Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 07 (27 page)

Gasps of horror filled the room, and de Marigny, frowning, coldly indignant, said, “They have no jurisdiction to do so!”

“You’re right,” Higgs said, “and we can fight this. Unfortunately…”

“Unfortunately?” de Marigny asked.

“Ernest Callender did some asking around—and, while we must consider that tension runs high right now, the word is that this recommendation is one that the Governor is likely to act upon.”

The Duke of Windsor would have his way after all.

“Apparently,” Higgs said hollowly, “they intend to act upon violations of yours regarding the rationing of petrol.”

De Visdelou looked like he might weep; de Marigny stared at the floor, a glazed smile on the sensuous lips, while Nancy hugged his arm supportively.

A funereal pall fell across the little party, and people began to drift away, stopping to express both their congratulations and condolences to the de Marignys.

Before she and Freddie left, Nancy said to me, painfully earnest, “I may have to leave this island—but you’re going to stay! Right?”

“Right,” I said.

An hour later, I was sitting on the couch in my cottage, feet on the coffee table, when I heard the key being worked in the lock of my side door; my shapely landlord, wearing high heels, panties and a nasty little smile, was bringing yet another bottle of champagne around.

“Nightcap?” she asked. She had two glasses in one hand.

“Sure.” I hadn’t really had much.

Di was a little giggly, but not really drunk. She sat in my lap and put her tongue halfway down my throat and nibbled my ear and nuzzled my neck.

“I travel,” she said.

“Pardon?”

“I travel. Even get to Chicago, from time to time. I’ll come see you….”

“That would be nice. But I understand full well that we’re just…a summer romance.”

“Oh, we’re more than that, Heller.”

“Good. Marry me, then. Bring your money.”

“You are
so
bad. You know I’m not exactly the house wife type. You’ll need another kind of girl to have your babies and clean your house and load your revolvers.”

“I use an automatic.”

“Whatever. But from time to time, now and then, I’ll show up on your doorstep, and, married or single, you’ll have a wonderful time with me….”

“That would also be nice.”

Her giddiness disappeared and she looked on the verge of tears. “How I hate to see you go….”

“I’m not going.”

“Not going?”

“I can leave if you want. But I was hoping you’d let me stay on awhile.”

She grinned. “I’ll cancel my flight. How long can you stay? We both deserve a vacation, after the hell of these last weeks! We’ll dine elegantly, we’ll lounge on the beach sinfully, and we’ll fuck like bloody heathens.”

“Actually, I’m still working.”

I filled her in on what Nancy had requested I do.

“That’s a wonderful idea. But you won’t get much cooperation out of Hallinan.”

“I doubt I will—but I have a shitload of evidence he doesn’t know about.”

“Some of your best qualities
are
hidden away,” she said, as she undid my zipper.

Outside the glass doors, palms were swaying; a storm was coming, but not now: now it was just warm wind, and a blonde goddess sitting in my lap, with me buried in her, hands on her slim ass, the globes of her breasts brushing my face like fruit wanting to be picked, our moans, our cries, lost in the caw of exotic birds and the music of the impending tropical squall.

I saw Leonard Keeler and Di off at the seaplane dock late the next morning. Both were taking the noon flight to Miami to make their connections, Len to Chicago, Di to Mexico City. An almost cold wind whipped us; the sky was a dingy overcast gray that nearly blended with the choppy ocean, the Pan Am clipper bobbing on the water like an oversize buoy. That storm, which had been threatening to arrive since late last night, still hadn’t shown.

I told Len that we couldn’t have won without him and promised to buy him a meal at the Berghoff when I got back.

“When should that be?” he asked.

“A week or so,” I said. Even if I kept working this case, I needed to get back for a few weeks, at least, and tend to A-1 business.

He waved and smiled as he entered the houseboat-like shed to check his bag and board the plane, while I stayed behind on the springy wharf, talking to Di, who wore a mannish tan slacks outfit with a military cut and matching turban, trouser legs flapping like flags in the breeze. Her sunglasses were black and her lipstick crimson. She managed to look both glamorous and businesslike.

‘“I can’t believe you were able to get Hallinan to receive you,” she said.

“Neither can I. But he seemed almost eager to meet with me.”

“Where? At Government House?”

“No—Major Pemberton’s office. It’s just a preliminary meeting. Still, if I can convince them to cooperate, then Nancy isn’t wasting her money on me.” I touched her cheek. “You’re not sure exactly when you’ll be back?”

“No, but it’ll be just a few days,” she said, shrugging. Then she said, “Oh!” and dug in her purse for something. “Here are the spare keys to the main house—I’ve given the servants the weekend off, with the exception of Daniel, who’ll be at your beck and call when you need the launch, to and from.”

“I’ll be lonely.”

The bruised lips smiled crookedly, but the sunglasses made her face inscrutable. “The birds will keep you company. The kitchen’s well stocked—just help yourself, and don’t worry about the mess.”

“Thank you. For everything. For last night especially….”

She lifted her chin, mock-snooty. “I did it all for Nancy.”

“All?”

“Almost all.”

She kissed me; a sudden gust made us clutch each other, or otherwise risk being dropped in the drink. It turned the little goodbye kiss into something desperate, even passionate, and when she pulled away she had an oddly off-kilter expression.

“You mussed your lipstick.”

“You mean
you
mussed my lipstick. I’ll fix it on the plane.” Her pretty smudgy mouth smiled, just a little. “Bye, Heller.”

And she trudged toward the shed to check her one suitcase, a well-strapped leather affair large enough to make me wonder what was in it. Something for Axel?

It wasn’t any of my business. I wasn’t about to repay Di’s hospitality by sitting in judgment on whatever she was doing for her blacklisted boss.

That afternoon, at the police station, I met with the long-faced Hallinan and the jug-eared Major Pemberton. We sat at a table in a small conference room, with the Attorney General at the head and Pemberton in impeccable khakis across from me. Both wore tiny mustaches and airs of British imperturbability.

“Mr. Heller,” Hallinan said with a smile as small as his mustache, “you may be wondering why I granted your request for a hearing so readily.”

I leaned back in my hardwood chair. “Frankly, yes. I didn’t figure I was very high up on your hit parade.”

Hallinan shrugged one shoulder. “You were doing your job, as was I, as was Major Pemberton.”

Pemberton nodded.

“With no offense meant to Major Pemberton,” I said, “I would have rather Colonel Lindop continued doing
his
job—his testimony would have been useful to us.”

“As it turned out,” Hallinan said, with the mildest facial twitch of irritation, “the defense didn’t require that testimony to win. However, let me say that I don’t consider the Crown to have ‘lost’—I am satisfied that we presented the case cogently and fairly.”

“Do you think Barker and Melchen’s techniques were ‘fair’?”

His face tightened; Pemberton glanced away.

“I was referring only to
our
practices—and, with the possible exception of Mr. Adderley’s ill-conceived strategy where the Marquis de Visdelou was concerned, I believe we were indeed fair. Now, when you call and suggest you can help us find the ‘real’ murderer, I must say to you, frankly, that so far as I am concerned, this case is completely closed. I believe Major Pemberton agrees.”

Again Pemberton nodded.

“We’re prepared to call it a day,” Hallinan said. “In our view, acquitted or not, the accused was the guilty party.”

“Then why did you agree to see me?”

“To give you a fair hearing. You may find this difficult to believe, but I admire the work you did regarding that fingerprint evidence.”

“You admire it?”

“I certainly do. Mr. Heller, the Governor may well have been right in his assessment that the Oakes case was too big for the local police to handle…with all due respect to Major Pemberton, our facilities
are
limited. But if I may confidentially say, the Duke’s request for aid from the Miami city police was…unfortunate.”

“That’s an example of that British understatement I’ve been hearing so much about, right?”

Hallinan ignored my sarcasm and pressed on. “Weeks ago, I wrote to your federal CID—that is, your FBI—about my grave doubts concerning the fingerprinting procedures Barker and Melchen were following. In the FBI’s view, my doubts were well founded. Barker’s lifting of that print, his neglect to photograph it
in situ,
was the Achilles’ heel of our case. And you found it.”

“I did at that.”

“Therefore” Hallinan sighed “I feel you deserve a fair hearing.”

“I appreciate that,” I said. “I think you know that any statements, and evidence, that failed to point to the accused were ignored.”

“I don’t know that I entirely agree with that. But you indicated on the telephone that you had evidence the defense itself failed to introduce….”

I shrugged, “It would have been ruled irrelevant. But once you grasp the fact that de Marigny is innocent, these facts become not only relevant, but crucial.”

“De Marigny’s ‘innocence’ is a legal judgment; it does not rule out his literal guilt.” Hallinan’s expression was one of cold distaste. “I consider the Count, and his amoral companion de Visdelou, to be sorry, irredeemable, reprehensible examples of humanity. I am pleased to say that their deportation is a certainty…deportation, or prison. We have found four drums of petrol, bearing RAF marks, in their mutual possession.”

“De Marigny isn’t my favorite guy in the world, either. But that doesn’t make him Sir Harry’s murderer.”

“You would like to continue investigating the case.”

“Yes—but first I’d like the opportunity to present you with evidence and theories you haven’t been privy to. Would you like me to start right now?”

Hallinan waved a hand, gently dismissive. “No. What I would like is for you to put something in writing…nothing formal, not a statement. But a letter to me, which I can share with His Royal Highness on his return.”

“I see. Without the Duke’s blessing, I’m out of business.”

“You are indeed. However, if your evidence is so persuasive that any man of good conscience could not stand in the way of reopening this investigation, I would say your ‘business’ might well flourish.”

I nodded. “Fair enough.”

Major Pemberton, who’d been a mute participant till now, spoke up. “You would have my full cooperation, as well.”

I grinned. “Glad to see Barker and Melchen didn’t sour you fellas on
all
American detectives.”

Both of them returned the smile; not exactly warmly, but this reception had been far more positive than I could ever have dreamed.

“I’ll take the weekend to work on the letter,” I said. “You’ll have it Monday.”

Hallinan rose and offered his hand, which I took and shook. “Thank you, Mr. Heller. Good day.”

That evening I dined with Godfrey Higgs and his wife, who had invited me to see Nassau’s fabled Jungle Club at the Fort Montague Hotel. With the ocean on one side, a lake on the other, and a fragrant tropical garden everywhere else, the deliberately rustic structure beckoned us inside its underlit interior, filled with ferns, palms, waitresses in skimpy sarongs, and green tables under thatched umbrellas, at one of which we feasted on plates of food we’d built ourselves from a buffet of (among other things) crab, lobster, fresh fruit, creamed vegetables, and pepper pots of mysterious, delectable contents.

“I’m delighted our Attorney General gave you such a warm reception,” Higgs said, between sipping spoonfuls of creamy soup. “If a bit shocked.”

“It does tell us one thing.”

“Which is?”

“Hallinan wasn’t in on the fix to frame Freddie.”

“Interesting observation, Nate. Who was?”

“Well, Barker and Melchen, for sure. The question is, whose bidding were they answering? The Duke of Windsor’s? Or Meyer Lansky’s?”

“The Duke called them in.”

“True. Which may mean I’m on a fool’s errand writing this letter.”

A steel band was beginning to play.

Higgs arched an eyebrow. “At least you’ll know where you stand.”

“At least I will.”

Higgs put down his spoon and gave me an earnest look. “Nate—with Freddie cleared, I’m no longer an official part of this case.”

“I realize that.”

“Nonetheless, I want you to know you can depend on me and on whatever resources I might provide.”

He smiled, and I returned the smile; and we spent the rest of the evening talking about the case not at all. Mostly I sampled the Jungle Club’s “famous” (the menu said so) rum-and-lime punch. I sampled quite a bit of it, actually.

Alone at Shangri La in my little guest cottage, I slept soundly and well, despite the impending storm moving the trees and sending ghostly wails of wind through the gardens, keeping those exotic birds unnerved.

The next morning, Saturday, I slept in, and it was ten-thirty before I went over to the main house and fixed myself some scrambled eggs and bacon; rationing and shortages didn’t seem to have any effect on Shangri La’s pantry and king-size Frigidaire, which could have kept a hotel dining room going. I sat alone at the table in the big, gleaming white modern kitchen and listened to the approaching storm rattle the windows.

I had that letter to write, and I’d even found a typewriter to write it on in an office of Di’s; but I was letting the back of my mind chew on it for right now. I was ready for a day off.

Daniel took me over to Nassau, where I thought about calling Marjorie, but didn’t. That situation, despite Freddie’s acquittal, would most likely remain unchanged: as Nancy had made clear, Lady Oakes still considered her son-in-law the murderer of her husband.

Besides, I was involved with somebody else now, wasn’t I? My other summer romance….

So I figured the best thing to do was get my mind off the Oakes case, and toward that goal, I took in a matinee at the Savoy. The movie playing was
Above Suspicion
and the pretty cashier I bought my ticket from was Betty Roberts.

I had a bite at Dirty Dick’s, and spoke with a few reporters left over from the trial, who were lingering on expense account till Monday; and when I got back out onto Bay Street, it was dark before it should be, thanks to the black, rolling clouds. A few tiny raindrops kissed my cheek. The wind was cold and a chore to walk against; with one hand I pulled the collar of my now too-light linen suitcoat around my neck and with the other held my straw fedora on.

The sky finally exploded as Daniel was taking me back to Hog Island; out in the small exposed motor launch, sheets of rain pummeling the sea, artillery-fire thunder splitting the sky and jagged white lightning revealing the cracks in it, I hung on to the sides of the rocking boat, shivering with cold and maybe fear, and getting soaked to the bone.

In my cozy cottage, I got out of the sopped clothes and took a hot shower and toweled off and climbed into bed, naked. I pulled the extra blanket up over me, as the cold was finding its way in, and the double glass doors facing the trees, and the windows of the little cottage, were shimmying like Little Sheba. Outside the palms bent and fronds fluttered, and hysterical birds screeched as they sought cover that wasn’t there. The machine-gun fire of the rain on the roof, and on the windows and one side of the structure, kept pace with the howl of the hurricane-like wind.

Somehow I got to sleep, but it wasn’t sleep, it was a sort of hell,
it was a tropical hellhole where land crabs skittered and Japs with bayonets stalked while my buddies and me hid in a trench, hoping they’d just walk by, but they didn’t, they saw us, and they charged and my buddies got shot to shit and skewered by the bayonet blades but I was still alive and firing as torrents of rain fell, only it wasn’t rain, it was blood, I was covered in blood.
…

I sat up in bed, gasping. A mortar shell exploded, and I hit the deck.

But it wasn’t a mortar shell, it was thunder, and I was bare-ass on the floor, feeling foolish, sweating like Christie in the witness box.

I crawled back into bed. The sheets were soaking; my perspiration had done as good a job as if I’d been sleeping out in the storm, which continued unabated, shaking the windows, the dark shapes of palms bending impossibly beyond the double glass doors.

Leaving behind a twisted mass of damp sheets and blankets, I moved to the couch, and lay there on my back, naked, panting, as winded as if I’d run a mile, and stared at the blackness above me. Now and then lightning would strobe the room, and the pebbled plaster ceiling would be there, above me, protecting me, reminding me I wasn’t in some tropical jungle, even though I was.

Using breathing exercises they’d taught me back at the psych ward at St. Elizabeth’s, I managed to settle myself down; I was almost asleep when I heard a key working the lock at the side door.