Carnal Hours

“But then most of your pals belong to the Porcupine Club,” I reminded her.

“Touche,” Di said. She took a seat, got herself in the shade to protect that Aryan skin of hers. “We’re not going to be enemies, are we?”

“You tell me,” I said.

“Nate, this is Lady Diane Medcalf.”

Lady Diane extended her pale white hand to me and I said, “Do I kiss that or shake it?”

“Handshake will be fine,” she replied. Then her smile settled wickedly in one dimple. “We’ll save the kiss for later…perhaps.”

Nancy turned earnestly to me. “Di is my best friend. She’s a fabulous person, you’re just going to love her.”

“I already love her swim suit,” I said. “Travella, huh? I was going to say Macy’s.”

To her credit, she chuckled and said, “You are bad. I understand you’re going to clear Freddie of this ridiculous charge.”

“Fred’s got the deck stacked against him,” I said. “I was just explaining to Nancy how some of Nassau’s social lions are ducking my inquiries.

“Really,” Lady Diane said, and her brow creased and she seemed honestly troubled. “We can’t have that, can we? Why don’t I arrange a little soiree out at Shangri La?”

“Pardon?”

Nancy said, “Shangri La is Axel Wenner-Gren’s estate…it’s over there…fabulous place.”

“And Axel won’t mind?” I asked dryly. “Being as he’s in Mexico and all?”

Lady Diane’s laugh was brittle, too, but it had a certain musicality. “I’m sure Axel won’t mind. Who does a girl have to fuck around here to get a drink?”

“Oh, Di,” Nancy said, giggling, a little embarrassed, “you’re awful.”

“I’ll get you a drink,” I said. “You can pay up later.”

“You are b-a-d, Heller,” Lady Diane said. “Gin and tonic, darling.”

I went over to the portable bar, where a white guy in a tuxedo was bartending under the hot sun, and bought her a drink and myself a rum and Coke; it only cost me about half what a week’s rent did back home at the Morrison Hotel. This rich bitch appealed to me, for some strange masochistic reason. If my heart didn’t belong to a dusky native girl, I might have done something about it.

I took my seat again, but Lady Diane was gone.

“She went in for a dip,” Nancy said. “To cool off.”

“With that mouth of hers,” I said, “it’s no wonder.”

“Isn’t she fabulous?”

“Fabulous is the word. Who the hell is she? How do you get to be a ‘lady,’ anyway?”

“In Di’s case, by marrying a lord. She’s the widow of one of the Duke of Windsor’s closest friends…his equerry.”

“The Duke always did strike me as a little effeminate.”

She made a face; a pretty one. “Nate, an equerry is in charge of horses.”

“I know. It was a joke.”

She smirked. “You are…”

“Please don’t tell me I’m bad. Tell me more about Di before she gets back.”

Nancy shrugged, raised her patrician chin. “She’s only one of the most important women in the Bahamas… possibly second only to Wallis Simpson. She’s a professional woman, Nate, which is something of a rarity around here. She’s been Axel Wenner-Gren’s executive secretary for almost a decade.”

“Who pulled the strings to get her a job like that? The Duke?”

“Actually, yes. He and Axel are extremely close friends. Now that Axel’s been blacklisted, so very unfairly I might add, Di is managing the Wenner-Gren assets for the duration.”

“And she’s bunking in at Shangri La?”

Nancy arched an eyebrow. “More than that-she’s running it, maintaining it, with something of a skeleton crew. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen. I can’t tell you what it means to have her offer to throw a party for our benefit…no one will decline an invitation from Lady Diane.”

She came running up, as if fleeing from the sun, pulling a white rubber cap off her mane of blond hair, which sprang free, glimmeringly, the supple muscles of her long legs grabbing as her feet caught the sand.

For a moment she stood there before me, though she must have known that brown pubic patch was showing right through; so were small erect nipples on the oversize breasts. She picked up the drink I’d brought her, guzzled it greedily, set down the empty glass and grinned at me. There was something savage about that grin; the look in her eyes was gleeful.

Then she threw the robe around herself, tossed back her hair. With the rouge washed away from the pouty lips, she looked even better. Naturally pretty, instead of calculatedly beautiful.

“I’ll tell you what, Mr. Nathan Heller,” she said, biting off each word, sitting forward brazenly. “You tell Nancy who you want invited-Harold Christie, the Duke and Duchess, Humphrey Bogart, Jesus Christ, Tojo…and I guarantee you they’ll be there.”

“You understand I mean to corner ’em one by one, and grill ’em.”

“I simply adore barbecue,” she said. “It’s so…American. Got a smoke, honey?”

That last was for Nancy, who pulled a pack of Chesterfields from the pocket of her own terry robe, and gave one to Di, had one herself and offered me one.

“No thanks,” I said.

“I thought all you ex-GIs smoked,” Di said.

“Who told you I was an ex-GI?”

“I did,” Nancy admitted.

“I asked all about you,” Di said.

“Why?”

“Because I’m bored.” She laughed again, a more full-bodied laugh this time. “This must really be paradise for you, Heller…all these young women around without their husbands. You see, an old gal of thirty-six like me has to work a little harder to stay in the game.”

I had missed it by only a year. Mrs. Heller’s son was a detective.

“I would have said twenty-five,” I said.

She liked that; threw her head back regally. “It’s an effort. Why do you think I keep this precious skin of mine out of the sun? I keep telling Nancy, if she insists on tanning, she’ll be as leathery as an alligator’s bum by the time she’s thirty.”

“Di,” Nancy protested, shaking her head, smiling.

“Besides,” Di said, gesturing with cigarette in hand, “I burn like a son of a bitch!”

Considering how Nancy’s father died, that struck me as in bad taste; but Nancy didn’t seem to notice.

“And,” I said to Di, “you swear like a sailor.”

Her mouth made amused little movements. “A lot of men find that attractive.”

“You run into a lot of men around these parts, do you?”

“Not real ones.” Then she smiled enigmatically, or thought she did: there was no enigma about it, as far as I was concerned.

“I’m glad to see you two hit it off so famously,” Nancy said.

“I almost never give beautiful blondes too bad a time,” I said.

“So, Mr. Heller,” Lady Diane said, blowing the air a kiss as she made a smoke ring, “what do you say? Shall I throw a wingding for you? Cracked crab and caviar and all the champagne my well-heeled boss can afford in his absence?”

“Why not?” I said. “Just so long as it’s all kosher.”

Nancy looked shocked, but Di only laughed heartily again.

“Bad,” she said, smiling, shaking her head.

When I got back to the British Colonial, I had a message to call Eliot Ness in Washington, D.C. I caught him