Casinos finally did come to the Bahamas, but not until Castro’s coming to power in Cuba made it necessary for Meyer Lansky and his business associates to seek new venues. In 1963, after generous “consultant’s fees” were paid to various prominent Bahamian politicians, a casino opened on Lucayan Beach on Grand Bahama island. The FBI tracked the deliveries of the large amounts of cash from this first Bahamian casino to a man in Florida. That man was Meyer Lansky.
But the American press got hold of mob involvement in Bahamian casinos, and the scandal that followed finally ended white-minority, Bay Street Pirate rule in Nassau; the black-dominated Progressive Liberal Party came into power in 1967 and has been there ever since.
Of course, gambling has been there, too. A casino was even built on the former site of Westbourne, and Hog Island-sold by Axel Wenner-Gren to Huntington Hartford in 1961 in a twenty-million-dollar deal arranged by Harold Christie-became Paradise Island, home to high-rise hotels and glittering casinos.
Eventually Meyer Lansky became, as had Alfred de Marigny for too long a time, a man without a country: faced with federal indictments, he left the U.S.A. for Israel, which despite generous cash contributions eventually turned him away; after stops in Switzerland and South America, Lansky returned to the States, but was acquitted. He died in Miami Beach, just another retired business executive, in 1983.
One of the things that amazed me over the years, as I followed from a distance the fortunes and foibles of those involved in the Oakes case, was how seldom Axel Wenner-Gren’s name turned up anywhere. His public stance was that of philanthropist; however, one of his research foundations was (and is) devoted to the study of eugenics.
In 1960, a stewardess I was seeing invited me to fly with her to Nassau on some free tickets for a long weekend of (this is how she put it) “funning and sunning on the beach, and fucking and sucking wherever.” It was a sincere invitation, and I accepted. If this sounds like a low-life response to a vulgar suggestion, keep in mind I was fifty-five and she was twenty-seven, and how many more offers like that could I hope to get?
Out of either nostalgia or habit, I got reservations at the B.C. It hadn’t changed much, and in fact was looking a little long in the tooth; but then, so was I. One evening, after my stewardess friend (whose name was Kelly and who had green eyes and blond hair in a Jackie Kennedy cut) had kept her promises, we dined at the Jungle Club, which hadn’t seemed to change a bit from when Higgs brought me here, over a decade and a half ago.
We dined in the shade of indoor palms under a thatched umbrella at a green table, enjoying conch chowder and a meal that included grouper and a pepper pot, and one of the sweet young saronged things came over and said, “Are you Mr. Heller?”
“Yes?”
“A gentleman would like to speak to you.”
The waitress pointed to a table across the way.
“Oh. Okay.”
I didn’t recognize him at first-and why should I? I’d never met him, really.
He stood, as I approached, and smiled in a disarmingly boyish manner for a big, older man: fleshy, pink-faced, his hair stark white, eyebrows wispy and all but invisible, a soft oval face with a nose enlarged with age and small wet eyes peering from flesh pouches. He was casually dressed, in a pink-and-white short-sleeve sport shirt and white slacks. He looked sturdy for a man pushing eighty, but he also looked like a man pushing eighty.
“Ah, Mr. Heller!” he said in a melodious voice touched with what I took for a Scandinavian accent. “At long last.”
Who the hell was this guy? I studied him, knowing I’d seen him somewhere before.
Seated at his table was a dark-haired handsome young man in a cream-color suit with a dark tie. He looked vaguely familiar, too, but not as familiar as my old friend who was extending his hand, which I shook. It was a firm handshake, despite his age.
Then I remembered.
I remembered the benignly, blandly smiling portrait above the fireplace, among the Inca masks, in the round living room.
“Axel Wenner-Gren,” I said numbly.
“This is my friend Huntington Hartford,” he said, gesturing to the handsome younger man, who smiled tightly at me, and we shook hands. “Please sit with us.”
I did.
“How did you know who I was?” I asked. “We never met.”
“I’ve seen your picture in the newspapers, many times. So many interesting, important cases you’ve been involved with! You should write a book.”
“Maybe after I retire.”
“Ah, you’re much too young to even think of retiring. Me, I’m beginning to divest myself of material concerns. My friend, Hunt, here, is trying to talk me into selling him Shangri La.”
“You still live there?”
Wenner-Gren smiled and shrugged; his manner was avuncular. “Winters, only.”
His dinner guest-the A amp;P heir who was worth fifty to seventy million, roughly-excused himself and rose. I wondered if that was prearranged.
Still smiling, Wenner-Gren leaned in and he patted my hand; his hand was cold. Like a goddamn ice pack.
“I have kept track of you, over the years. From time to time, you speak of the Oakes case, don’t you? To the press.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“It will never be reopened, you know. Some foolish people tried, last year, unsuccessfully. Even now, that whole matter is an embarrassment to the Bahamas and to England, as well.”
“I know.”
“Then why continue discussing the case? I’m just curious.”
“It’s good publicity. I mention the Lindbergh case, too, sometimes. That’s why I have branch offices all over the country, now. Back in Chicago, we call it capitalism.”
He smiled, more to himself; no teeth, just bloodshot apple cheeks. “You’re an amusing man. You have a reputation for a rough wit.”
“I also have a reputation for leaving well enough alone.”
He nodded. “Very wise. How very wise. You know…” And he patted my hand again. Cold! “I’ve wanted to thank you, for so many years.”
“Thank me?”
Now his face was somber as he nodded again. “For…eliminating that problem.”
“What problem?”
He licked his lips. “Lady Medcalf.”
I didn’t say anything. I was shaking a little. This smiling eighty-year-old philanthropist had me shaking.
“I know what you did,” he said, “and I’m grateful. And it gives me great pleasure to finally let you know, personally, that she was acting on her own devices.”
I nodded.
Then he smiled broadly. “Well, here comes Hunt again. Mr. Heller, I’ll let you get back to that charming young lady. Your daughter?”
“No.”
He beamed. “Isn’t that nice! Good evening, Mr. Heller.”
I said something or other, nodded at both of them, and walked numbly back to the table.
“Who was that?” Kelly asked.
“The devil,” I said.
“Oh, Heller-you’re so bad!”
“What did you say?”
She looked at me curiously. “I don’t know. What did I say?”
“Nothing. Nothing.”
She wanted to stay to watch the limbo contest, but I wanted out of there. That was the last weekend I spent with that particular stewardess; seemed I hadn’t been much fun, on our little getaway, after a certain point.
Axel Wenner-Gren died of cancer a year later. His fortune was estimated at over one billion dollars.
It wasn’t till 1972 that I got back to the Bahamas, this time with a woman closer to my own age, who I happened to be married to. In fact, it was our honeymoon and my wife-second wife, actually-had always wanted to see the Bahamas.