I risked touching his plaid sleeve. “Harry-there isn’t much to be done about unfortunate sons-in-law.”
His nostrils flared. “This one there is!” His eyes narrowed and his thin mouth curled in a sneer as he leaned near me, conspiratorially. “My daughter is spending the summer with her mother in Bar Harbor, studying dance or some damn fool thing. And do you know what that fucking alley-cat frog is doing every night, while his wife is away?”
“No.”
He reared his head back and bellowed, “Chasing pussy!”
As I removed one shoe and poured sand out of it, I wondered if all baronets of the British Empire were so eloquent.
He clutched my arm; his grip was a vise. “I want you to get the goods on the smooth-talking bastard!”
“The goods?”
He spoke through a tight smile, vicious little teeth clenched. “I want you to give me a stack of pornographic photos, starring that phony count, that I can spread out in front of my daughter and make her faint dead away.”
Oakes cackled at his own brilliant plan, while I silently nominated him Father of the Year.
“Mr. Oakes…Sir Harry…I don’t normally do this kind of work….”
He scowled at me-although with his mug, it wasn’t that easy to tell. “Don’t go all high-minded on me, Heller. I checked up on you. I know your reputation.” He thumped my chest with a thick finger again. “Why in hell do you think I called you in?”
I pushed the air with two open palms. “That’s not it-my agency thrives on divorce work. I just don’t do it myself.” I thumped my own chest. “I’m the president of my agency, Mr. Oakes….”
He snorted a laugh. “Well, hell, man-Sir Harry Oakes doesn’t want some low-level assistant-I want the top man! Would you send Henry fucking Ford your office boy?”
“Of course not, Sir Harry….”
He put a hand on my shoulder. “Just Harry, Nate.”
“Fine. But why didn’t you just use somebody local? Why go all the way to Chicago for-”
“There are only two private investigators in Nassau, Nate-both well known by ‘Count’ Alfred de Marigny. You, on the other hand, ought to be able to blend in with the tourists and military personnel and American airfield engineers…the soldiers and sailors lots of times don’t wear their uniforms off duty, you know.”
“Well…”
He stood, planted his feet in the sand like a statue. “What will it take to get you to do the job, Heller?”
I got up, brushing the sand off my ass. “Frankly, I assumed this would be corporate work, or I’d have sent one of my operatives….”
“How much, sir?”
I shrugged; pulled a figure out of the air. A high one. “Three hundred a day and expenses.”
Sir Harry shrugged back, and gestured toward his house. “How does a ten-thousand-dollar, nonrefundable retainer sound? Payable right now?”
“Fine,” I said quickly, astounded. “It sounds just fine….”
“I’ll make you out a check,” he said. “I don’t think you’ll have any trouble cashing it….”
4
Marjorie Bristol was waiting on the porch, looking crisp and cheery in her blue linen dress, hands folded before her as if she were holding an invisible bouquet. The wide-brimmed straw hat was gone and revealed dark kinky hair cut boyishly short on a beautifully shaped head.
“I heat up a little lunch for Mr. Heller,” she said.
“Good girl,” Sir Harry said, slapping his thigh with his hat. “Has Harold stopped by yet?”
“Yes, Sir Harry. He’s waitin’ in the billiard room.”
Sir Harry turned to me and offered me his hand; we hadn’t shaken before but his powerful, callused grip came as no surprise. His weather-beaten, deeply lined face cracked in what was, technically at least, a smile.
“I’ll leave you to the charming head of my household staff,” he said, and bowed a little-he was a baronet, after all. He was heading inside when he called back to me: “Stop and see me before you go…I’ll make out that check!”
Then he was gone.
“Miss Bristol,” I said, “lunch really isn’t necessary…”
“I already heat it up. Nothin’ fancy-just yesterday’s turtle soup and some conk fritters.”
She directed me to sit on a rattan chair, and put a black-topped, rattan-legged tray table before me; she disappeared, briefly, and returned with a tray bearing a bowl of steaming, aromatic soup on a plate with small, round, irregular fritters. There was also a cloth napkin, gleaming silverware and a tall glass of iced tea garnished with mint leaves.
I tasted the soup and it was very good. I told her so. “You don’t do the cooking here, do you, Miss Bristol?”
The sky had turned overcast; the sea looked as moody as it did endless.
“No. The cook, she’s out buyin’ things for a little party Sir Harry’s havin’ tonight.”
I sipped my iced tea. “No lunch for your boss?”
“Sir Harry and his friend Mr. Christie are goin’ to have a bite at the country club.”
I noticed I hadn’t been asked along. “Why don’t you join me, Miss Bristol?”
“That wouldn’t be right. You enjoy yourself, Mr. Heller…I’ll be in the kitchen when you’re done….”
“No you won’t! Pull up a chair and sit down. Keep me company.”
“Well…” She thought it over. I knew the hired help-particularly the colored hired help-wasn’t supposed to eat with the guests-particularly the white guests (as if there were any other kind at Westbourne). But I wasn’t asking her to eat with me…just sit and keep me company….
She did.
“A storm is comin’,” she said.
“Really? It doesn’t look that overcast.”
“Smell the air. It’s comin’.”
To me the air was just sea-salty fresh; and I was just glad to finally have something resembling a breeze blowing in.
“How many people are on the household staff, Miss Bristol?”
“Five-three inside, two out. You met Samuel. He’s a handy-man and night watchman. All-round good fella. And there’s another watchman. Also a maid who does the household things. Cook, I already mention. And me, I look after Sir Harry and Lady Eunice.”
“How?”
She shrugged. “Help ’em keep their schedules. Put out their clothes in the morning, their night things out at night. Many things.”
“Almost a secretary.”
She smiled; she liked that. “Almost. I’m always tryin’ to be versatile.”
“Miss Bristol-if you don’t mind my asking…where did you go to school?”
She seemed surprised-and pleased-that I’d asked; she hugged a knee as she sat. “Right here in Nassau. I graduate from Government High School.”
“Good for you. Any college?”
She almost winced. “No. There’s no college here…. I have a brother, he is very smart, you know. We hope he’ll go to college someday-in the United States, they have colleges for Negroes.”
“Yes they do. I would’ve sworn you’d been to one.”
She lowered her eyes; this was the first she’d seemed at all shy. “I just like to read, Mr. Heller. I like books, you know.” Then she raised those deep brown eyes and her lashes fluttered and she said, “I think ignorance is the most evil thing. Don’t you?”
The sky seemed more overcast; maybe she was right-maybe a storm was coming.
“Well, Miss Bristol…I’m afraid evil’s a bigger thing than even ignorance. But ignorance probably has hurt more people than greed or jealousy or even war. I’m kind of in the anti-ignorance business myself.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You’re not a teacher, are you?”
“No. I’m a detective.”
That surprised her. “Really? Police?”
“No, I guess I’m what people insist on calling a private eye.”
She lit up. “Like Humphrey Bogart?”
I laughed. “Not quite. Look, I’ve said more than I should. We’re getting into Sir Harry’s business now, I’m afraid. I’m sorry, Miss Bristol…”