of course he knew. In his mind I was just as responsible as you were for the accident. I told you what happened between the time of the funeral and the time you left New York. I was practically a prisoner in that Palm Beach house and there was nothing I could do about it. No telephone calls, no visitors, no nothing without my guardians.”
She took a breath and said: “When I got back to New York I moved into an apartment of my own. Eventually I got a job and by that time I was ready to have lunch with any personable young man who was good company. I went out with a boy from the office three times and then he stopped asking me. I didn’t know why. I met another boy at a party a couple of months later. The same thing. Three or four dates and then nothing. No reasons, no excuses that seemed convincing; just a very obvious coolness.”
“Hubbard?”
“Exactly. I found out that he had his own ways of scaring off prospective boyfriends because the third one didn’t scare at first. I know it doesn’t seem possible but it’s true. I got a call from him in the hospital. Two men beat him up on his way home one night. He had been warned to stop seeing me but he didn’t. He didn’t know the men who did it and there was no possible way he could tie in King Hubbard with the attack.”
Knowing the things Hubbard had done to him Sanford could well believe what he had heard. Hubbard had the means to hire people to do nearly anything he wanted done. Hubbard had his own twisted psychopathic desire to take care of those he felt were responsible for his brother’s death. With him, Sanford, the object was murder. With Laura Maynard he insisted on some sort of penance.
“So what are you doing here now?” he asked. “Did you know about me?”
“Of course not. I got this telephone call from King Thursday evening. He said he was flying down here with a small party and he wanted me to join him. I asked him why and he said he would explain it when we got here.”
“Didn’t you wonder about him?”
“Certainly. I also knew there wasn’t much point in speculating about what was going on in that warped mind of his. The point is that he admitted his campaign to make my life miserable. He said he was ready to call it off. There would be no more harassment I could live my life as I saw fit without any interference on his part. It was his promise that if I would make the trip, the slate would be clean. He also inferred, without saying so, that if I didn’t I could expect more of the same.”
Again she flipped the cigarette over the side. “So I came and I’m here.” She leaned forward and took his hand. “When I saw you I began to think and now I’m scared, Barry. Not for me; for you. You just don’t know the man, or what he’s capable of.”
“I think I do,” Sanford said and went on quickly to tell her what had happened the night before. He spoke of his talk with Superintendent Kirby and gave the bare, unsupported facts of the three previous attempts on his life. When he finished she was staring wide-eyed at him, an odd fear showing and her mouth slack.
“But what are you going to do?” she said when he finished. “He means it. He must mean it”
“Sure,” Sanford said and arched his back. Somehow he did not feel quite so alarmed any more. Because of the things she had said and because he understood them he wanted to reassure her. Her hand was still on his and he squeezed it once before he let go.
“He’ll find it a little tougher to call the shots here than he would in the States,” he said. “Also, I’ve got a little help. The local people will be keeping an eye on him and the fellow you just saw here is keeping an eye on me.”
“But he could hire someone.”
“He could, but somehow I don’t think he will. I sort of threw it up to him when I was on the houseboat this morning. I told him he ought to have guts enough to do the job in person and he said he would … What about you?”
“How do you mean?”
“Does he know you’re here?”
“Oh, no. Some of us came ashore to do some shopping. We’re to meet at the Ft. James. We’re all having dinner there. And that reminds me, I’d better get going.”
She stood up as she spoke. That left them inches apart in the small cockpit, face to face and looking right at each other. Not thinking about it but moved by something he saw in the green eyes that were so close to his he put his hands gently on her upper arms. He did not pull but suddenly she was close, her body against him. She lifted her chin slightly and now her lips were soft and warm against his for a long second before she stepped back and lowered her glance.
“Please be careful,” she said softly. “Please!”
“I will.”
“Promise you won’t take any chances?”
“I promise.”
He helped her up on the seawall and Williamson started walking their way. He asked if she wanted the constable to walk with her to the hotel and she said no, that it would probably be better if she went alone.
9
It was nearly seven o’clock when Sanford and Detective Constable Williamson came into the Ft. James Hotel. They stopped for a minute at Sanford’s little office in the lobby to see if there were any messages, and as he checked again with the hotel desk Sanford was reminded of the telephone call from Florida that was scheduled for nine o’clock. Laura Maynard had said the houseboat crowd would have dinner here and Sanford was curious to get another look at them, but as he turned toward the stairs to the mezzanine he wondered what he should do about Williamson.
There was no color bar in the cocktail lounge and now he turned to the detective and said: “I’m expecting a phone call at nine. Until then I’ll probably be upstairs. Will you have a drink with me?”
“I don’t believe I should while I’m on duty, sir. Thank you just the same.”
“Well, what about dinner? Come up in an hour or so and we can eat.”
Williamson grinned. “The chef is a good friend of mine,” he said. “I’ll let him fix me something in the kitchen if it’s all the same to you.” He hesitated, grin gone as he twisted his hat in his hands. “You’ll be all right up there by yourself?”
“I should be,” Sanford said. “I doubt if anyone will start anything in front of a room full of witnesses.”
“Then I will wait here after I eat. You will let me know, p
lease, if you are going to leave?”
“Right. And if you change your mind about the drink later on come up any time. See you later.”
The cocktail lounge was well patronized and busy when Barry Sanford moved up to the bar and sat two stools from two men and women who were apparently recent arrivals. The lights were on in the approaching darkness and as he waited for Pedro to take his order he gave his attention to the group in the corner next to the railing. Here, instead of regular tables, were long, leather-covered seats placed at right angles to the rail. In between were low tables for drinks and ashtrays, and before anyone noticed him he counted the roll.
Sitting on the left nearest the rail was Howard Aldington. He looked immaculate in his dark suit, and his long narrow face, with the horn-rimmed glasses and mustache, had the same dignified and humorless expression Sanford had seen before. King Hubbard sat next to him, leaning forward and holding his glass in both hands as he smiled at something that had been said. On his right was the blonde woman—was her name Blanche?—who was his third wife. Laura Maynard sat at the rail opposite Aldington but she was looking out over the swimming pool and seemed not to be listening to what was being said. On her left was the bulky, bespectacled man named Fred Cushman and next to him was the muscular blond named Peter Janovic. At the moment he was very busy talking to Irene Dumont, who apparently had been asked to join the party and sat at the end of the table, her back to Sanford …
“Yes, sir, Mr. Sanford,” Pedro said, demanding attention as he slapped a folded napkin on the bar.
“Good evening, Pedro. Busy tonight, hunh?”
“Oh yes, sir.”
“I’ll have a vodka and soda with a little lime.”
He got a cigarette lighted as the barman fixed his drink, listening absently to the two couples on his right discussing their flight down from New Orleans until he heard someone move the stool on his left. He did not glance round until George Breck spoke to him.
With Intent to Kill Page 7
