Carnal Hours nh-6

by Max Allan Collins

  Finally, in 1959, with the political power of the Bay Street Pirates foundering, a prominent figure in the Bahamian government, Cyril St. John Stevenson, introduced a resolution to reopen the Oakes investigation.

  “I could point my finger at the man responsible,” Stevenson said.

  Seated not ten feet away, in the House of Assembly, was a glowering Harold Christie, who nonetheless lamely tried to save face by voting along with the resolution.

  When the resolution passed, the Governor of the Bahamas, Sir Raynor Arthur, referred the matter to Scotland Yard, which declined to get involved.

  Nonetheless, Christie felt haunted by the case. “It gets tiresome,” he told the press bitterly, “being pointed out on the street, wherever you go-‘There he is, that’s the man who did it!’”

  Today, in Nassau, his legacy is just that: ask about Harold Christie and you’re more likely to hear him described as a murderer than as the man who brought prosperity to those tropical shores.

  He died in 1973 of a heart attack.

  Erle Stanley Gardner continued writing his best-selling mysteries, of course, although he later got some competition from Ian Fleming. After the war, Fleming left Naval Intelligence and turned to a career in journalism; he wrote his first spy novel on a lark, vacationing in Jamaica, which is where he’d been stationed when I knew him. Fleming’s thrillers invariably focused on mastermind villains who met well-deserved fates, often in their tropical-island strongholds. When asked by friends and journalists if he’d ever killed a man during his own spy days, Fleming always said he had-once.

  As for Gardner, his observations of the many injustices that surrounded the Oakes case led to the eventual formation of the Court of Last Resort, an organization designed to “improve the administration of justice.” Specifically, a board of experts was gathered to look into cases where gross miscarriages of justice may have been done. Leonard Keeler was the member in charge of polygraph, and Gardner invited me to head up detection. Many “underdogs” were aided in this effort, and someday, in another forum, I may discuss some of those cases.

  Casinos finally did come to the Bahamas, but not until Castro’s coming to power in Cuba made it necessary for Meyer Lansky and his business associates to seek new venues. In 1963, after generous “consultant’s fees” were paid to various prominent Bahamian politicians, a casino opened on Lucayan Beach on Grand Bahama island. The FBI tracked the deliveries of the large amounts of cash from this first Bahamian casino to a man in Florida. That man was Meyer Lansky.

  But the American press got hold of mob involvement in Bahamian casinos, and the scandal that followed finally ended white-minority, Bay Street Pirate rule in Nassau; the black-dominated Progressive Liberal Party came into power in 1967 and has been there ever since.

  Of course, gambling has been there, too. A casino was even built on the former site of Westbourne, and Hog Island-sold by Axel Wenner-Gren to Huntington Hartford in 1961 in a twenty-million-dollar deal arranged by Harold Christie-became Paradise Island, home to high-rise hotels and glittering casinos.

  Eventually Meyer Lansky became, as had Alfred de Marigny for too long a time, a man without a country: faced with federal indictments, he left the U.S.A. for Israel, which despite generous cash contributions eventually turned him away; after stops in Switzerland and South America, Lansky returned to the States, but was acquitted. He died in Miami Beach, just another retired business executive, in 1983.

  One of the things that amazed me over the years, as I followed from a distance the fortunes and foibles of those involved in the Oakes case, was how seldom Axel Wenner-Gren’s name turned up anywhere. His public stance was that of philanthropist; however, one of his research foundations was (and is) devoted to the study of eugenics.

  In 1960, a stewardess I was seeing invited me to fly with her to Nassau on some free tickets for a long weekend of (this is how she put it) “funning and sunning on the beach, and fucking and sucking wherever.” It was a sincere invitation, and I accepted. If this sounds like a low-life response to a vulgar suggestion, keep in mind I was fifty-five and she was twenty-seven, and how many more offers like that could I hope to get?

  Out of either nostalgia or habit, I got reservations at the B.C. It hadn’t changed much, and in fact was looking a little long in the tooth; but then, so was I. One evening, after my stewardess friend (whose name was Kelly and who had green eyes and blond hair in a Jackie Kennedy cut) had kept her promises, we dined at the Jungle Club, which hadn’t seemed to change a bit from when Higgs brought me here, over a decade and a half ago.

  We dined in the shade of indoor palms under a thatched umbrella at a green table, enjoying conch chowder and a meal that included grouper and a pepper pot, and one of the sweet young saronged things came over and said, “Are you Mr. Heller?”

  “Yes?”

  “A gentleman would like to speak to you.”

  The waitress pointed to a table across the way.

  “Oh. Okay.”

  I didn’t recognize him at first-and why should I? I’d never met him, really.

  He stood, as I approached, and smiled in a disarmingly boyish manner for a big, older man: fleshy, pink-faced, his hair stark white, eyebrows wispy and all but invisible, a soft oval face with a nose enlarged with age and small wet eyes peering from flesh pouches. He was casually dressed, in a pink-and-white short-sleeve sport shirt and white slacks. He looked sturdy for a man pushing eighty, but he also looked like a man pushing eighty.

  “Ah, Mr. Heller!” he said in a melodious voice touched with what I took for a Scandinavian accent. “At long last.”

  Who the hell was this guy? I studied him, knowing I’d seen him somewhere before.

  Seated at his table was a dark-haired handsome young man in a cream-color suit with a dark tie. He looked vaguely familiar, too, but not as familiar as my old friend who was extending his hand, which I shook. It was a firm handshake, despite his age.

  Then I remembered.

  I remembered the benignly, blandly smiling portrait above the fireplace, among the Inca masks, in the round living room.

  “Axel Wenner-Gren,” I said numbly.

  “This is my friend Huntington Hartford,” he said, gesturing to the handsome younger man, who smiled tightly at me, and we shook hands. “Please sit with us.”

  I did.

  “How did you know who I was?” I asked. “We never met.”

  “I’ve seen your picture in the newspapers, many times. So many interesting, important cases you’ve been involved with! You should write a book.”

  “Maybe after I retire.”

  “Ah, you’re much too young to even think of retiring. Me, I’m beginning to divest myself of material concerns. My friend, Hunt, here, is trying to talk me into selling him Shangri La.”

  “You still live there?”

  Wenner-Gren smiled and shrugged; his manner was avuncular. “Winters, only.”

  His dinner guest-the A amp;P heir who was worth fifty to seventy million, roughly-excused himself and rose. I wondered if that was prearranged.

  Still smiling, Wenner-Gren leaned in and he patted my hand; his hand was cold. Like a goddamn ice pack.

  “I have kept track of you, over the years. From time to time, you speak of the Oakes case, don’t you? To the press.”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “It will never be reopened, you know. Some foolish people tried, last year, unsuccessfully. Even now, that whole matter is an embarrassment to the Bahamas and to England, as well.”

  “I know.”

  “Then why continue discussing the case? I’m just curious.”

  “It’s good publicity. I mention the Lindbergh case, too, sometimes. That’s why I have branch offices all over the country, now. Back in Chicago, we call it capitalism.”

  He smiled, more to himself; no teeth, just bloodshot apple cheeks. “You’re an amusing man. You have a reputation for a rough wit.”

  “I also have a reputation for leaving well enough alone.
”

  He nodded. “Very wise. How very wise. You know…” And he patted my hand again. Cold! “I’ve wanted to thank you, for so many years.”

  “Thank me?”

  Now his face was somber as he nodded again. “For…eliminating that problem.”

  “What problem?”

  He licked his lips. “Lady Medcalf.”

  I didn’t say anything. I was shaking a little. This smiling eighty-year-old philanthropist had me shaking.

  “I know what you did,” he said, “and I’m grateful. And it gives me great pleasure to finally let you know, personally, that she was acting on her own devices.”

  I nodded.

  Then he smiled broadly. “Well, here comes Hunt again. Mr. Heller, I’ll let you get back to that charming young lady. Your daughter?”

  “No.”

  He beamed. “Isn’t that nice! Good evening, Mr. Heller.”

  I said something or other, nodded at both of them, and walked numbly back to the table.

  “Who was that?” Kelly asked.

  “The devil,” I said.

  “Oh, Heller-you’re so bad!”

  “What did you say?”

  She looked at me curiously. “I don’t know. What did I say?”

  “Nothing. Nothing.”

  She wanted to stay to watch the limbo contest, but I wanted out of there. That was the last weekend I spent with that particular stewardess; seemed I hadn’t been much fun, on our little getaway, after a certain point.

  Axel Wenner-Gren died of cancer a year later. His fortune was estimated at over one billion dollars.

  It wasn’t till 1972 that I got back to the Bahamas, this time with a woman closer to my own age, who I happened to be married to. In fact, it was our honeymoon and my wife-second wife, actually-had always wanted to see the Bahamas.

  Specifically, she wanted to see Government House, because she’d been so taken as a girl with the bittersweet love story of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

  Nassau hadn’t changed much, although the ways it had changed weren’t for the better: American fast-food joints on the fringes and, on Bay Street, interminable T-shirt shops and an offer of drugs from a ganja-reeking black guy every few paces.

  But there was (and is) a time machine known as Graycliff, a large old rambling Georgian Colonial home near Government House that first opened its doors as a small hotel back in 1844. The honeymoon suite, by the poolside, is a small separate building amidst an exotic tropical garden. The hotel restaurant-you dine here and there on the main floor, but we preferred the porch-is five-star.

  The first evening we were there, after a meal that included goose-liver pate with truffles and a Hollandaise-smothered steak as thick as a phone book and as tender as a mother’s touch, we were served steaming hot souffles in custard cups.

  “I’ve never had coconut souffle before,” my wife said.

  “I have. And as good as this place is, they’ll never beat it.”

  She was having a taste. “Hmmm. You better try some and see if you still feel the same way….”

  I broke the light brown skin and spooned the orangeish white custard and tasted its sweetness, the shredded coconut, the hints of banana and orange and rum….

  “What’s wrong?” She leaned forward. “Too hot, dear?”

  “Yellow Bird,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Waiter!”

  He came over, a young handsome black. “Yes, sir?”

  “Could I speak to the chef?”

  “Sir, the chef is…”

  “I have to compliment him on the dessert. It’s important.” I pressed a ten-spot into his hand.

  My wife was looking at me like I was crazy; it wasn’t the first time, and it was hardly the last.

  “Actually, sir, the chef doesn’t prepare the desserts and the pastries. His missus does.”

  “Take me to her.”

  My wife was confused, and half-standing.

  “Please, dear,” I said, patting the air with one hand. “Just wait here….”

  I went back by the kitchen and waited and in a few seconds that were an eternity, she came out, wearing a white apron over a blue dress not unlike the maid’s uniform she wore so long ago.

  She didn’t recognize me at first.

  “Marjorie,” I said.

  Her face-her lovely face, touched by age but gently-looked at first incredulous, then warmed, and she said, “Nathan? Nathan Heller?”

  I took her in my arms; didn’t kiss her. Just held her.

  “I’m here on my honeymoon,” I said.

  I let go of her and we stood apart, but rather close. Her hair was lightly sprinkled with white, but her figure was about the same. Maybe a little thicker around the hips. We won’t discuss my gut.

  She smiled widely. “Only just now you get married?”

  “Well, this is the second time. I think this one’s going to last, or at least outlast me. And you’re married to the chef?”

  “For twenty-five years. We got three little ones-well, not so little anymore. Got a boy in college.”

  My eyes were getting wet. “That’s so wonderful.”

  Her brow wrinkled. “How did you…?”

  “That souffle. One taste, and I knew you were responsible.”

  “So you ordered that! It’s still good, isn’t it?”

  “Still good.”

  She hugged me again. “I have to get back to work. Where are you stayin’?”

  “Right here. We have the honeymoon suite.”

  “Well, I simply must meet your wife…if she won’t mind sharin’ you, just a little. You have to excuse me, now-”

  “You know where to find us.”

  She started to go back in, then turned and looked at me, and her expression was half happy, half sad.

  “Tell me, Nathan-do you ever think of your Marjorie?”

  “Not often.”

  “Not often?”

  I shrugged. “Only when I see the moon.”

  We visited a little, during the week my wife and I were there. Not much-it was our honeymoon, after all.

  But Marjorie told me something, in one of the few moments we had alone, that sent me whirling back in time just as surely as had that coconut souffle, only not so sweetly.

  It seemed she had run into Samuel, once-the missing night watchman from Westbourne-about ten years after the murder….

  He had told her that on that awful night he had seen things and people at Westbourne that had scared him; and that Harold Christie had come around later to pay him and the other boy, Jim, to “disappear” for a while.

  Everything Samuel had told Marjorie, and which Marjorie was now sharing with me, confirmed the story I had told Lady Diane Medcalf, so very long ago, in the aftermath of a tropical storm on Hog Island, during carnal hours, right before she shot me and I shot her.

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