Carnal Hours nh-6

by Max Allan Collins

  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.

  Marjorie explained patiently. “In these islands, that’s what they call the time between dark and daylight.”

  Our drinks arrived and I gave the barman a buck and told him to keep the change and made a friend. The Goombay Smash seemed to be pineapple juice and rum, mostly.

  “It was rainin’ so hard,” Arthur said, “one of de mon, he slip and drop his hair.”

  “His hair?”

  “His hat, it fly off, his hair too-get wet in de rain.” Arthur laughed. “He chase it like a rabbit.”

  One of the men was wearing a toupee, then.

  “Did you notice anything else distinctive about him?”

  “What?”

  “Anything special or odd about his appearance. Him, or the other man?”

  His eyes narrowed. “That rain, mon, was really comin’ down, you know. But dey walk right past my shed, you know. I was peekin’ through de window. The fella dat lost his hair, he had a skinny mustache, his nose was all pushed in. The other fella…he was fat, with a scar on his face.”

  The back of my neck was tingling.

  “What sort of scar, Arthur?”

  He drew a jagged line in the air with one finger. “Like de lightning in the sky, mon-it flash across his cheek.”

  Jesus Christ-were the men Arthur was describing the two bodyguards at Meyer Lansky’s table back at the Miami Biltmore?

  “A car was waitin’ for dem-dey come back an hour later. Maybe longer. Got back on dat boat and go back out in de storm. Crazy, doin’ that-the sea was real ugly.”

  “What sort of car was it? Did you see the driver?”

  “Driver I didn’t see. What do you call dat long square car, with de extra seats?”

  “A station wagon?” Marjorie asked.

  He nodded confidently. “Dat’s it. It was a station wagon.”

  “You didn’t happen to catch the license number did you?” I asked.

  “No.”

  I didn’t figure I’d be that lucky.

  “Could it have been Mr. Christie’s station wagon?” Marjorie asked. Then to me, she said, “Mr. Christie, he has a car like that.”

  “Maybe,” Arthur said. “It was dat kin’ of car. But I didn’t see de driver. See, I wasn’t thinkin’ about dat car so much as dat boat dat docked at Lyford Cay. I’m thinkin’, maybe dis boat don’t have no business here. So I got de registration nomber, and name on de side.”

  I grinned. “Arthur, you’re a good man. You remember that name and number, by any chance? Or maybe have it with you?”

  “No. But I write it down.”

  “Good. That’s very good…. Did you show it to anybody? Or tell anybody-like Mr. Christie, say-what you saw that night?”

  He smeared the moisture on his beer bottle with his thumb, then shook his head. “No-I got to thinkin’, if dat was Mr. Christie in dat car, he might not like me askin’ him about it.”

  “You told your sister,” Marjorie reminded him.

  “Oh, well, I tell a few friends. Guess that’s how the story got around.”

  “But nobody you work for,” I said.

  “No. More I thought about it, less I want to make a fuss. Still…knowin’ dat Sir Harry, he was killed dat same night. It makes you think.”

  Yes it did.

  I reached in my pants pocket and fished out a fin. I handed it to Arthur, who took it gratefully. “I work with a lawyer named Higgs,” I told him. “He’s going to want to get your deposition.”

  Now he frowned. “What’s dat?”

  “Your statement about what you saw.”

  “I don’t know, mon….”

  “Look-there’s more dough in it for you. What would you say to a hundred bucks, Arthur?”

  Arthur grinned. “I say, hello.”

  I laughed a little. “All right. But you got to keep quiet about this till you hear from me.”

  “As a mouse, mon.”

  “I’d like to see this Lyford Cay…get the layout. Why don’t I give you a ride to work, right now, and have a look around?”

  He waved that off. “No-no thanks, mister. I got my bicycle. Anyway, I got to try and find dat piece of paper I wrote dat nomber and name on.”

  “Okay, then-how about I meet you at the dock tomorrow night. You go on at ten, right? Is eleven okay? You could have that information ready for me, and I’ll have a time set up for you to meet with Higgs at his office, day after tomorrow.”

  “Okay. Make dat an afternoon time. I sleep mornin’s.”

  “Not a problem. Now, Arthur-keep all this under your hat….”

  “I buy a hat and put it dere,” he promised, and grinned again, and this time he offered his hand. I shook it and Marjorie and I found our way out. By now we barely rated a glance from the native clientele. The fat bartender I tipped even waved.

  Going back up and over the hill, Marjorie asked, “What do you think it means, Nathan?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.”

  “Could those men Arthur saw be the killers?”

  “Yes. But I have to give you the same advice I gave Arthur: not a word to anybody.”

  I left the car in the country club parking lot and walked her to her cottage. Occasionally our arms would brush, and we’d move away, then eventually drift back together. We weren’t saying anything much; suddenly, with business out of the way, things had gotten awkward.

  Just as I was about to say good night to her on her doorstep, feeling as shy as a teenager at the end of a first date, something scuttled across the sand, and scared the hell out of me.

  She laughed. “It’s just a sand crab.”

  I raised a h
and to my forehead. “I know….”

  Concern tightened her eyes; she touched my face with gentle fingertips, as if inspecting a burn. “You’re upset. You look sick…what is it….”

  “Nothing.”

  “It’s something! Tell me.”

  “I have to walk a second. I need to breathe….”

  She walked with me along the beach, our footsteps slowed by the sand; the rush of the tide, the beauty of the moonlight, calmed me.

  “I’m all right, now,” I said.

  I didn’t know how to tell her that the last time land crabs had skittered across my path, I’d been in a shell hole on another tropical island, waiting for the Japs to come and finish the job they’d started on me and the rest of the patrol….

  She looped her arm in mine; she was close to me, gazing up at me. Those huge eyes were something a man could get lost in. Right now, I felt like getting lost.

  I stopped in my sandy steps and she stopped, too, and I searched her eyes for permission before I took her in my arms and kissed her. Gently, but not too gently.

  Oh, those lips; soft and sweet and they told me how she felt without a word.

  Still in my arms, she looked past me. “We’re to Westbourne.”

  The rectangular shape of the place where Sir Harry died was outlined against the sky, haloed by moonlight. We stood where Oakes and I had strolled that first day.

  “We should turn back,” she said.

  I agreed, and walked her home, and gave her one, brief, final kiss before she slipped inside, wearing a haunting little smile.

  But somehow I think we both knew there was no turning back.

  14

  Off Rawson Square, behind the sullen statue of Queen Victoria and the white-pillared, pink-walled, green-shuttered buildings she guarded, was an open square of administrative buildings that included the post office, fire brigade HQ, and Supreme Court. At the square’s center a plot of grass was home to a sprawling, ancient silk-cotton tree, a beautiful, grotesque thing whose trunk extended in buttresslike waves of wood, branches spreading forever, a wonderful monstrosity that would have been at home in the forest Disney drew for Snow White. In the shelter of its shade stood the courthouse overflow: lawyers in wigs and robes, policemen, and citizens black and white (litigants and witnesses, no doubt), discussing their cases, rehearsing their statements, escaping the afternoon sun.

  Next to the yellow courthouse, over which the Union Jack flapped, vivid against the blue Bahamas sky, stood a pink building with a green wooden veranda, white shutters and a blue-glass, Victorian-looking lamp on a post: the police station.

  Colonel Lindop’s office was up on the second floor, and his white, male, khaki-wearing secretary sent me right in. From behind a tidy desk, the long-faced Police Superintendent acknowledged me with a nod, not rising, gesturing to a chair that waited across from him.

  This little office-with its couple of wall maps and several wooden file cabinets-being that of the city’s top cop indicated just what a small-time operation this was. Not that it justified the Duke inviting those two Miami clods in to fuck up the case.

  “You wanted to see me, Colonel,” I said.

  A humid breeze drifted in from the open window behind him; a ceiling fan whirred lazily.

  He didn’t look at me. “Yes. Thank you for coming. Mr. Heller, I’ve been asked by Attorney General Hallinan to…clarify your role in the de Marigny matter.”

  “Clarify my role…what the hell does that mean?”

  “It’s just,” he said with patience he was having to reach for, “that Mr. Hallinan wants you to understand what it is you’re to do, here.”

  I laughed. “Frankly, Colonel, I don’t give a goddamn what Hallinan wants me to understand. It isn’t up to him to define my role in this case-he’s the prosecution. I work for the defense. Remember?”

  Now he looked at me; his eyes said nothing. “Mr. Heller, I’ve been asked to inform you that you are absolutely forbidden to investigate anyone other than Count de Marigny.”

  I winced, shook my head. “I’m missing this. What are you talking about?”

  He sighed; started tapping a pencil on the desk. “It is the prosecution’s attitude that, since one man is already charged with this crime, it would be…improper to look elsewhere for a culprit, until or unless the person so charged is acquitted.”

  I felt like I’d been hit with a pie, but not a particularly tasty one. “You’re saying I’m not to go out and try to find out who really did kill Sir Harry Oakes.”

  He shrugged. “That’s Mr. Hallinan’s view. You sent a request to our office yesterday…”

  “Right. I figure, what with the war on, you must have official records of every person traveling to and from Nassau, with dates of arrival and departure. I’d like a look at those records.”

  “That request is denied.”

  I sat at the edge of the chair; did my best not to shout. “Why in hell not?”

  “It doesn’t pertain to the investigation.”

  “In my view it does!”

  “Your view, Mr. Heller, counts for little here.”

  I almost hurled a curse at him, but then I thought better of it: his expression seemed an odd combination of disgust and sympathy.

  Instead, I settled back in my chair. “You don’t like this any better than I do…do you, Colonel?”

  He didn’t reply; just studied the pencil he was tapping.

  “Where are Frick and Frack, anyway?”

  He knew who I meant. “Captain Melchen is in the field. Captain Barker has flown to New York to consult with a fingerprint expert.”

  “I thought Barker was supposed to be a fingerprint expert himself.”

  He shrugged again, with his eyebrows this time.

  “Of course you’re aware,” I said, “what an insult this is to you. Sure, your department’s small…maybe it was a reasonable idea to bring in somebody to work with you, or even handle the case for you. But hell-why not Scotland Yard? You’re a British colony. Or if it’s a problem bringing somebody over in wartime, then the FBI. But a couple clowns from Miami? How can you put up with it, Lindop?”

  I pushed back my chair and stood, shaking my head.

  “Mr. Heller,” he said, looking up at me like a sorrowful hound, “there’s a limit on what I can do.”

  “Well, here’s something you can do. I think either a blowtorch or a flamethrower of some kind was used in the killing. A flamethrower could be hard to trace…it might be a souvenir from the last war. But a blowtorch ought to be rare on an island like this-except in one place: where wartime building’s going on. These airfields under construction, for example. If I can’t get permission to check into that myself, you should.”

  He was thinking that over. “All right. I’ll take it under advisement.”

  “Thanks.”

  I was halfway out the door when he called, gently, “Mr. Heller…before you go…stop in and say hello to Captain Sears.”

  “Captain Sears?”

  “Two doors down the hall. He’s superintendent in charge of traffic. I understand he may have seen something…interesting…the night of the murder.”

  I grinned. “Are you giving me a tip, Colonel?”

  “Well, let me put it this way…you may mention my name in this regard to Captain Sears himself-but no one else.”

  “Got ya,” I said. “You’re okay, Colonel.”

  “‘Okay’ is something I’ve always dreamed of being,” he said dryly, and gestured toward the door. I was being dismissed.

  Sears was in his office-which was almost identical to Lindop’s, except for a few additional wall maps, some of which had pins in them and were sectioned off into patrol areas-and saw me at once.

  “Close the door,” he said, and I did.

  A squarely built Britisher with small, slate-gray eyes under bold black strokes of eyebrow, Sears stood behind his desk and offered his hand for me to shake, and I did that, too. He sat, motioning for me to do the same.


  His hair was dark, combed smoothly back; his mouth was a determined line. His khaki uniform looked flawless. His forceful, confident manner made you want to take his orders without question.

  “You’re Nathan Heller,” he said, “the detective.”

  “You’re Captain Sears,” I said, “who saw something interesting the night of the murder.”

  I was almost surprised when he smiled; it was a closed-mouth smile, not rupturing the thin line of his mouth, but it was definitely a smile.

  “I am,” he said, “and indeed I did. What I would like you to do, Mr. Heller, is convey to Mr. Higgs that I am ready and willing to testify for the defense.”

  “Why are you?”

  “Because I saw something that is of the utmost importance to the defense, and it is, after all, my duty to see justice done; and because I am dismayed by the clumsy investigative technique of the Americans in charge…no offense to you, sir.”

  “Hey, those guys make it clear why American cops are called dicks.”

  Now he laughed, just a little, but it proved he had teeth.

  “You have a refreshing lack of pretension, Mr. Heller,” he said stiffly.

  “Glad you appreciate it. What did you see?”

  “Frankly, I would prefer to speak to Mr. Higgs.”

  “Well, that’s fine-but I’m his investigator. We’re going to have to talk, you and I, sooner or later, and sooner is right now.”

  He nodded, eyes bright under the black slashes of eyebrow. “Your point is well taken.” He leaned back in his chair. The wind was rustling the silk-cotton tree in the square in the open window behind him. “When I left the station that night, a few minutes before midnight, it was raining lightly…a heavy squall had just passed.”

  He had driven down Bay Street and had just turned onto George Street when he saw a station wagon coming from Marlborough Street onto George.

  “Harold Christie was sitting in the front seat.”

  “You’re shitting me!”

  “I assure you I’m not. As our car passed, we were right under a bright streetlight-the new type they have on Bay Street now.”

  “Christie wasn’t driving?”

  “No. Another person was.”