Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 09 (5 page)

Faces turned toward him.

“I’ll dive from the deck,” he said, “for a silver dollar!”

“Here!” a mustached fellow called, digging into his pocket and holding up the silver coin; the sun caught it and a reflection lanced off it.

And I’ll be damned if this kid didn’t climb over the rail, and position himself, yelling “Now!” following the pitched coin into the deep blue waters, in a high perfect dive that cleaved the water with the assurance of God parting the Red Sea.

Before long, he emerged with a toss of wet dark hair and a happy, infectious grin, holding the coin up as he bobbed there. The sun caught it again, and both the smile and the coin dazzled his audience on deck, who began to applaud and cheer. Isabel put two fingers in her mouth and let loose a whistle the Aloha Tower might have envied.

Then he stroked off toward the pier as our boat continued making its way there.

“Wasn’t that the damnedest thing,” I said.

“What a man,” Isabel sighed.

“Thanks,” I said, and we grinned at each other, going arm in arm after the rest of our party.

When the ship slipped gracefully into Pier 9, a mob was waiting; a band in white uniforms performed syrupy renditions of Hawaiian tunes while colored streamers and confetti were hurled, and shapely dark hula girls in grass skirts and floral-print brassieres swayed, their slender necks bedecked with wreaths of brightly colored flowers. The citizens who’d come to greet us were less a melting pot than a list of racial ingredients: Japanese, Chinese, Polynesian, Portuguese, and Caucasian faces were among the locals on hand to greet the tourists they depended on for their livelihoods.

As we walked across the gangway into this mad merriment, I had to wonder if there wasn’t an undercurrent of hysteria at this particular “steamer day,” an edge provided by the tension and turmoil of the most controversial criminal matter that had ever faced the Islands.

Just as Darrow stepped onto the cement of the pier, an attractive native woman in a loose dress, the tropical version of the Mother Hubbard known as a muumuu, transferred one of the half-dozen flower garlands she was wearing from her neck to Darrow’s. The battery of press photogs lying in wait—one of whom had no doubt put the woman (who was a seller of the things) up to it—jockeyed for position to record Darrow’s chagrin for posterity.

But C.D. wasn’t having any.

“Hold off there!” he said, shifting the wreath to his wife’s neck. “You’re not catching me wearing those jingle bells—I’ll look like a damned decorated hat rack.”

“Lei,
mister?” the native woman asked me cheerfully.

“No thanks,” I said. Then to Isabel: “They don’t waste any time here, do they?”

“That’s what those flowers are called, silly,” she said. “A
lei.”

“Really?” I asked innocently, and then she knew I was teasing her. And joining the ranks of every mainlander male who ever set foot on Oahu, in making that particular pun.

Darrow was leading the way through the crowd—the old boy seemed to know what he was doing and where he was going. I still had that kid’s clothes tucked under my arm, and was looking around for him. His head popped up above the throng, and I held up till he angled through, still in his trunks but pretty well dried off, now. The climate, though pleasant, was warm enough to be his towel.

“Thanks!” he grinned, taking his stuff from me.

“Hell of a dive, for a dollar.”

That great grin flashed. “When I was a kid, I was right in there with the other beach boys, divin’ for nickels. Gotta raise the ante a little, when ya get older. Where you staying? I’ll drop by and use the buck to buy you lunch.”

“I think the Royal Hawaiian.”

“A buck doesn’t go far there, but I know some people on the staff—maybe they’ll cut me some slack. Heller, isn’t it? Nate?”

I said it was as we shook hands, and he tossed me a “See ya,” and disappeared back into the crowd.

Leisure leaned in and said, “You know who that is?”

“Some crazy college kid. Buster, he said they call him.”

“That’s Clarence Crabbe. Hawaii’s great white hope in the Olympics comin’ up this summer. He took two bronze medals in ’28, at Amsterdam.”

“Diving?”

“Swimming.”

“Huh,” I grunted. “No kiddin’.”

A Navy driver was waiting for us at the curb; his seven-passenger black Lincoln limousine could have handled all of us, but Darrow sent Ruby and Mrs. Leisure on to the hotel, on foot; it was easy walking distance, and our baggage would be delivered. Isabel (looking lovely in a
lei
I’d bought her) started to go with the two women, and Darrow stopped her, gently.

“Come with us, dear,” he said, “won’t you?”

“All right,” Isabel said.

So we all got in the back of the limo, where Isabel and I sat facing Darrow and Leisure; everyone but Darrow was confused.

“I thought we were staying at the Royal Hawaiian,” I said.

“You’re staying there, son,” Darrow said, as the limo rolled smoothly into traffic. How odd it seemed for this city to be such a…city. Buses and streetcars and traffic cops, with only the predominance of various shades of brown and yellow faces to let you know this wasn’t Miami or San Diego.

“Why’s Nate staying at the Royal Hawaiian?” Leisure wondered, just a slight touch of cranky jealousy in his tone.

“For two reasons,” Darrow said. “First, I want to keep our investigator away from reporters, keep him off the firing line. They’ll only bother him about the Lindbergh business, for one thing, and I want him someplace where he can invite various witnesses and others involved in the case, for a friendly conversation over lunch or fruit punch, without the prying eyes of the press.”

Leisure was nodding; jealous or not, it made sense.

“It won’t hurt,” Darrow continued, “to have an opulent setting to entice the cooperation of these individuals. Also, I can sneak off there myself, if I need to confer with someone, away from journalistic meddlers.”

“Despite all the lawyerly bypaths you just took,” I said, “that’s just one reason. You said two.”

“Oh. Well, the other reason is, I was offered a free suite at the Royal Hawaiian, and this was a way to take advantage of that invitation.”

And he beamed at me, proud of himself.

“So the taxpayers of Chicago pay for my services,” I said, “and the Royal Hawaiian provides my lodging. You couldn’t afford
not
to bring me along, could you, C.D.?”

“Not hardly. Mind if I smoke, dear?”

“No,” Isabel said. “But where are we going?”

“I was just wondering that myself,” Leisure said. He still wasn’t used to Darrow’s offhand way of doing things.

“Why, taking you to your lodgings, child,” Darrow said grandly to the girl, as his steady old hands emptied tobacco from a pouch into a curl of cigarette paper.

“I’m staying with my cousin Thalia,” she said.

“Yes,” Darrow said. “She’s expecting us.”

The Navy limousine slipped into the stream of leisurely traffic on King Street; the Oriental and Polynesian drivers of Oahu, and even the Caucasians for that matter, seemed more cautious, less hurried than mainlanders. Or maybe the seductive warm climate with its constant cool breeze encouraged a tempo that to a contemporary Chicagoan seemed more appropriate for horse carts and carriages.

Nonetheless, Honolulu remained resolutely modern. There were trolley cars, not rickshaws, and on side streets, frame houses were in evidence, not a native hut in sight. The stark modern lines of white office buildings were softened by the soothing greenery of palms and exotic flora, and once we’d left the clustered heart of the business district, the urban landscape was calmed by occasional stretches of park or by a school or a church or some official-looking building resplendent on verdant manicured grounds.

Coca-Cola signs, Standard Oil pumps, drugstore window posters advertising Old Gold Cigarettes were a reminder that this was America, all right, despite the coconut trees and foreign faces.

Soon we were climbing into an area that Leisure labeled Manoa Valley, and that our youthful Navy chauffeur further identified as “The Valley of Sunshine and Tears.”

“There’s a legend,” the driver said in a husky voice, turning his head to us but keeping an eye on the road, “that in olden days, a maiden who lived in this valley met with tragedy. Lies were told about her virtue, and it made her man jealous, and all involved came to a bad end.”

“Such stories often turn out thus,” Darrow said gravely.

Right now we were moving through a silk-stocking district, spacious near-mansions with beautifully maintained gardens and spacious golf-course-perfect lawns. We were on the incline that was well-shaded Punahou Street, and the college of that name was off to our right, up-to-date buildings on lavish royal palm-flung grounds.

“Somebody has money,” I said.

Leisure nodded toward a stately mansion that might well have been an estate outside London. “This is old white money—they call them
kaimaaina haoles
…missionaries, Yankee traders, and their descendants. We’re talking second-and third-generation, now. You’ve heard of the ‘Big Five’?”

“Isn’t that a college football conference?”

Leisure’s narrow lips pursed a smile. “Hawaii’s Big Five are the plantation, shipping, and merchandising companies that own these islands. Matson Lines money, Liberty House, which is the local version of Sears…”

“The white man came to Hawaii,” Darrow intoned suddenly, as if from a pulpit, “and urged the simple natives to turn their eyes upward to God…but when the natives looked down to earth again, their goddamn
land
was gone.”

We rose into the upper portion of Manoa Valley, where the estates gave way to a network of shady lanes and a concentration of cottages and bungalows. Though we were on a steep gradient, the boundaries of the valley were steeper still—mountainous slopes providing a dark blue backdrop; it was as if this were a stadium scooped from the earth by nature, and we were down on the Big Five’s playing field.

I posed a question to the driver. “How far are we from Pearl Harbor?”

“A good half an hour, sir.”

“Is it common for a Navy officer to live this far from the base?”

“Yes, sir,” the driver said. “In fact, quite a few Navy officers live in Manoa Valley—Army as well. Lt. Massie and a number of other younger officers live within close proximity of one another, sir.”

“Oh. That’s nice. Then they can get together, socialize…”

“I wouldn’t know about that, sir,” the driver said, strangely curt.

Had I touched a nerve?

Number 2850 on the narrow slope of Kahawai Street was a precious white Tudor-style bungalow, its gabled roofs decorated with vertical and diagonal slashes of brown trim, and large brown-striped canvas awnings so determined to keep out the sun that they almost hid the windows. Though the yard was tiny, foliage was plentiful, well-trimmed boxcar-shaped hedges hugging the little house, several oriental trees like absurdly large bushes providing sheltering green. I wasn’t sure whether the effect was one of coziness or concealment.

There was a driveway, where the Navy driver pulled in; the street was too narrow to park along. Soon, Isabel and I, heads craned back, were standing in the street, admiring the way the mountains provided a misty green backdrop to the little house.

The Navy chauffeur was helping Darrow out of the backseat as the sound of a screen door closing announced a lanky guy of about thirty, in white shirt with sleeves rolled back and crisp canary trousers, legs knifing as he rushed out to greet us. His brown hair was rather thin, but his smile was generous; he was bestowing it on Darrow, who was standing in the drive next to Leisure.

“Pleased to meet you, sir—I’m Lt. Francis Olds, but my friends call me Pop. I’d be honored if you’d pay me that compliment.”

The enthusiastic Olds was extending a hand, which Darrow took, shook, saying, “Much as I’d like to please you, Lieutenant, I’m afraid I couldn’t quite bring myself to that. This suit I’m wearing is older than you.”

“Well,” the lieutenant said, folding his arms, grinning, “at thirty,
I’m
the old man around here—Tommie and the rest, they’re just a buncha fresh-faced kids barely outta college.”

Darrow’s gray eyes narrowed. “You’re a friend of Lt. Massie’s?”

“I’m sorry! I haven’t explained myself. I run the Ammunition Depot, out at Pearl. My wife and I have been taking turns keeping Thalia company, making sure the press and any curiosity-seekers don’t bother her here, during the day. We post armed guards at night.”

Darrow frowned. “The situation’s that severe?”

He nodded. “There have been bomb threats. Word of gangs of Japs and native trash driving around Manoa Valley in their junker cars…. You know, I’m afraid you have
me
to blame for your involvement in this, Mr. Darrow.”

“How is that, Lieutenant?”

The lieutenant pointed at himself with a thumb. “I’m the one brought up your name. I’m the one encouraged Mrs. Fortescue to hit up her rich friends on the mainland for the dough it would take to get a really
top
lawyer. And I
knew
you were the only man for this case.”

Wry amusement creased Darrow’s face. “You have excellent judgment, young man.”

“And, well…I’m also running the fund-raising drive, at the base, to raise your fee to cover Lord and Jones.”

“Who?”

“The two enlisted men you’re defending!”

The accomplices to Mrs. Fortescue and Tommie Massie in the killing of Joseph Kahahawai. I didn’t think C.D. had spent much time going over those transcripts and statements back on the
Malolo.
Leisure was wincing.

“Well, then,” Darrow said, with no apology for forgetting the names of two of the clients he’d come thousands of miles to defend, “I guess I will have to capitulate to your request…Pop.”

Darrow introduced Isabel, Leisure, and myself to Pop Olds, who greeted us warmly, glad to see anybody who was part of the great Darrow’s team. He walked us behind the hedge to the front door.

“We’re friends of the Massies,” he explained. “My wife and I were in a play with Thalia and Tommie, at the local Little Theater.” He grinned shyly. “Actually, Thalia and
I
are the hams…. I arranged walk-ons for our spouses so we could all spend some time together.”

So Thalia Massie was an actress; I’d have to keep that in mind.

Darrow was laying a hand on the lieutenant’s shoulder. “I’m grateful for your attentiveness to Mrs. Massie, Pop…but I have to ask you a courtesy.”

“Anything, Mr. Darrow.”

“Wait out here while I speak to Mrs. Massie. I view her as a client in this case, and wish to limit the audience for the painful memories I must go probing after.”

Olds seemed a little disappointed to be left out, but he said, “Certainly, sir—certainly. I’ll just catch a few smokes out here….”

A maid in a brown uniform with white apron met us as we stepped inside; she was Japanese, petite, quietly pretty, without an ounce of makeup, her shiny black hair in a Louise Brooks bob.

“Miss Massie resting,” she said, lowering her head respectfully. She was addressing Darrow, who stood at the head of our group, crowding into the little living room. “But she ask I wake her when you arrive.”

And she went quickly off.

The place was pretty impersonal; my guess was they’d rented the bungalow furnished—with the possible exception of a new-looking walnut veener console radio-phonograph in one corner. This was dark, functional, middle-class nicked-up stuff whose point of origin was probably Sears—or, rather, Liberty House. They’d dressed it up a little—the wine-color mohair davenport and matching armchair had antimacassars; the occasional tables had doilies but almost no knickknacks.

On one table were a few family photos, including a wedding portrait of a very young, pasty-faced couple, the pretty bride slightly taller than the fetus of a groom, whose formal naval attire seemed sizes too big for him; another photo, in an ornate silver frame, depicted an attractive, long-faced matron with frozen eyes and a long string of pearls.

A painting over the stuffed horsehair couch depicted the sun setting over Diamond Head, but the frame was ornate European, and nothing else in the room was remotely Hawaiian, not even the faded pink floral wallpaper, or the well-worn oriental rug on the hardwood floor.

From the living room, through a wide archway, was a dining room with more dark nondescript furnishings; I could catch a white glimpse of the kitchen, the next room over. The bedroom must have been off the dining room, to the right, because that’s the way the pretty bride in the wedding portrait—Thalia Massie—came in.

She wore black—black dress, black beaded necklace, black sideways turban—as if in stylish mourning for her normal life that had died late last summer. Blades of blondish-brown hair arced around the round smooth contours of her oval face; the faint outline of a scar touched her left cheek, near her mouth, trailing to the jawline. She looked quite a bit like Isabel, the same cupid’s-bow mouth, small well-formed nose and big blue eyes, but Thalia’s were what unkind people in the Midwest call cow’s eyes—wide-set and protuberant.

Still, the overall effect was a pretty girl, and with a nice shape, too—a little pudgy, perhaps. And her shoulders were stooped—she was rather tall, but it took you a while to realize it. Had she always had that uncertain gait? She almost shuffled in, as if in a perpetual state of embarrassment. Or shame.

And yet those clear eyes met us all directly, blinking only rarely, the result being a languid, remote expression.

Isabel rushed forward and took her cousin in her arms, gushing words of sympathy; but as they embraced, Thalia Massie looked blankly at me over Isabel’s shoulder. Thalia patted Isabel’s back as if her cousin were the one who needed comforting.

“I should have come sooner,” Isabel said.

Thalia twitched her a smile in response as Isabel took her cousin’s hand, and the two girls stood there side by side, Isabel looking like Thalia’s blonder sister.

Darrow stepped forward with a fatherly smile and clasped one of Thalia’s hands in both of his big paws; Isabel receded, giving Thalia center stage.

“My dear, I’m Clarence Darrow,” he said, as if there were any doubt, “and I’ve come here to help you and your family.”

“I’m very grateful.” Her smile seemed halfhearted; her voice low, throaty, but barely inflected. She was twenty-one—married at sixteen, according to what I’d read on the
Malolo
—but I’d have guessed her at least twenty-five.

Darrow introduced Leisure (“my distinguished co-counsel”) and me (“my investigator—he’s just returned from working with Colonel Lindbergh”), and Thalia granted us nods. Then Darrow led her to the couch under the Diamond Head painting. Isabel sat next to her, close to her, taking Thalia’s hand supportively.

Leisure drew the couch’s matching armchair around for Darrow, so that he was facing Thalia. I found a caneback wing chair—by the way, was a more uncomfortable chair ever invented?—and pulled it to one side of Darrow. Leisure preferred to stand; arms folded, he watched the unfolding scene through those all-seeing narrowed eyes of his.

Thalia drew her hand away from Isabel’s, doing so with a little smile, but her cousin’s hand-holding clearly made her uncomfortable. She folded her hands primly in her lap and looked at Darrow with the big languid eyes. There was weariness in her gaze, and distaste in her tone.

“I’m more than willing to talk to you, of course,” Thalia said. “I will do anything to help Tommie and Mother. But I hope it won’t be necessary to…dredge up all that other unpleasantness.”

Darrow sat forward in the chair; his smile, and tone, remained fatherly. “Would that I could spare you, child. But if we’re to defend—”

“This is a different case,” Thalia said, almost snippily. “Those rapists aren’t on trial and, for that matter, neither am I. This is about what Tommie and Mother and those sailors did.”

The smile turned regretful. “Unfortunately, dear, the two cannot be separated. What they did flowed out of what was done to you…. And without an understanding of what happened to you, a jury would view what your husband and mother did as, simply…murder.”

Her forehead furrowed in irritation, but the eyes remained wide. “Who’s better aware of that than I? But you were provided transcripts of what I said in court. Isn’t that enough?”

“No,” Darrow said firmly. “My staff and I need to hear these words from your own lips. We need to ask our own questions. There’s no stenographer, here, though Mr. Heller will take some notes.”

I took that prompt to get out my notepad and pencil.

“And,” Darrow continued, pointing at her gently, “you need to be prepared, young lady—because it’s very likely you’ll be taking the witness stand to tell your story yet again.”

Her sigh was a rasp from her chest, and she looked toward a side wall, away from Isabel, who was watching her with sympathy but also confusion. Finally Thalia turned her head back to Darrow.