One Hour to Kill

by George Harmon Coxe

  “What?” he said.

  “I said, did you make any progress?”

  “I think it will work out all right”

  “It looks like one you did a couple of weeks ago.”

  “It’s similar. I sold that one so I thought I’d see if I could improve on it.” He moved out on the porch and reached for the clean glass. “Oliver says we’re eating out.”

  “That’s right. I feel like a steak. And don’t start screaming, because I’m picking up the check. Which is something you haven’t done in quite a while.”

  Wallace poured a little rum into the glass and swallowed it neat. He felt the welcome warmth of it spreading through his stomach and hoped it would help fortify the determination he expected to need before the evening was over. He poured more rum, added ice and soda.

  “I thought you liked the board and room around here,” he said, easing into a cane-bottomed chair.

  “The only thing I like about it is that it’s free. But for a change I had a very profitable day. So I’ll spend a little.”

  “At the shop?”

  “This was nothing to do with the shop.”

  She began to elaborate her complaints about the job she had taken for three hours an afternoon in a novelty shop in the new Hillside Hotel. Wallace saw her lean forward and fix a fresh drink but he was no longer listening as his mind slipped swiftly back to recapitulate the three years of their married life and the way it had ended or, to be exact, the way he thought it had ended.

  Fay had been a model when he met her and a very attractive one even though she was not as successful as some of her sisters in trade. The fundamental reason for this was that she was not tall enough, or scrawny enough, to compete successfully in the high-fashion field. She was on the small side, with touched-up blond hair, brown eyes, and a rather pretty face, although it was her figure rather than her shallow prettiness that attracted the attention. Idleness, lack of exercise, and too much alcohol had added a soft and rather puffy roundness to that figure in the last couple of years but when Wallace first saw her the curves of thigh and hip and breast were firm-fleshed and properly rounded.

  She had been married at nineteen and divorced at twenty, although Wallace did not know that until after they were married. She had worked for certain garment-district manufacturers, with occasional odd jobs as an artist’s model until the word got around and she became better known and more in demand. Wallace met her through a friend, and used her three or four times before he finally brought her in and introduced her to his agents.

  The firm that handled him occupied a whole floor in a Lexington Avenue building, and three sides of the perimeter of that floor had been remodeled into small, square, well-lighted cubicles for the artist clients who either did not have the proper place to work in their apartment or preferred to work away from home.

  Among other services offered by the agency to its successful illustrators was studio space, props of various kinds so that backgrounds could be simulated, and models. Some illustrators worked directly from models but most of them used cameras to get the shots they wanted and then worked from the prints. It was all the same to Fay. She would work in various costumes or none at all. And three months after he met her Wallace married her, not realizing that she was equipped with well-nurtured predatory instincts, and naively unaware that, with most successful illustrators already married, he had at the time the greatest potential as a husband.

  The truth did not dawn on him at once but came by degrees. His original idea, that there would be a house in the suburbs with a studio of his own and two or three children, had no appeal to Fay. Housekeeping had no attraction for her and when the well-hidden desire to be an actress came to light she began to study with some group in the village.

  Because she would not get up in the morning, the apartment, which had heretofore been adequate for his work, was no longer large enough. He moved into a cubicle at the agency, got his own breakfast, sent out for lunch. At dinnertime he either took her out or ate something that came from a can, or had been craftily packaged and frozen and needed nothing more than the proper amount of time at a certain temperature in the oven. And when he had gone as far as he could and said so, it came as something of a relief that she agreed with him that the marriage was finished and it was time to go their separate ways.

  They went to a lawyer of her choice and Wallace paid the retainer. A list of assets was drawn up. Insurance policies with a cash value of around five thousand dollars were turned over to her. The savings account and a few bonds came to nearly ten thousand dollars, of which she took eight. She took the furniture and the secondhand car. The agreements were signed upon her promise to go to Nevada or Alabama or wherever she wanted to go to get the divorce as soon as possible.

  Because he had bargained in good faith, he had considered that that would be the end of the matter. He had little more to give in a material way but at the time his freedom seemed well worth the price. But, with the formal separation agreed upon, he was at loose ends for a while and when, late in November, a virus infection had proved hard to shake, he accepted the advice of a friend who had suggested that he take a sabbatical of some sort and look at new backgrounds and viewpoints, preferably in a climate that was warm and sunny.

  The island of Tobago, off the north coast of Trinidad, had been recommended by others who had been there on a holiday, and once he made up his mind he went over the paintings he had done for himself over the past three or four years. He had done three portraits that had turned out well during that time and now he took the dozen canvases he thought were his best, got the proper frames, and left them with a rather good Fifty-seventh Street gallery that had sold two of his previous oils.

  Tobago had turned out to be just as pretty as he had been told it would be, but for his purpose he found it too quiet. The wooded hills and lovely beaches were picturesque enough but aside from the town of Scarborough there was little there except the tourist hotels and guesthouses. Because he wanted the life and pace and movement of a more cosmopolitan atmosphere, he had come to Trinidad and within three days had found the bungalow.

  It was just ten days later that he had met Ann. She had come to Trinidad not too long before Dave had arrived, to act as secretary, typist, and companion to her uncle Sidney Joslyn, a retired and none too robust ex-professor who had rented a cottage on the Atlantic side of the island while he tried to finish a book.

  That he had met Ann at all was a miracle that could only be attributed to fate, coincidence, or sheer good luck. That first chance meeting was enough to make him impatient for the second, and by the third he knew that this was the girl he had been looking for ever since his college days. There followed nearly two weeks while he pursued his courtship. He was aware that his progress was encouraging and he remembered again the day that this new-found happiness had exploded in his face.

  Neither he nor Ann had ever been to the southeast tip of the island, and they had started around ten in the morning from the cottage overlooking Manzanilla Bay that Sidney Joslyn had rented in November. They took the coastal road south which for several miles ran parallel with the Atlantic Ocean. On the left, between the highway and the ocean, was a strip of coconut palms that was seldom more than two hundred yards wide, while on the right there was nothing but miles of swamp that looked forbidding and impenetrable. At Plaisance they had cut across the island through rolling jungle country that was for the most part uninhabited. At San Fernando they turned left and stopped at La Brea long enough to see the Pitch Lake that was world famous but so scenically disappointing that Ann said it reminded her of a thousand abandoned tennis courts minus backstops.

  Driving southwest then, paralleling the shoreline but not seeing it until they came to Cedros Bay with its offshore oil-drilling rigs, they came finally to Icacos Point, where the Boca de la Sierpe stretched between them and the distant low-lying coast of Venezuela. They had their picnic lunch on the flat beach and later he had made some sketches of the fishing boats th
at had been pulled up beyond the high-water mark—high-bowed pirogues of a local design he had never seen before.

  It turned out to be a long day, and he left the Joslyn cottage soon after dinner. It was nearly ten o’clock when he put the car into the lean-to, and he was at once surprised to find every light in the bungalow turned on. The shack behind it was dark and tightly closed, and he had gone up on the porch and into the living room, not knowing what had happened but only aware that something was decidedly wrong.

  His immediate reaction in that first startled moment was that prowlers had been here; then, as his glance swept the room, he knew it was something more than that. For in one corner was his painting gear, which had more recently been in the front bedroom. Stacked against the wall were his finished but unframed paintings. Before he could realize what this meant there was some movement in the hall ahead of him and he watched with shocked and incredulous eyes as Fay moved out of the bedroom with a glass in her hand and a satisfied smile on her face. The announcement she made before he could find his voice was a simple one: she had flown down from Antigua to see how he was getting along; she had already moved in and intended to stay a while. . . .

  The sound of ice being dropped into a glass snuffed out the mental flashback, and he was aware that Fay was watching him narrowly as she made a fresh drink. He knew she had said something but he waited and she repeated it.

  “Where were you?”

  “When?” he said as he refocused his thoughts.

  “Just now. You looked as if you were four thousand miles away.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “I mean your thoughts.”

  “They were right here.”

  “Oh? Not very pleasant thoughts by the expression on your face.”

  “I was thinking about the way you moved in on me, the way you gypped me on the divorce you agreed to.”

  “I didn’t gyp you. I just changed my mind. I mean for the time being. Call it a postponement.”

  Wallace finished his drink and put the glass on the tray with some force. “I’ve had enough of the postponement. I want to talk about that divorce.”

  “All right, all right.” She waved her glass as though the subject was somehow unimportant. “But not on an empty stomach. What you have to say can wait until we eat, cant it?”

  Her easy acquiescence gave him some encouragement. Then, remembering other times when Fay had had too much to drink, he said: “Just don’t get the idea were going to make a night of it.”

  “Who said anything about making a night of it? We’ll be back here by nine or nine-thirty. I’ve got some things of my own I want to do.” She leaned back in her chair and took some more of her drink. “If you’re going to shower, get with it and be sure you wipe that lipstick off your face.”

  The abrupt digression nearly trapped him. Unconsciously some muscular reaction started to raise his hand but his brain flashed a warning and somehow he caught himself in time. If there was a movement it was small because his mind told him that this was but another of Fay’s innuendos and had no basis in fact. For he knew that Ann never used lipstick except in the evening. There was no need for this and now, with the light at his back, he was pleased with his reaction and the sound of his voice.

  “If there’s any red on my face,” he said, “it’s paint.”

  Then he was going down the hall, past the bedroom which had long since been appropriated by Fay, a room that he never entered except to perform some errand that she requested.

  Once in his own bedroom and with the light on, he stared into the mirror to make sure there was no lipstick on his tight-lipped, bony face. The knowledge that there was no mark of any kind did little to reassure him. Because there was another question which was boring into his consciousness to upset him anew. When he could not escape it he admitted its presence. Why, unless Fay knew something, should she say a thing like that?

  3

  Dave Wallace did not question his wife’s choice when she said they would eat at the Tavern, which was in the center of the city and offered a dining room that was open on three sides and usually cool in the evening. Even so, he wondered about it because she seemed in an unusually expansive mood. Whether this was due to the whisky or some other reason unknown to him, he did not know, but since she said that she was willing to spend he rather expected she would pick the Hillside Hotel, the newest, largest, and most unique in that the public rooms were at the top instead of the ground floor so that one went to his room down the elevator rather than up; or the Brittany, which, with both air-conditioned and open, poolside dining rooms, was supposed to have the best food in town.

  That she had boasted of new funds did not concern him one way or the other. He had made it clear on the first day that she would get nothing more from him and he had been consistent in his decision. He could not throw her out of the bungalow, and that was the only method which would have produced results. She was, she had pointed out, still his wife. So he supplied the board and room, plus occasional use of the car on the days he wanted to work at home. Otherwise she used taxis or friends; to get what she called drinking money, she had managed to find this job at the Hillside Shop, which, though the salary was not large, enabled her to meet and cultivate the traveling businessmen who were only too eager to offer dinner and an evening’s entertainment to an attractive and seductively constructed blonde.

  The large and airy dining room at the Tavern was some distance from the bar, and when Fay came up the steps from the walled-in parking area and turned toward the squarish room, Wallace was reminded again of his wife’s statement that she wanted to get back to the bungalow. For she was, habitually, the type who had the idea that two drinks at the bar were a necessary prelude to any dinner. Tonight she made up for the oversight by ordering a double whisky cocktail when the waiter brought the menu. Wallace, wanting to maintain the determination he had been building for the past hour, kept pace with a similar double, except that the basic ingredient of his drink was rum instead of Scotch.

  When the waiter went away Fay opened her handbag, which was, in fact, a small straw basket with a hinged top and a colorful flower embroidered on one side. She took out a brocaded spectacle case and slipped on her dark-rimmed glasses because she was farsighted and needed them to read the menu. Wallace, watching her, saw again the break in one sidebow and knew she had not yet ordered new frames. She had broken the glasses yesterday, but Oliver, among the world’s handiest artisans, had borrowed some cement. from Wallace and patched the sidebows so neatly that the break was hardly noticeable.

  “The soup and the steak, rare,” Fay said, putting the menu aside, “and one of their green salads with oil and vinegar.”

  Wallace gave the order and Fay took off her glasses and glanced about the room. It was then that she saw Herbert and Lorraine Carver sitting at a table near the railing and now, as her eyes narrowed and her painted mouth turned down at the comers, her mood changed. It may have been the last drink, which, added to the alcohol her system had already absorbed, was enough to make her discard any pretense of amiability or good manners. It may have been nothing more than a well-nurtured resentment compounded of envy, jealousy, and some deep-seated and congenital vindictiveness. Whatever the reason, she attempted to put her thoughts into words.

  “Look at her,” she said, the slur in her words more pronounced. “Who does she think she is, the snooty bitch* Can’t she even bother to speak?”

  Wallace started to disagree and then decided not to antagonize her. There was, he knew, a very good reason why Lorraine Carver had not recognized them. Like Fay, she was farsighted, and at the moment she had her glasses on and was intent upon her food, a tall, striking-looking brunette with an excellent figure and a somewhat haughty air. Her husband was a lean, dignified Englishman with white hair and a neat, toothbrush mustache and now, as though aware that he was being discussed, he glanced round and offered a small smile and a nod of recognition. Wallace returned it and was again reminded that Fay was embellishi
ng her original thought.

  “. . . dyes her hair. Nobody good enough here to fix it. Has to go to Barbados every two weeks to a special dressmaker too. Who does she think she’s kidding?”

  Wallace tried to close off his ears to the comments but he understood the reason for them. The Carvers lived up the beach from the bungalow and until Fay arrived he had been friendly with both of them. He had, in fact, done a head and shoulder portrait of Lorraine which earned him seven hundred and fifty dollars. As his wife, Fay had been welcome when she first came, but her predatory instincts, first with Carver and then with Nick Rand, who was an occasional visitor, were less successful than they had been in the past. The polite but distant Carver rebuffed her and this coolness plus a tendency toward unpleasantness when Fay had been drinking had closed off further invitations.

  “. . . married him for his money. At least twenty-five years older than she is. Never anything but a run-of-the-mill model until she got her hooks into him.”

  Wallace kept his silence, even though he knew the last statement was only partly true. Lorraine had indeed been a model but on a somewhat loftier level than Fay. She had the height and apparently—her figure now had an intriguing abundance of curves—the slim and slightly patronizing look so necessary for the success of an expensive high-fashion model. It was on a special assignment for one of the slick women’s magazines which took her to Nassau that she had met Carver, who was a wealthy widower out from England.

  Wallace knew all this and in his mind the real source of his wife’s resentment was at the moment at the bar. She had not seen Nick Rand come in a few minutes earlier and her chair was faced diagonally away from that part of the room. He was not sure how or when Fay met Rand because he had been so upset and angry about her arrival in Trinidad that for a week or more there had been an almost complete lack of communication. He spoke only when he had to and Fay went her own way, apparently both indifferent and unperturbed at his reaction. She was seldom at the bungalow and when she wanted to go somewhere she called a taxi, coming and going as she pleased, with no questions asked and no information given.