Moment of Violence

by George Harmon Coxe

  In those days Dave had considered himself lucky to get a date or two a month. He felt that she liked him well enough but he was also a little in awe of her popularity and her beauty. He knew she was determined when she wanted to be, and more selfish than some girls. There had been times, when she had broken a date, that he considered her calculating, devious, and not completely honest. But such thoughts, he knew, were the result of hurt feelings; for Gloria not only wanted a good time, she wanted the best time she could get.

  But in the end his persistence had very nearly paid off. He was in law school at the time and some of Gloria’s other beaus had decided to seek more permanent arrangements with other young women. Mike Ludlow had also known Gloria, but he was selling stocks and bonds and at the time he was occupied with a young divorcee who lived in New York. When that liaison had run its course, Mike was again free-lancing, but the break, when it happened, had come without warning and took the form of a small box and a note which came by registered mail. The box contained his ring, and the note, which he had destroyed immediately, had asked for understanding, forgiveness, and his blessing.…

  He finished his account of what had happened earlier and waited for her reaction, and there was nothing there for him to see. Close like this, he was aware that the once lovely complexion was roughened and faintly blotchy. Her face seemed a little plumper. She might have put on some weight but her figure was still magnificent. The full-lipped mouth was still provocative but it was the gray eyes, tired and disillusioned eyes now, that told him how much she had changed.

  “Does my reaction, or lack of it, surprise you, David?” she said. “You expect me to feel something, don’t you? But somehow I don’t. I guess there was nothing left for me to feel for Mike. Not surprise, not sorrow, not even relief.”

  He picked up the gun and was relieved to see that it was a small caliber weapon—a .25 or perhaps a .22.

  “What were you going to do with this?” He hesitated and when she did not reply he said: “You thought that was Mike in the water.”

  “Yes, I thought it was Mike.”

  “Did you really mean to—”

  “Kill him? No. If I had, the bullet would have come closer than it did, believe me. No”—she shook her head—“I wasn’t going to kill him, not that I hadn’t thought about it more than once. There were times when I think I might have if I’d had a gun in my hand and a little more nerve.”

  Dave lifted the top of the straw bag which, while not made here, seemed to be indigenous to the island. On top of the feminine accessories he saw a pair of black opera pumps. These told him that she had come along the beach in her bare feet and now, putting the little automatic on top of them and closing the basket, he said:

  “Why don’t you tell me about it, Gloria?”

  “I want to. I don’t know if you’ll believe me, or if I can make you understand.… I’m getting a divorce,” she said. “It’ll be final next month. I have nothing to show for my marriage, David, except this.” She pulled her blond hair back from the side of her forehead to disclose a triangular scar. “And this.” She touched the bridge of her nose. “The doctor did a good job but Mike broke it.… And this”—she touched her front teeth. “You used to say I had beautiful teeth. Just don’t look too closely. The front two are capped.”

  Such disclosures shocked Dave. He knew they must be true, that he had to accept them, but there was something else and he spoke of it now. “You used to have some money.”

  “About eighty or ninety thousand from my father’s estate when I was twenty-one.” She took a swallow of her drink and her red mouth grew crooked as remembered thoughts came back to her. “There was a guest house in Jamaica. That was Mike’s first bright idea. But home economics was never my long suit and if Mike wasn’t in the bar drinking with someone he was trying to make one of the lady guests. Here, he thought he could start a taxi service that would compete with Starr’s Garage. He couldn’t. There was a dry cleaning place that lasted four months. There was a real estate speculation on some lots up beyond Maxwell, but somehow no one wanted them at the time. Eighty thousand doesn’t go very far with someone like Mike.”

  “But did you have to give it to him?”

  “Have you ever been physically afraid of anybody, David?”

  “Not for long.”

  “Nor had I. But Mike was the physical type, you should know that—and when I wouldn’t give him what he wanted he would literally beat it out of me. He wasn’t the Mike you and I used to know. He couldn’t take failure and rum is cheap here. Oh, I thought about going to the police. I threatened to once or twice and he said if I did he’d kill me and do you know something? I believe he would have; I really do. It was so much easier to let him have what he wanted—while it lasted. Also when things go wrong and you haven’t the will or the courage to fight back defeat becomes a habit.”

  She finished the drink and put the glass down. “There was a scheme in Caracas that lasted six months. After that came Trinidad. He tried a night club and when that failed he started smuggling.… You don’t believe me,” she said, seeing the doubt in Dave’s troubled gaze, “but it’s true. That’s when I left. I came back here and went to work. Not here in this bungalow. I haven’t lived here in a long time. I was a hostess in this hotel and that hotel. I’ve got a part-time job with the local broadcasting station. I started divorce proceedings and it isn’t easy down here. Then, two months ago, Mike came back. He’s got a girl next door.”

  “Mrs. Dunning?”

  She nodded. “She dabbles in art. She used to fly down to Trinidad twice a month for her art classes—so she said—and stay overnight. I think the thing with Mike started there. But that’s not important, or anything new for Mike.… You want to know why I came here tonight with a gun? All right, I’ll try to tell you.

  “You know about the option?” she said. “Well, Mike boasted that he was going to raise fifty thousand dollars in cash and take up that option on Monday and turn around and sell it for two hundred thousand.”

  “Do you think he had it?” Dave asked. “I mean the fifty thousand in cash?”

  “I don’t know. I only know what he said. And this evening before I went to the party I got to brooding about it. I normally don’t drink alone, especially if I’m going out, but I did tonight and maybe it was those drinks that got me started thinking. I don’t know if it ever happens to you but sometimes when you drink like that you work up a sort of false courage. You think of things that you should have done before and you tell yourself that this time you’re going to do them. You promise yourself that things will be different. You get illusions or—or maybe de-lusions is the better word. The more you brood about the things that have gone wrong, the more important they become, the more the old injustices rankle. Do you know what I mean?”

  “I know.”

  “Well, I guess that’s how it started. I had these two drinks while I was dressing, and I thought of all Mike had taken from me and what he had done to me—not just the beatings, but inside. I thought of that hundred and fifty thousand that he was going to get, of which I would get exactly nothing. I wanted to do something that would either stop him or give me a part of that money and that’s why I decided to bring that little gun. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was going to do or when I would do it, but the gun seemed important and I took it.”

  She paused and said: “There were more drinks before dinner. I hid my brooding pretty well at the party. I don’t think anyone noticed. I danced. I had a suitable quip when I needed one. I had a fine dinner. Outwardly I was really quite gay but inside the liquor was working and as the evening wore on I knew what I wanted to do. I had come alone, in my own car, so when the party broke up it was easy enough to get away. I took off my shoes and hurried up the beach and what I intended to do was come in here and wake Mike up with the gun at his head.

  “I know it sounds silly now and I also know it probably wouldn’t have worked. But I was going to try. I was going to force him either to give
me that option so that on Monday I could get a share of the profits or, if he actually had that cash in the house, I was going to make him split it with me. In the mood I was in I think I would have shot him if he had tried to put his hands on me. I don’t mean to kill him but just to hurt him. But—I don’t suppose I could make anyone understand how I felt; no one else could know the things he had done to me over the years and how much I despised him.

  “That’s why I shot at you,” she said, her voice quieter now. “I thought it was Mike. I wasn’t afraid to shoot again if I had to and I thought that this way would be even better than the other. If I could catch him naked like that, and with no way to fight back, he’d have to listen to me. I felt even surer that I could convince him I meant business —only it turned out to be you.”

  Dave believed her. It was a wild idea and, considered soberly, not a very sound one. But he understood that people who had suffered abuse long enough sometimes struck back, and not always in the wisest way. He also understood that under the influence of whisky many people attempted things they would not normally consider.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “You don’t have to be, David. I’m not. I’m only sorry that it had to happen to him tonight. But at least my luck is consistent—all bad. I understand that option was not transferable. It couldn’t be assigned to anyone or left to anyone, could it?”

  “No. For all legal purposes there is no option now.”

  “Then, as usual, I’ll get nothing. If someone had killed Mike Monday night or Tuesday night I might have got something because I was still his wife.” She pushed her chair back and stood up. “I suppose I’d better get home,” she said. “I imagine the police’ll be waiting for me.”

  “Probably.”

  “And will you have to tell them about this?”

  “Not unless it’s necessary.”

  “Necessary? How could it be necessary?”

  “I don’t know that it will be,” Dave said. “But a wife is usually a prime suspect when the husband is killed. Especially when it is known that they don’t get along. The police have to suspect you and they’re going to check the people you were with tonight.”

  “Then I guess it’s a good thing I went to the club. If I didn’t have those friends of mine to tell the police I was with them all the time I might really be in trouble.”

  “If the police are satisfied, no one has to know anything about this. But if they shouldn’t be for any reason it might be a good idea if I told them what actually happened. Because no one in his right mind would be gunning for a husband who was already dead.”

  “Oh.” She nodded and picked up her bag. “Yes, I see what you mean.… Well, I’d better run.” She leaned close and kissed him on the cheek and stepped back, and for the first time since he’d seen her she smiled. “I’m sorry I frightened you, David. But I’m awfully glad you’re here. Will I see you tomorrow?”

  “Probably,” Dave said and gave her a small grin that he hoped was reassuring. “I have an idea that Major Fleming will demand a command performance in his office in the morning.”

  6

  WHEN DAVE PAYNE opened his eyes the next morning, he felt physically fit but mentally lazy and it took him a while to get his mind clicking and his memory working on the things that had happened the night before. Sunlight printed a striped pattern across the bed, and when a glance at his watch told him it was eight o’clock he rolled over and got his feet on the floor. He found his slippers and scratched his head, not wanting to think too much about what had happened and reluctant to speculate on what might lay ahead. In this he was partly successful because after he had yawned and stretched he found himself wondering what he was going to do about breakfast.

  If Ludlow had a maid she had not yet put in an appearance—there was a good reason for this if the police had told her what had happened—but he had no trouble finding instant coffee on a kitchen shelf, bread in the bread box, and eggs, butter, and fruit in the icebox. He put water on when he had lighted one of the burners on the gas range and went in to take a shower. He toweled himself lightly and let the morning air do the rest, and it was not until he began to empty the pockets of the suit he had worn down from New York that he found the key.

  His first reaction was one of astonishment. He did not even remember seeing it before and he had to reach back into his mind before he could focus his thoughts and come up with an answer. When it came he did not like it. The fact that he had not actually seen the key was no excuse. He had kicked it in the darkness of the living room when he had been moving toward the veranda. He had pocketed it absently as he reached for his cigarettes. Right after that Dunning had startled him and he knew now that he had literally not given that key another thought. Now, turning over the round composition tag he saw that it said: CARIB CLUB-18.

  He gave the matter considerable thought as he ate his piece of pawpaw, toast, and soft boiled eggs. The lawyer in him told him that he should report his find to the police without further delay. Some other part of him that he did not bother to analyze suggested that he proceed with caution. In the end it was this more human facet of his character that took him up the beach after he had washed the dishes.

  A stand of palms and casuarinas marked the area between the Carib Club patio and the beach. The rambling white building, one-storied except for the center section, spread laterally in graceful angles and was centered on a circular drive, on one side of which was the parking area. On the other side, a row of white-walled cottages stretched along a crushed coral-stone path, and Dave, cutting through the trees and avoiding the main building, approached the end cottage from the near side. A few feet of grass separated it from the sandy soil beneath the trees and as he came round the corner he saw the number 18 over the door. There was no one in sight along the path or in the parking area as he knocked, listened, knocked again.

  He had the key in his hand now but he hesitated for one more knock. When there was no answer he reached for the knob. This turned easily and the door opened without the aid of the key, and now he was in a spacious, tastefully furnished room with a double bed, two easy chairs with floor lamps, a bureau, vanity and bench, two bedside tables. Two doors were ajar at the far end, one giving on a bath and the other leading to a large walk-in closet.

  He knew, even as he closed the door behind him, that this was a woman’s room, and a glance at the bed with its thrown-back sheet told him only one person had used it. The toilet articles on the vanity and the stockings, panty girdle, and brassière in a chair confirmed the opinion. The ubiquitous straw basket stood on one corner of the bureau and he moved over to it, thinking now and not liking the conclusions which resulted. Still not wanting to admit what as yet was no more than a hunch, he pulled open the top right-hand drawer of the bureau. Brassières, handkerchiefs, and scarves only partially covered the gun and as he removed it he saw that it was a Mauser.

  Absently then, he closed the drawer part way and stepped over to the nearest window, troubled now, his mind so deeply concerned that he was afraid to turn the automatic over in his hand. When he did he saw the initials J.A. engraved on one stock and, not wanting to, he brought the muzzle to his nose and sniffed. The fresh, acrid odor was unmistakable, and for the next few moments he could only stare at the gun while things added up in his mind and brought forth ugly conclusions he tried very hard to reject.

  The sound of steps on the coral-stone path outside jerked his thoughts swiftly back to the moment. He could hear, faintly, the sound of someone humming, and when he realized that this was the last cottage in the row and that there was nowhere else to go, panic took hold of him. It may have been guilt that fathered the impulse but he did not stop to think about that now. He had no recourse to reason or logic, nor did he stop to consider what might happen later. He did not want to be caught with that gun in his hand, so he did the only thing that was left—he dived for the closet and swung the door behind him.

  He had perhaps a second to spare before he heard so
meone enter, and by the time the outer door closed he already regretted his move. The closet was hot and stuffy and faintly perfumed. Perhaps a four-inch crack remained between the edge of the door and the jamb and he could not help looking into the room, not with any feeling of a Peeping Tom but because he had to know.

  The sight of Joan Allison merely confirmed what he had been afraid to admit. Her dark hair and slightly olive skin made a startling contrast to the white one-piece bathing suit she wore. She was still humming as he watched her toss the towel and her beach bag aside. When she reached for the zipper in the back of her suit and gave it a jerk she stepped to one side. The mirrors of the vanity were so turned that he could still see the reflection of her trim and lovely figure, and so he stood there, sweating, ashamed, embarrassed, and confused.

  He saw her start to pry off the shoulder straps. He watched her step quickly aside and out of sight, not knowing why but only that he was trapped and had but one hope of getting out unseen. If she would only go into the bath and take a shower he might have a chance—

  The sound that came to him then snapped the thought and brought new panic. He could not see her now but he heard the sound of a telephone being lifted. What she said then explained why she had moved so quickly and told him that the mirror which revealed her must also have revealed some movement of his.

  “Hello,” she was saying. “How does one get the police out here?”

  He came out then; he had to. Hesitating only long enough to thrust the Mauser deep into his hip pocket, he pushed the door wide. She was facing him as she stood there with the telephone in her hand. The shoulder straps were back in place and her astonishment as recognition came to her was complete.

  She gave a small audible gasp as her mouth opened. Her lids snapped high above the dark-blue eyes and because of his embarrassment he had a hard time meeting her startled gaze. He could hear the telephone making noises now and he made urgent gestures toward it. She understood him at once because she lifted it and spoke hurriedly.