Damned in Paradise

by Max Allan Collins

  “Fifty and full expenses.”

  “I thought you were the friend of the working man!”

  “I am, and we are both trapped in a bad, unfair system, stranded on this speck of mud, floating in an endless sky. Fifty and full expenses is as high as I’ll go.”

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “After all, you can’t help yourself—heredity and environment have conspired to turn you into a stingy, greedy old bastard.”

  He tried to look hurt. “I picked up the check, didn’t I?”

  And then he winked at me.

  2

  On the train, as our four-thousand-mile journey got under way, I did my best to sleep through the two and a half days from Chicago to San Francisco. My tour of duty on the Lindbergh case had left me wrung out like a rag, and some of the reporters tagging along after Darrow (they were aboard for the duration, steamship tickets and all) had got wind of what I’d been working on, which made me more popular with the press than I cared to be.

  “This is like a damn campaign special,” I told Leisure in the club car of the Golden Gate, where I sneaked rum from a flask into both our empty coffee cups.

  Leisure’s wife, Anne—an attractive brunette in her thirties—sat with Ruby Darrow, playing canasta at a table nearby. Ruby, auburn-haired, vivacious, was full-figured but not matronly, a young-looking fifty-some years of age.

  “I know,” Leisure said, nodding his thanks for my contribution to his cup, “and at every whistle-stop there’s another horde of reporters waiting.”

  I smiled a little. “But you notice C.D. hasn’t given them a thing on the Massie case.”

  Omaha was a case in point. Changing trains there, out on the platform, the old boy had been swarmed by reporters hurling questions about the Massie affair; hot words and phrases—“rape,” “murder,” “lynch law,” “honor slaying”—peppered the air like buckshot.

  Darrow had turned his piercing gray-eyed gaze loose on the crowd, hooked his thumbs in his suspenders, and said with a gash of a smile, “Imagine that—a notorious ‘wet’ like me, stranded temporarily in the heart of ‘dry’ country. Nobody to talk to but upstanding moral folk.”

  Several of the newshounds took the bait, and goading questions about Darrow’s anti-Prohibition stance overlapped each other till he stilled them with a raised palm.

  “Is there a man here who’s never taken a drink?”

  The gaggle of reporters grinned at him and each other, but not a man would admit to it.

  “Well, then, what’s your problem?” Darrow growled. “Don’t you want anybody else to have any damn fun?”

  And he’d got on the train.

  As I sipped my rum from the coffee cup, Leisure was frowning; this was our second day of rail travel and he seemed uneasy.

  “Trouble is,” Leisure said, “Mr. Darrow hasn’t said anything to me about the Massie case, either. I get the feeling everything he knows about our clients, and their situation, he whispered to me back at the Music Box theater.”

  “You probably hit that dead center.”

  “I mean, he clearly has his wits about him—look at the way he finesses these reporters—but he is an old man, and…”

  “You wish he were more concerned about preparation.”

  “Frankly, Nate—yes.”

  “George, get used to it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “C.D. flies by the seat of his pants. You know him by his reputation. I’ve seen him in action, lots of times in debate situations, a few times in court.”

  “He’s brilliant in court—I’ve read his summations…”

  “His summations are brilliant—and mostly pitched right off the top of his head.”

  “That’s ridiculous…how could anyone…”

  “Search me. The words just come tumbling out of the old boy. But you might as well brace yourself: he won’t develop his defense strategy until he’s seen the prosecution in action. He waits for them to make mistakes, and goes from there.”

  “That’s goddamn dangerous.”

  “That’s goddamn Clarence Darrow.”

  I had never seen San Francisco before, and once I’d arrived, I still hadn’t: the city’s legendary fog was in full sway that afternoon, as the train pulled into the Ferry Building station where the foot of Market Street met the Embarcadero.

  Despite the fog, or perhaps aided by its mystery, the looming luxury liners docked at the pier were a breathtaking sight, even for a jaded Chicago boy. Against an aural backdrop of clanking massive chains, groaning pulleys, gruffly shouting stevedores, and a bellowing mournful foghorn came the towering apparitions of a steamship city. Emerging from the mist were the red-and-white regalia of a French liner, the billowing flags of an Italian ship, and most of all the pebbled white hull of the Malolo, only one of its twin funnels, bearing the Matson Line “M,” vaguely visible.

  Nearly six hundred feet long, eighty-some feet wide, the Malolo was a hungry whale welcoming wealthy Mr. and Mrs. Jonahs up into its innards. Trooping up its gangway they came, the best-dressed damn tourists you ever saw, tuxes and top hats, gowns and furs, often followed by entourages of servants and companions. Mostly older than a kid like me, but a few of them were in my age range if not my social circle; some were honeymooners, though not necessarily married. The Smart Set. Smart enough to still be rich, post-’29, anyway.

  At the dock, just before we boarded, a pasty-faced navy lieutenant in crisp dress blues came up to Darrow and saluted; it amused the old boy. In fact, it amused all of us, the Leisures, Ruby and Clarence, and me, clustered together in defense from the fog.

  “At ease, sailor,” Darrow said. “I’d imagine you’d be Lt. Johnson?”

  “Yes, sir. I arrived from Honolulu on the Malolo this morning, sir.” The young lieutenant handed Darrow a legal file, one of those cardboard expanding jobs, tied tight in front; the lieutenant’s manner was so grave the thing might have contained military secrets. “I trust these documents will satisfy your requirements.”

  “I’m sure they will, son. You don’t look old enough to be either a sailor or a lawyer.”

  “Well, I’m both, sir.”

  “Good for you.”

  “Admiral Stirling sends his regards.”

  Darrow nodded. “I’ll thank him for these, and give him my own regards, personally, in a few days.”

  “Very good, sir.” Lt. Johnson returned the nod and disappeared into the fog.

  “Something pertaining to the case?” Leisure ventured, hope dancing in his eyes.

  Darrow said, matter of factly, “Transcript of the rape trial, the Ala Moana trial, they call it. Also some affidavits from our clients.”

  Leisure grinned. “Splendid!”

  “You have more faith in documents than I do, George,” Darrow said. “We’ll have to size our clients up, face to face, to know whether we’re in the clover, or in the soup. Speaking of which, let’s get out of this pea soup and into the lap of luxury.”

  Darrow and Ruby went up the gangway first, with the Leisures and me following.

  “Why’s everybody dressed to the nines?” I asked Leisure.

  “So they won’t have to change,” Leisure said. “Formal dress at dinner, almost immediately after we board.”

  I winced. “Formal dress?”

  “Didn’t bring your tux along, Nate?”

  “No. But I brought both my ties.”

  Soon we were up on deck, lined along the rail, but no one was seeing us off, and if anyone had, they’d have been shadows lost in the fog. No bon voyage, here. So I took my leave of the Darrow party and got a steward’s help in finding my quarters.

  In my cabin—Number 47, right across from First Class, where the grown-ups were staying—I found formal attire awaiting me on a hanger—white jacket, black tie, white shirt, black trousers, even a cummerbund and, tucked in a pocket, cuff links. Clarence Darrow had provided; he may not have been a fiend for preparation, but the absolutely necessary arrangements got made.

 
As if by magic, my bag had beaten me aboard: it was already on a luggage rack just inside the door. The cabin itself would suffice, particularly since it was larger than my one-room apartment back at the Hotel Adams, with considerably classier furnishings: bamboo bed, bamboo writing table and chair, cut flowers in a vase on the bamboo nightstand. The lighting had a soft, golden, nightclub aura, courtesy deco fixtures that echoed the leaf design of the green and black carpet, and the windows—that is, the portholes—had half-shutters. Unlike the Hotel Adams, where I shared facilities with other “guests,” I had a bathroom to myself, tub and all.

  So what the hell, I took a bath; with luck, no one would notice one was missing.

  The ship cast off as I was bathing—there was a lurch that sent my bathwater sloshing—and then the engines settled into a steady throb and I just soaped and soaked as the ship and I enjoyed friendly waters.

  Before long, wearing formal attire for the first time in my young roughneck life, I went wandering smoothly down a wide stairway into a movie set of a dining room, a vast hall of glossy veneers, chrome trim, deep-pile carpeting and over six hundred wealthy passengers. Plus one pauper. I informed the maître d’ I was with the Darrow party, and he put me in the charge of a red-jacketed waiter, who bid me follow him.

  None of the Haves seemed to notice a Have-not was strolling in disguise amongst them, as they sat chatting and chewing at elegant round tables whose white linen tablecloths were arrayed with fine china, crystal, and gleaming silverware.

  I leaned in and whispered in Clarence Darrow’s ear: “You look like the head waiter at the Ptomaine Hilton.”

  Darrow craned his big shaggy head around. “You look like a bouncer at the best bordello in Cicero.”

  Ruby said, “Clarence, please!” But it was, as usual, a good-natured scold. She was in a white-patterned navy silk dress with a cloth corsage and a navy felt hat with a dip brim; nice as she looked, she was underdressed for the room. The Darrows shopped at Sears.

  Leisure, looking dapper in his own white jacket and black tie, half-stood as I took my place at the table; his wife looked lovely in a black chiffon frock with a Spanish-lace bodice, her hat a matching tam turban with jaunty bow. The Leisures shopped Fifth Avenue.

  I still shopped at Maxwell Street, but old habits are hard to break.

  The two attractive lawyers’ wives were no competition, however, for the newest member of our party, a woman-child with a heart-shaped face blessed with china-blue eyes, button nose, and Clara Bow Kewpie lips, haloed by a haze of blond, near-shoulder-length waves.

  For a fraction of an instant, and a quick intake of breath, I thought she was nude: the satin gown encasing her high-breasted slender form was a pale pink, damn near the shade of her bare arms, its halter neck coming to a point at the ruby brooch at the hollow of her throat.

  Best of all, the chair awaiting me was next to this vision of youthful pulchritude.

  Ruby, her mouth twitching with amusement at my open admiration for the girl, said, “Isabel Bell, this is Nathan Heller—my husband’s investigator.”

  “Charmed I’m sure,” she said. She didn’t look at me.

  Isabel Bell was studying a menu whose cover depicted a slender island beauty with blossoms in her hair; the glowing airbrushed blues and yellows and oranges were a dreamy promise of the Polynesian paradise presumably awaiting us at Oahu.

  Darrow said, “Miss Bell is Thalia Massie’s cousin. I’ve invited her to join our little group—she’s on her way to lend her cousin some moral support.”

  “That’s swell of you,” I said cheerfully to this beauty who had not yet deigned to cast her baby blues upon me. “Are you and Mrs. Massie close?”

  “Langouste Cardinal,” she said, still gazing at the menu. “That sounds yummy.”

  I took a look at the menu. “I was hoping for lobster, on a fancy barge like this.”

  “Langouste is lobster, silly,” she said, finally looking at me.

  “I know,” I said. “I just wanted to get your attention.”

  And now I had it. Whether she’d been pretending not to notice the best-looking (and one of the few) unattached males in the room, I can’t say; but those big blue eyes, and long natural fluttery lashes, were suddenly locked on yours truly.

  “Very close,” she said.

  “Huh?”

  With a snippy sigh, she turned her attention back on the menu. “Thalo and I, we’re very close…. That’s her nickname, Thalo. We practically grew up together. She’s my dearest friend.”

  “You must be torn up about all this.”

  “It’s been simply dreadful. Ooooo…coconut ice cream! That ought to get us in a tropical mood.”

  I could have written her off right then as a trivial shallow little creature. But because she was probably no older than twenty, and a product of her heredity and environment, I decided to cut her some slack. Her pretty puss and swell shape had nothing to do with it. Or everything. One of the two.

  “Actually,” I said, “Hawaii isn’t really tropical.”

  She looked at me again; she may have been shallow, but those blue eyes were deep enough to dive into. “What is it, then?” she challenged.

  “Well, while the Hawaiian Islands do lie between the Tropic of Cancer and the Equator, they simply aren’t sultry or hot. There’s always a breeze.”

  Darrow said, “Mr. Heller is right. A land of no sunstroke, no heat prostration—just trade winds sweeping in continuously from the Pacific.”

  “From the northeast, more or less,” I added sagely.

  “This is my first trip to the Islands,” she admitted, as if ashamed.

  “Mine, too.”

  She blinked, cocked her head back. “Then what makes you so darn knowledgeable?”

  “The National Geographic.”

  “Are you making fun of me?”

  “What do you think, sister?” I asked.

  There were smiles all around the table—except from Miss Bell. In fact, she didn’t speak to me again through dinner; but I had a feeling she was interested. Cute stuck-up kids love it when you needle them…unless they’re completely hopeless and humorless. In which case, even a pretty puss and swell shape wouldn’t make it worth the trouble.

  We were halfway through our coconut ice cream when Leisure—who’d seemed distracted throughout the endless sumptuous courses of dinner—asked Darrow, “When you’ve had a good look at those transcripts and affidavits, could I have some time with them?”

  “Take ’em tonight,” Darrow said, waving offhandedly.

  “Stop by my stateroom, take ’em away, and pore over ’em to your heart’s content.”

  “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 thre
e 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?”