Damned in Paradise

For a fraction of an instant, and a quick intake of breath, I thought she was nude: the satin gown encasing her high-breasted slender form was a pale pink, damn near the shade of her bare arms, its halter neck coming to a point at the ruby brooch at the hollow of her throat.

Best of all, the chair awaiting me was next to this vision of youthful pulchritude.

Ruby, her mouth twitching with amusement at my open admiration for the girl, said, “Isabel Bell, this is Nathan Heller—my husband’s investigator.”

“Charmed I’m sure,” she said. She didn’t look at me.

Isabel Bell was studying a menu whose cover depicted a slender island beauty with blossoms in her hair; the glowing airbrushed blues and yellows and oranges were a dreamy promise of the Polynesian paradise presumably awaiting us at Oahu.

Darrow said, “Miss Bell is Thalia Massie’s cousin. I’ve invited her to join our little group—she’s on her way to lend her cousin some moral support.”

“That’s swell of you,” I said cheerfully to this beauty who had not yet deigned to cast her baby blues upon me. “Are you and Mrs. Massie close?”

“Langouste Cardinal,” she said, still gazing at the menu. “That sounds yummy.”

I took a look at the menu. “I was hoping for lobster, on a fancy barge like this.”

“Langouste is lobster, silly,” she said, finally looking at me.

“I know,” I said. “I just wanted to get your attention.”

And now I had it. Whether she’d been pretending not to notice the best-looking (and one of the few) unattached males in the room, I can’t say; but those big blue eyes, and long natural fluttery lashes, were suddenly locked on yours truly.

“Very close,” she said.

“Huh?”

With a snippy sigh, she turned her attention back on the menu. “Thalo and I, we’re very close…. That’s her nickname, Thalo. We practically grew up together. She’s my dearest friend.”

“You must be torn up about all this.”

“It’s been simply dreadful. Ooooo…coconut ice cream! That ought to get us in a tropical mood.”

I could have written her off right then as a trivial shallow little creature. But because she was probably no older than twenty, and a product of her heredity and environment, I decided to cut her some slack. Her pretty puss and swell shape had nothing to do with it. Or everything. One of the two.

“Actually,” I said, “Hawaii isn’t really tropical.”

She looked at me again; she may have been shallow, but those blue eyes were deep enough to dive into. “What is it, then?” she challenged.

“Well, while the Hawaiian Islands do lie between the Tropic of Cancer and the Equator, they simply aren’t sultry or hot. There’s always a breeze.”

Darrow said, “Mr. Heller is right. A land of no sunstroke, no heat prostration—just trade winds sweeping in continuously from the Pacific.”

“From the northeast, more or less,” I added sagely.

“This is my first trip to the Islands,” she admitted, as if ashamed.

“Mine, too.”

She blinked, cocked her head back. “Then what makes you so darn knowledgeable?”

“The National Geographic.”

“Are you making fun of me?”

“What do you think, sister?” I asked.

There were smiles all around the table—except from Miss Bell. In fact, she didn’t speak to me again through dinner; but I had a feeling she was interested. Cute stuck-up kids love it when you needle them…unless they’re completely hopeless and humorless. In which case, even a pretty puss and swell shape wouldn’t make it worth the trouble.

We were halfway through our coconut ice cream when Leisure—who’d seemed distracted throughout the endless sumptuous courses of dinner—asked Darrow, “When you’ve had a good look at those transcripts and affidavits, could I have some time with them?”

“Take ’em tonight,” Darrow said, waving offhandedly.

“Stop by my stateroom, take ’em away, and pore over ’em to your heart’s content.”

“I’d like a look at them myself,” I said.

“You can have ’em after George,” Darrow said magnanimously. “I love to be surrounded by well-informed people.” He turned to his wife, next to him. “They’ve a full orchestra and a nightclub, dear…and there’s no Prohibition at sea. A fully appointed bar awaits us.” He patted her hand and she smiled patiently at him. “What a wonderful, decadent place this is. You up for some dancing?”

We all were.

The ship’s cocktail lounge—the size of which redefined the meaning of the phrase—was a streamlined moderne nightclub ruled by indirect lighting and chrome trim; with its cylindrical barstools and sleek decorative touches, we might have been on the Matson Line’s first spaceship.