Manhunt. Volume 5, Number 5, May 1957

Yet for all the enticement and sophistication of the girl there was a quality of terrible innocence about her. This quality reached out and made men at the bar feel more masculine than they had in a long time. It reached out and touched them, and some of them would therefore remember her before they went to sleep that night, or while answering absent-mindedly the question of a wife.

Her eyes stayed on the clock behind the bar. It was a pretentious clock, ringed with orange neon, its face illuminated by a pale orange glow. The hands indicated that the time was exactly nineteen minutes before twelve. The clock was ten minutes fast, an aid in getting the last, lingering customers out of the bar by legal closing time.

Twenty-nine minutes before midnight.

The girl’s lips parted; she had small, gleaming, even teeth. The pink tip of her tongue touched her lips briefly. She sipped the sherry at last.

Twenty-eight minutes.

The man who had just entered the bar continued to look at her over his shoulder while he walked to the bar and ordered a highball.

The bartender put the drink before him. The man raised his brows in a question, making it clear by a jerk of his head in the girl’s direction that he was asking about her. The bartender glanced toward the girl and shrugged.

The man tasted his drink, turned slowly, and stared boldly at the girl.

She was still watching the clock.

Twenty-seven minutes.

Holding his drink, the man moved across the short intervening distance until he was standing beside the booth. He was a tall, rangy man of about thirty, dark in coloring, nice looking without being handsome. He stood without speaking for a moment; then he said, “Hello.”

The girl looked at him. He took a quick breath as those luminous eyes of hers met his.

“What did you say?”

He smiled. “I said hello.”

“Oh — hello.”

“May I buy you a drink?”

“I have one,” she said quietly. It was neither a rebuff nor an invitation. She continued looking at him, studying him. He took a quick pull at his drink as if he were losing his poise.

“Are you waiting for someone?” he asked.

He was the center of attention now. Not open attention. Guarded glances. Nobody was drinking right now. The bartender was busy with his bar cloth, but the movement was strictly mechanical.

The man’s face reddened a little, as the girl took a long time in answering.

“Yes,” she said finally, “I am waiting for someone, I suppose.”

The invitation was there now, in her low voice, her eyes, but the man hesitated — as if there were something he failed to understand. For an instant, as he turned his back to the bar, he appeared sorry that he had started the whole business.

He glanced over his shoulder again at her, however, caught the eyes that quickly cut away. His smile returned as he took his poise back in hand.

“We could say you were waiting for me,” he said with an attempt at lightness.

“Yes, we could.”

“Then may I sit down?”

“By all means. And come to think of it, I’ll have another sherry.”

The man sat down. Like an almost audible rustle, attention was turned from him. Men were drinking again, discussing baseball, business, women in low tones. The man had carried the ball into the end zone. He had done what every man in the place would have liked to do. He had picked up the girl, made the conquest.

Yet he was not completely at ease.

The girl was still looking at the clock.

Twenty-two minutes.

Her gaze didn’t waver even when the bartender brought her sherry. Her profile was delicate and lovely; but a large part of her wasn’t there, staring like that at the clock.

The man coughed politely.

She turned to look at him. “Oh, I am sorry,” she said. “Thank you for the sherry.”

“You live around here?” he asked. “I haven’t seen you before.”

“I just came to town.”

“I hope you’ll like it here. It’s a nice little burg, though it gets pretty cold in winter.”

“I think I’ll like it very much,” she said, “for as long as I’m here.” She smiled at the man. Up close, her teeth had a faintly pointed look.

The man cleared his throat. “By the way, my name’s Larry.”

“Mine’s Jeannine.”

“It rather fits you,” he said.

“Does it?”

“I mean, innocent and yet kind of — unknowable.”

Little sparks went off deep in her eyes. “I think I like that.”

She looked again at the clock.

Nineteen minutes.

Her cheeks became pink; in her eyes the sparks became a flare of excitement.

“Do you work here in town?” Larry asked. “Transferred here maybe?”

“What?”

“I asked if you worked here.”

“Oh, no, I’m visiting a friend. A girl who was my roommate in college. I haven’t seen her since she was married. I’ve been in Florida.”

“Nice down there.”

“It depends on what happens to you.”

His brows raised. “Only something nice could happen to someone like you.”

“Is that the beginning of a line?”

“No. I mean it. Really. Anybody who’d even think anything bad about you should be treated like a mad dog. They’d be out of their minds.”

Her face pinked with pleasure. She sipped her sherry and looked at him over the rim of her glass. He tossed off his second drink and ordered a third.