Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 07 (23 page)

She shook her head sadly. “Some people, some things, you just can’t get back again.”

I don’t think she knew what she’d said till she said it, then she looked away and her eyes were moist and so were mine, and I just slipped out of there.

Now, a day later, I was standing with another beautiful woman, an unlikely escort considering, at the fringes of a native, voodoo-tinged ceremony or party or some damn thing, called a fish chop. Right now, they had stopped the music, and the musicians were holding their drums close to the flames, I guess tightening the skins that were their drumheads. As the other merrymakers swayed gently, almost sleepily, waiting for the music to start up again, a figure broke away and, trudging slowly across the sand, approached us.

He was perhaps fifty years of age, his hair and eyebrows and mustache snow-white, his skin still smooth, shirt open to the waist, trousers rolled up; he’d been one of the fishermen, but he had, thankfully, left his machete behind.

He stood a few feet away, respectfully. “I am Edmund. Do I have de priv’lege of speakin’ to my Lady Diane?”

“You do,” she said with a smile. “This is my friend Mr. Heller.”

“Mist’ Heller,” he said, nodding. He had sleepy eyes.

I held my hand out and he seemed a little surprised, but shook it.

“Do you know why we’re here?” she asked.

“Yes—Daniel say you’re interested in de gold coin.”

“That’s right,” she said.

“Follow me, please,” he said.

Even under a moonless sky, the garish painted colors of the village huts—green, blue, purple—were obvious; the windowless, precarious-looking shacks of wood and/or corrugated metal had dried palm-frond roofs and doors made of packing-crate panels or large tin advertising signs—here Typhoo Tea, there Pratts High Test Petrol. It was a tropical Hooverville.

Edmund opened the door for us, a red Coca-Cola sign loose on its leather hinges; it was hot within, filled with the staleness of no ventilation, and I could make out the sweet stench of muggles in the air. What was it they called it here? Ganja.

But Edmund’s shack was not filthy—there was a hammock, several wooden crates and cardboard boxes serving as furniture; the dirt floor was as hard as a wooden one.

“Sorry dere’s no real place for a lady to sit,” he said.

“That’s all right,” Di said. “What about the coins?”

“Just one coin,” he said. “A fella from Abaco give it to me for some work I done on his boat.”

“Could we see the coin?” I asked.

He went to one of the packing crates and lifted back a piece of frayed white cloth, rustled around and came back with a gold sovereign.

I had a look at it and so did Di.

“This isn’t pirate’s treasure, is it?” she said to me.

“Not dated 1907, it isn’t,” I said.

“Is dat coin worth somethin’?”

“Twenty shillings,” Di said, “but I’ll give you twenty dollars American for it.”

“Sold.”

She gave a twenty-dollar bill to Edmund and the coin to me; I slipped it in my pocket.

“This guy from Abaco,” I said, “what’s his name?”

He shrugged; his eyes were rheumy. Too much ganja. “Dunno, mon. Just a colored fella who need help with his boat.”

“Not somebody who comes around here often?”

“No, sir.”

Before long, Di and I were back in the cabin of the motor yacht; Daniel was up on the bridge, taking us back to Nassau on a glass-smooth sea. The night beyond our windows was dark. The cabin was dark. But the leather of the sofa we lay on was so white, it seemed to glow.

“Did we find something, do you think?” she asked.

“Buried treasure? I don’t know.”

“You look…confused.”

“It’s a look I often get. I wake up with this look.”

She was lying on top of me; we were both clothed, though I had taken off my coat and my holstered gun. I might have been aboard the
Lady Diane,
but Lady Diane was aboard me.

“I didn’t mean to confuse things,” she said.

“It’s just that this…voodoo stuff, and Sir Harry catting around, and stolen gold coins…none of this fits in with other things I know.”

“Such as?”

Her blond hair was brushing my face. It smelled good.

I didn’t really want to get into this with her. “Well…all of that involves some things and some people that are a little outside your royal circles.”

She stuck her chin out snootily. “Oh? Such as?”

Okay, then. Insistent little know-it-all rich bitch….

“A New York gangster named Meyer Lansky, who’s got some kind of connection to the murder. What exactly, I can’t figure.”

“Oh. Him.”

I sat up, pushing her gently off as I narrowed my eyes at her. Now she was sitting beside me, looking at me like a schoolgirl who got caught with cigarettes in her lunchbox.

“You’ve heard of Meyer Lansky?”

She shrugged. “I’ve met him. He’s friendly with Harold Christie.”

“Harold Christie doesn’t say so.”

“Well, he is. I understand Harold accepted a ‘gift’ of a cool million from Mr. Lansky, in return for certain services.”

I mimicked her: “Such as?”

“Such as convincing the Duke and Sir Harry to go along with Mr. Lansky’s plans to build casinos in Nassau and on Grand Bahama Island.”

Back to square one!

“Is it possible,” I asked, “that Sir Harry would have balked at that prospect?”

“Very possible. I would say probable. Harry didn’t much care for tourists—and the casinos, and modern resort hotels that would make stiff competition for his B.C., would’ve gone up in his very neighborhood. Right on Cable Beach.”

“But I understand Sir Harry didn’t have the power to block the casinos….”

That made her smile. “Sir Harry and Harold Christie were in all sorts of financial beds together. The Duke, too. I think to underestimate Harry’s power in that regard would have been a serious miscalculation.”

Now we really were back to square one: who needed gold-stealing voodoo-killer cuckolds with Harold Christie around? Or had Christie hired some native to perform a ritualistic-style killing? Or had those two Lansky goons, at Christie’s behest, tried to leave a misleading obeah-style calling card?

Whatever the case, we were back to a Harold Christie who was so tied to Sir Harry Oakes that the only way to get around him was to remove him.

She was still smiling, but more pleased than amused, now. “Heller—suddenly you don’t look so confused.”

She began unbuttoning her blouse. She undid her artillery-shells bra and unleashed those impossible breasts, round, firm, tiny coral tips inviting kisses; my mouth accepted the invitation.

“What about Daniel?” I asked, as she loomed over me.

The bridge was closed off, but he was right up a few steps, on the other side of the door.

“Let him get his own girl,” she said, stepping out of her slacks, then her panties.

The yacht’s motor thrummed as she buried her face in my lap, reclaiming her ownership, and before long, in the near-darkness of the cabin, her flesh a ghostly white, she sat on top of me, grinding, head back, eyes shut, hair swaying, moving hypnotically, as lost in herself as I was, moaning and gasping and shuddering, her slim, top-heavy body undulating like a dancer on drugs, working herself to a fever pitch and animalistic cries that put those natives around the bonfire to shame.

After hours in Godfrey Higgs’ modest Bay Street second-floor office, his secretary long gone, the affable, athletic-looking lawyer sat behind a battle-scarred desk with his feet up, vest unbuttoned and tie loosened, jacket over the chair. His hands were locked behind his head, making wings of his arms and elbows.

He was smiling, but it was a frozen smile, a crack in his oval face; his parted-in-the-middle dark hair, usually slicked back, fell wearily over his forehead.

“Perhaps I’m no judge,” he said, “this being my first major criminal case…but I can’t imagine a better, more diligent, thorough investigator than yourself.”

“Thanks,” I said. I was reclining on his leather couch against a pebbled-glass-and-wood wall. His offices were not unlike those of A-1’s back home. The only light came from the green-shaded banker’s lamp on Higgs’ desk; that, and some neon glow from busy Bay Street outside the window behind him. It was close to eight o’clock and neither of us had had supper.

“However,” he began.

I groaned. “I knew there would be either a ‘however’ or a ‘but’ in there somewhere.”

“However,
very little of what you’ve come up with is usable, or even admissible, in court.”

“Well, now, I wouldn’t say that,” I said, doing a serviceable imitation of Peavy on
The Great Gildersleeve.

That made Higgs chuckle. “All right—I’ll grant you your expert witness is damn near the backbone of our case…between what you came up with regarding the time limitations of the crime, and what Professor Keeler will have to say about the fingerprint evidence, we may well be able to clear Freddie.”

“Let’s not forget Captain Sears,” I pointed out. “His placing Christie in downtown Nassau when Christie says he was sleeping at Westbourne diverts suspicion from our client.”

“No, you’re right. I shouldn’t have generalized. It’s just so damned frustrating that so much of what you’ve dug up isn’t going to make it into court….”

“Like what?”

He hauled his feet off his desk, brushed his hair back in place, shrugged, just a little. “The crime syndicate connection. Everything you’ve put together linking Lansky and Christie…we simply can’t establish relevance.”

I sighed. “If that caretaker out at Lyford Cay hadn’t ‘accidentally drowned,’ we could.”

“What we need to discredit Christie,” Higgs said, “is for your friend’s letter to show.”

He was referring to the letter Eliot had sent me over two weeks ago, containing the certified copy of the federal records indicating that outstanding warrant against Christie; but it had not yet arrived.

And we now knew it most likely wouldn’t: Eliot’s letter, like any letter arriving in Nassau, was subject to wartime censorship; it seemed likely the censorship board—populated with Christie cronies—was withholding it. Contacting the censors directly about the letter was against regulations, and there was not time, before the trial, to have Eliot run the red-tape hurdles for a second time.

Higgs asked, “You haven’t had any luck establishing that Sir Harry was a rounder, either, have you?”

I shook my head no. “I’ve asked some questions, but here’s where my limitation as an outsider really hurts us. You might be better off putting a local dick on it.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Frankly—no offense meant—but I have. He’s come up with nothing, either. He runs into the adultery rumor, now and again, but no substantiation. And as for the gold coins…” He shrugged again. “Another dead end.”

I had checked with Nancy, who asked her mother about the coin collection; Lady Oakes was unconcerned about its being missing, saying that Sir Harry liked to move the little treasure chest from here to there, and it would most likely “turn up” at one of their many residences—they had four homes in the Bahamas, after all, and three more in the United States, another in Canada, and two in Great Britain.

“You could ask Lady Oakes about the coins on the witness stand,” I said. “She’s going to testify, isn’t she?”

He nodded. “I certainly could do that. But she’ll only reiterate what she told Nancy—that the collection is
not
missing, merely misplaced; that, at any rate, it isn’t very valuable, anyway.”

“It might seem pretty darn valuable to a native.”

He shrugged elaborately. “Then why didn’t that native take anything else from Westbourne? There was cash in Harry’s desk; valuable objects everywhere—from a gold nugget paperweight to Lady Oakes’ jewelry box.”

“It is thin, isn’t it?”

“Yes. So the horde of gold, like Meyer Lansky, like Sir Harry’s randy reputation, stays out of court. On the other hand, assuming Adderley doesn’t spring too many surprises on us, I think we have a formidable case.”

“Hell, Godfrey, all you have to do is fillet Barker on the stand.”

He arched an eyebrow. “He’s a damn good witness, Nate. He’s no virgin when it comes to giving expert testimony.”

“He’s no virgin, period. Godfrey, you can nail him—no fingerprint ‘expert’ can justify those bullshit methods.”

Higgs sighed, smiled in a less weary fashion, lifted his suitcoat from the back of his chair and slipped into it.

“My wife is waiting dinner on me. Care to stop by? The kids have been asking about you.”

I dragged myself off the couch. “I won’t impose. You guys put up with me enough, when I was staying with you. I’ll grab a bite at Dirty Dick’s.”

“How’s life at Shangri La?”

“Swell. I’m a Ronald Colman kind of guy, you know.”

“Where’s Di?”

“Oh, she had to fly to Mexico City for a few days, to confer with her boss.”

He was opening the door to his outer office for me when he narrowed his eyes and said, “If you don’t mind my asking…when did you start carrying that weapon around?”

“I thought this new suit Lunn made me disguised the fact.”

“It does, fairly well. You’re on shaky legal ground—would you like me to try to get you a temporary permit?”

We were walking through the outer office now.

“No thanks. I’ll just plead ignorance, which is something I’m used to. If we ask permission, they’ll only take it away from me.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“Why am I heeled, as we say back in the States? I don’t know. With Lansky involved, with Barker and Melchen beating the shit out of witnesses, with voodoo and jealous husbands and burned-to-a-crisp millionaires, it just seemed…”

He opened the door. “Prudent?”

“Prudent,” I said.

We headed down the stairs to the street with Higgs in the lead.

“At least they’re not following you around anymore.” Higgs grinned. “With those practical jokes you played on them, and wild-goose chases you sent them on, I would imagine our local constabulary—and their Miami advisers—have learned their lesson.”

We stepped out onto Bay Street; the balmy Bahamas breeze felt good—not hot, not cold.

“I’m not so sure, Godfrey. The last couple days I’ve felt like they had a tail on me again.”

“Really?”

“Yeah—a couple times I’ve spotted a guy. Tall. White. He’s good—in a car, he turns off on a side street before he gets made; on foot, he disappears into the nearest store or restaurant, and doesn’t reemerge…but it’s the same damn guy every time.”

“Could be a reporter, you know. They’ve been streaming in of late.”

“I don’t think so. This one’s a cop of some kind.”

Higgs shook his head. “Well—with the trial coming up in a few days, it’ll be over soon. This harassment will end.”

Higgs nodded and headed toward where his car was parked, and I turned the other way; Dirty Dick’s was just two blocks down. I’d gone half that distance when I noticed him.

Not you again,
I thought, catching his reflection in a shop window.

He was across Bay Street, keeping half a block behind me; tailing me from the opposite side of the street was a good touch, but with all but a few of the stores closed, and hardly anybody on the sidewalks, painfully obvious nonetheless.

For a tail, he just wasn’t anonymous enough: tall, lean, dapperly touristy in a powder-blue jacket, yellow shirt and tan pants; a long, cruel, handsome face interrupted by a nose that had been broken at least once, with high cheekbones and sunken cheeks; dark hair falling in a comma over his forehead; cigarette dangling from tight, thin lips.

I unbuttoned my jacket and crossed the street; he kept walking as if he hadn’t seen me. I was walking toward him now, and when I passed him, I turned on a dime and came immediately up behind him and put the nine-millimeter’s nose in the small of his back.

“Let’s talk,” I said.

“Why don’t we?” he said, blandly British.

“The alley should do.”

“It should do nicely,” he agreed.

I walked him to the alley; an American sailor and a woman who was probably some RAF pilot’s wife walked by arm in arm, smiling at each other. My shadow—who I was sticking to like his shadow—marched calmly into the alleyway, where I escorted him into near darkness. I could smell his lime cologne.

“Turn slowly,” I said, “and stand with your back to the wall.”

But he didn’t turn slowly—he whirled, and then his hand was on my wrist, and the fucker flipped me.

When I landed on my ass, hard on the gravel, I was sitting up with both my hands empty. I looked up at him and he was studying me with an expression of sheer boredom. My gun was in his hand, casually.

“Do let me help you up,” he said.

“Thanks ever so,” I said.

He dropped my gun in his sport-coat pocket and offered me his hand and I buried my head in his stomach and rammed him up against the nearest wall.

“Perhaps I should introduce myself,” he said, groaning, as I held him pinned there. I threw a fist toward his midsection and a hand gripped my wrist and stopped me.

“I’m…an agent with His Majesty’s Royal Naval Intelligence,” he said. “So let’s dispense with the foreplay, and get right to the intercourse—shall we?”

I backed away, breathing hard. I held out my hand. “Give me back my gun.”

His smile was faint and crinkled. He viewed me as a parent might a petulant child, though he was no older than me, I’d wager.

“Certainly, Mr. Heller,” he said, and lifted the gun gingerly from his pocket and held it out to me by its barrel.

I put it back under my arm. “That was a nice job of knocking me on my ass.”

“Judo,” he explained, smoothing out his jacket. “Those bloody Japs do know their stuff.”

“You seem to know my name,” I said, brushing off the back of my pants. “You got one—or just a number?”

He was withdrawing a cigarette from an oxidized gold case, tamping it down.

“Fleming,” he said. He lighted up the cigarette and turned the harsh angles of his face orange. “Ian Fleming.”

We took a back booth at Dirty Dick’s. A steel band was banging away on the little stage, and a high-yellow native woman in a skimpy two-piece outfit was doing a dance called the limbo, which amounted to an acrobatic feat of shimmying under a progressively lowered pole held by two darker grinning male cohorts. The crowd was grinning, too, and I recognized among the faces many of the reporters here to cover the trial.

“Remarkable dexterity,” Fleming said, exhaling smoke.

“She’s more flexible than I am. What the hell’s this about, anyway?”

“Just a moment—let’s let this charming girl take our order.”

The almost-pretty dark-haired waitress was white, but she wore a well-filled floral sarong and had a matching flower in her hair. She was probably twenty-five and fairly immune to come-ons by now, but she warmed to Fleming immediately, though he did nothing but bestow her a mild smile.

“Bourbon and branch water, dear,” he said.

“Rum and Coke,” I said.

She beamed at Fleming, fluttering elaborate fake lashes, and he granted her another little smile.

“As you may have guessed, Mr. Heller, I’m taking an extended layover in Nassau to…shall we say, keep tabs on the Oakes case.”

“Why would British Naval Intelligence have any interest in a murder case involving civilians? Even rich ones?”

Fleming stamped out his cigarette in a glass ashtray and immediately withdrew another from his gold case and lighted up. “Well, one of the people involved on the periphery is not, after all, strictly speaking, a civilian. He’s what you call a VIP—and he’s in a…delicate position. A vulnerable position.”

Now I was getting it.

‘The Duke of Windsor, you mean. The ex-King with the Nazi sympathies. He’s a living, breathing embarrassment to your country, isn’t he?”

Fleming’s smile was almost a sneer. “On the contrary—the Duke is beloved, worldwide. My government’s concern is that he not be…misused. That he, himself, not be embarrassed.”

“Yeah, right.”

The waitress brought our drinks; she and Fleming exchanged smiles, hers generous, his miserly.

“I’m afraid the Duke is rather easy prey for financial operators. He’s known to…resent the limitations of his annual allowance, particularly in wartime.”

“I may bust out crying.”

“The Duke also resents the limitations imposed on exchange control—limitations designed to keep British money available to the British war effort.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow any of this, let alone see how it relates to the Oakes murder.”

“Oh but it does.” Fleming sipped his drink; smoke curled from the cigarette between the fingers of his other hand. “You see, several years ago, the Duke entered into a partnership with Sir Harry Oakes.”

“So?”

“The other partners included Harold Christie, as you might well imagine, and a certain Axel Wenner-Gren.” Fleming raised an eyebrow. “Now, the Duke’s friendship with Wenner-Gren has, I will admit, been a source of embarrassment for the Crown.”

I shrugged. “There are those in Nassau who say Wenner-Gren got a bum rap when he was blacklisted.”

He laughed silently. Then he said, “Allow me to tell you a little story about the wealthy Wenner-Gren. In September of ‘39, Wenner-Gren was sailing the
Southern Cross
from Gothenburg to the Bahamas. Off the northern coast of Scotland, he quite coincidentally happened to see the British liner
Athenia
as it was torpedoed by a German U-boat. He picked up several hundred survivors on his yacht, great humanitarian that he is, and wired President Roosevelt, encouraging him to utilize the ‘horror of this disaster’ as a basis for peace efforts with Germany. Now, we in Naval Intelligence were just wondering why the
Southern Cross,
with its many radio aerials, and unusually powerful transmitters and receivers, just happened to be in that particular spot in that ocean at that particular moment.”