Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 07 Read online

Christie shook his head no. “I’m a sound sleeper, Mr. Heller, and that storm last night must have drowned out any commotion…”

  “You didn’t smell smoke? You didn’t hear a struggle?”

  “No, Mr. Heller,” Christie said, insistently, openly irritated now. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a phone call to make.”

  “Phone call?”

  Very irritated. “Yes. I’d just been trying to compose myself when you seized upon the moment for conversation. You see, no one as yet has called Lady Oakes.”

  Behind him, the front door flew open and Alfred de Marigny stormed in.

  Dark hair falling over his forehead like a comma, his eyes wide and almost wild, the bearded Count said, “What’s going on here? Who’s in charge?”

  None of the black cops answered, so I told him.

  “Colonel Lindop,” I said. I wasn’t tailing him anymore. No need to keep a low profile….

  “Harold,” de Marigny blurted at Christie, “what the hell is this dirty business? John Anderson stopped me outside his bank and said Sir Harry’s been killed!”

  Christie nodded numbly, then pointed to the living room and said, “I have a long-distance call to make.”

  Then he walked into the living room, with de Marigny—casually dressed, blue shirt, tan slacks, no socks—tagging along.

  I moved to the doorway, to eavesdrop on Christie’s side of the phone conversation with Lady Oakes, but couldn’t hear much. There was too much chatter in the hallway—not from the cops, but from a group of well-to-do-looking whites who were gathered down near the kitchen. Probably a mix of government officials and Oakes’ business associates.

  Far too many people on hand for a crime scene. This was as bad as the fucking Lindbergh case, everybody and his damn dog tramping through the place.

  I watched the silent movie of Christie speaking on the phone to Lady Oakes, de Marigny standing nearby, somewhat impatiently. Finally the Count tapped Christie on the shoulder, like a dancer cutting in.

  De Marigny took the receiver.

  Christie watched with obvious distaste as de Marigny spoke to his mother-in-law; he spoke louder than Christie, but his thick accent kept me from catching much of it. Obviously he was paying his condolences and asking what he could do to help.

  And at least three times he asked her (and this I could hear—he was insistent) to have his wife, Nancy, get in touch with him as soon as possible.

  De Marigny hung up the phone and looked at Christie, who turned his back on the Count and headed toward the hallway, and me.

  “Why wasn’t I called, Harold? Why did I have to hear about this on the street?”

  Christie mumbled something, brushing past me. De Marigny was on his heels.

  “Count de Marigny,” Lindop said.

  The Colonel was positioned in front of them like a traffic cop, as if to make them stop.

  They stopped.

  “I regret to inform you that Sir Harry Oakes is dead. Foul play is indicated.”

  “When exactly was the body found?” de Marigny asked.

  “At seven this morning.”

  He scowled. “My God, man! It’s almost eleven o’clock—this is my father-in-law who’s been murdered! Why wasn’t I contacted?”

  “No slight was intended. We’ve been busy. A crime has been committed.”

  De Marigny’s wide lips pressed together sullenly. Then he said, “I demand to view the body!”

  “No,” Lindop said, softly but flatly. “I would suggest you go home, Count. And make yourself available, should we have any questions.”

  “What sort of questions?”

  “I can’t say any more.”

  “Why in hell not?”

  “I’m afraid my hands are tied.” A pained expression crossed Lindop’s hound-dog countenance. ‘The Governor is calling in two police detectives from Miami, who should be here shortly to lead the investigation.”

  What was that all about? Why call Miami cops in on a murder in a British colony? That “Governor” Lindop was referring to was none other than the Duke of Windsor, England’s ex-King himself. That was the phone call that had interrupted us upstairs….

  As I was thinking this through, two splendid-looking Bahamian officers came down the curving stairway with a stretcher bearing the bedsheet-covered body of Sir Harry Oakes. Other officers held open the door while they carted him out to a waiting ambulance.

  De Marigny watched this, frowning, nose twitching like a rabbit’s, and followed them out, as if to press once more for the right to view the body.

  I stood on the porch and watched the Count pull his gleaming Lincoln across the rain-soaked lawn to avoid the parked cars blocking the drive. He even passed the ambulance, on his way out the gate.

  “You may go,” Lindop said, tapping my shoulder. “Those officers over there will drive you. Where will you be?”

  “At the British Colonial.”

  “Fine. We’ll contact you there, later today, for a more formal statement.”

  Then he shut the door.

  What the hell. It seemed like a good time to leave Westbourne, anyway. After all, Sir Harry wasn’t home.

  By noon the overcast sky had transformed itself into something pure and blue, with a bright but not blazing sun, a reprieve that sent sunbathers scurrying in surprise to the white beach of the British Colonial. During the early morning hours, minions of the hotel had obviously cleared the branches and debris from the sand; the beach was pristine again, shimmering in the sun. The emerald sea rippled peacefully. It was as if the storm had never happened.

  Davy Jones’ Locker, the hotel café overlooking the beach, was stone-walled, low-ceilinged, slate-floored. A black bartender in a colorful shirt mixed drinks before a mural of Davy himself, fast asleep while nubile mermaids and a school of quizzical comic fish gave him the once-over.

  I got myself a hamburger with rare, sweetly marinated meat, a side of conch fritters and an orange rum punch the smiling barman called a Bahama Mama. Then out on the patio, I found a round wooden table under a beach umbrella and ate my lunch and watched the pretty girls on the beach. Occasionally one would even venture into the water.

  “You must be in heaven, Heller,” a high-pitched, sultry voice said.

  I recognized it at once—she had a faint, very sexy, unmistakable lisp—but turned just the same, to confirm this happy news.

  Her smile was playful. “Nassau’s brimming over with pretty girls…all these lonely RAF wives. You must be going to town.”

  “Helen! What the hell are you doing in Nassau?”

  She swept off her sunglasses so we could have a better look at each other. A petite, shapely woman of forty who looked easily a decade younger, she owed some of it to great genes, and some of it to a great face lift.

  She wore a wide-brimmed straw hat, tied with an orange scarf under her chin, and a white robe over an orange-and-white floral bathing suit. Her skin was almost white; strands of her dark blond hair, pinned up under the hat, tickled a graceful neck. She wasn’t wearing makeup, but her features didn’t need any: pert nose, full lips, apple cheeks, long-lashed eyes that were a green-blue shade even the Bahamas could envy.

  “I’m just hanging around, after finishing a gig,” she said. “How about you?”

  “Same. Sit! Have you had lunch?”

  “No. Go get me some. Conch salad.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  I did. I was pleased to see Helen Beck, who was better known to the general public by her stage name: Sally Rand. We went way back, to the Chicago World’s Fair, where I worked pick-pocket security, and where she made a name for herself (not to mention kept the fair afloat financially) doing a graceful nude ballet behind huge fluffy ostrich feathers. Or, at times, an equally oversize bouncing bubble. Sally—or Helen, as she preferred me to call her—was versatile.

  I brought her the salad and a Bahama Mama. She ate the salad heartily—raw chopped conch marinated in lime juice and spices with some chopped crunchy veg
etables tossed in for good measure—but merely sipped at her rum punch.

  “How’s Turk?” I asked.

  She grimaced; now she took a belt of the punch.

  Turk was her husband, a rodeo rider she’d met when she put together a revue called Sally Rand’s Nude Ranch; they’d been married since ‘41, but it had been a rocky ride. Last time I’d seen her, about four months ago in Chicago, they’d been separated.

  “I gave him another chance, and he blew it big-time. Son of a bitch hit me, Heller!”

  “We can’t have that.”

  “Well, I can’t. I filed on the fucker.” Her expression was as hard as her language. “Sure, I feel sorry for him…I mean, he goes overseas to serve his country, can’t take it, cracks up, gets sent home on a Section Eight…I’d like to stand by him, but the guy’s nuts!”

  “Sure.”

  She looked at me and her expression melted; she leaned over and touched my hand. “I’m sorry, Heller…I forgot you went through the same damn thing.”

  “No problem, Helen.”

  She pulled back and her expression was troubled now. “He’s drinking too much. I had to throw him out. Why didn’t we get married, Heller? You and me?”

  “I ask myself that, from time to time.”

  “How often?”

  I shrugged. “I just did.”

  That made her smile; that wide smile of hers was a honey.

  We chatted for a good hour. Not that we had much catching up to do; a few months ago in Chicago, we’d done our reminiscing about our summer together, back in ‘34. Some of that reminiscing had been between the sheets, but Helen and I weren’t lovers, anymore. Not really.

  But we’d always be friends.

  “I’m surprised to find you working Nassau in the off-season, Helen,” I said. “The wartime nightlife here is a little limited right now, or so I understand….”

  She shrugged; she’d finished her lunch and was smoking a cigarette. “It was a Red Cross fund-raising drive benefit. You know how patriotic I am.”

  And she was. She was an FDR fan, as well as a self-styled intellectual who leaned a bit left, and had attracted non-nude attention when she spoke out for the republican forces in the Spanish Civil War; she’d also got publicity out of lecturing at colleges. In between getting arrested for public indecency, of course.

  “Sounds like you’re getting respectable in…”

  “If you say ‘old age,’ Heller, I’ll conk you with a conch shell.”

  “…these troubled times.”

  Her smile turned crinkly. “I am respectable. Saturday night, at the Prince George. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor were ringside.”

  “Pretty posh audience at that.”

  She lifted her chin, blew out smoke elegantly. “Not only am I respectable, but my perfectly round balloons…”

  “You’ve always had perfectly round balloons.”

  “Shut up, Heller. The perfectly round balloons I dance behind, which are manufactured to my personal specifications by a company that I own, are now being used by the U.S. government for target practice.”

  That made me laugh, and she laughed along.

  “Well, then,” I said, “it was patriotic of the Duke to watch you strut your stuff. Didn’t Wallis mind?”

  I referred, of course, to Wallis Simpson, the American divorcée David Windsor, aka King Edward VIII, current Governor of the Bahamas, had abandoned his throne to marry—“the woman he loved!”

  “Wallis smiled and giggled throughout. Frankly, the Duke was the one who seemed ill at ease. Embarrassed.”

  “These ex-kings have no sense of humor.”

  “I’ll say. I hear he’s issued an official ban on reporting that the Windsors actually saw my act. Of course, that ban doesn’t extend to my press agent back home.”

  “Of course.” I clicked in my cheek. “The poor royal dears…banished to a tropical Elba like this.”

  She lifted an arching, plucked eyebrow. “Well, there always have been rumors the Duke is a Nazi sympathizer. Churchill had to get him out of Europe so Hitler couldn’t grab him, and set Edward up as a puppet king!”

  “What would I do, without a burlesque queen to explain world politics to me?”

  She slapped my arm, but she was smiling. “You’re such a louse.”

  “That’s what you like about me.”

  “True. But I have to say, I really do admire Wallis…”

  “Admire her? Everybody says she’s a shrew who pushes poor ol’ Dave around.”

  “That’s ridiculous! You’re just threatened by strong women, Heller!”

  “Sorry,” I said sheepishly.

  She smirked. “In fact, both the Duke and Duchess have chalked up a lot of good works to their credit, in the short time they’ve been here. The local Negro population has benefited particularly…”

  “Here we go.”

  “Be good. Did you know the Duke started a CCC-type farm, for the native men? And the Duchess works in the local Red Cross clinic, side by side with black women…something the local whites certainly wouldn’t lower themselves to do.”

  “Really gets her hands dirty, huh?”

  “Yes she does. Personally, I think they’re a lovely couple….”

  “You, and every starry-eyed bobby-soxer in America. This bittersweet romance, these tragic lovers!” I laughed. “I can’t believe you’re seduced by this royal horseshit, a left-wing fan-dancing fanatic like you.”

  “Heller, you’re getting cynical in your…”

  “Watch it.”

  “…these troubled times.”

  “Thanks. Actually, I’ve always been cynical.”

  “You just think you are. That’s why I should have married you: you’re the biggest, most romantic lug I ever met.”

  “Fooled you.”

  “You said you were doing a job here. Who for?”

  “Sir Harry Oakes.”

  The green-blue eyes lighted up; lashes fluttered. “No kidding! He’s a real character! You should have seen him at the benefit…eating peas with a knife, swearing like a sailor. But I didn’t get a chance to talk to him. What’s he like?”

  “Dead,” I said.

  Helen’s eyes were still saucers when somebody tapped my shoulder and I turned to see another pair of those dignified black bobbies.

  “You must return to Westbourne, sir,” said the one who’d tapped on my shoulder.

  And in their company, I did.

  I was ushered into the billiards room, where the lights were off but for a small lamp on a fancy wooden card table along one wall. The effect was moody, like the lighting in an old Warner Brothers gangster movie. Looming above the card table was a huge stuffed fish—a swordfish or a marlin or something, I’m a city boy myself—swimming in the darkness.

  Two men in baggy suits and fedoras were shrouded in these shadows. One was a tall, ruggedly handsome character in his forties, who looked like what a police detective was supposed to. The other, a fiftyish, chunky, hook-nosed guy in wire-frame glasses, was what police detectives did look like.

  If the melodrama of this underlit room and these imposing figures was supposed to intimidate me, I could only stifle a laugh. Once upon a time, I was the youngest plainclothes officer in the history of the Chicago PD, thanks to a little honest graft, and could give these bozos lessons in scare tactics and the third degree.

  In fact, all I could think of, when I looked at this pair, was Abbott and Costello.

  “Is something funny?” the tall one asked.

  “Not really,” I lied, and stopped smirking.

  “You’re Heller?” the shorter pudgy one drawled.

  “Yeah. And who would you be?”

  “This is Captain Edward Melchen,” the tall one said, gesturing to his partner.

  “And this is Captain James Barker,” the short one said, with a similar gesture.

  Maybe I should wait for the applause to die down.

  “You’re Miami PD,” I said.

  “
That’s right,” Barker said. Unlike his partner’s, his Southern accent was barely noticeable. “Sit down.” He gestured to the little lamp-lit table and the chair beside it.

  I stayed put. “Why don’t you boys turn on the lights, take off your hats, and stay awhile?”

  “I don’t like this guy,” Melchen said.

  “I don’t like him either,” Barker said.

  “Who’s on first?” I said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Barker snapped.

  “Nothing. What are a couple Miami dicks doing working a murder in Nassau?”

  “If it’s any of your business,” Barker said, “we were invited by the Duke of Windsor. We’re acquainted.”

  Now I did laugh. “You’re acquainted with the Duke of Windsor?”

  Melchen stepped forward; his bulldog face was tight. If I’d been twelve years old, I’d have been really scared. “We’ve handled security for him when he’s passed through Miami, from time to time. So, do we have your goddamn permission to be here?”

  I shrugged. “Sure. Thanks for asking.”

  Barker barked. “Sit down!”

  I sat at the little table. Barker started to turn the lamp toward my face and I batted it away. “I’m from Chicago, boys. Spare me the musical comedy.”

  Barker said, “You’re an ex-cop.”

  “Mmm hmm.”

  Melchen was looking at me thoughtfully, which seemed to be an effort. “Most private dicks are.”

  That was a shrewd observation.

  Barker spoke, and he’d drained the intimidation from his voice. “Mr. Heller, why don’t you tell us what your business with Sir Harry Oakes was.”

  “Sure,” I said, and did.

  Every now and then they would look at each other, and one of them would say, “De Marigny,” and the other would nod. Neither bothered taking any notes.

  When I’d wrapped up my account, Barker said, “The estimated time of death is between one-thirty a.m. and three-thirty a.m. You’ve just placed Count de Marigny on the murdered man’s doorstep in that time frame. Perfectly.”

  Melchen was smiling tightly and nodding.

  “Fellas,” I said, “the Count’s a good suspect—don’t get me wrong. But the behavior I observed the day of the murder wasn’t consistent with somebody planning a crime.”