Carnal Hours

We began walking again; the surf was gently rolling in, and we were walking past a scenic postcard come to life, but some nasty little winged sons of bitches kept trying to make lunch out of me.

“Sandflies,” Sir Harry said, slapping one to death on his cheek. It was a stinging slap, as if he were repaying some self-insult. “They’re harmless if you kill ’em.”

That was a truism if I ever heard one.

But he was back to trees.

“I’m going to plant some palms this afternoon,” he said, waving dismissively. “But I like my trees where I want ’em. I don’t want ’em in my fucking way. I don’t want ’em blocking my goddamn view. Right?”

“Right,” I said.

“So what do you think of my island?”

He was at least one-third right: Miss Bristol had mentioned that Oakes owned a third of New Providence Island.

“Very lovely,” I said, aiming for a sandfly and slapping myself in the face.

He stopped to point at the ocean, as if it were another of his possessions. “This is Cable Beach-where the phone line comes in and connects us with civilization. Sometimes I think that’s one hell of a mistake.”

“You have a point.”

Sir Harry took his hat off to wave the flies away. He smiled again in his stingy way. “What do you think of my little Miss Bristol?”

“A very efficient, attractive young lady.”

“She is at that. And a nice little darkie ass on her, too, wouldn’t you say?”

I swallowed. Much as I might mentally admire Miss Bristol’s posterior, it didn’t strike me as a subject for discussion.

“Don’t get me wrong, lad.”

We’d stopped again, and he had placed a fatherly hand on one of my shoulders; his mean, tiny eyes narrowed into slits and his breath was hot, like a small blast furnace. My trained detective’s observation as to this morning’s breakfast would be a cheese and onion omelet.

“I have never laid a hand on that sweet child,” he said somberly, “and I never will. She’s smart and she’s loyal and she does her job and then some. That is one thing you must always remember, son.”

“What is?”

“Never diddle the hired help!”

“I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

I’d kept my voice flat, but his prospector’s eyes searched my face for any irony to be mined. I was glad he wasn’t using a pick.

“You’re a Jewish fella, aren’t you?”

“I don’t practice the faith, but that’s my heritage, on my father’s side. You have a problem with that, Sir Harry?”

His laugh was explosive. “Hell no! But there are some narrow-minded bigots on this island. Whenever you have this many niggers and so few white folks crammed together in one little place, bigotry is always going to rear its ugly head.”

Coming from a head that ugly, that struck me as a sound observation.

“The thing is, Nate…can I call you Nate?”

“Sure.”

“Well, and you call me Harry. Fuck this ‘sir’ shit. We’re going to be great friends.”

“Great.”

We were walking again. Sandflies nipped me while the surf rolled inexorably in-and out.

“The thing is, Nate, there are places you may need to go on this island that are…exclusive.”

“No Jews allowed, you mean.”

“That’s right. To me a man’s a man, and the only religion I acknowledge is gold…but Jesus! Don’t tell my wife I said so. Eunice believes in all that heavenly hereafter horseshit.”

“Harry, how can I do a job for you in Nassau if this island’s restricted?”

“Because I own fucking Nassau, Nate. I’ve got a card for you up at the house; it identifies you as my guest. There isn’t a club or restaurant or hotel in town it won’t get you in.”

“Well…that should do it.”

“Besides-you don’t look Jewish.”

“Gee, thanks, Harry.”

“You look like a goddamn mick, with that reddish hair.” He slipped an arm around my shoulder as our feet padded along the white sand. “You’re a good man, Nate. Now, let me tell you about this no-good bastard son-in-law of mine.”

Son-in-law? Was that what this about? Some family squabble?

“You’re not married, are you, Nate?”

“No.”

“So you don’t have any kids-not that you know of, anyway.” He laughed harshly. “Well, if you ever do have, let me guarantee you something: they will break your fucking heart.”

I didn’t say anything. He took his arm out from around me; he didn’t even want a surrogate offspring at that moment. The flinty eyes seemed suddenly moist.

“You give them everything…what do they give you back? A broken fucking heart….”

It seemed Nancy, his “goddamned favorite,” had-less than a year ago-shown her appreciation for her father’s boundless generosity by marrying a “goddamn gigolo fortune-hunting Frenchman.”

“Do you know how old she was when he started…” He could barely say it, but then it burst out of him. “… fucking her? Seventeen. Seventeen! And him, the slimy bastard, twice her age….”

I said nothing; slapped a sandfly, successfully this time, on my suitcoat sleeve. It burst and left a tiny bloody splotch.

“He claims to be a ‘count,’ this de Marigny.” As he spoke, I had no idea how that name was spelled: he pronounced it dee mahreeny. “Goddamn playboy yachtsman…married two other times, lived off his damn wives.”

He stopped; sat in the sand. Stared out at several brown pelicans who were swooping in toward the sea, looking for lunch. It was late morning, now, and lunch didn’t sound like a bad idea to me, either. I sat next to him.

“We were always close, Nancy and me…she liked my stories about prospecting days…said she wanted to write my biography when she grew up.” He laughed, almost wistfully; odd coming from such an old roughneck. “She always did like the boys. Maybe we shouldn’t have let her go to those frolics at so young an age.”

“Frolics?”

“That’s Brit for dances. She was going to school in London, then-Torrington Park. She had special tutors for art and dance…anything she wanted. On her fourteenth birthday, I gave her a year off from schooling, and took her and her mama on a tour of South America. Then I gave her something very special….”

He seemed to want me to ask, so I did.

“What was that, Harry?”

He looked at me and smiled wider than those thin lips should have been able to; I thought his parchment skin might crack.

“I took her to Death Valley, Nate.”

What teenage girl could dream of more?

He stared at the sand, drew lines in it with a finger. “We retraced my wanderings, when I was searching for gold and damn near died of the effort. It was my way of teaching her…showing her…just what it had taken to have all this. And I think…I thought…some mutual respect had come of it.”

The pelicans cawed, seeming to mock him.