Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 07

by Carnal Hours (v5. 0)

  Di was frowning; the bruised lips were pulled tight and thin, and her blue eyes were cold, peeking out of slits. “I don’t think I much care for this story.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s talk about real life, then. Sir Harry was all for ducking wartime currency restrictions; what’s a little money-laundering between friends? But greedy as he was, hypocritical old goat that he was, Harry saw himself as a patriot. How would the man who personally funded five Spitfires for the RAF react if, say, he discovered that Banco Continental’s primary customers were Nazis…hoarding money they looted from Europe, building themselves enormous nest eggs they could look forward to, no matter how the war came out?”

  She sipped champagne. “You’re talking nonsense, Nathan.”

  “I don’t think so. I think Harry was just patriotic enough—and wealthy enough—to tell Wenner-Gren and Harold Christie and the Duke of Windsor to kiss his big fat rich behind. He’d been making plans to move to Mexico City, and had made several trips there in recent months, and on those trips he got a better picture of what was going on at Banco Continental. And he didn’t like what he saw.” I sat forward. “Sir Harry was going to blow the whistle, wasn’t he? On the whole sordid scheme!”

  She threw her head back and shook her hair and laughed her brittle British laugh. “There is no such scheme, you silly man. Banco Continental is a legitimate financial institution, and while the Duke and others may be moving some money around in a questionable, even unpatriotic manner, as you might put it, there’s nothing truly sinister going on.”

  I had a sip of champagne myself. Smiled at her. “Remember that dark unidentified fluid in Harry’s stomach that the prosecution never managed to identify?”

  “Yes. So?”

  “You know what I think?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think when Christie had dinner at Westbourne that night, he drugged Sir Harry’s drink, or maybe his food.”

  She smirked. “Now why would he do that?”

  “Not to kill Harry—his dear old friend. Just to subdue him; make him easier, safer, for you to handle.”

  “For me to handle?”

  “You.” I laughed, once, harshly. “You know, every single one of the red herrings you threw my way—Harry chasing women, the stolen gold coins, Lansky’s casinos—had a grain of truth. The gold coins probably were stolen the murder night—by you. After all, you’re the one who saw to it that that native had a gold coin to sell us.”

  “Me? Are you insane?”

  “Don’t knock it—it got me out of the service. And the Lansky/Christie connection obviously is very real, even if the casinos they eventually hope to open together weren’t anything Harry gave a damn about. And I think maybe Harry did have an eye for a pretty face and well-turned ankle, which, added to his grogginess from being drugged, is what made it safe for you to invade his room that night, even if he did have a gun at his bedside.”

  She gestured to herself with cigarette-in-hand. “And why would I do that?”

  I pointed to the oil painting over the fireplace. “Your boss, Axel Wenner-Gren, may have ordered it…or it may have been your own play, looking after your employer’s interests. I’ll never know the answer to that—unless you care to tell me.”

  “I’d rather you continue telling me—sharing these strange, imaginative fantasies of yours. For example, tell me, would you, Nate, how a delicate creature like myself might accomplish such a brutal act as the murder of Sir Harry Oakes?”

  I threw my hand out and clutched the air; she flinched.

  “By reaching out,” I said, “to the Banco Continental’s own Harold Christie. You had him get you a couple of mob thugs to lean on Harry. To scare him. You had them rough him up, threaten to give him more and worse if he didn’t keep his trap shut; but Harry only spit blood in your eye—swearing he’d go public, taking Wenner-Gren, Christie and all the King’s men down with him.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “He was on the floor, on his face or on his knees, damn near beaten to death. Your thugs had gone too far—so you finished him off: shot him behind the ear, four times, close-range, with small enough caliber a gun that the bullets didn’t even pass through his head. Maybe you even used his own bedside gun—it’s missing, after all, and a .38 fits the profile.”

  Bingo! The Bahama blues flared just a bit when I mentioned Harry’s gun; she had used it.

  “Then you made a makeshift blowtorch out of the flit gun, using denatured alcohol from the toolshed, setting the bed on fire. After which, you and your mob help flipped the corpse onto the burning bed, and played voodoo. A scorched corpse, a few feathers, and presto—an obeah kill.”

  She laughed, shook her head, lighted up a new cigarette. “Really, Heller. You should be writing for radio. Inner Sanctum, perhaps.”

  “You may have really intended to set a fire and burn Westbourne down, but I doubt it. I think you just mutilated the corpse to muddy the waters. Maybe you stole the gold coins to back up the voodoo angle, or could be you’re like Harry: you just plain like gold.”

  She sucked smoke; looked at the ceiling, playing bored and disgusted.

  “Anyway, after you’d taken your time doing a thorough, sick job of it, you and Lansky’s boys left. Christie had left long before, after paving the way for you and your thugs by drugging Harry; he’d also picked up your two assistants when they docked at Lyford Cay, getting spotted by the unfortunate Arthur. Then Christie dropped off his unpleasant passengers at Westbourne and went to spend the night with his mistress. But either in the middle of the night, courtesy of a phone call from you, or when he returned in the morning, he found how tragically wrong the attempt to coerce Sir Harry had gone. Christie quickly changed his story, pretending to have been asleep next door all the time. He was too much the gentleman to involve his lady friend, who he prompted to say nothing.”

  Now she was shaking her head, smiling patronizingly. “I do so hate to disappoint you, but this is all the most ludicrous pipe dream. Nancy de Marigny is my dearest friend—even if I had done this dastardly deed, her husband is the last person I’d have ever framed for it.”

  “I never said you framed Freddie. Your half-ass voodoo cover-up was meant to suggest some nameless black boogie man. The frame was courtesy of Barker and Melchen with a nudge from the Duke—whose role in this, I believe, was limited to taking Christie’s advice to call in those two very special Miami cops.”

  “Oh, that was Harold’s idea?”

  “Probably. Could have been yours. At any rate, somebody told the Duke to bring in these two corrupt, mob-connected coppers. Somebody told him that by doing that he could contain the crime. And he did as he was told. After all, he’s involved in Banco Continental up to his royal white Nazi-loving ass.”

  Di’s head was back; she was smiling coolly, eyes glittering, apparently amused. “So, then—what is it exactly you imagine I am? Some Nazi dragon lady?”

  “No. I think you’re just June Sims from the East End—poor white British trash who fucked and schemed and cheated her greedy little way to the top. How did your husband die, anyway?”

  Her face went blank. The moral void behind her pretty mask was frighteningly apparent, for an instant; then she managed a part-seductive, part-sarcastic smile.

  “Well—I take it that question, which I don’t intend to dignify with a response, is the conclusion of your ‘bedtime story’?”

  “Almost, although I’m not sure everybody lives happily ever after. I’m also not sure whether you had poor Arthur killed or not—Christie could just as easily have had that done. So we’re up to the part where you call that two-man goon squad back in to finish the job. That is, finish me.”

  “Oh, I tried to have you killed? Why, that simply slipped my mind—now, why did I do that, again?”

  “I started making noises about keeping the case alive beyond the de Marigny trial—that made me a loose end that needed tying off.” I grinned. “You want to know something funny?”
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br />   She shrugged; her breasts stirred beneath the pink silk. “Sure. I like to laugh.”

  “I know you do. You’re a fun girl. What’s funny is I didn’t completely tip to this till your ‘boy’ Daniel started making like Willie Best.”

  “Willie Best?”

  “Willie Best. Mantan Moreland. Stepin Fetchit. All those funny colored boys in the movies who get so scared, so ‘spooked’—feets do yo’ stuff.”

  Now her expression was frankly irritated. “What the bloody hell are you talking about?”

  “I think you’ll appreciate this, bigoted bitch that you are. Daniel just about jumped out of his black skin when he saw me show up to use the launch, after I survived the attack by your two would-be assassins. That pair didn’t dock a boat here at Shangri La, did they? They arrived in Nassau by clipper—and Daniel brought them over to Hog Island in the launch! At your behest, like when he told me the phony story about the gold coin.”

  Her eyes tightened, just barely, but I knew I’d hit pay dirt again.

  “You must have instructed Daniel to keep to the dock, no matter what sounds he heard from the grounds, and mind his own business and not worry about it when Mr. Heller disappeared. Or maybe he was going to help dispose of the body in one of the boats. Only there I was, an hour later, standing on Daniel’s dock, a white ghost looking for a ride. Hell, he was still having kittens when he brought me back here! I’ll bet he’s halfway to one of the out islands by now.” I laughed. “The only native you ever lowered yourself to hiring gives you away. That is rich.”

  “Rich,” she said. Then she said the word again, savoring it, leaning forward: “Rich. Like you could be. Like we could be….”

  “Oh, please. It took Meyer Lansky, of all people, to make me see the truth. I’m a Jew, lady. Your people think I’d make a swell lampshade.”

  She frowned. “I’m no Nazi.”

  “No—you’re worse, you and your boss Axel Wenner-Gren. The Nazis are sick fucks, but they believe in something. You? You’re just in it for the money.”

  The truth of that stopped her for a moment. Then she smiled and it seemed sad; whether genuine or not, I couldn’t begin to say.

  “I’ve been good to you, Heller. We’ve had good times together.” She slipped the flimsy dressing gown off her shoulders; she thrust back her shoulders and displayed her two deadly not-so-secret weapons, straining at the sheer silk nightie.

  “You’ve been very good to me,” I admitted.

  She leaned forward, hovering over the coffee table; it was if she were about to climb over. Her breasts swayed hypnotically, tiny points hard under the sheer silk.

  “I own you, remember?” Her pink tongue licked her red upper lip, like a child removing a milk mustache.

  “That was more a rental deal.”

  “Come on, Heller…I think maybe you even loved me a little….”

  “I think sometimes ambergris turns out to be rancid butter.”

  She sneered. “What the bloody hell is that supposed to mean?”

  All that gold Sir Harry searched so long and hard for turned out to be just so much rancid butter, too, hadn’t it?

  “It means no sale, lady.”

  She slipped her hand in the champagne bucket and rustled in the ice and I thought she was going to pour herself another drink; instead she filled her hand with a little silver revolver and I dove off the couch, but the shot rang in the room as she caught me in the midsection. It was like being punched, followed by a burning….

  I had the nine-millimeter out before she got her second shot off; I was on the floor, on my side, and my bullet went up through the glass of the coffee table, spiderwebbing it, and catching her about the same place hers had me, but mine was the bigger gun and it doubled her over in pain as her hand clutched the blossoming red, the silver revolver tumbling from her fingers, scooting across the hardwood floor.

  Her pretty face contorted. “Oh…oh. It hurts….”

  She fell to her knees, holding on to herself, red welling through her fingers.

  “I know it does, baby.” I was hurting, too—a sharp wet hot pain and blackness was closing in.

  “I’m…scared…”

  “I know. But don’t worry….”

  She looked at me desperately, the blue eyes wide and seeking the hope I held out.

  “In half an hour,” I said, “you’ll be dead….”

  I was back in Guadalcanal, back in my shell hole, but it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t raining and it wasn’t wet and tropical flowers—red and blue and yellow and violet and gold—were everywhere. All the boys were there—Barney, that big Indian Monawk, D’Angelo too, with both his legs—nobody was shot-up or bleeding at all, they were in spiffy dress uniforms one minute and then loud tropical shirts and slacks and sandals the next, and we would sit on the edge of the shell hole and sip champagne from glasses served to us off silver trays by gorgeous native girls in grass skirts and no tops. Sun streamed through swaying palms and Bing Crosby interrupted his rendition of “Moonlight Becomes You” to introduce me to Dorothy Lamour, who asked me if I minded if she slipped out of her sarong because it was so tight, while Bob Hope was going around telling dirty jokes to the guys. I asked where the Japs were and everybody laughed and said, They’re all dead!, and the Krauts are, too, and we all laughed and laughed, but the only thing wrong was, it was too hot, really way too hot. Dorothy Lamour looked at me with sympathy in her big beautiful eyes and said, Let me soothe you, and she wiped my brow with a cool cloth….

  “Dreaming,” I said.

  “You’re not dreamin’ now,” she said.

  “Marjorie?”

  “Shhhh.” Her beautiful milk-chocolate face was smiling over me; her eyes were big and brown and as beautiful as Dorothy Lamour’s…

  “You still got a fever. You just rest.”

  “Marjorie,” I said. I smiled.

  She wiped my brow with the cool cloth and I drifted away.

  Sunlight woke me. I blinked awake, tried to sit up but the pain in my midsection wouldn’t let me.

  “Nathan! I’m sorry! I’ll shut the curtains….”

  I heard the rustle of curtains closing. I was in her cottage, in a nightshirt in her little bed that folded out from a cabinet. I could smell the flowers in the bowl on her table; I had smelled them in my dreams.

  Then she was at my side, pulling up a chair to sit; she was in the white short-sleeve blouse and tropical-print skirt she’d worn that first night she invited me in for tea.

  Her smile was radiant. “Your fever, it broke, finally. You remember talkin’ to me at all?”

  “Just once. I thought I was dreaming. You were wiping my face with a cloth.”

  “We talked a lot of times, but you were burnin’ up. Now you’re cool. Now you know where you are.”

  “Help me sit up?”

  She nodded and moved forward and put the pillow behind me. I found a position that didn’t hurt.

  “How did I get here?”

  “That British fella, he brought you here.”

  “Fleming?”

  “He never said his name. He looks cruel but is really very sweet, you know.”

  “When?”

  “Three days ago. He stops in every day. You’ll see him later. You must be hungry.”

  The pain in my stomach wasn’t just the bullet wound.

  “I think I am hungry. Have I eaten anything?”

  “You been takin’ some broth. You want some more? I got some conch chowder.”

  “Conch chowder.”

  “Banana fritters too?”

  “Oh yes…”

  She brought the food to me on a little tray, but insisted on feeding it to me like a baby, a spoonful at a time; I was too weak to resist.

  “Marjorie…you’re so pretty…you’re so goddamn pretty….”

  “You better sleep some more. The doctor says you need rest.”

  The doctor, as it turned out, was de Marigny’s friend Ricky Oberwarth, who had lost his part-ti
me position with the Nassau Jail because his medical examination of Freddie hadn’t backed up Barker and Melchen’s singed-hair story. Oberwarth—a thin, dark man in his forties whose glasses had heavy dark frames—stopped by later that morning and checked my wound and changed the dressing.

  “You’re doing well,” he said. He had a slight Teutonic accent, reminding me that he was a refugee from Germany, one of the rare Jews welcomed to Nassau, thanks to his medical expertise.

  “It’s sore as a boil. Don’t spare the morphine.”

  “You only had morphine the first day. And starting today you’re on oral painkillers. Mr. Heller, you know, you’re a lucky man.”

  “Why do doctors always tell unlucky bastards like me how lucky they are?”

  “The bullet passed through you and didn’t cause any damage that time and scar tissue won’t take care of. Still, I wanted you in hospital, but your guardian angel from British Naval Intelligence forbade it. He wanted you kept in some out-of-the-way place, and since you hadn’t lost enough blood to need a transfusion, I relented.”

  “How did he know to bring me here?”

  He had finished changing the dressing, and pulled down my nightshirt and covered me back up, like a loving parent. “I don’t know. Your friend Fleming isn’t much on volunteering information.”

  When the doctor had gone, I asked Marjorie if Lady Oakes objected to my presence.

  Her smile was mischievous. “Lady Eunice, she doesn’t know about your presence. She’s in Bar Harbor.”

  “What about Nancy?”

  “She doesn’t know, either.”

  “I killed a woman.”

  She blinked. “What?”

  “Oh God, I killed a woman. Jesus….”