“Well, run a check on him, would you?”
“No need,” Eliot said matter-of-factly. “I know all about him.”
“Well, then, spill! But why in hell should
“Because he was pals with Capone’s boys-their chief contact in Nassau back in rum-running days. Chicago was a big client of the so-called Bay Street Pirates, you know-that’s how Christie made his fortune. Early on, he started sinking his booze money into land.”
“Eliot…could Christie have done business with the East Coast mob, as well?”
“No ‘could’ about it. He did.”
“Any chance he might have done any business with Meyer Lansky?”
“I’d be surprised if he hadn’t. Capone had something of a monopoly in Nassau till around ’26, when Lansky and Bugsy Siegel moved in. There was almost trouble over it, but Johnny Torrio apparently settled things down; after all, there was enough English and Canadian liquor on the docks of Nassau to satisfy everybody. You know, I seem to recall Christie doing some business in Boston, too, and having some federal problems there. But I’m vague on it. I can check up on that, too, if you like.”
“I like. Eliot, this information really helps.”
“Then you can do me a favor.”
“What’s that?”
“Wear a prophylactic. Help keep vice statistics down.”
“Hell, Eliot-I’m wearing one right now. Ever since I saw those movies of yours, back at boot camp, I never take it off.”
The pebbled glass door at the top of the stairs said, “H. G. Christie, Ltd., Real Estate,” but the sounds coming from behind it said much more: it sounded like a rally at the Board of Trade. I went in to find a large outer office that was a packed waiting room, chairs lining the wall filled with every Bahamian type imaginable: prosperous white businessmen in their three-piece suits sat next to shoeless out-island natives; a proper-looking Englishwoman sat uncomfortably beside a native girl in a colorful tropical bandanna and sheath. The only difference seemed to be that the whites, American and English alike, were speaking to each other, the men sometimes rising to approach, loudly, animatedly, one of two female secretaries-a young pretty one at the desk at left, an older handsome one at right- while the Negroes of either sex sat timidly with hands in laps and eyes lowered. The secretaries were dealing frantically with phone calls (“Yes, Sir Frederick, Mr. Christie has the blueprints ready,” “Your roof is leaking? I’ll inform Mr. Christie,” “New York? I’ll see if he’s free…”) while male assistants would emerge from one of the two offices either side of the central pebbled-glass door labeled “H. G. Christie, Private,” to deal with the more impatient clientele.
None of them were as impatient as yours truly, however, because I didn’t bother to check in with either harried secretary. I walked right past them and went into Christie’s office.
The bald, homely, rumpled little toad who wielded such power in Nassau frowned at me from behind his desk where he was on the phone, not recognizing me at first; then his face went blank as he did remember me, before an even deeper frown returned.
“Mr. Christie…I’m sorry,” a voice behind me urgently said. “I’m afraid this gentleman just rushed right-”
“That’s all right, Mildred,” Christie said, waving her back.
The older of the secretaries glared at me and I smiled pleasantly at her and she closed the door behind me. Christie was saying into the phone, “Sir Frederick, I’ll have to call you back. My apologies.”
His inner office wasn’t large or fancy, plaster walls lined with wooden file cabinets, a few framed, hand-tinted photos of lush, lovely Bahamian properties he no doubt either owned or had sold someone; framed photos of himself with the Duke, Oakes and other Bahamian mucky-mucks; some local excellence-in-business certificates. The mahogany desk was large, however, almost massive, resting on an oriental rug. The ceiling fan’s blades whirled shakily, as nervous as the waiting room out there. Bay Street bustled through the open window behind him, horses clip-clopping, bells jangling, horns honking, a voice raised occasionally.
“Mr. Heller,” Christie said, raising his, “I understand the urgency of the work you’re engaged in. But I’m a busy man, and you’ll have to make an appointment.”
“I called for one this morning. I was told to call again tomorrow.”
“Well, you should have. You still should. There are many people ahead of you. But if you have something we can attend to quickly…”
“I just have a few questions I want to run past you. So we can get Sir Harry’s murder cleared up.”
His face tightened. “I was under the impression it had been cleared up.”
“Oh, you mean the arrest of Count de Marigny? I don’t think so. I think Freddie’s arrest raises more questions than it answers.”
“And why is that?”
“Well…the motive’s a little fuzzy, for instance. Surely you’re aware that Sir Harry had already changed his will, so that Nancy won’t come into big dough till she’s thirty?”
“I hadn’t heard that. I don’t believe Sir Harry’s will has been probated as yet.”
“Well, Nancy says she was informed of this by her father, months ago. So why should de Marigny kill Sir Harry now? What’s to gain?”
“Mr. Heller, even assuming you’re correct, the blood between Fred and Sir Harry was bad, to say the least.”
“But you and Freddie are friends yourselves, aren’t you? Didn’t he invite you to dinner at his place the night of the killing? And you declined so you could dine with Sir Harry?”
“Certainly not!”
“Freddie says he did.”
“He’s a liar.”
“What were you doing driving around downtown Nassau at midnight, that night? I thought you were supposed to be at Westbourne.”
He sat up huffily; beneath those shaggy eyebrows, he was blinking as if he had something in his eye-both eyes. “I
I shrugged. “Just something I heard. You know, even an out-of-towner like me hears things. By the way, do you know a man named Lansky? Meyer Lansky?”
He stopped blinking; his eyes were cold and hard, now. But also a little scared.
“No,” he said. “That name is unfamiliar to me. Mr. Heller, I’m a very busy man…”
“I just have a few more questions.”
“No,” he said, standing as he buzzed his intercom, “I’m afraid you don’t. And I don’t have any interest in speaking further to you, at this or any time. Sir Harry Oakes was my dearest friend, and I do not intend to aid the man who murdered him.”
“And who would that be?”
“Freddie de Marigny, of course! Mildred-show Mr. Heller out.”
Well, I’d rattled him, anyway. The danger, of course, was that I might be rattling Meyer Lansky, too. If the East Coast syndicate was involved, I might not be getting paid enough for this job, even at three hundred bucks per day. Funeral costs weren’t something I wanted my heirs to have to list on my posthumous expense account.
Down on Bay Street, I headed toward Dirty Dick’s, figuring a rum punch would hit the spot about now. But I’d barely started ambling down the sidewalk when I noticed I’d picked up a tail.
And an incredibly obvious tail, at that.
This guy was white, about thirty, with a leathery tan but otherwise ordinary-looking, wearing a colorful tropical shirt-tourist-style-and pressed tan pants and the well-polished black shoes of a cop. Which is what he was, pretending to be a tourist. They should have invested in sandals and sunglasses, as well.
So this was what Captain Sears meant when he advised me to watch my back….
I walked three blocks down and he stayed with me, half a block behind. If I paused to look in a store window, he did the same. He was as subtle as the mumps. I crossed the street, walked back three blocks, and so did my shadow.
Ducking into a pharmacy, I asked the pretty, freckled redheaded girl behind the counter if they had any
