Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 09 (4 page)

“I’d like a look at them myself,” I said.

“You can have ’em after George,” Darrow said magnanimously. “I love to be surrounded by well-informed people.” He turned to his wife, next to him. “They’ve a full orchestra and a nightclub, dear…and there’s no Prohibition at sea. A fully appointed bar awaits us.” He patted her hand and she smiled patiently at him. “What a wonderful, decadent place this is. You up for some dancing?”

We all were.

The ship’s cocktail lounge—the size of which redefined the meaning of the phrase—was a streamlined
moderne
nightclub ruled by indirect lighting and chrome trim; with its cylindrical barstools and sleek decorative touches, we might have been on the Matson Line’s first spaceship.

The dance floor was a glossy black mirror so well polished, remaining upright was a challenge, let alone exhibiting any terpsichorean grace. The orchestra had an ersatz Crosby, and, as I danced with Ruby Darrow, he was singing Russ Columbo’s tune “Love Letters in the Sand” while a ukulele laid in the main accompaniment.

“They seem determined to get us in the island mood, don’t they?” I asked.

“When are you going to ask Miss Bell to dance? She’s the prettiest girl here, you know.”

“You’re the prettiest girl here…. I might get around to it.”

“You’ve danced with me three times, and Mrs. Leisure four.”

“Mrs. Leisure’s pretty cute. The way her husband’s all caught up in this case, maybe I can make some time.”

“You’ve always been a bad boy, Nathan,” Ruby said affectionately.

“Or maybe I’m just playing hard to get,” I said, glancing over at Miss Bell, who was dancing with Darrow, who was windmilling her around and occasionally stepping on her feet. She was wincing with pain and boredom.

I felt sorry for her, so when they played “I Surrender, Dear,” with the would-be Crosby warbling the lyrics, I asked her to dance.

She said, “No thank you.”

She was sitting at our table, but everyone else was out on the dance floor; I sat next to her.

“You think I’m Jewish, don’t you?”

“What?”

“The name Heller sounds Jewish to you. I don’t mind. I’m used to people with closed minds.”

“Who says I have a closed mind?” She turned her pouty gaze out on the dance floor. “Are you?”

“What?”

“Of the Jewish persuasion?”

“They don’t really persuade you. It’s not an option. It comes with the birth certificate.”

“You
are
Jewish.”

“Only technically.”

She frowned at me. “How can you be ‘technically’ Jewish?”

“My mother was Irish Catholic. That’s where I got this Mick mug. My father was an apostate Jew.”

“An apost…what?”

“My great-grandfather, back in Vienna, saw Jew killing Jew—over their supposed religious differences—and, well, he got disgusted. Judaism hasn’t been seen in my family since.”

“I never heard of such a thing.”

“It’s true. I even eat pork. I’ll do it tomorrow. You can watch.”

“You’re a funny person.”

“Do you want to dance or not? Or did Darrow crush your little piggies?”

Finally she smiled; a full, honest, open smile, and she had wonderful perfect white teeth, and dimples you could’ve hidden dimes in.

It was the kind of moment that can make you fall in love forever—or for at least as long as an ocean voyage.

“I’d love to dance…Nathan, is it?”

“It’s Nate…Isabel….”

We danced to the rest of “I Surrender, Dear,” then snuggled close on “Little White Lies.” We left in the middle of “Three Little Words” to get some air out on the afterdeck. We leaned against the rail near a suspended lifeboat. The fog of San Francisco was long gone; the stars were like bits of morning peeking through holes punctured in a deep blue night.

“It’s cool,” she said. “Almost cold.”

The thrum of the engines, the lapping of the ocean against the luxury liner cutting through it, made us speak up a little. Just a little.

“Take my jacket,” I said.

“No…I’d rather just snuggle.”

“Be my guest.”

I slipped my arm around her and drew her close; her bare arm did feel cold, gooseflesh tickling my fingers. Her perfume tickled my nose.

“You smell good,” I said.

“Chanel,” she said.

“What number?”

“Number Five. You’ve been around, haven’t you?”

“I didn’t just fall off a turnip truck.”

She laughed a little; it had a musical sound. “I can’t help liking you.”

“Why fight it? Do you do anything?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, go to school, or…do rich girls like you ever work?”

“Of course we work! If we want to.”

“Do you?”

“I don’t want to…. But maybe I’ll have to, someday. I’m not so rich, you know. We got hit hard in the Crash.”

“I didn’t feel a thing.”

She flashed me a quick frown. “Don’t be smug. It’s not a joke, people jumping out of windows.”

“I know it isn’t. How old are you?”

“Twenty.”

“Are you in school?”

“I might go to college. I wasn’t planning to, but…”

“What happened?”

“I was engaged to this boy.”

“You were?”

“He met someone else.”

“Not someone prettier. That wouldn’t be possible.”

Her eyes studied the dark water. “He went to Europe. Met her on the
Queen Mary.”

“Ah. Shipboard romance.”

“Maybe it started that way. He’s engaged to her, now.”

“I know an excellent way for you to get back at him.”

“How’s that?”

And when her head was tilted up to look at me while she asked that question, I kissed her. It started out gentle and sweet, but then it got hot and deep, and when we parted, we were both damn near panting. I leaned over the rail and caught my breath and watched whitecaps rolling over the inky sea.

“You kissed fellas before,” I noted.

“Once or twice,” she said, and she kissed me again.

Her stateroom was just across the hall from mine, but as we paused there, I took a moment from us pawing each other and said breathlessly, “I gotta get something from my room.”

She blinked. “What?”

“You know…something.”

“What…Sheiks?” She swatted the air. “I have some in my train case.”

I guess you’ve guessed by now she wasn’t a virgin. But she wasn’t all that experienced, either; she seemed surprised when, after a while, deep inside of her, I rolled with her, moving her around and up on top. I had a feeling her former fiancé had been strictly a missionary position sort of guy.

But she soon got the swing of it, and was liking riding rather than being ridden. Her eyes were half-hooded, as if she were tipsy with desire, her body washed with ivory from the porthole, the shadows of the half-open shutters making an exquisite pattern on the smooth planes of her body as she leaned forward, hips grinding, breasts swaying. Those breasts, lovely, perfectly conical, not big, not small, were peaked with large, swollen aureoles, like those of an adolescent girl just entering puberty. She was well out of puberty, however, and the smooth warmth of her around me, the movie star loveliness of her hovering over me, turned me tipsy, too….

She slipped out of bed, and into the bathroom while I plucked a tissue from the nightstand to dispose of the lambskin armor she’d provided me. Two or three minutes later, she returned, and slipped the compact curves of her flawless young body into her undergarment, a creamy little teddy, got herself a Camel from her purse on a bamboo chair, and lighted the ciggie up with a tiny silver lighter.

“You want a tailor-made?” she asked.

“No. It’s one bad habit I haven’t got around to.”

“We used to roll ’em, back at girls’ school.” She inhaled, exhaled, the blue smoke drifting like vapor. “You got anything to nip at?”

“There’s a flask in my jacket pocket…no, the other pocket.”

Cigarette dangling from the Kewpie mouth, she unscrewed the cap on the silver flask and had a jolt. “Ah! Demon rum. Want some?”

“Sure. Bring it back to bed with you.”

And she did, passing me the flask as she eased under the covers next to me.

“You must think I’m terribly wicked,” she said. “Just a little tramp.”

I sipped the rum. “I certainly won’t respect you in the morning.”

She knew I was kidding, but she asked anyway, “You won’t?”

“Not some little trollop who sleeps with the first good-lookin’ kike who comes along.”

She yelped a laugh, and grabbed a pillow and hit me with it; I protected the flask so as not to spill any of its precious contents.

“You’re an awful person!”

“Better you figure that out now than later.”

She put her pillow back in place, and snuggled against me, again. “I suppose you think we’ll be doing this every night of the trip.”

“I have nothing else planned.”

“I’m really normally a very good girl.”

“Good, hell. You’re great.”

“You want me to hit you again?” she asked, reaching for the pillow. But she left it in its place, and settled back against it and me and said, “You just pushed the right button, that’s all.”

I slipped a hand over one silk-covered bosom and touched a forefinger to a puffy nipple ever so gently. “Hope to shout…”

“Awful person,” she said, and blew out smoke, and French-kissed me. It was a smoky, rum-tinged kiss, but nice. And memorable. Funny how much this rich little good girl kissed like some of the poor little nasty girls I’d run across.

“Poor Thalo,” she sighed, taking the flask from me.

“What?”

“Sex relations can be so wonderful. So much fun.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

She swigged, wiped her mouth with a hand. “To have it ruined…by some awful greasy native beasts.” She shuddered. “Just to think of it makes me want to run and hide….”

“What was she like?”

“Thalo?”

“Yeah.”

“You mean, growing up together?”

“Yeah. Docile, quiet…?”

“Thalo! Not hardly! You think it’s a bowl of cherries, being rich. But you more or less have to raise yourself. Not that I’m complaining. Those days at Bayport, they were something….”

“Bayport?”

“It’s a little community on the South Shore of Long Island. Thalo’s parents have a summer home there. It’s like a park, really—that big house, lake, woods…. We used to go bareback riding…and I do mean
bare.”

“No parents around to object to such shenanigans?”

Another swig. “They were gone most of the time—social functions, foreign jaunts. The house was run by the Filipino domestics, who Thalo didn’t have to answer to. Glorious days, really.”

“You went to school together, too?”

“Yes—Hillside in Norwalk, then, later, National Cathedral, in Washington. Strict schools, but summers were madcap; we ran wild. Lived in our bathing suits all summer.”

She handed me the flask and got out of bed; a lovely thing in that teddy, completely unselfconscious in her near nudity.

“We had this old Ford,” she said, fishing another smoke from her purse, “that we painted up with all sorts of colors and crazy sayings. Rode around with our feet and legs hanging out of the car. Tore around, regular little speed demons.”

“Never got picked up? Never lost your license?”

She lighted up the new ciggie. “Oh, we didn’t have licenses. We weren’t old enough.”

Soon she was back in bed with me, the orange eye of her cigarette staring in the darkness.

“I shouldn’t say this, but…she used to love it.”

“Love what?”

“It. You know—
it!
Doing it? Boys from our set, visiting their own parents, they’d come to that big house…we had the run of the place…come midnight we’d go skinny-dipping in the lake….”

“With the boys?”

“Not with the gardener! I don’t think Tommie…nothing.”

“What?”

“It’s just…I shouldn’t say.”

“Something about her husband?” I asked, passing her the flask.

She took another slug, then said, “I haven’t seen Thalo since she and Tommie were stationed at Pearl Harbor almost two years ago. I don’t have a right to say anything about it.”

“About what?”

“I…don’t think he could satisfy her.”

“In what way?”

“In whatever way you think. He’s so…ordinary, dull, unexciting. She’s a romantic, fun-loving girl, but her letters to me…. She was bored with being a Navy wife. He was off on submarine duty all the time, she was lonely…no fun. No attention. And now this.”

“It’s nice of you to go to her side in this dark hour.”

“She’s my best friend,” Isabel said, and took another slug of rum from my flask. “And anyway, I’ve never been to Hawaii before.”

She fell asleep in my arms; I removed the glowing cigarette stub from her fingers, crushed it out in a glass ashtray on the nightstand, placed my flask there, and allowed the motion of the ship, plowing its way through the Pacific, to lull me.

But I didn’t go to sleep for a long time. I kept thinking about Thalo and Isabel, fun-loving girls skinny-dipping with boys.

And how Thalia Massie’s dull husband had helped kill a man to preserve his wife’s honor.

I leaned against the starboard rail with Isabel on one side of me, and Leisure on the other. Mrs. Leisure was next to her husband, and the Darrows were just down the rail from her, as our little group peered across deep blue waters. A balmy breeze ruffled hair, rustled dresses, fussed with neckties; the sky was as blue as Isabel’s eyes, the clouds as white as her teeth. She was a foolish girl, but I would love her forever, or at least till we docked.

“Look!” Isabel cried; it was a cry that would have made sense, a hundred and fifty years ago, when spying land meant fresh water and supplies and the first solid ground in weeks or even months.

But at the end of a modern four-and-a-half-day ocean voyage, it was just plain silly—so why did my heart leap at the sight of an indistinct land mass, dancing in and out from the morning clouds? Gradually revealing itself, growing larger and larger on the horizon, was the windward shore of Oahu, and as the
Malolo
rounded the point, we got a gander at a cracked gray mountain.

“Koko Head,” seasoned traveler Leisure informed us.

Maybe so, but it was a head with no more natural growth than a bald old man—a disappointing, and inaccurate, envoy of the island, as very soon the grayness of Koko dipped into a valley of luxuriant green foliage, including the expected gently waving palms and occasional flower-blossom splashes of color.

“There’s Diamond Head!” Queen Isabel squealed, pointing, as if informing Columbus of the New World.

“I see you’ve read the
National Geographic,
too,” I said, but I didn’t even get a rise out of her. Her blue eyes were wide and her smile that of a kid with a nickel viewing a well-stocked penny candy counter; she was even jumping up and down a little.

And Diamond Head was a magnificent sight, all right, even if a city kid like me wasn’t about to tip as much to my society page cutie-pie. After all, I came from the town that invented the skyscraper, and some paltry seven-or eight-hundred-foot natural wonder wasn’t about to earn oooh’s and ahhh’s from a hardboiled boyo like me.

So why was I staring goofy-eyed, like a hypnotist’s watch was waving in front of my mug? What was the magic of this long-dead crater? Why did its shape demand study, call out for a metaphor? Why did I see Diamond Head as a crouching beast, its gray fur furrowed, its blunted sphinx head lifted ever so gently, paws extended into the ocean, a regal, wary sentinel to an ancient land?

“See that small depression, on the ledge of the crater?” Leisure asked, though he was really instructing.

“Near the peak there?” I offered. Beneath the lower, greening slopes of the volcano nestled a lushness of trees and a scattering of residences that were pretty lush themselves.

“Exactly. The natives say an enormous diamond once perched there, snatched away by an angry god.”

“Maybe they couldn’t find a virgin to sacrifice,” I said. “Scarce commodity, even back then.”

That got me a nudge from Isabel. I wasn’t sure she’d been listening.

As the natural barrier of the volcanic sentry gradually drew away, the supple white curve of Waikiki Beach began revealing itself.

“That’s the Moana Hotel,” Leisure said, “oldest on the island.”

It was a big white Beaux Arts beach house got out of hand, with a wing on either end bookending the main building; a massive banyan tree and a pavilion fronted the hotel’s stretch of beach. Beyond this turn-of-the-century colonial sprawl was an explosion of startling pink in the form of a massive stucco Spanish-Moorish structure, a cross between a castle and a mission, spires and cupolas lording it over landscaped grounds aswarm with ferns and palms.

“The Royal Hawaiian Hotel,” Leisure said. “Also known as the Pink Palace.”

“Hot dog,” I said.

“Why so chipper?” Isabel wondered.

“That’s where I’m staying. The Royal Hawaiian….”

“I’ll be with Thalo, in her little bungalow in Manoa Valley,” Isabel said glumly. “She says it’s no bigger than the gardener’s cottage back at Bayport.”

“Well, the posher crowd stays at that pink flophouse, there. Drop by anytime. Feel free.”

Leisure was looking at me through those ever-narrowed eyes; he wore a mild frown, and whispered, “You’re staying at the Royal Hawaiian?”

“That’s what C.D. said.”

“Funny,” he said, still sotto voce. “He told me the party’s lodgings are at the Alexander Young. Anne wasn’t any too thrilled.”

“What’s wrong with the Young?”

“Nothing, really. A sound choice. Downtown, close to the courthouse. More of a commercial hotel.”

“I’m pretty sure he said Royal Hawaiian,” I shrugged. “Want me to ask him?”

“No! No….”

Waikiki Beach appeared to be a narrow strip of sand, rather than the endless expanse I’d imagined; but room enough for dabs and smidgens of bathing suit and beach umbrella color to paint the shore, as bathers bobbed in the water nearby. A few hundred yards out, occasional bronze figures would rise out of the water like apparitions: surf riders, gliding in, in a spray of white, shooting toward the beach, occasionally kneeling to paddle up some extra speed, mostly just standing on their boards as casually as if they were waiting for a trolley. Was that a
dog
riding with one of them?

“Could that be as easy as it looks?” I asked Leisure.

“No,” he said. “They call it the Sport of Kings. Get crowned by one of those heavy boards, and you’ll know why.”

Sharing the surf, but keeping their distance from its riders, were several long, narrow canoes, painted black, trimmed yellow, warlike-looking hulls supported by spidery extensions to one side (“outrigger canoes,” according to Leisure). The four-man crews were paddling in precision, stroking through the water with narrow-handled fat-bladed paddles.

Just to the left of the Pink Palace was a cluster of beach homes and summer hotels; then the low-slung severe structures of a military installation peeked out among palms; in the fore was an incongruous water playground of floats, diving platforms, and chutes, in use at this very moment by sunners and swimmers.

“Fort De Russey,” Leisure pointed out. “The Army dredged the coral and came up with the best stretch of beach in town. Civilians are always welcome.”

“Not always.”

“What do you mean?”

“Isn’t that near where Thalia Massie was abducted?”

Leisure’s tour guide spiel suddenly stalled. He nodded gravely. Then he said, “Best not to forget why we’re here.”

“Hey, don’t let me spoil the party. I’m eatin’ up this sunshine and ocean spray, too.” I nodded toward the dazzling coastline. “But you know how sometimes a girl looks gorgeous from a distance? Then when you get close up—pockmarks and bad teeth.”

A shrill siren split the air, the sort of breathy whistle that might announce a shift change at a factory, or an air raid.

“What the hell…”

Leisure nodded toward the shore. “We’re being greeted—and announced. That’s the Aloha Tower’s siren, letting locals know it’s a ‘steamer day.’”

A clock tower did indeed loom above the harbor, like a beacon, ten stories’ worth of sleek white
art deco
spire, topped by an American flag. Not everyone on this ship was aware they were visiting a United States territory; I’d even overheard the ship’s purser being approached by one well-to-do imbecile wanting to exchange his U.S. currency for “Hawaiian money.”

When the whistle let up, Leisure said, “Can you see the word above the clock face?”

“No.”

“There’s actually a clock face on all four sides, and the word
aloha
is over each one. It means hello—and good-bye.”

“Who’s idea was that? Groucho Marx?”

The ship was slowing down; then it came to a stop, as several small launches drew up alongside it.

“What’s this about?” I asked Leisure.

The attorney shrugged. “Harbor pilot, health officers, customs officials, reps from various hotels booking rooms for any passengers that didn’t plan ahead. It’ll be at least another forty-five minutes before we dock.”

The mainland reporters who had traveled with us had long since given up on getting anything out of Darrow (other than anti-Prohibition spiels); but a small rabid pack of local newshounds, who had just clambered aboard, sniffed us out at the rail.

They wore straw fedoras and white shirts with no jackets, pads and pencils in hand, bright eyes and expectant white smiles in tanned faces. At first I thought they were natives, but on closer look, I could see they were white men, darkened by the sun.

“Mr. Darrow! Mr. Darrow!” were among the few words that could be culled from their overlapping questions. “Massie” and “Fortescue” were two more words I made out; also “rape” and “murder.” The rest was noise, a press conference in the Tower of Babel.

“Gentlemen!” Darrow said, in a courtroom-quieting fashion. He had stepped away from our little group, turning his back on the view of Honolulu’s white buildings peeking around the Aloha Tower. “I’ll make a brief statement, and then you will leave Mrs. Darrow and me to make our preparations to disembark.”

They quieted.

“I would like you kind gentlemen to do me the small favor of informing the citizens of Honolulu that I am here to defend my clients,
not
white supremacy. I have no intention of conducting this trial on a basis of race. Race prejudice is as abhorrent to me as the fanatics who practice it.”

“What
will
be the basis, then?” a reporter blurted. “The ‘unwritten law’ of a husband defending a wife’s honor?”

A smirk creased his face. “I have trouble enough keeping up with the laws that’ve been written down. Altogether too many of ’em, don’t you think, gentlemen? People can’t be expected to obey ’em all, when there’s such a surplus. In fact, I think the imminent removal of a certain law—I believe it’s known as the Volstead Act—is a case in point.”

Another reporter took the bait. “What do you think will be accomplished by the repeal of Prohibition?”

“I think it will be easier to get a drink,” Darrow said soberly.

One of the reporters, who hadn’t been taken in by Darrow’s shift of subject, hollered out, “Do you expect Mrs. Fortescue to be acquitted?”

He chuckled silently. “When did you last see an intelligent, handsome woman refused alimony, let alone convicted of murder? No more on this subject, gentlemen.”

And he turned his back to them, settling in next to Mrs. Darrow at the rail.

But a reporter tried again, anyway. “Are you aware your autobiography has been selling like hotcakes here in Honolulu? Looks like the locals are checking up on you, Mr. Darrow. Any comment?”

Darrow arched an eyebrow as he glanced back in mock surprise. “It’s still on sale here, is it? I would’ve thought it would be sold out by now!”

For perhaps ninety seconds they hurled more questions at his back, but the old boy ignored them, and the pack of hounds moved on.

Soon the ship had gotten under way again, shifting its nose toward the harbor, slowly making its way to the dock; from the starboard side, we had a fine view of the city, and it was bigger than I expected, and more contemporary—not exactly a scattering of grass huts. White modern buildings were clustered beneath green slopes dotted with homes, all against an unlikely backdrop of majestic mountains. It was as if a twentieth-century city had been dropped by mistake, from a plane perhaps, onto an exotic primordial isle.

Down the rail from us, other passengers were squealing and laughing; something more than just the scenic view was getting their attention. Isabel, noticing this, glanced at me, and I nodded, and we moved quickly down there to see what was going on.

Finding another place at the rail, we saw brown-skinned boys down below in the drink, treading water; others were diving off the approaching pier to join this floating assemblage. Silver coins flew through the air, flipped and pitched from passengers down from us a ways, the metal catching the sun and winking, then plinking into the amazingly clear blue water. You could actually see the coins tumbling down. Then the white soles of feet pointed skyward as the boys dived for the nickels and dimes.

Somebody tapped me on the shoulder.

It was a good-looking college kid we’d met in the
Malolo’s
indoor swimming pool the other day. In a setting fit for a Roman orgy, rife with Pompeian Etruscan columns and mosaic tile, the sharp-featured handsome kid had been swimming with quick authority and caught my—and Isabel’s—attention.

He must’ve seen us watching him, because he had finally come over and struck up a conversation. He wanted to meet Darrow, who was sitting on a marble bench nearby, fully clothed, watching pretty girls swim (Ruby was off with the Leisures someplace). The affable kid, toweling off his tanned muscular frame, had introduced himself to Darrow as a fellow Clarence and a prelaw student in California. He’d grown up on a pineapple plantation on Oahu and was taking a semester off to spend some time at home.

“With a name like Clarence you’ll never need a nickname,” Darrow had told him.

“Oh, I’ve got a nickname, and it’s sillier than Clarence,” the good-natured kid said.

And he had told us, and it was a silly nickname all right, and we’d all had a laugh over it, though we’d never run into the kid on the ship again—he wasn’t traveling first-class. Now here he was, interrupting my view of native boys diving for nickels.

“Would you do me a favor?” he asked. “I can’t ask any of these stuffy rich people, and you seem like a regular guy.”

“Sure.” If I’d said no, I’d have been denying being a “regular guy.”

And the son of a bitch began taking off his clothes.

Isabel had noticed, by now, and was smiling with pleasure as the damn Adonis stripped to red swim trunks.

“Be a pal and keep these for me,” he said. “I’ll catch up with you up on the dock.”

And he thrust the bundle of shirt, pants, shoes, and socks into my arms, stepping out onto the deck just behind the passengers ogling the native divers.

“Who’s got a silver dollar?” he called.