assumed a praying position. Seeing him beg like that would’ve made me laugh, if it hadn’t made me sick.
I tossed the wrench over on the feed bags.
“Get up and help your partner to his feet.” I righted Curtis and his chair. “You mind if I let ’em go in the farmhouse and wash themselves up?”
Curtis said, “Dat’s fine.”
“Go on,” I told Barker. “Go make yourselves presentable.”
Barker helped Melchen up and out of the shack; the tall cop gathered their suitcoats, then with an arm supporting Melchen, hobbled toward the farmhouse, through a laughing gauntlet of black faces. The native workers had gathered in the backyard to watch and listen to the fight, and now they were applauding and cheering at the sight of the two battered white cops.
I undid the wire from Curtis’ wrists and ankles. “Sorry about the door.”
“Dat’s easy fixed, boss. Dey work over dis face of mine much longer, it be too broke to fix.”
“Well, let’s get you inside and cleaned up, too.”
“Wait till dey go, mon.”
“Okay.”
We stood near the house and waited for Barker and Melchen to come down the back porch stairs from the kitchen. The two had washed the blood and dirt from themselves, but their clothes, beneath their perfect suitcoats, were mussed and torn. Melchen was holding a bloody handkerchief to his broken nose.
The natives were milling, but no longer laughing; the sight of the two burning-with-anger cops returned them to a more servile mode.
Barker stepped close. “You’re not going to get away with this, Heller. This is assault.”
“What you did to Curtis is assault. What I did is a public service.”
“We’re officially sanctioned investigators here,” Melchen said, petulantly, nasally, bloody hanky still pressed to his face.
“Maybe so,” I said. “And if you want to go public with this, swell. I witnessed you attempting to beat and bribe this witness into giving false testimony. If any of this gets out, you’ll both be on the next banana boat back to Miami.”
Barker said, very quietly, “You don’t know who you’re dealing with, Heller.”
“Sure I do. A couple of crooked cops in Meyer Lansky’s pocket.”
Barker reacted as if I’d slapped him again.
Then I smiled and put a friendly hand on his shoulder. “Look-we should be pals. After all, we have so much in common: you don’t play by the rules and neither do I.”
“Don’t fuck with us, Heller.”
“Fuck with me, girls, and you’ll wake up as dead as Arthur. You do remember Arthur, don’t you? The native night watchman who drowned accidentally at Lyford Cay?”
Barker and Melchen exchanged worried glances, then glared at me, to preserve what little dignity they had left, and limped off to their police car. They departed in a cloud of gravel dust, and to more native applause and derisive howls.
“You go in and clean yourself up, Curtis. Then I need some gas for the Chevy-the Count said you could help me out.”
“Sure t’ing,” Curtis said. “You wanna go get de gas cans yourself, and fill ’er up, while I’m inside?”
“All right. Where are they?”
Curtis grinned whitely. “In de toolshed-back of de feed bags.”
No smells of cooking beckoned me through the open windows of Marjorie Bristol’s cottage. Otherwise, the evening was its usual beautifully Bahamian self: perfect sky, scattered stars, a full moon making the ivory sand and gray-blue ocean seem as unreal and lovely as an artist’s vision. All this and a cool, soothing breeze-and the humidity had taken the night off.
I knocked and she greeted me with a smile; but it was a smile I’d never seen from her before: sad and reserved and…careful.
Then I noticed: she was wearing the blue maid’s uniform I’d first seen her in.
“I’m sorry,” she said, showing me in. She gestured to the round table, which lacked even its usual bowl of cut flowers. “I know I told you I’d cook for you tonight, but I’m afraid I…got busy.”
“Hey, that’s fine. You’ve been too generous with your culinary skills already. Why don’t we go out somewhere?”
She sat across the table from me, and smiled again, that same sad smile; she shook her head. “A white man and a colored gal? I don’t think so, Nathan.”
“I hear there’s a Chinese joint on the corner of Market Street where blacks and whites can mix and mingle to their heart’s content. What do you say?”
She smiled again, tightly; her eyes hadn’t met mine since I got here.
“Marjorie-what’s wrong? What’s the matter?”
She sat staring at her own folded hands for what seemed an eternity; finally she spoke.
“Lady Eunice asked me to open Westbourne today,” she said. “That’s why I’ve been busy.”
“Oh,” I said.
I should have anticipated this; Nancy had told me that her mother was staying at another of their Nassau residences, Maxwellton, but with de Marigny’s preliminary hearing coming up, friends and relatives-witnesses, in many instances-were beginning to arrive on the island. The larger facilities at Westbourne would be needed.
She stood and began to pace, hands folded in front of her, brow creased.
I got up, went to her, stopped her aimless moving, put one hand on her waist, and lifted her chin and made her look at me. Her eyes were moist.
“Lady Oakes doesn’t approve of you helping me, does she?” I asked.
She swallowed, and shook her head, no.
She said, softly, weakly, “Somebody told her about my bein’ with you when Arthur’s body was found. Somebody else told her they saw us drivin’ in your car together.”
“And, what? She’s forbidden you to help me?”
She nodded. “Or her daughter.”
I winced in confusion. “But I understood Nancy and her mother were getting along pretty well, considering.”
“Lady Eunice, she just doesn’t want her family pulled apart any more than it already is.”
“And she’s convinced Freddie’s the man who murdered her husband.”
“She’s…adamant about it. She says hangin’ is too good for that philanderin’ so-and-so.”
I smirked mirthlessly. “Does she want him hanged for killing Sir Harry? Or for running around on her daughter?”
She shook her head vigorously, as if she not only didn’t want to talk about it further, she didn’t want to think about it, either. She pulled away from me, turned her back; she was slumped, her posture caving in on itself.
“I can’t be helpin’ you anymore, Nathan.”
I came up behind her, put a hand on her shoulder; she flinched, but then she touched my hand briefly with hers.
“Nathan-my family and me, we depend on Lady Eunice for our livin’. I cannot go against my Lady. Do you understand?”
“Well, sure…but that’s okay. I didn’t want you involved anymore, anyway, what with Arthur’s murder and all. I talked to Curtis Thompson this afternoon, and he’s going to check around for Samuel and that other missing boy.”
She laughed once, hollowly, turned and faced me, but stepped back a little, to put some distance between us. “Do you really think either of those boys is still in the islands? They’ve flown like birds, Nathan. They be long gone.”
“You’re probably right. Is it a problem meeting here? You know, now that Lady Oakes will be around. Maybe there’s some…neutral place we can meet….”
She swallowed hard and her eyes were welling with tears. “You don’t understand, do you? I can’t be seein’ you no more. For any reason. Not anymore.”
