Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 07 (13 page)

Gardner’s face was clenched with confusion, but I thought I knew what was going on.

“You’re a nobleman, aren’t you, Marquis?”

“I don’t think of myself that way,” he said, with a tiny smile that said he sure as hell did. He drew on the cigarette-in-holder.

“And you have certain codes of chivalry, that extend back to days of knights and maidens.”

My arch tone was getting under his skin; his smile was gone.

“What are you saying?”

“That you’re shielding that little blonde. She’s sixteen years old, she probably has parents in town, and you don’t want to go on the witness stand and let the world know you two were shacked up.”

“That’s the most outrageous thing I’ve ever heard!”

I laughed shortly. “I doubt that. I doubt I can even imagine the outrageous things you’ve heard, said and done in your Noel fucking Coward world.”

“I don’t appreciate your crudity.”

“I don’t appreciate your warped sense of honor. You’re going to sell out your cousin, your best friend, you’re going to put a goddamn rope around his neck, to protect the ‘good name’ of some little blond bimbo?”

“He’s right, Georgie,” a voice said.

A sweet, female, confident voice.

She was standing behind us, to our left, in a doorway that had been closed, but now stood open to reveal a glimpse of a bedroom; in her arms, held gently as if a child, was a dark gray cat.

Betty Roberts was a lovely fair-skinned girl with long, flowing blond hair that covered part of her face, Veronica Lake-style; silky-smooth, it brushed the shoulders of a blue-and-white polka-dot blouse that almost burst with her buxom youth. Her skirt was white and stopped just above the knees of million-dollar legs.

“Ah,” de Visdelou said. “My little pussy.”

I looked at Gardner and he looked at me; had we been sipping our rum and Cokes at the time, we’d have done spit takes.

The Marquis rose and went to Betty and patted the cat. “My little pussycat….”

Gardner and I traded smiles, rolled our eyes, and both rose.

“I’m Betty Roberts,” she said, handing de Visdelou his pussy. She strode over to us assuredly—she might have been sixteen, but she had the demeanor of a career woman of twenty-five. She extended her hand and I shook it.

I introduced myself, as well as Gardner (by last name only), who also shook her hand, and I said, “That must be the famous cat that awoke de Marigny around three in the morning.”

“It is,” she smiled. “Georgie! Let’s all sit down and talk frankly.”

He came over, holding the cat tenderly, petting it, and sat next to the cheerful girl on the sofa. She was arranging her skirt so that we could appreciate her crossed legs, within reason.

She looked at me with baby-blue eyes that were as direct as her boyfriend’s weren’t. “You’ll have to forgive Georgie. He has some very old-fashioned ideas. Believe me, this silliness wasn’t my doing.”

“My dear,” he said, “the local scandal…”

“Don’t be a silly ass, Georgie.” She smiled at me; her mouth was wide and her lipstick was candy-apple red. “I live with my mother, Mr. Heller, and she doesn’t always approve of my actions…but that’s her problem.”

“You have an interesting point of view, Miss Roberts.”

She threw her head back and the blond hair shimmered. “I don’t care what people think about me. I only care what
I
think about me. I may not be twenty-one, but I’m free and white and completely self-supporting.”

“She’s a cashier at the Savoy Theater,” de Visdelou said timidly.

“I don’t want you to worry about what Georgie is going to say on the witness stand,” she said. “You tell Mr. Higgs that both Georgie and I are willing and able to testify for Freddie. Every word Freddie said is true, and we can back him up.”

“I’m relieved to hear that,” I said.

The Marquis looked at her with admiration and lust. “You’re a wonderful child, Betty,” he said.

Somehow I didn’t think the child in this relationship was her.

De Visdelou handed Betty the cat; she petted it and it purred. “Miss Roberts is right,” he said, jutting his tiny chin. “As much as I treasure her good name, I can’t put my cousin’s life at peril.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll tell Higgs. Thanks for the drink.”

I stood, and so did Gardner.

“Oh,” I said to the Marquis. “One last thing—when you got back from driving Miss Roberts home, what did you do with the car keys?”

“Of the Chevrolet?” he asked. “They were in my pants pocket.”

“In your pants pocket, in your apartment?”

“Yes.”

“What sort of sleeper are you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Heavy, or light?” I asked.

“Light,” the girl said.

He gave her a scolding look, and she smiled and shrugged.

I asked him, “Does Freddie have another set of keys?”

“Not that I know of.”

“All right. Thanks.”

He frowned; the cigarette holder was in his teeth now, at a raffish FDR angle. “Is that useful information, Mr. Heller?”

“It means Freddie couldn’t have moved or used the Chevy without entering your apartment and fishing the keys out of your pants.”

“Oh—well, he most certainly didn’t do that.”

“It would’ve woken Georgie,” Betty affirmed.

“I know,” I said. “By the way, this is Erle Stanley Gardner, the famous mystery writer. He’s covering the case for the Hearst papers.”

De Visdelou’s face fell and Betty’s lit up. He looked like he was about to whimper, and she looked about to squeal.

“Everything we’ve said is off the record,” I said, “but I’m sure he’d love to arrange an on-the-record interview.”

“That’s right, kids,” he said.

She grabbed de Visdelou’s arm; the cat on her lap seemed bored. “Oh, Georgie,
can
we?”

“We’ll discuss it,” he allowed.

“I’m at the Royal Victoria,” Gardner said, scribbling in his note pad, tearing out a page. “There’s the number of my room phone.”

She grabbed it eagerly, and, leaving the Marquis behind on the couch with his cigarette holder and his pussy, walked us to the door; she took my arm. She smelled good—like Ivory soap.

“Don’t be a stranger, Mr. Heller,” she said.

I didn’t know if that was a come-on, or just sheer friendliness. But either way, I didn’t pay much attention to her.

Unlike the Count and his cousin, I pretty much drew the line at dating teenagers.

Marjorie Bristol stood in the moonlight, as silent and still as a statue—a lovely statue, at that. But if she were a work of art, the artist was God—the breeze blowing the hem of her dress gave her reality away.

I pulled the Chevrolet—de Marigny’s spare sedan, a two-tone-brown number—into the graveled parking lot of the country club; there were a few other cars, and the lights of the clubhouse off to the right indicated activity. But at the moment, no one else was around as she stood waiting for me, on the nearby grass, unblinking, despite my approaching headlights.

I had called her earlier today—using one of several numbers the late Sir Harry had provided me—and asked to see her.

She seemed embarrassed, but said all right; the Westbourne gate was locked, she said, but I could park in the adjacent country club lot and walk over—no wall or fence separated the estate from the country club grounds. She would meet me here.

I locked the car and went over to her; a palm tree was a silhouette behind her. The moon was full. Stars glittered in a sky so clear and blue it should have been day. The breeze was balmy and scented of sea; a perfect evening, but for humidity that hung on you like a woolen overcoat.

I’d almost forgotten how pretty she was—uniquely so, with the huge dark eyes, lashes longer than even de Visdelou’s; petite nose; wide sensual mouth, full lips painted a redundant red.

The blue maid’s uniform was absent; tonight she wore a white short-sleeve blouse, a wide black buckled pirate’s belt, tropical-print skirt and sandals. I’d taken to wearing my white linen suits with sport shirts; it was nice being able to work without wearing a tie. We were as casual, and as ill at ease, as a couple on a blind date.

“Hello, Mr. Heller.”

“Hello, Miss Bristol. Thanks for seeing me.”

She gestured and the wooden bracelets on her wrists clinked. “The house, we’re keepin’ it closed up right now, while my Lady stays with friends. We could go to my cottage….”

“That would be fine, as long as it doesn’t make you…uncomfortable or anything.”

She smiled gently. “I trust you, Mr. Heller. I can tell you’re an honorable man.”

That was a new one.

“But you may not consider
me
very honorable.” She looked at the ground. “I promised you I wouldn’t tell anyone you were a detective.”

“And then you went and told Nancy de Marigny.”

She nodded. “I thought she deserved to know. They killed her daddy.”

“They?”

“I don’t know who. But I don’t think it was Mr. Fred. He’s many things, you know, but a killer ain’t one of them.”

“You’re probably right. Where’s your cottage?”

She pointed. “Just the other side of the tennis courts. You’re not mad at me?”

“No. But it’s starting to sound like it was your idea to have me give Nancy a hand on this.”

We were walking now, toward the tennis courts. The sound of the breeze blowing and the rush of the surf made soothing background music. Her jewelry provided the percussion.

“Maybe it was a little my idea,” she said, looking away almost shyly. “I just…knew somebody had to do somethin’, you know, and I knew Sir Harry, he hired you for all that money, and you only worked one day for it….”

“My Caribbean conscience. Are you Catholic, Miss Bristol, or Church of England, perhaps?”

“Neither. Methodist.”

“Ah. Well, whatever the case, the Christian thing to do, after getting me into this, is give me a hand.”

I thought that might make her smile, but instead her face tensed.

“I would do anything I could to help find the murderers of Sir Harry,” she said. “I know he was a rough man, but to me, he was always fair, and kind.”

“You keep referring to his killers in the plural. Why did you think there were more than one?”

Her big eyes were as wide as a naive child’s. “I saw the room. Do you think one man could do that?”

Of course, I didn’t, and it struck me that we were walking much the same path as the murderers likely had; they had probably parked in the country club lot, as well.

Her cottage was a small square white stucco building with typical Nassau shutters and a brown-tile pyramid roof; it fronted the beach, which sloped gently from the sandy grass that was her front lawn; the sand looked ivory in the moonlight, the sea a shimmering blue-gray.

“I have a teapot on the stove,” she said. “Would you care for a cup?”

“That’d be nice,” I said.

She opened the door for me and I went in. Neat as a pin, the cottage’s interior consisted of a single room and bath; the plaster walls were a subdued pink, the wooden floor covered by a braided blue-and-white oval throw rug. A kitchenette was at my right, and at left was what seemed to be a sleeping area—dresser with mirror, even a nightstand with Bakelite radio and streamlined little black-and-white clock, but no bed. Hidden against the wall to the left of the door, however, was a walnut-grain metal cabinet—a foldaway. I knew all about those. For a lot of years I slept on a Murphy bed in my office.

Despite a few rattan chairs here and there, there was no couch or sitting area, other than a round table with four captain’s chairs in the middle of the room; pink and white and yellow flowers were arranged in a bowl at its center. Homemade plank-and-brick shelving, under the window along the far wall, brimmed with books, mostly the twenty-five-cent pocketbook variety. The bookcase and its contents were the only aspect of the room (other than perhaps the flowers) that seemed hers; otherwise, this was strictly servants’ quarters, albeit pleasant enough.

She bid me sit at the round table, and I did, while she got us our tea. A paperbacked book was spread open there, saving her place:
The Good Earth
by Pearl Buck.

“It’s about China,” she said, as she served me a small cup of tea and put a plate of fritters before me.

“Really?” I said. I picked up one of the fritters. “Conch, again?”

She smiled as she sat and poured herself a cup. “Banana. Bet you’ve had your fill of conch.”

“Not yet. Hey, these are good.”

“Thank you. Mr. Heller…”

“Don’t you think it’s time we started using first names?”

She looked into her tea; her smile seemed shy, now. “I would like that, Nathan.”

“I’m glad, Marjorie. But you can make it Nate, if you like. That’s what my friends call me.”

“I think I like the sound of Nathan better. It has more music.”

That was a new one, too.

“Marjorie, I know you didn’t work that night….”

“The night Sir Harry was killed? I did work till ten. Sir Harry and Mr. Christie, they were playin’ Chinese checkers when I left.”

“But Samuel was working…he was the night watchman.”

She nodded. “Him and a boy named Jim.”

“The police haven’t talked to them, you know.”

She nodded again. “I know. Samuel and Jim, they took off.”

“I had the impression Samuel had been working for Sir Harry for some time, was a trusted employee….”

“He is. Or he was.” She shrugged. “He took off.”

I wondered how hard the police were trying to find Samuel. If they
were
trying to find him. But I sure as hell wanted a word with him.

“Marjorie—does Samuel have family or friends you could check with?”

“Yes. Friends in Nassau…family’s on Eleuthera.”

“Could you help me locate him?”

Her sigh was barely audible; she seemed reluctant. “If Samuel doesn’t want to be found, he must have a reason….”

“Exactly. I need to talk to him. What he saw the night of the murder may clear this whole thing up.”

Now she nodded, her brow knit. “I will try.”

“What about the boy named Jim?”

“Him I didn’t know too well. He was hired more recent, to guard some building materials. They’re putting up a new building at the country club, you know.”

“Could you track him down for me, too?”

“I’ll do better lookin’ for Samuel. You got to remember, Nathan, workers in these islands come and go, gettin’ work and pay by the day or even the hour.”

“But you will try.”

“I will try. I might hear things you wouldn’t.”

“I should think. That’s why I need your help.”

Her brow wrinkled. “In fact…”

“Yes?”

“There’s a rumor I been hearin’. About Lyford Cay.”

She pronounced “Cay” in the Bahamian manner: key.

“What’s Lyford Cay?” I asked.

“The west tip of New Providence—it sticks out, like an island. But it’s not an island, it’s more like…” She searched for the word, then smiled as she found it in the dictionary of her mind. “…a
peninsula.
Very beautiful—
verdant.
But it’s bein’ developed, you know.”

“Developed?”

“For houses for rich folks. Right now it’s just palm trees, beaches and plots of land they cleared, but they say, one day, there will be electric lights and phones and plumbin’ and fancy houses.”

“And whose project is this?” I asked, knowing.

“Why, Mr. Christie’s, of course.”

“Tell me about the rumor, Marjorie.”

“There’s a dock there, and a caretaker. Lyford Cay is private property.”

“I see.”

“But there’s no fence or gate yet. You can still drive right in there. Anyway, the caretaker is a local man named Arthur.”

“Colored?”

“Yes. The rumor I’ve been hearin’ is that the night of the killin’, after midnight sometime, Arthur saw a boat pull up to the dock with some white men in it. A car was waitin’ for ’em.”

“That’s an interesting rumor, all right.”

“I know Arthur. He goes to the same church as me—Wesley Church, in Grant’s Town. Or anyway, his sister does. I spoke with her, and she says her brother hasn’t talked to the police about this.”

I leaned forward. “Would he talk to you?”

“I think so. I talked to his sister this afternoon—she’s in housekeepin’ at the B.C.—and she said I could probably find him at Weary Willie’s this evening.”

“Weary Willie’s?”

“It’s a bar, over the hill.”

I stood. “Take me there.”

“Over the hill” was more than directions: it was what the area was called, south of where Government House stood on its ridge, looking the other way; in the virtual backyard of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor’s plantation-house domicile, the thatch-roofed shacks of blacks crawled up the hill like shambling invaders who would never quite make it to the top.

As the land leveled out, the houses became more substantial, but the flickering of candlelight in windows with shutters, but no glass, indicated the lack of electricity on the far side of the hill. There were no streetlights to guide a pilgrim’s progress on these dark streets littered with roadside ice stands (closed at the moment), sheltered by trees of avocado and silk cotton; but the moonlight showed off the sorrowful gaiety of the clustered houses of Grant’s Town, doused as they were with blue and red and green and pink.

I wasn’t scared, but I had the same white man’s uneasiness I experienced in Chicago whenever I ventured into Bronzeville on the South Side.

“It’s just up here,” Marjorie said, pointing, “on the right. See that fenced-off place?”

“Yeah.”

I pulled the Chevy up in front of an unpainted wooden structure with a thatch roof; over the saloon-style swinging doors a rustic-looking wooden sign bore the hand-carved words “Weary Willie’s.” There were no other cars around, but the open windows leaked laughter and babble and the general sound of people drinking.

“It is okay for a white man to go in there?”

“It’s fine,” she said, with a reassuring smile. “Tourists come here all the time—look closer at the sign.”

I looked up. Beneath “Weary Willie’s” it said: “A Glimpse of Africa in the Bahamas.”

Only there were no tourists inside, just black faces, with the whites of their eyes large and displeased at the sight of me, or maybe the sight of me with Marjorie. Day laborers in sweaty tattered clothing stood at the bar having bottles of that exotic tropical brew known as Schlitz. The round uncovered tables in this kerosene-lamp-lit, wood-and-wicker world were mostly empty, but a native man and a voluptuous, almost heavy native woman were huddled over their drinks at one, in a mating ritual that knew no race. Against the far wall, which had two African-style spears crossed on it, sat an angularly handsome, jet-black young man in a loose white shirt and tan pants and no shoes. He recognized Marjorie and she nodded and we went over to him.

“May we sit, Arthur?” Marjorie asked.

He half-rose, gestured nervously. “Go on.”

A fat barman in an apron that may have, at one time, been clean approached and took our orders; Marjorie asked for a Goombay Smash and I had the same. Arthur already had his bottle of Schlitz.

Marjorie sat forward. “This is Mr. Heller, Arthur.”

I extended my hand and he looked at it, as if it were some foreign object, then extended his. It was a firm but sweaty handshake. His eyes were both wary and troubled in his carved mask of a face.

“He’s trying to help Mr. Fred,” she explained to him.

“Mr. Fred is a good mon.” He spoke in a hushed, rich baritone. “My cousin, he works for him.”

I said, “I’d like to hear about what you saw out at Lyford Cay the night Sir Harry died.”

“I work de night shif,” he said. “In fact, I got to be out there by ten tonight. I use to fish de sponge, you know, before de fungus come.”

I tried to get him on track. “What did you see that night, Arthur?”

He shook his head. “It was a bad night, mon. Storm, it whip de island. I see one of dem fancy motorboats come in and dock, ’bout one in de mornin’. Two white mon, big ones, got off de boat—somebody else, he stay behind with dat fancy boat. It was rockin’, mon. Thought maybe it was gonna sink.”

“Did you approach them? Lyford Cay is private property, right?”

“Right—but dey was white. And I didn’t know what dey was up to, in dat storm—didn’t
want
to know.” He shrugged fatalistically. “Like dey say, strange t’ings happon in de carnal hours.”

“Carnal hours?” I asked.