chin was raised patricianly; her hair-which had auburn highlights-was up. She wore a black pants suit with a white shirt underneath, top two or three buttons undone, the mannishness of the outfit offset by the pink swell of her bosom.
She smiled warmly. Sitting alone at a table for two….
I nodded as I went past, returned the smile. My God, I was popular tonight!
As I approached, Lansky rose. “Mr. Heller?”
He was impeccably dressed: that tailored brown suit had set him back three C’s easy, and that white silk shirt hadn’t come in a Cracker Jack box, either. His tie was green and brown and wide and tasteful. There was none of the flashy jewelry so many mobsters affected.
“Mr. Lansky?” I said.
His smile seemed genuine; he was one of those homely men whose smile transformed him. Like Harold Christie, he could turn on the charm.
“I hope you don’t mind my imposing,” he said. His voice was surprisingly rich and resonant for so small a man. “But I know you by reputation, and wanted to pay my respects.”
Meyer Lansky, paying his respects to me? At least it wasn’t over a coffin.
“You’re…very kind.”
“Please join us,” he said, and gestured to an empty chair.
I sat across from him.
“This is Miss Schwartz. Teddie. She’s my manicurist.”
“A pleasure,” I said.
Miss Schwartz nodded to me and smiled politely. Nice-looking girl-not a moll by any means. And Lansky did have nice nails….
He didn’t bother introducing the two bodyguards; they were just fixtures, like potted palms. Only these potted palms had eyes, and were keeping them trained on yours truly. They wore identical dark suits that hadn’t cost three hundred per (but then neither had mine), with bulges under their left shoulders that I didn’t figure were tumors.
One of them, big in both the tall and wide sense, wore a bad toupee and a hairline mustache that was out of date ten years ago; his eyes were small and wide-set and stupid, and his nose was flattened. A former pug.
The other one, not as tall but even wider, had a round face, curly brown hair, sweet-potato nose, slitted eyes and a white, lightning-bolt scar on the left cheek. Probably not a dueling scar-unless maybe it was a duel with broken beer bottles.
They were looking at me with open suspicion and near-contempt. Okay, so I wasn’t popular with
“Lovely night,” Lansky said. “The Biltmore’s a first-rate hotel.”
Actually, it was a rambling haciendalike affair, looming behind us; the big attraction was sports-the lawn was a putting green.
“Last time I stayed here,” I said, “was back in ‘33.”
His smile was wide. “Really? What was the occasion?”
“I was one of Mayor Cermak’s bodyguards.”
He grunted sympathetically. “That didn’t work out too well.”
What he was referring to was that Mayor Cermak had been assassinated.
“Well,” I said, “I usually leave that off my resume.”
He chuckled. Miss Schwartz was watching the stage, where Ina Mae and her Melodears were getting started again; this time they were doing “I’ll Never Smile Again,” which had couples clutching desperately out on the dance floor.
“Can I order you a drink?” he asked, gesturing with his own glass.
“No thanks. I shouldn’t stay away from Helen long.”
“Helen?”
“Sally. Helen’s her real name. We go back a ways.”
“Ah. That’s nice. Long-term relationships…they’re valuable. How was Nassau?”
The question hit me like the sucker punch it was.
“Pardon?” I managed.
For a guy with such a nice smile, he sure had cold hard dead eyes. “Nassau. I understand you were doing a job there.”
“I, uh…didn’t know it was common knowledge.”
“Miss Rand mentioned it. You wouldn’t have heard anything about the Sir Harry Oakes killing, would you?”
Another sucker punch that landed!
“Uh…why’s that, Mr. Lansky?” I asked, mind reeling, trying not to show the blow’s effects.
He squinted in thought. “Well, it’s just the Duke of Windsor is censoring all information out of the island, and if that fellow Christie hadn’t called some newspaper friend of his, and spilled the beans beforehand, nothing would have leaked out.”
One of the first people Christie had called, after finding Oakes, was Etienne Dupuch, publisher of the Nassau
And Dupuch had put some very basic facts about the crime on the wire before the government ban lowered.
“Actually,” I said, “I think that gag order was lifted a couple days ago. You probably know as much as I do, from just reading the papers.”
His smile was enigmatic; also, creepy as hell. “I doubt that. I understand you were doing a job for Sir Harry himself.”
How the hell did he know that? Would Helen have spilled that much?
He was nodding in interest, but his eyes were so damn expressionless. “Well, that’s really something. Isn’t that something Teddie?”
Miss Schwartz nodded, paying no attention.
“So-tell us what the papers haven’t. How exactly did Sir Harry Oakes die?”
Maybe Lansky was just curious-the press was all over the case, after all….
“It was kind of grisly, Mr. Lansky. I really don’t think it makes for suitable conversation over cocktails.”
He was nodding again. He didn’t press. “Certainly. I understand. I understand. At any rate, I just wanted to say hello. We have mutual friends, you know.”
“I’m sure we do.”
He reached over and patted my hand; his was cold. Like a dead man’s hand. “And I wanted to express my condolences to you over the loss of one of those mutual friends. I know you were close to Frank. And he thought highly of you.”
“Thank you,” I said.
He meant Frank Nitti. I’d done some favors for Capone’s successor, and he for me, and the mistaken notion had grown up that I was in the Outfit’s pocket. Sometimes that came in handy; sometimes it damn near got me killed.
And tonight it put me, uneasily, at Meyer Lansky’s table for a few minutes.
“This fellow de Marigny,” he said, shifting back suddenly to his favorite topic, “do you think he did it?”
“Maybe. There was no love lost between Sir Harry and him, and the Count’s wife stands to inherit millions.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Sounds like a murder motive to me. I understand the Miami police are handling the case.”
“If you want to call it that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing,” I said. Barker and Melchen were pals of his, for all I knew; better to keep my opinions to myself.
