“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?”
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….”
28
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-time 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….”
She climbed onto the bed gingerly and held me in her arms like a big baby, which is exactly what I was crying like. I don’t know why-later, in retrospect, killing Lady Diane Medcalf seemed not only logical but necessary and even admirable. She was at least as evil as any mobster I ever knew.
But right now I was crying. I think I was crying for the death of the funny, bitchy society dame I had thought she was-not the slum girl who clawed her way into royal circles, though maybe she deserved some tears, too.
Marjorie never asked me what I meant; she never asked me about the woman I said I killed. She had to have wondered, but she knew what I needed was comfort, not questions, let alone recriminations.
She was a special girl, Marjorie-one of a kind, and when I look back, I wonder why I didn’t drag her off to some out island and raise crops and kids, black or white or speckled-who gave a shit, with a woman like this at your side?
Which is why I cried so long. At some point the sorrow or guilt or whatever the hell it was I was feeling for Di merged with the overwhelming bittersweet ache I felt knowing that this sweet woman who was holding me, comforting me, nursing me back to health, was as lost to me as the dead one.
My tears weren’t just for Di. They were for both the lovely women I’d lost in the Caribbean.
Fleming appeared in the doorway that evening like a pastel illusion-light blue sportcoat, pale yellow sport shirt, white trousers. He looked like a tourist with exceptional taste.
“Back in the land of the living, I see,” he said, smiling faintly. Marjorie had only one small lamp on, and the near darkness threw shadows on his angular face.
Marjorie stepped to the door, glanced our way shyly. “I’ll just walk outside in the moonlight while you gentlemen are talkin’.”
Fleming turned his smile on her, melting the girl. “Thank you, my dear.”
Beaming, Marjorie slipped outside.
Fleming’s smile settled in one cheek. “Lovely child. You’re fortunate to have a nurse with such exceptional qualities.”
“She thinks you’re sweet, too.”
He withdrew a smoke from his battered gold case. “Most women do. Would you like one?”
He meant cigarettes, not wome
n.
“No thanks. The mood’s passed.”
“How is your mood?”
“All right, considering. Hurts a little.”
“Your side or your psyche?”
“Choose your poison. Why did you bring me here, Fleming? How did you know to bring me to Marjorie?”
“You really don’t remember?”
“Remember what?”
His smile crinkled. “Asking me to bring you here. You were barely conscious, but you clearly said, ‘Marjorie Bristol,’ and when I asked where to find her, you said, ‘Westbourne guest cottage.’ Then you put a period on the sentence by spitting up some blood.”
“What about Diane? She is dead, isn’t she?”
He nodded. “There are services tomorrow. Nancy is quite crushed, poor girl. You see, Diane died in a boating accident-went down with the craft that bore her name. Body wasn’t recovered-lost at sea.”
I laughed without humor. “You secret agents really are good at ‘tidying up,’ aren’t you?”
“We have to be, with the likes of Nathan Heller making messes. Besides, you’re lucky we’re so fastidious. If I hadn’t come back to Shangri La to tidy up further, after disposing of that carrion, you’d be lost at sea, as well.”
“So that’s how you stumbled onto me.”
“Yes. Now-tell me how it happened.”
“How I killed, her, you mean?”
He nodded again, blowing smoke through his nose like a dragon. “And what led up to it, if you don’t mind.”
I did, including dropping in on Lansky and Christie, and my theory about the Banco Continental being a Nazi repository.
“Very insightful, Heller. Banco Continental is indeed where much of the Nazi spoils of Europe are cached. Of course, the Banco is much more than that.”
“Isn’t that enough?”
He shrugged. “Among Banco Continental’s other significant investments and holdings is its funding of a syndicate supplying Japan with oil, as well as platinum and other rare metals. That same syndicate has cornered the market in hemp, copper and mercury as well-crucial war materials for the U.S.”
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