Marjorie Bristol stood in the moonlight, as silent and still as a statue-a lovely statue, at that. But if she were a work of art, the artist was God-the breeze blowing the hem of her dress gave her reality away.
I pulled the Chevrolet-de Marigny’s spare sedan, a two-tone-brown number-into the graveled parking lot of the country club; there were a few other cars, and the lights of the clubhouse off to the right indicated activity. But at the moment, no one else was around as she stood waiting for me, on the nearby grass, unblinking, despite my approaching headlights.
I had called her earlier today-using one of several numbers the late Sir Harry had provided me-and asked to see her.
She seemed embarrassed, but said all right; the Westbourne gate was locked, she said, but I could park in the adjacent country club lot and walk over-no wall or fence separated the estate from the country club grounds. She would meet me here.
I locked the car and went over to her; a palm tree was a silhouette behind her. The moon was full. Stars glittered in a sky so clear and blue it should have been day. The breeze was balmy and scented of sea; a perfect evening, but for humidity that hung on you like a woolen overcoat.
I’d almost forgotten how pretty she was-uniquely so, with the huge dark eyes, lashes longer than even de Visdelou’s; petite nose; wide sensual mouth, full lips painted a redundant red.
The blue maid’s uniform was absent; tonight she wore a white short-sleeve blouse, a wide black buckled pirate’s belt, tropical-print skirt and sandals. I’d taken to wearing my white linen suits with sport shirts; it was nice being able to work without wearing a tie. We were as casual, and as ill at ease, as a couple on a blind date.
“Hello, Mr. Heller.”
“Hello, Miss Bristol. Thanks for seeing me.”
She gestured and the wooden bracelets on her wrists clinked. “The house, we’re keepin’ it closed up right now, while my Lady stays with friends. We could go to my cottage….”
“That would be fine, as long as it doesn’t make you…uncomfortable or anything.”
She smiled gently. “I trust you, Mr. Heller. I can tell you’re an honorable man.”
That was a new one.
“But you may not consider me very honorable.” She looked at the ground. “I promised you I wouldn’t tell anyone you were a detective.”
“And then you went and told Nancy de Marigny.”
She nodded. “I thought she deserved to know. They killed her daddy.”
“They?”
“I don’t know who. But I don’t think it was Mr. Fred. He’s many things, you know, but a killer ain’t one of them.”
“You’re probably right. Where’s your cottage?”
She pointed. “Just the other side of the tennis courts. You’re not mad at me?”
“No. But it’s starting to sound like it was your idea to have me give Nancy a hand on this.”
We were walking now, toward the tennis courts. The sound of the breeze blowing and the rush of the surf made soothing background music. Her jewelry provided the percussion.
“Maybe it was a little my idea,” she said, looking away almost shyly. “I just…knew somebody had to do somethin’, you know, and I knew Sir Harry, he hired you for all that money, and you only worked one day for it….”
“My Caribbean conscience. Are you Catholic, Miss Bristol, or Church of England, perhaps?”
“Neither. Methodist.”
“Ah. Well, whatever the case, the Christian thing to do, after getting me into this, is give me a hand.”
I thought that might make her smile, but instead her face tensed.
“I would do anything I could to help find the murderers of Sir Harry,” she said. “I know he was a rough man, but to me, he was always fair, and kind.”
“You keep referring to his killers in the plural. Why did you think there were more than one?”
Her big eyes were as wide as a naive child’s. “I saw the room. Do you think one man could do that?”
Of course, I didn’t, and it struck me that we were walking much the same path as the murderers likely had; they had probably parked in the country club lot, as well.
Her cottage was a small square white stucco building with typical Nassau shutters and a brown-tile pyramid roof; it fronted the beach, which sloped gently from the sandy grass that was her front lawn; the sand looked ivory in the moonlight, the sea a shimmering blue-gray.
“I have a teapot on the stove,” she said. “Would you care for a cup?”
“That’d be nice,” I said.
She opened the door for me and I went in. Neat as a pin, the cottage’s interior consisted of a single room and bath; the plaster walls were a subdued pink, the wooden floor covered by a braided blue-and-white oval throw rug. A kitchenette was at my right, and at left was what seemed to be a sleeping area-dresser with mirror, even a nightstand with Bakelite radio and streamlined little black-and-white clock, but no bed. Hidden against the wall to the left of the door, however, was a walnut-grain metal cabinet-a foldaway. I knew all about those. For a lot of years I slept on a Murphy bed in my office.
Despite a few rattan chairs here and there, there was no couch or sitting area, other than a round table with four captain’s chairs in the middle of the room; pink and white and yellow flowers were arranged in a bowl at its center. Homemade plank-and-brick shelving, under the window along the far wall, brimmed with books, mostly the twenty-five-cent pocketbook variety. The bookcase and its contents were the only aspect of the room (other than perhaps the flowers) that seemed hers; otherwise, this was strictly servants’ quarters, albeit pleasant enough.
She bid me sit at the round table, and I did, while she got us our tea. A paperbacked book was spread open there, saving her place: The Good Earth by Pearl Buck.
“It’s about China,” she said, as she served me a small cup of tea and put a plate of fritters before me.
“Really?” I said. I picked up one of the fritters. “Conch, again?”
She smiled as she sat and poured herself a cup. “Banana. Bet you’ve had your fill of conch.”
“Not yet. Hey, these are good.”
“Thank you. Mr. Heller…”
“Don’t you think it’s time we started using first names?”
She looked into her tea; her smile seemed shy, now. “I would like that, Nathan.”
“I’m glad, Marjorie. But you can make it Nate, if you like. That’s what my friends call me.”
“I think I like the sound of Nathan better. It has more music.”
That was a new one, too.
“Marjorie, I know you didn’t work that night….”
“The night Sir Harry was killed? I did work till ten. Sir Harry and Mr. Christie, they were playin’ Chinese checkers when I left.”
“But Samuel was working…he was the night watchman.”
She nodded. “Him and a boy named Jim.”
“The police haven’t talked to them, you know.”
She nodded again. “I know. Samuel and Jim, they took off.”
“I had the impression Samuel had been working for Sir Harry for some time, was a trusted employee….”
“He is. Or he was.” She shrugged. “He took off.”
I wondered how hard the police were trying to find Samuel. If they were trying to find him. But I sure as hell wanted a word with him.
“Marjorie-does Samuel have family or friends you could check with?”
“Yes. Friends in Nassau…family’s on Eleuthera.”
“Could you help me locate him?”
Her sigh was barely audible; she seemed reluctant. “If Samuel doesn’t want to be found, he must have a reason….”
“Exactly. I need to talk to him. What he saw the night of the murder may clear this whole thing up.”
Now she nodded, her brow knit. “I will try.”
“What about the boy named Jim?”
“Him I didn’t know too well. He was hired more recent, to guard some building materials. They’re putting up a new building at the country club, you know.”
“Could you track him down for me, too?”
“I’ll do better lookin’ for Samuel. You got to remember, Nathan, workers in these islands come and go, gettin’ work and pay by the day or even the hour.”
“But you will try.”
“I will try. I might hear things you wouldn’t.”
“I should think. That’s why I need your help.”
Her brow wrinkled. “In fact…”
“Yes?”
“There’s a rumor I been hearin’. About Lyford Cay.”
She pronounced “Cay” in the Bahamian manner: key.
“What’s Lyford Cay?” I asked.
“The west tip of New Providence-it sticks out, like an island. But it’s not an island, it’s more like…” She searched for the word, then smiled as she found it in the dictionary of her mind. “…a peninsula. Very beautiful-verdant. But it’s bein’ developed, you know.”
“Developed?”
“For houses for rich folks. Right now it’s just palm trees, beaches and plots of land they cleared, but they say, one day, there will be electric lights and phones and plumbin’ and fancy houses.”
“And whose project is this?” I asked, knowing.
“Why, Mr. Christie’s, of course.”
“Tell me about the rumor, Marjorie.”
“There’s a dock there, and a caretaker. Lyford Cay is private property.”
“I see.”
“But there’s no fence or gate yet. You can still drive right in there. Anyway, the caretaker is a local man named Arthur.”
“Colored?”
“Yes. The rumor I’ve been hearin’ is that the night of the killin’, after midnight sometime, Arthur saw a boat pull up to the dock with some white men in it. A car was waitin’ for ’em.”
“That’s an interesting rumor, all right.”
“I know Arthur. He goes to the same church as me-Wesley Church, in Grant’s Town. Or anyway, his sister does. I spoke with her, and she says her brother hasn’t talked to the police about this.”
I leaned forward. “Would he talk to you?”
“I think so. I talked to his sister this afternoon-she’s in housekeepin’ at the B.C.-and she said I could probably find him at Weary Willie’s this evening.”
“Weary Willie’s?”
“It’s a bar, over the hill.”
I stood. “Take me there.”
“Over the hill” was more than directions: it was what the area was called, south of where Government House stood on its ridge, looking the other way; in the virtual backyard of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor’s plantation-house domicile, the thatch-roofed shacks of blacks crawled up the hill like shambling invaders who would never quite make it to the top.
As the land leveled out, the houses became more substantial, but the flickering of candlelight in windows with shutters, but no glass, indicated the lack of electricity on the far side of the hill. There were no streetlights to guide a pilgrim’s progress on these dark streets littered with roadside ice stands (closed at the moment), sheltered by trees of avocado and silk cotton; but the moonlight showed off the sorrowful gaiety of the clustered houses of Grant’s Town, doused as they were with blue and red and green and pink.
I wasn’t scared, but I had the same white man’s uneasiness I experienced in Chicago whenever I ventured into Bronzeville on the South Side.
“It’s just up here,” Marjorie said, pointing, “on the right. See that fenced-off place?”
“Yeah.”
I pulled the Chevy up in front of an unpainted wooden structure with a thatch roof; over the saloon-style swinging doors a rustic-looking wooden sign bore the hand-carved words “Weary Willie’s.” There were no other cars around, but the open windows leaked laughter and babble and the general sound of people drinking.
“It is okay for a white man to go in there?”
“It’s fine,” she said, with a reassuring smile. “Tourists come here all the time-look closer at the sign.”
I looked up. Beneath “Weary Willie’s” it said: “A Glimpse of Africa in the Bahamas.”
Only there were no tourists inside, just black faces, with the whites of their eyes large and displeased at the sight of me, or maybe the sight of me with Marjorie. Day laborers in sweaty tattered clothing stood at the bar having bottles of that exotic tropical brew known as Schlitz. The round uncovered tables in this kerosene-lamp-lit, wood-and-wicker world were mostly empty, but a native man and a voluptuous, almost heavy native woman were huddled over their drinks at one, in a mating ritual that knew no race. Against the far wall, which had two African-style spears crossed on it, sat an angularly handsome, jet-black young man in a loose white shirt and tan pants and no shoes. He recognized Marjorie and she nodded and we went over to him.
“May we sit, Arthur?” Marjorie asked.
He half-rose, gestured nervously. “Go on.”
A fat barman in an apron that may have, at one time, been clean approached and took our orders; Marjorie asked for a Goombay Smash and I had the same. Arthur already had his bottle of Schlitz.
Marjorie sat forward. “This is Mr. Heller, Arthur.”
I extended my hand and he looked at it, as if it were some foreign object, then extended his. It was a firm but sweaty handshake. His eyes were both wary and troubled in his carved mask of a face.
“He’s trying to help Mr. Fred,” she explained to him.
“Mr. Fred is a good mon.” He spoke in a hushed, rich baritone. “My cousin, he works for him.”
I said, “I’d like to hear about what you saw out at Lyford Cay the night Sir Harry died.”
“I work de night shif,” he said. “In fact, I got to be out there by ten tonight. I use to fish de sponge, you know, before de fungus come.”
I tried to get him on track. “What did you see that night, Arthur?”
He shook his head. “It was a bad night, mon. Storm, it whip de island. I see one of dem fancy motorboats come in and dock, ’bout one in de mornin’. Two white mon, big ones, got off de boat-somebody else, he stay behind with dat fancy boat. It was rockin’, mon. Thought maybe it was gonna sink.”
“Did you approach them? Lyford Cay is private property, right?”
“Right-but dey was white. And I didn’t know what dey was up to, in dat storm-didn’t want to know.” He shrugged fatalistically. “Like dey say, strange t’ings happon in de carnal hours.”
“Carnal hours?” I asked.
Marjorie explained patiently. “In these islands, that’s what they call the time between dark and daylight.”
Our drinks arrived and I gave the barman a buck and told him to keep the change and made a friend. The Goombay Smash seemed to be pineapple juice and rum, mostly.
“It was rainin’ so hard,” Arthur said, “one of de mon, he slip and drop his hair.”
“His hair?”
“His hat, it fly off, his hair too-get wet in de rain.” Arthur laughed. “He chase it like a rabbit.”
One of the men was wearing a toupee, then.
“Did you notice anything else distinctive about him?”
“What?”
“Anything special or odd about his appearance. Him, or the other man?”
His eyes narrowed. “That rain, mon, was really comin’ down, you know. But dey walk right past my shed, you know. I was peekin’ through de window. The fella dat lost his hair, he had a skinny mustache, his nose was all pushed in. The other fella…he was fat, with a scar on his face.”
The back of my neck was tingling.
“What sort of scar, Arthur?”
He drew a jagged line in the air with one finger. “Like de lightning in the sky, mon-it flash across his cheek.”
Jesus Christ-were the men Arthur was describing the two bodyguards at Meyer Lansky’s table back at the Miami Biltmore?
“A car was waitin’ for dem-dey come back an hour later. Maybe longer. Got back on dat boat and go back out in de storm. Crazy, doin’ that-the sea was real ugly.”
“What sort of car was it? Did you see the driver?”
“Driver I didn’t see. What do you call dat long square car, with de extra seats?”
“A station wagon?” Marjorie asked.
He nodded confidently. “Dat’s it. It was a station wagon.”
“You didn’t happen to catch the license number did you?” I asked.
“No.”
I didn’t figure I’d be that lucky.
“Could it have been Mr. Christie’s station wagon?” Marjorie asked. Then to me, she said, “Mr. Christie, he has a car like that.”
“Maybe,” Arthur said. “It was dat kin’ of car. But I didn’t see de driver. See, I wasn’t thinkin’ about dat car so much as dat boat dat docked at Lyford Cay. I’m thinkin’, maybe dis boat don’t have no business here. So I got de registration nomber, and name on de side.”
I grinned. “Arthur, you’re a good man. You remember that name and number, by any chance? Or maybe have it with you?”
“No. But I write it down.”
“Good. That’s very good…. Did you show it to anybody? Or tell anybody-like Mr. Christie, say-what you saw that night?”
He smeared the moisture on his beer bottle with his thumb, then shook his head. “No-I got to thinkin’, if dat was Mr. Christie in dat car, he might not like me askin’ him about it.”
“You told your sister,” Marjorie reminded him.
“Oh, well, I tell a few friends. Guess that’s how the story got around.”
“But nobody you work for,” I said.
“No. More I thought about it, less I want to make a fuss. Still…knowin’ dat Sir Harry, he was killed dat same night. It makes you think.”
Yes it did.
I reached in my pants pocket and fished out a fin. I handed it to Arthur, who took it gratefully. “I work with a lawyer named Higgs,” I told him. “He’s going to want to get your deposition.”
Now he frowned. “What’s dat?”
“Your statement about what you saw.”
“I don’t know, mon….”
“Look-there’s more dough in it for you. What would you say to a hundred bucks, Arthur?”
Arthur grinned. “I say, hello.”
I laughed a little. “All right. But you got to keep quiet about this till you hear from me.”
“As a mouse, mon.”
“I’d like to see this Lyford Cay…get the layout. Why don’t I give you a ride to work, right now, and have a look around?”
He waved that off. “No-no thanks, mister. I got my bicycle. Anyway, I got to try and find dat piece of paper I wrote dat nomber and name on.”
“Okay, then-how about I meet you at the dock tomorrow night. You go on at ten, right? Is eleven okay? You could have that information ready for me, and I’ll have a time set up for you to meet with Higgs at his office, day after tomorrow.”
“Okay. Make dat an afternoon time. I sleep mornin’s.”
“Not a problem. Now, Arthur-keep all this under your hat….”
“I buy a hat and put it dere,” he promised, and grinned again, and this time he offered his hand. I shook it and Marjorie and I found our way out. By now we barely rated a glance from the native clientele. The fat bartender I tipped even waved.
Going back up and over the hill, Marjorie asked, “What do you think it means, Nathan?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.”
“Could those men Arthur saw be the killers?”
“Yes. But I have to give you the same advice I gave Arthur: not a word to anybody.”
I left the car in the country club parking lot and walked her to her cottage. Occasionally our arms would brush, and we’d move away, then eventually drift back together. We weren’t saying anything much; suddenly, with business out of the way, things had gotten awkward.
Just as I was about to say good night to her on her doorstep, feeling as shy as a teenager at the end of a first date, something scuttled across the sand, and scared the hell out of me.
She laughed. “It’s just a sand crab.”
I raised a hand to my forehead. “I know….”
Concern tightened her eyes; she touched my face with gentle fingertips, as if inspecting a burn. “You’re upset. You look sick…what is it….”
“Nothing.”
“It’s something! Tell me.”
“I have to walk a second. I need to breathe….”
She walked with me along the beach, our footsteps slowed by the sand; the rush of the tide, the beauty of the moonlight, calmed me.
“I’m all right, now,” I said.
I didn’t know how to tell her that the last time land crabs had skittered across my path, I’d been in a shell hole on another tropical island, waiting for the Japs to come and finish the job they’d started on me and the rest of the patrol….
She looped her arm in mine; she was close to me, gazing up at me. Those huge eyes were something a man could get lost in. Right now, I felt like getting lost.
I stopped in my sandy steps and she stopped, too, and I searched her eyes for permission before I took her in my arms and kissed her. Gently, but not too gently.
Oh, those lips; soft and sweet and they told me how she felt without a word.
Still in my arms, she looked past me. “We’re to Westbourne.”
The rectangular shape of the place where Sir Harry died was outlined against the sky, haloed by moonlight. We stood where Oakes and I had strolled that first day.
“We should turn back,” she said.
I agreed, and walked her home, and gave her one, brief, final kiss before she slipped inside, wearing a haunting little smile.
But somehow I think we both knew there was no turning back.