Damned in Paradise

by Max Allan Collins

  The attorney shrugged. “Harbor pilot, health officers, customs officials, reps from various hotels booking rooms for any passengers that didn’t plan ahead. It’ll be at least another forty-five minutes before we dock.”

  The mainland reporters who had traveled with us had long since given up on getting anything out of Darrow (other than anti-Prohibition spiels); but a small rabid pack of local newshounds, who had just clambered aboard, sniffed us out at the rail.

  They wore straw fedoras and white shirts with no jackets, pads and pencils in hand, bright eyes and expectant white smiles in tanned faces. At first I thought they were natives, but on closer look, I could see they were white men, darkened by the sun.

  “Mr. Darrow! Mr. Darrow!” were among the few words that could be culled from their overlapping questions. “Massie” and “Fortescue” were two more words I made out; also “rape” and “murder.” The rest was noise, a press conference in the Tower of Babel.

  “Gentlemen!” Darrow said, in a courtroom-quieting fashion. He had stepped away from our little group, turning his back on the view of Honolulu’s white buildings peeking around the Aloha Tower. “I’ll make a brief statement, and then you will leave Mrs. Darrow and me to make our preparations to disembark.”

  They quieted.

  “I would like you kind gentlemen to do me the small favor of informing the citizens of Honolulu that I am here to defend my clients, not white supremacy. I have no intention of conducting this trial on a basis of race. Race prejudice is as abhorrent to me as the fanatics who practice it.”

  “What will be the basis, then?” a reporter blurted. “The ‘unwritten law’ of a husband defending a wife’s honor?”

  A smirk creased his face. “I have trouble enough keeping up with the laws that’ve been written down. Altogether too many of ’em, don’t you think, gentlemen? People can’t be expected to obey ’em all, when there’s such a surplus. In fact, I think the imminent removal of a certain law—I believe it’s known as the Volstead Act—is a case in point.”

  Another reporter took the bait. “What do you think will be accomplished by the repeal of Prohibition?”

  “I think it will be easier to get a drink,” Darrow said soberly.

  One of the reporters, who hadn’t been taken in by Darrow’s shift of subject, hollered out, “Do you expect Mrs. Fortescue to be acquitted?”

  He chuckled silently. “When did you last see an intelligent, handsome woman refused alimony, let alone convicted of murder? No more on this subject, gentlemen.”

  And he turned his back to them, settling in next to Mrs. Darrow at the rail.

  But a reporter tried again, anyway. “Are you aware your autobiography has been selling like hotcakes here in Honolulu? Looks like the locals are checking up on you, Mr. Darrow. Any comment?”

  Darrow arched an eyebrow as he glanced back in mock surprise. “It’s still on sale here, is it? I would’ve thought it would be sold out by now!”

  For perhaps ninety seconds they hurled more questions at his back, but the old boy ignored them, and the pack of hounds moved on.

  Soon the ship had gotten under way again, shifting its nose toward the harbor, slowly making its way to the dock; from the starboard side, we had a fine view of the city, and it was bigger than I expected, and more contemporary—not exactly a scattering of grass huts. White modern buildings were clustered beneath green slopes dotted with homes, all against an unlikely backdrop of majestic mountains. It was as if a twentieth-century city had been dropped by mistake, from a plane perhaps, onto an exotic primordial isle.

  Down the rail from us, other passengers were squealing and laughing; something more than just the scenic view was getting their attention. Isabel, noticing this, glanced at me, and I nodded, and we moved quickly down there to see what was going on.

  Finding another place at the rail, we saw brown-skinned boys down below in the drink, treading water; others were diving off the approaching pier to join this floating assemblage. Silver coins flew through the air, flipped and pitched from passengers down from us a ways, the metal catching the sun and winking, then plinking into the amazingly clear blue water. You could actually see the coins tumbling down. Then the white soles of feet pointed skyward as the boys dived for the nickels and dimes.

  Somebody tapped me on the shoulder.

  It was a good-looking college kid we’d met in the Malolo’s indoor swimming pool the other day. In a setting fit for a Roman orgy, rife with Pompeian Etruscan columns and mosaic tile, the sharp-featured handsome kid had been swimming with quick authority and caught my—and Isabel’s—attention.

  He must’ve seen us watching him, because he had finally come over and struck up a conversation. He wanted to meet Darrow, who was sitting on a marble bench nearby, fully clothed, watching pretty girls swim (Ruby was off with the Leisures someplace). The affable kid, toweling off his tanned muscular frame, had introduced himself to Darrow as a fellow Clarence and a prelaw student in California. He’d grown up on a pineapple plantation on Oahu and was taking a semester off to spend some time at home.

  “With a name like Clarence you’ll never need a nickname,” Darrow had told him.

  “Oh, I’ve got a nickname, and it’s sillier than Clarence,” the good-natured kid said.

  And he had told us, and it was a silly nickname all right, and we’d all had a laugh over it, though we’d never run into the kid on the ship again—he wasn’t traveling first-class. Now here he was, interrupting my view of native boys diving for nickels.

  “Would you do me a favor?” he asked. “I can’t ask any of these stuffy rich people, and you seem like a regular guy.”

  “Sure.” If I’d said no, I’d have been denying being a “regular guy.”

  And the son of a bitch began taking off his clothes.

  Isabel had noticed, by now, and was smiling with pleasure as the damn Adonis stripped to red swim trunks.

  “Be a pal and keep these for me,” he said. “I’ll catch up with you up on the dock.”

  And he thrust the bundle of shirt, pants, shoes, and socks into my arms, stepping out onto the deck just behind the passengers ogling the native divers.

  “Who’s got a silver dollar?” he called.

  Faces turned toward him.

  “I’ll dive from the deck,” he said, “for a silver dollar!”

  “Here!” a mustached fellow called, digging into his pocket and holding up the silver coin; the sun caught it and a reflection lanced off it.

  And I’ll be damned if this kid didn’t climb over the rail, and position himself, yelling “Now!” following the pitched coin into the deep blue waters, in a high perfect dive that cleaved the water with the assurance of God parting the Red Sea.

  Before long, he emerged with a toss of wet dark hair and a happy, infectious grin, holding the coin up as he bobbed there. The sun caught it again, and both the smile and the coin dazzled his audience on deck, who began to applaud and cheer. Isabel put two fingers in her mouth and let loose a whistle the Aloha Tower might have envied.

  Then he stroked off toward the pier as our boat continued making its way there.

  “Wasn’t that the damnedest thing,” I said.

  “What a man,” Isabel sighed.

  “Thanks,” I said, and we grinned at each other, going arm in arm after the rest of our party.

  When the ship slipped gracefully into Pier 9, a mob was waiting; a band in white uniforms performed syrupy renditions of Hawaiian tunes while colored streamers and confetti were hurled, and shapely dark hula girls in grass skirts and floral-print brassieres swayed, their slender necks bedecked with wreaths of brightly colored flowers. The citizens who’d come to greet us were less a melting pot than a list of racial ingredients: Japanese, Chinese, Polynesian, Portuguese, and Caucasian faces were among the locals on hand to greet the tourists they depended on for their livelihoods.

  As we walked across the gangway into this mad merriment, I had to wonder if there wasn’t an undercurrent of
hysteria at this particular “steamer day,” an edge provided by the tension and turmoil of the most controversial criminal matter that had ever faced the Islands.

  Just as Darrow stepped onto the cement of the pier, an attractive native woman in a loose dress, the tropical version of the Mother Hubbard known as a muumuu, transferred one of the half-dozen flower garlands she was wearing from her neck to Darrow’s. The battery of press photogs lying in wait—one of whom had no doubt put the woman (who was a seller of the things) up to it—jockeyed for position to record Darrow’s chagrin for posterity.

  But C.D. wasn’t having any.

  “Hold off there!” he said, shifting the wreath to his wife’s neck. “You’re not catching me wearing those jingle bells—I’ll look like a damned decorated hat rack.”

  “Lei, mister?” the native woman asked me cheerfully.

  “No thanks,” I said. Then to Isabel: “They don’t waste any time here, do they?”

  “That’s what those flowers are called, silly,” she said. “A lei.”

  “Really?” I asked innocently, and then she knew I was teasing her. And joining the ranks of every mainlander male who ever set foot on Oahu, in making that particular pun.

  Darrow was leading the way through the crowd—the old boy seemed to know what he was doing and where he was going. I still had that kid’s clothes tucked under my arm, and was looking around for him. His head popped up above the throng, and I held up till he angled through, still in his trunks but pretty well dried off, now. The climate, though pleasant, was warm enough to be his towel.

  “Thanks!” he grinned, taking his stuff from me.

  “Hell of a dive, for a dollar.”

  That great grin flashed. “When I was a kid, I was right in there with the other beach boys, divin’ for nickels. Gotta raise the ante a little, when ya get older. Where you staying? I’ll drop by and use the buck to buy you lunch.”

  “I think the Royal Hawaiian.”

  “A buck doesn’t go far there, but I know some people on the staff—maybe they’ll cut me some slack. Heller, isn’t it? Nate?”

  I said it was as we shook hands, and he tossed me a “See ya,” and disappeared back into the crowd.

  Leisure leaned in and said, “You know who that is?”

  “Some crazy college kid. Buster, he said they call him.”

  “That’s Clarence Crabbe. Hawaii’s great white hope in the Olympics comin’ up this summer. He took two bronze medals in ’28, at Amsterdam.”

  “Diving?”

  “Swimming.”

  “Huh,” I grunted. “No kiddin’.”

  A Navy driver was waiting for us at the curb; his seven-passenger black Lincoln limousine could have handled all of us, but Darrow sent Ruby and Mrs. Leisure on to the hotel, on foot; it was easy walking distance, and our baggage would be delivered. Isabel (looking lovely in a lei I’d bought her) started to go with the two women, and Darrow stopped her, gently.

  “Come with us, dear,” he said, “won’t you?”

  “All right,” Isabel said.

  So we all got in the back of the limo, where Isabel and I sat facing Darrow and Leisure; everyone but Darrow was confused.

  “I thought we were staying at the Royal Hawaiian,” I said.

  “You’re staying there, son,” Darrow said, as the limo rolled smoothly into traffic. How odd it seemed for this city to be such a…city. Buses and streetcars and traffic cops, with only the predominance of various shades of brown and yellow faces to let you know this wasn’t Miami or San Diego.

  “Why’s Nate staying at the Royal Hawaiian?” Leisure wondered, just a slight touch of cranky jealousy in his tone.

  “For two reasons,” Darrow said. “First, I want to keep our investigator away from reporters, keep him off the firing line. They’ll only bother him about the Lindbergh business, for one thing, and I want him someplace where he can invite various witnesses and others involved in the case, for a friendly conversation over lunch or fruit punch, without the prying eyes of the press.”

  Leisure was nodding; jealous or not, it made sense.

  “It won’t hurt,” Darrow continued, “to have an opulent setting to entice the cooperation of these individuals. Also, I can sneak off there myself, if I need to confer with someone, away from journalistic meddlers.”

  “Despite all the lawyerly bypaths you just took,” I said, “that’s just one reason. You said two.”

  “Oh. Well, the other reason is, I was offered a free suite at the Royal Hawaiian, and this was a way to take advantage of that invitation.”

  And he beamed at me, proud of himself.

  “So the taxpayers of Chicago pay for my services,” I said, “and the Royal Hawaiian provides my lodging. You couldn’t afford not to bring me along, could you, C.D.?”

  “Not hardly. Mind if I smoke, dear?”

  “No,” Isabel said. “But where are we going?”

  “I was just wondering that myself,” Leisure said. He still wasn’t used to Darrow’s offhand way of doing things.

  “Why, taking you to your lodgings, child,” Darrow said grandly to the girl, as his steady old hands emptied tobacco from a pouch into a curl of cigarette paper.

  “I’m staying with my cousin Thalia,” she said.

  “Yes,” Darrow said. “She’s expecting us.”

  4

  The Navy limousine slipped into the stream of leisurely traffic on King Street; the Oriental and Polynesian drivers of Oahu, and even the Caucasians for that matter, seemed more cautious, less hurried than mainlanders. Or maybe the seductive warm climate with its constant cool breeze encouraged a tempo that to a contemporary Chicagoan seemed more appropriate for horse carts and carriages.

  Nonetheless, Honolulu remained resolutely modern. There were trolley cars, not rickshaws, and on side streets, frame houses were in evidence, not a native hut in sight. The stark modern lines of white office buildings were softened by the soothing greenery of palms and exotic flora, and once we’d left the clustered heart of the business district, the urban landscape was calmed by occasional stretches of park or by a school or a church or some official-looking building resplendent on verdant manicured grounds.

  Coca-Cola signs, Standard Oil pumps, drugstore window posters advertising Old Gold Cigarettes were a reminder that this was America, all right, despite the coconut trees and foreign faces.

  Soon we were climbing into an area that Leisure labeled Manoa Valley, and that our youthful Navy chauffeur further identified as “The Valley of Sunshine and Tears.”

  “There’s a legend,” the driver said in a husky voice, turning his head to us but keeping an eye on the road, “that in olden days, a maiden who lived in this valley met with tragedy. Lies were told about her virtue, and it made her man jealous, and all involved came to a bad end.”

  “Such stories often turn out thus,” Darrow said gravely.

  Right now we were moving through a silk-stocking district, spacious near-mansions with beautifully maintained gardens and spacious golf-course-perfect lawns. We were on the incline that was well-shaded Punahou Street, and the college of that name was off to our right, up-to-date buildings on lavish royal palm-flung grounds.

  “Somebody has money,” I said.

  Leisure nodded toward a stately mansion that might well have been an estate outside London. “This is old white money—they call them kaimaaina haoles…missionaries, Yankee traders, and their descendants. We’re talking second-and third-generation, now. You’ve heard of the ‘Big Five’?”

  “Isn’t that a college football conference?”

  Leisure’s narrow lips pursed a smile. “Hawaii’s Big Five are the plantation, shipping, and merchandising companies that own these islands. Matson Lines money, Liberty House, which is the local version of Sears…”

  “The white man came to Hawaii,” Darrow intoned suddenly, as if from a pulpit, “and urged the simple natives to turn their eyes upward to God…but when the natives looked down to earth again, their goddam
n land was gone.”

  We rose into the upper portion of Manoa Valley, where the estates gave way to a network of shady lanes and a concentration of cottages and bungalows. Though we were on a steep gradient, the boundaries of the valley were steeper still—mountainous slopes providing a dark blue backdrop; it was as if this were a stadium scooped from the earth by nature, and we were down on the Big Five’s playing field.

  I posed a question to the driver. “How far are we from Pearl Harbor?”

  “A good half an hour, sir.”

  “Is it common for a Navy officer to live this far from the base?”

  “Yes, sir,” the driver said. “In fact, quite a few Navy officers live in Manoa Valley—Army as well. Lt. Massie and a number of other younger officers live within close proximity of one another, sir.”

  “Oh. That’s nice. Then they can get together, socialize…”

  “I wouldn’t know about that, sir,” the driver said, strangely curt.

  Had I touched a nerve?

  Number 2850 on the narrow slope of Kahawai Street was a precious white Tudor-style bungalow, its gabled roofs decorated with vertical and diagonal slashes of brown trim, and large brown-striped canvas awnings so determined to keep out the sun that they almost hid the windows. Though the yard was tiny, foliage was plentiful, well-trimmed boxcar-shaped hedges hugging the little house, several oriental trees like absurdly large bushes providing sheltering green. I wasn’t sure whether the effect was one of coziness or concealment.

  There was a driveway, where the Navy driver pulled in; the street was too narrow to park along. Soon, Isabel and I, heads craned back, were standing in the street, admiring the way the mountains provided a misty green backdrop to the little house.

  The Navy chauffeur was helping Darrow out of the backseat as the sound of a screen door closing announced a lanky guy of about thirty, in white shirt with sleeves rolled back and crisp canary trousers, legs knifing as he rushed out to greet us. His brown hair was rather thin, but his smile was generous; he was bestowing it on Darrow, who was standing in the drive next to Leisure.

  “Pleased to meet you, sir—I’m Lt. Francis Olds, but my friends call me Pop. I’d be honored if you’d pay me that compliment.”