Olds didn’t have to introduce Doris to Isabel, because with the Olds’ baby-sitting Thalia at their home on that ammo-depot island out at Pearl, Isabel had been a frequent visitor.
“Thanks for helping me out,” I said to Olds.
“Not a problem,” Olds said. “Anything to help Thalia. She’s on the Alton tonight, by the way, playing bridge with Tommie, Mrs. Fortescue, and either Lord or Jones, Jones I think.”
Honey, we’re having the conspirators over for cards!
Brother.
I had told Olds out at Pearl Harbor yesterday that I needed to talk to a number of Tommie’s fellow officers, but that I hated to do it under Admiral Stirling’s nose. Was there somewhere more informal, where I might be able to get looser, straighter answers out of them?
He had suggested stopping by the Ala Wai on Saturday night.
“Why Saturday?” I’d asked him.
“Saturday night is Navy Night at the Ala Wai. Kanaka locals know to stay away. So do enlisted men. Strictly junior officers and their wives, out dancing and dining and drinking. They can’t afford the dining rooms at the Royal Hawaiian or Moana, you know, where the upper ranks go. But the food at the Ala Wai is passable and affordable, the music’s loud, the lights are low. What else would a Navy man ask?”
Olds had agreed to meet me and introduce me to some of his—and Tommie’s—friends. The way flasks of liquor and local moonshine were passed around freely, he assured me, I’d find my subjects well lubricated and talkative.
“Besides,” Olds had said, “if you’re going to question them about the night Thalia was raped, what better place to talk to them than the place where they spent that very evening?”
He’d had a point, but now that I was here, I wasn’t so sure it’d been a good idea. The loud music, the crowded dance floor, the smoky heat…none of it seemed all that conducive to conducting interviews, even informal ones.
The level of activity here was just this side of frantic: on the dance floor, there was continual cutting in during songs and swapping of partners at the end of them; men and women (seldom couples) were table-hopping, the laughter shrill and drunken. The smudgy shadows of couples necking could be seen in booths and corners, and there was fairly bold pawing going on, on the dance floor.
“You sailor boys sure know how to have a good time,” I said.
“A lot of us go way back.”
“You’re the oldest one here, Pop—and you ain’t thirty. How the hell far back can they go?”
Olds shrugged. “Annapolis. Every Saturday night at the Ala Wai is like a damn class reunion, Nate. You gotta understand something, about sub duty…you risk your life every day down there, crowded into those unventilated cramped metal coffins. Any second you can sink to the bottom, no warning, no hope of rescue. Hardship like that breeds loyalty among men, forges friendships deeper than family.” He shook his head. “Hard to explain to a civilian.”
“Like it’s hard to explain why Jones and Lord helped Mrs. Fortescue and Tommie snatch Joe Kahahawai?”
Olds looked at me like he wasn’t sure whose side I was on; of course, neither was I.
“Something like that,” he said.
“Is Bradford here?”
“That’s him, there.” Olds nodded toward the dance floor. “With the little blonde. That’s Red Rigby’s wife.”
Dark-haired, slender, blandly handsome, Lt. Jimmy Bradford was doing the Charleston with a good-looking blonde. He was grinning at her and she was grinning back.
“You guys ever dance with your own wives?”
Olds grinned. “Maybe on our anniversaries.”
“Is that why, that night, Tommie didn’t notice Thalia was missing till one A.M., when the party was shutting down and it was time to go home?”
A disappointed frown creased his friendly face. “That’s not fair, Nate.”
“I’m just trying to make sense out of this. Thalia and Tommie come to Navy night for the weekly party, Thalia claims she leaves at eleven-thirty, and it’s an hour and a half later before Tommie notices his lifemate is gone.”
“He noticed a lot earlier than that.”
“When did he notice, Pop?”
Olds shrugged; he didn’t look at me. “After that little fuss.”
“What little fuss?”
Doris chimed in, giggly: “When Thalia got slap-happy.”
“Zip it,” Olds snapped at her, shooting daggers.
But I pressed. “What do you mean, Doris? What are you talking about?”
Doris, wincing with hurt feelings, shook her head no and gulped at her oke-spiked glass of Coke.
“Pop,” I said quietly, “if you don’t level with me, I can’t help Tommie.”
He sighed, shrugged. “Thalia just had a little argument with somebody and went storming off. Nobody I know of remembers seeing her after that—it was maybe eleven-thirty, eleven-thirty-five at the time.”
“Argument with who?”
“Lt. Stockdale. Ray Stockdale.”
“Is he here? That’s one guy I’d really like to talk to.”
Olds shook his head, no. “I don’t think so. At least I haven’t seen him.”
I glanced at Doris and she looked away. She was chewing her gum listlessly now.
“But there’s plenty of guys who are here,” Olds said brightly, “who’ll be willing to talk to you, once I vouch for you.”
“Why don’t you take me around, then?”
“Sure. Doris, you keep Miss Bell outa trouble, okay?”
I said to Isabel, “Don’t fall in love with some sailor while I’m gone, baby.”
Her Kewpie mouth pursed in a mocking little smile. She was lighting up another Camel. “Ditch a girl in a joint like this, big boy, you take your chances.”
I arched an eyebrow. “You take your chances just stepping inside a joint like this.”
I blew her a kiss and she blew me one back, and no sooner had we departed the booth than a pair of officers in white linen mufti sauntered over, and in a flash, Olds’s wife and my date were out on the dance floor fighting for their honor.
“They don’t waste much time here,” I commented.
“It’s a friendly place,” Olds allowed.
And by way of proof, over the next hour, he introduced me to half a dozen friendly brother officers of Tommie Massie’s, all of whom spoke highly of Thalia. Smoking cigarettes and cigars, drinking bootleg hootch, arms slung around giggling women who might or might not be their wives, they slouched against the bar or sat in booths or leaned against walls, glad to cooperate with Clarence Darrow’s man. Phrases recurred, and because of the circumstances, I took no notes, and even later that night, looking back on it, I found the youthful submariners in white linen mufti blurring into one indistinguishable mass of high marks for Thalia (“nice kid,” “sweet girl,” “kinda quiet but a swell gal,” “she’s crazy about Tommie”) and scorn for the rapists (“all them niggers should be shot”).
Finally I told Olds I had all the info I needed, and sent my chaperone back to the booth. I’d told him I needed to take a leak, which was true enough. What I didn’t tell him was that I’d seen Jimmy Bradford slipping into the men’s room a moment or two before.
Soon I was sidling up to the urinal next to Bradford and we were both pissing as I said, “Don’t forget to button up, after you’re done.”
He frowned at me in confused irritation. “What?”
“That’s what got you in trouble with the cops, isn’t it? Walking around with your fly open, the night Thalia Massie was assaulted?”
The frown turned into a sneer. “Who the hell are you, mister?”
“Nate Heller. I’m Clarence Darrow’s investigator. I’d offer to shake hands, but…”
He finished before I did, and I joined him at the sink, waiting for him to finish washing up so I could have my turn.
He looked at me in the streaky mirror; his features may have been bland, but the blue eyes were sharp—and he didn’t seem as drunk as his brother officers. “What do you want?”