Palms rustled gently in the sultry night breeze. The sky was a clear dark blue, aglitter with stars, like handfuls of diamonds carelessly scattered on a taut satin sheet; the sliver of silver moon hung like a sideways, Cheshire-cat smile. Ice clinked in fruit-bedecked cocktail glasses while the wind whispered warm tropical kisses. It might have been an idyllic evening in the Bahamas, only I was in Coral Gables, Florida, seated at a table for two in the outdoor dance patio of the Miami Biltmore, where Ina Mae Hutton and her “all-girl” Melodears were playing a bouncy instrumental version of “Pistol Packin’ Mama.”
Up under the red-and-white stage canopy, Ina Mae, a pretty blonde in a slinky red gown, was swinging a mean baton. She and her musicians were indeed “all-girl,” though many of the formerly all-male bands these days had women sprinkled throughout, particularly in the string sections.
I wondered if Miss Hutton, and tonight’s headline act, might be a little hep for this somewhat over-the-hill crowd. The audience on this perfect Florida Saturday night was mostly middle-aged and older, although a few sailors on leave with their girls were mixed in, so some wild, throw-her-over-the-shoulder jitterbugging was going on here and there, challenging even the pulchritudinous Melodears for public attention.
Maybe it was the man shortage, or maybe it was just money, but there were a number of older men with younger women here this starlit night, and one such couple-seated ringside-particularly caught my eye. The redhead was petite and pretty and twentyish, slimly attractive in a green gown; twice her age, her well-dressed sugar daddy had close-set eyes, a lined face, a weak chin and a tan from God. He was also small, almost as small as she was.
A fairly ordinary businessman type, he wouldn’t have caught my eye, despite the dame, if it hadn’t been for the burly bookends seated on either side of them: bodyguards. Was this nondescript little businessman connected? Probably. This was Florida, after all. No shortage of oranges, bathing beauties or mobsters.
Once the Al Dexter tune had abated, and the applause, Ina Mae spoke over a timpani roll, introducing the featured performer of the evening.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the little lady who made so many fans with her own famous fans, first at the Chicago World’s Fair, and more recently, the San Francisco Golden Gate Exposition on Treasure Island…direct from her command performance before the Duke and Duchess of Windsor in Nassau…Miss Sally Rand!”
To the big-band strains of “Clair de Lune,” she slipped from behind the stage out onto the dance floor, fluttering the enormous pink ostrich plumes, her steps mincing, her smile sweet, blond curls shimmering to bare shoulders, a pink flower in her hair. Applause greeted her, and she acknowledged it with a shy smile, as she began her graceful dance. She moved like the ballerina she was, granting fleeting glimpses of white flesh (no body stocking for Helen, not even at forty) to tommy-gun bursts of enthusiastic clapping. Her pirouettes, as she stood poised on the toes of her high-heeled pumps, saw her caressing the feather fans, like a lover; she seemed lost in a trance, as if unaware anyone was watching.
Of course, they were-many of the men with that agape expression that gets them kicked under the table. Although Sally Rand was, as she’d said, respectable now; a show-business legend, an American institution, her sweet, naughty, only slightly erotic performance pleasing even the ladies.
I’d seen her many times-this, as well as her equally famed bubble dance; she alternated them, doing several shows an evening, although wartime curfew and liquor-sale restrictions had the show closing at midnight, after the required playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” I never tired of watching her, though, and she never seemed to tire of being watched-she had that uncanny star ability to make each audience feel she was performing something unique and just for them, something no one else had ever seen.
The performance lasted a mere eight minutes, but when she lifted her fans high in her famed Winged Victory pose, breasts high and bare, lifting a leg coyly to keep one small secret-one she had, happily, shared with me many a time-the Biltmore crowd, over-the-hill or not, went wild.
She covered herself with her fans and took several bows, giving the delighted audience the sort of warm, intimate smile that would make them remember this evening. Then she fluttered coyly out, making herself the center of a sandwich of the two plumes as she did. Intentionally comical, it got a nice laugh that eased any lingering sexual tension.
I sipped my rum and Coke and waited for Helen; this had been her last show of the evening. Tomorrow, or maybe Monday, I would head back for Chicago. What the hell, I could afford to lay back and loaf a little: I’d just hauled eleven thousand bucks ashore, for my little Nassau sojourn.
Actually, I really only worked one day, but several more had got eaten up by questioning and such. I had given my deposition to the Attorney General himself, in one of those pink colonial buildings off Rawson Square.
Attorney General Eric Hallinan was a long-faced, long-nosed, dour Britisher with a tiny mustache and eyes that mingled boredom and distaste, even as he thanked me for my cooperation.
“You’ll be asked to return for the trial, of course,” he told me, “at the expense of the Bahamian government.”
“What trial?”
“Alfred de Marigny’s,” Hallinan said, quietly smiling, as if savoring the words.
It seemed the Count had been arrested, on the say-so of the two Miami dicks. Their investigation had lasted less than two days-I wondered if they had anything on him, besides a few singed hairs and me placing him near the scene of the crime.
Helen had done me the courtesy of sticking around through all this, and even talked me into doing some Bahamas-style sight-seeing, including taking a glass-bottomed boat ride to view those Botanical Gardens Miss Bristol had recommended. Watching a bunch of exotic-looking fish swim around amidst exotic-looking coral may not have been my cup of chowder, but it beat hell out of staring at the walls of my room at the British Colonial.
I repaid Helen by agreeing to keep her company for a few days at the Miami Biltmore, during her engagement that opened midweek. I’d have had a better time if the horses and dogs had been running, but we played a little golf, sat on the sand so I could take a tan home with me (Helen hid her precious white skin under a beach umbrella), and, well, reminisced.
When Helen returned from backstage, she came around through the hotel; wearing a floral sarong-style dress, she was a knockout, but few people recognized her, out of the spotlight, as anything but another of Florida’s many beautiful women: her makeup was toned down and the long, platinum-blond tresses were gone, a wig left behind in her dressing room, her own darker blond locks tucked up in a braided bun.
As she skirted the edge of ringside, heading for our little table, high heels clicking, she was recognized by one customer: that little businessman with the redhead and the bodyguards. Helen stopped and chatted with him for some time; she didn’t sit, but he rose, politely, and they seemed to know each other.
It was all very cordial, and when he gestured for her to join him, causing the redhead’s eyes to tighten, Helen gave the little man a wide, gracious smile and declined.
I pulled the chair out for her and she sat. “Who’s your friend?” I asked.
“Are you kidding?” she grinned. She withdrew a pack of Camels from her clutch purse. “I figured you guys must go way back.”
So he was a mobster.
“He isn’t from Chicago,” I said. “So he isn’t Outfit. East Coast?”
“East Coast,” she said, nodding, amused. She blew out smoke. “That’s Meyer Lansky, Heller.”
“No kidding.” I let out a soft laugh. “So that little monkey-faced shrimp is the New York syndicate’s financial wizard….”
I glanced over at him, trying not to be obvious, and I’ll be damned if he wasn’t looking over toward me. Or us. I hoped it was Helen he was gazing at, but somehow I didn’t think so, because his two brawny bodyguards were leaning over in conference with him, and were also glancing my way.
I hoped Lansky didn’t read lips.
Whatever, I didn’t watch them watching me. I told Helen how much I’d enjoyed her show, to which she said, Oh, you’ve seen it a million times, and I said, It never gets old for me, and it went on like that for a while.
“Sure didn’t take you long to add the Duke and Duchess to your intro,” I said.
“When did you ever know me to miss a beat, Heller?”
A waiter approached and I was about to order another rum and Coke when he said, “The gentleman would like to see you.”
Somehow I knew what gentleman he meant.
I glanced over at Lansky and he smiled a wide, tight, not unpleasant smile and nodded.
My stomach sank.
“Looks like I’ve been summoned,” I said.
Helen blew a smoke ring through kissy lips. “Try to behave yourself.”
“I may have a smart mouth,” I said, “but I know when to play dumb,”
I wandered over, and on my way, a gorgeous brunette who looked like Merle Oberon but prettier gazed at me intensely. She had luscious lips painted blood-red and large, widely spaced brown eyes that bored through you. Her chin was raised patricianly; her hair-which had auburn highlights-was up. She wore a black pants suit with a white shirt underneath, top two or three buttons undone, the mannishness of the outfit offset by the pink swell of her bosom.
She smiled warmly. Sitting alone at a table for two….
I nodded as I went past, returned the smile. My God, I was popular tonight!
As I approached, Lansky rose. “Mr. Heller?”
He was impeccably dressed: that tailored brown suit had set him back three C’s easy, and that white silk shirt hadn’t come in a Cracker Jack box, either. His tie was green and brown and wide and tasteful. There was none of the flashy jewelry so many mobsters affected.
“Mr. Lansky?” I said.
His smile seemed genuine; he was one of those homely men whose smile transformed him. Like Harold Christie, he could turn on the charm.
“I hope you don’t mind my imposing,” he said. His voice was surprisingly rich and resonant for so small a man. “But I know you by reputation, and wanted to pay my respects.”
Meyer Lansky, paying his respects to me? At least it wasn’t over a coffin.
“You’re…very kind.”
“Please join us,” he said, and gestured to an empty chair.
I sat across from him.
“This is Miss Schwartz. Teddie. She’s my manicurist.”
“A pleasure,” I said.
Miss Schwartz nodded to me and smiled politely. Nice-looking girl-not a moll by any means. And Lansky did have nice nails….
He didn’t bother introducing the two bodyguards; they were just fixtures, like potted palms. Only these potted palms had eyes, and were keeping them trained on yours truly. They wore identical dark suits that hadn’t cost three hundred per (but then neither had mine), with bulges under their left shoulders that I didn’t figure were tumors.
One of them, big in both the tall and wide sense, wore a bad toupee and a hairline mustache that was out of date ten years ago; his eyes were small and wide-set and stupid, and his nose was flattened. A former pug.
The other one, not as tall but even wider, had a round face, curly brown hair, sweet-potato nose, slitted eyes and a white, lightning-bolt scar on the left cheek. Probably not a dueling scar-unless maybe it was a duel with broken beer bottles.
They were looking at me with open suspicion and near-contempt. Okay, so I wasn’t popular with everybody tonight.
“Lovely night,” Lansky said. “The Biltmore’s a first-rate hotel.”
Actually, it was a rambling haciendalike affair, looming behind us; the big attraction was sports-the lawn was a putting green.
“Last time I stayed here,” I said, “was back in ‘33.”
His smile was wide. “Really? What was the occasion?”
“I was one of Mayor Cermak’s bodyguards.”
He grunted sympathetically. “That didn’t work out too well.”
What he was referring to was that Mayor Cermak had been assassinated.
“Well,” I said, “I usually leave that off my resume.”
He chuckled. Miss Schwartz was watching the stage, where Ina Mae and her Melodears were getting started again; this time they were doing “I’ll Never Smile Again,” which had couples clutching desperately out on the dance floor.
“Can I order you a drink?” he asked, gesturing with his own glass.
“No thanks. I shouldn’t stay away from Helen long.”
“Helen?”
“Sally. Helen’s her real name. We go back a ways.”
“Ah. That’s nice. Long-term relationships…they’re valuable. How was Nassau?”
The question hit me like the sucker punch it was.
“Pardon?” I managed.
For a guy with such a nice smile, he sure had cold hard dead eyes. “Nassau. I understand you were doing a job there.”
“I, uh…didn’t know it was common knowledge.”
“Miss Rand mentioned it. You wouldn’t have heard anything about the Sir Harry Oakes killing, would you?”
Another sucker punch that landed!
“Uh…why’s that, Mr. Lansky?” I asked, mind reeling, trying not to show the blow’s effects.
He squinted in thought. “Well, it’s just the Duke of Windsor is censoring all information out of the island, and if that fellow Christie hadn’t called some newspaper friend of his, and spilled the beans beforehand, nothing would have leaked out.”
One of the first people Christie had called, after finding Oakes, was Etienne Dupuch, publisher of the Nassau Tribune, both because he was a friend and because he and Sir Harry were supposed to meet him that morning. To look at those sheep grazing on the golf course….
And Dupuch had put some very basic facts about the crime on the wire before the government ban lowered.
“Actually,” I said, “I think that gag order was lifted a couple days ago. You probably know as much as I do, from just reading the papers.”
His smile was enigmatic; also, creepy as hell. “I doubt that. I understand you were doing a job for Sir Harry himself.”
How the hell did he know that? Would Helen have spilled that much? Why did Meyer Lansky care about Sir Harry Oakes? “I was, but it got cut short by the murder.”
He was nodding in interest, but his eyes were so damn expressionless. “Well, that’s really something. Isn’t that something Teddie?”
Miss Schwartz nodded, paying no attention.
“So-tell us what the papers haven’t. How exactly did Sir Harry Oakes die?”
Maybe Lansky was just curious-the press was all over the case, after all….
“It was kind of grisly, Mr. Lansky. I really don’t think it makes for suitable conversation over cocktails.”
He was nodding again. He didn’t press. “Certainly. I understand. I understand. At any rate, I just wanted to say hello. We have mutual friends, you know.”
“I’m sure we do.”
He reached over and patted my hand; his was cold. Like a dead man’s hand. “And I wanted to express my condolences to you over the loss of one of those mutual friends. I know you were close to Frank. And he thought highly of you.”
“Thank you,” I said.
He meant Frank Nitti. I’d done some favors for Capone’s successor, and he for me, and the mistaken notion had grown up that I was in the Outfit’s pocket. Sometimes that came in handy; sometimes it damn near got me killed.
And tonight it put me, uneasily, at Meyer Lansky’s table for a few minutes.
“This fellow de Marigny,” he said, shifting back suddenly to his favorite topic, “do you think he did it?”
“Maybe. There was no love lost between Sir Harry and him, and the Count’s wife stands to inherit millions.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Sounds like a murder motive to me. I understand the Miami police are handling the case.”
“If you want to call it that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing,” I said. Barker and Melchen were pals of his, for all I knew; better to keep my opinions to myself.
“Well,” he said, with a twitch of a smile, “I’ll let you get back to the lovely Miss Rand. You know, she hasn’t aged a day since the Streets of Paris.”
That was where Helen had danced at the Century of Progress.
“I’m afraid that’s more than I can say,” I said. I’d aged a year since sitting down. “Good evening, Miss Schwartz. Thanks for the hospitality, Mr. Lansky.”
“I’m sure we’ll meet again.”
“I hope so,” I lied.
The two potted palms looked at me, coldly, and I walked back toward our table as Lansky and Miss Schwartz headed out to dance to “Tangerine.”
I risked a look at the beautiful brunette, who stood and said, “Could I have a moment?”
I stopped. My tongue felt thick as those steaks I used to eat before the war. “Certainly.”
“I wondered if I might speak to you,” she said. Her voice was a rich alto; but she was young. Sophisticated as she looked, she couldn’t be much older than nineteen.
“Well…sure.”
Despite the strength of her eyes, she had a vulnerable look. “I wondered if you might join me.”
“I’m afraid I’m with someone….”
“I know. I meant, in my room.”
I mean, popular.
“I’m sorry,” I said, not believing my ears, “but I just can’t. I’m with someone….”
She pressed a slip of paper into my hand; hers was warm. The tips of her lovely, tapering fingers were painted the same blood red as her lipstick.
“Tomorrow morning, then,” she said. “Ten o’clock.”
And she picked up her purse and swept away from the table, disappearing into the hotel.
A tall drink of water. Nice shape on her. Someday Elizabeth Taylor was going to grow up and look almost that good….
“Well,” Helen said, just a little icily, “you’re certainly popular tonight.”
“Helen,” I said, sitting down, “did you mention to Meyer Lansky that I just got in from Nassau?”
She was genuinely surprised. “Why, no. We didn’t talk about you at all. I’m sure you’re disappointed….”
“No. Worried.” I unfolded the slip of paper and had a look.
“Heller…what’s wrong? You turned white!”
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered.
“What?”
“I’ve got a date tomorrow morning.”
She laughed; blew smoke. “Well, I’m not surprised.”
“With Nancy Oakes de Marigny,” I said.