Beatriz Williams - The Golden Hour

I set down the glass and lifted the cigarette. Jack observed me with interest, thick eyebrows cocked. When I’d taken the first long drag, and another sip from the martini, I crossed my legs and began a survey of the room around me. As you might expect, there was plenty of room to survey, plenty of height and arch, plenty of solid rectangular pillars done in handsome raised wood paneling, plenty of large, masculine chairs and ashtrays on little tables. Not so many customers. Everybody still out enjoying the sunshine, no doubt, and aside from the elderly gent near the window, buried in his newspaper, and the two fellows in linen suits having an earnest discussion in an alcove, the joint was empty. I turned back to Jack.

“Not the old man with the newspaper, I hope?”

“He’s mighty rich, Mrs. Randolph. Beggars can’t be choosers.”

“Are you calling me a beggar, Jack?”

Jack’s face assumed an aspect of innocence. Above his head, the glasses glittered in their rows, highballs and lowballs, champagne coupes and brandy snifters, not a speck of dust, not a hair’s width out of order. “Just an old saying, Mrs. Randolph,” he said. “Something my mama used to tell me, that’s all.”

“I have my faults, I’m the first to admit. But I’ve never begged for a dime in my life, and I don’t intend to start now.” I tilted my head toward the window. “Certainly not with some old moneybags trying his luck in a hotel lounge.”

“You have your standards, is that what you’re getting at?”

“I have my standards.”

“Oh, then I should take back this little glass here?”

I slapped away his hand. “Don’t you dare. The poor fellow’s perfectly free to buy me all the drinks he wants. So long as he understands he’s not getting his money’s worth.”

“Aw, he’s not so bad. Just look at the poor sucker. Got most of his hair. Nice clean suit. Shoes all shiny. Can’t see his teeth, but I bet he’s got a few left.”

“I’ll take your word for that.”

“You’re a real tough dame, you know that? A lot of pretty girls might take pity on a nice guy like that, money to burn. A one-way ticket to Easy Street.”

“I’m not a lot of girls, am I? Besides,” I said, reaching for the ashtray, “I happen to know firsthand where that kind of arrangement ends up, and it’s not Easy Street, believe me.”

The ashtray, if you’re asking, was a heavy old thing made of silver and embossed in the middle with what seemed to be a tavern scene. A border wound around the edges in a series of scrolls, dipping now and then to make space for a resting cigarette. I knocked a crumb of ash inside and measured the weight of Jack’s curiosity on the top of my head. Not that I blamed him. You said a provocative thing like that, you expected someone to wonder what you meant by it, to clear his throat and ask you for a detail or two.

Jack’s black waistcoat shifted in the background, his crisp white sleeves. He put away the bottle of gin on the shelf behind him and said, over his shoulder, “Just as well, I guess, he ain’t the fellow who bought your martini.”

“But you said—”

“ You said.” Jack turned back to me and grinned. “I was just following along, you see?”

“I can’t tell you how delighted I am to have amused you.”

“Now, don’t be sore with me, Mrs. Randolph. I’m sworn to secrecy, that’s all.”

“You’re teasing me, aren’t you? I’ll bet this admirer of yours doesn’t even exist. You just poured me a free drink for your own entertainment.”

“Oh, he exists, all right. Paid me up front and everything. Nice tip.”

“Is he here right now?”

“In this room?” Jack’s gaze slid to the door, traveled along the walls, the panel and polish, the glittering windows, and returned to me. “’Fraid I can’t say. Kind of a shy fella, your beau. But don’t you fret. I got the feeling he’ll make himself known to you, when he’s good and ready.”

Before me, the martini formed a tranquil circle in its glass, a cool pool. Not a single flaw disturbed its surface. I pondered the chemical properties of liquids, the infinitesimal bonds of electricity that secured them together in such perfect order, the beautiful molecules held flat in my glass by gravity. The great mystery eluded me, as ever.

“How long have you tended bar, Jack?” I asked.

“How long have I tended bar? Or tended this bar here?”

“Tended bar at all, I guess.”

“Well, now.” He shut one eye and judged the ceiling. “Landed here in Nassau in twenty-one when I was just a wee lad, helping my dad with the old schooner—Lord, what a sweet ship she was—”

“Rum-running, you mean.”

“Just engaging in a little maritime commerce, Mrs. Randolph, serving the needs of you poor suckers dying of thirst back home. Used to load and unload them crates of liquor all the livelong day. Oh, but we lived like kings in Nassau back then. Those were good years.” He shook his head and wiped some invisible smudge of something-or-other from the counter. “Then they brought back the liquor trade stateside.”

“Hallelujah.”

“For you folks back home, maybe. Come to find out, my dad spent all the money from those years, every damn penny, Mrs. Randolph. Left me here in Nassau, broke as a stick. Lucky I knew a fellow who tended bar in those days. Took me under his wing, taught me the trade. Now here I am.” Jack spread his arms. “Got my domain. Nothing happens here without my say-so, Mrs. Randolph, and don’t you forget that. You got a problem with any fellow here, you come to me.”

He was a large man, Jack, maybe more wide than tall, but still. I found myself wanting to wrap my arms around that comfortable girth and kiss his rib cage. At the thought of this act, the image it evoked in my imagination, I directed a tiny smile at the remnants of my drink and asked, “Why do you like me so much, Jack?”

“Because you’re an honest dame, Mrs. Randolph. Honest and kindhearted.”

“This fellow of yours. Is he good enough for me?”

“Nobody’s good enough for you, Mrs. Randolph, not in my book.” He leaned forward an inch or two. “Between you and me, there’s been a lot of fellows asking. Pretty lady, drinking alone, kind of sad and don’t-touch-me. But this fellow is the first fellow I said could buy you a drink.”

“A fine endorsement.”

“Now it’s up to you, Mrs. Randolph. You’re a real good judge, I’ll bet. You just watch yourself around here, that’s all.”

“I thought you said he met your approval.”

“Oh, I wasn’t talking about him .” Jack pulled back and set the glass back on its shelf. “Talking about everything else, everything and everyone else on this island, but especially that duchess and her husband, them two sleek blue jays in a nest, looking out for nobody but themselves. You watch yourself.”

“Watch myself? What for? When I can’t seem to buy myself even a peep inside that nest. I spent all morning at their damned headquarters, the Red Cross, stuffing packages and sitting through the dullest committee meeting in the world, going out of my mind, just to wrangle myself an invitation to the party at Government House on Saturday, and then the duchess finally turns up, and do you know what she says?”

Jack makes a slice along his throat. “Off with your head?”

“Worse. Enchanted to meet you, Mrs. Randolph .”

“That’s all? Sounds all right to me.”

“You don’t know how it is with these people. She locks eyes with you, see, like you’re the only person in the room, the only person in the world , pixie dust glitters in the air around you, and she takes your hand and says, Enchanted to meet you , and you think to yourself, She likes me! She’s enchanted, she said it herself! We’re going to be the best of friends! Then she drops your hand and turns to the next woman and locks eyes with her , and you feel like a sucker. No, you are a sucker. Sucked in by the oldest trick in the book.” There was a stir to my right, somebody approaching the bar. I glanced out the side of my eye and recognized, or thought I recognized, a certain man sliding into position a few stools down, tall, polished, Spanish or French or something, air of importance. Jack, on the other hand, made not the slightest sign of having noticed him. I leaned my elbow on the counter and said, “Maybe I ought to just read the stars and give up.”