I was saved by the sudden appearance of the sprawling pink terra-cotta monstrosity that was the British Colonial Hotel, which even had a parking lot where I could leave the Buick and get back on my own two feet for a while.
The room that awaited me at the British Colonial wasn’t a suite, but it was plenty big, and seemed bigger, thanks to the light pink walls and white woodwork. It had a double bed, a chest of drawers, lots of closet space, a writing desk and a good-size bathroom. I could live here awhile.
There was also a wrought-iron balcony and an ocean view to go with it, but the white beach was near empty under the graying sky.
I unpacked, and figured I ought to get to work, but I had a couple of things to do, first. For starters, I’d only brought this one, currently sweat-soaked, suit. The guy at the front desk pointed me toward a little tailor shop near the hotel. I stopped in and from a cheerfully weary, berry-brown tailor named Lunn bought two white linen suits off the rack. He would have preferred to make them to order (promising them within two days!) but reluctantly sold me a couple in my size, sighing, “Can’t argue with you, sir! You’re a forty-two reg-nothing special!”
Story of my life.
Next stop was the Royal Bank of Canada, which seemed a fitting place to cash Sir Harry’s check; I had them wire most of it to my account at Continental Bank back home.
Off Rawson Square, I bought a Panama hat with a light brown band from a heavyset, gregarious straw lady whose cart was piled high with hats and bags and mats; she asked “fifty cent,” I argued her down to a quarter, then gave her a buck for the fun of it.
She gave me a little extra value by pointing me to a camera shop where, since every good bedroom dick needs one, I picked up a flash job, a fifteen-buck Argus with universal focus. Also some 35mm black-and-white film and bulbs.
“Don’t you want color film, sir?” the cute little Caucasian clerk asked; she had a corsagelike flower in her brunette hair. “You can catch all the beautiful colors of the island….”
“I’m going more for mood,” I said.
By the time I got back to the hotel it was nearly two p.m. and I had an armful of clothes-including two short-sleeve white shirts, four obnoxiously colorful sport shirts, some sandal-like leather shoes and three ties with painted tropical scenes-all of which would keep me in comfort and looking properly touristy.
Wearing one of my new white linen suits over a flowery sport shirt, hiding under my Panama and behind a pair of round-lensed sunglasses, I tooled my Buick down the left, remember, left-hand side of Bay Street. Most of the cars I encountered were, like the Buick, of American extraction; but now and then a Humber Snipe or Hillman would roll by in the “wrong” lane and befuddle me further, with their drivers sitting on the right. Bell-jangling surreys, donkey carts, wheel-barrows and your occasional straw-hatted native leading a goat kept traffic less than brisk; then at the east end of Bay Street, after the shopping district petered out, near the modern Fort Montagu Hotel and the old fortress the hotel was named for, was the Nassau Yacht Club.
The rambling pale yellow stucco clubhouse, while typical of Nassau’s nineteenth-century, plantation-owner-style architecture, was clearly a recent structure; its landscaped grounds, with their not-yet-tall-enough-to-be-sheltering palms, had the unspoiled, sterile look of the new.
I ambled into the clubhouse. Nobody stopped me to see if I was a member or a Jew or anything. I was almost disappointed. The bar had framed photos of famous yachts and yachtsmen, as well as a few customers and a white-jacketed bartender (in the flesh-not photos). A wall that was mostly windows looked out on the eastern harbor. I stepped outside, where I was on the edge of terraced grounds that ran down to a surprisingly modest marina where small yachts were docked.
A handful of other yachts, three to be exact, were clustered out on the water, presumably racing. Not having ever been to a yacht race, I couldn’t be sure. Perhaps one of them was de Marigny’s Concubine.
None of them seemed to be going very fast; there was a breeze of sorts, but it wasn’t cooperative. The sky was gun-metal gray now, the ocean a rippling sea of molten lead. The white boats and their white sails seemed trapped in the wrong seascape.
Back in the bar, I took a stool and asked for a rum and Coke.
The bartender was a blond young man of perhaps twenty-four. “Are you a member, sir?”
Finally! I showed him Sir Harry’s card, and he smiled, raised his eyebrows and said, “Allow the Nassau Yacht Club to buy you a drink, sir. Could I recommend our special rum punch?”
“Yes to both.”
He served it up in a round red glass with fruit in it; I tossed the fruit aside and sipped the punch-it was bitter with lime, sweet with brown sugar.
What do you think?” the kid asked.
“Delicious and deadly.”
He shrugged. “That’s Nassau to a tee.”
I turned on the stool and looked idly out the windows. “Racing today?”
“Our little weekly regatta. Not much of a turnout…lousy weather. They’ll be lucky not to get caught out in it.”
“Is that fella de Martini racing?”
“De Marigny you mean? Yeah. Sure.”
“I hear he’s quite a character. Real ladies’ man.”
The kid shrugged, rubbed the bar with his rag. “I don’t know about that. But he’s a hell of a yachtsman.”
“Really?”
“Really. He’s won all sorts of cups, including the Bacardi-and he’s only been at it four or five years. He ought to be in in a few minutes. Would you like to meet him?”
“No thanks,” I said.
Instead I nursed my rum punch and waited for de Marigny’s race to end.
Mine was just about to begin.
5
When de Marigny entered the clubhouse, he was chatting with two young male club members (possibly his crew), but there was no mistaking him: he was six three, easily, with dark, slicked-back hair and a well-trimmed Vandyke beard; slender, muscular, he wore a polo shirt with the arms of a pale yellow sweater tied around his neck like a clinging lover. I hate that.
On the other hand, despite Sir Harry’s unflattering description, I’d assumed the Count would be handsome-most gigolos are-but de Marigny had big ears, a prominent nose and fleshy lips. If you were casting Legend of Sleepy Hollow, it would be a close call as to whether to give de Marigny the role of Ichabod Crane or his horse.
He did carry himself well, with confidence, affable if arrogant, and his two friends seemed hypnotized by his discourse. I couldn’t make out his words, but he had a thick Charles Boyer French accent, which I suppose some women might find charming. Not being a woman, I couldn’t be sure.
He seemed headed for the bar, so I tossed a quarter tip on the counter, slipped away before the bartender could introduce me, and went out to wait in the Buick.
Apparently de Marigny had a drink or two, because it was fifteen minutes later before he emerged from the clubhouse, still in his yachting togs but minus his sycophants, and strolled to a black Lincoln Continental. I wondered if Sir Harry’s daughter Nancy had bought it for him.
Beyond Fort Montagu, aping the curve of the island, East Bay Street became the eastern road, along which were fabulous oceanside mansions on land Harold Christie had most likely sold rich foreigners, and/or rumrunners. But de Marigny took a right, away from this affluence and into the boondocks, and I followed.
The same bushes and trees that so carefully adorned the grounds of wealthy estates grew wild here, pines and palms and bushes with red berries crowding each other alongside the narrow dirt road, like spectators eager for a look.