Carnal Hours

“Smell the air. It’s comin’.”

To me the air was just sea-salty fresh; and I was just glad to finally have something resembling a breeze blowing in.

“How many people are on the household staff, Miss Bristol?”

“Five-three inside, two out. You met Samuel. He’s a handy-man and night watchman. All-round good fella. And there’s another watchman. Also a maid who does the household things. Cook, I already mention. And me, I look after Sir Harry and Lady Eunice.”

“How?”

She shrugged. “Help ’em keep their schedules. Put out their clothes in the morning, their night things out at night. Many things.”

“Almost a secretary.”

She smiled; she liked that. “Almost. I’m always tryin’ to be versatile.”

“Miss Bristol-if you don’t mind my asking…where did you go to school?”

She seemed surprised-and pleased-that I’d asked; she hugged a knee as she sat. “Right here in Nassau. I graduate from Government High School.”

“Good for you. Any college?”

She almost winced. “No. There’s no college here…. I have a brother, he is very smart, you know. We hope he’ll go to college someday-in the United States, they have colleges for Negroes.”

“Yes they do. I would’ve sworn you’d been to one.”

She lowered her eyes; this was the first she’d seemed at all shy. “I just like to read, Mr. Heller. I like books, you know.” Then she raised those deep brown eyes and her lashes fluttered and she said, “I think ignorance is the most evil thing. Don’t you?”

The sky seemed more overcast; maybe she was right-maybe a storm was coming.

“Well, Miss Bristol…I’m afraid evil’s a bigger thing than even ignorance. But ignorance probably has hurt more people than greed or jealousy or even war. I’m kind of in the anti-ignorance business myself.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You’re not a teacher, are you?”

“No. I’m a detective.”

That surprised her. “Really? Police?”

“No, I guess I’m what people insist on calling a private eye.”

She lit up. “Like Humphrey Bogart?”

I laughed. “Not quite. Look, I’ve said more than I should. We’re getting into Sir Harry’s business now, I’m afraid. I’m sorry, Miss Bristol…”

She nodded, as if to say, “You’re quite right.” I was stupid to mention my profession to her; as far as she’d known, I was just some business associate of her employer’s.

We sat in awkward silence for a minute or so, and I ate, and looked out at the vast sea. Somewhere, across it, Mussolini’s government was toppling, and Cologne was trying to recover from a visit by a thousand Allied bombers. Back home Charlie Chaplin had attracted near as much attention just by marrying teenage Oona O’Neill in the middle of his latest paternity suit.

But it all seemed abstract, it all seemed to be happening in some other world, when you sat in the Bahamas and studied the sea-a sea that men were dying on right now, most likely, even as I finished my turtle soup.

“Delicious lunch,” I said, touching the napkin to my lips. “The fritters were good, too.”

“Just heated up. Cook fried ’em last night. They’re better fresh.”

“What’s ‘conk’?”

“You spell it c-o-n-c-h. The meat from a pretty pink shell the tourists buy.”

“Oh-sure. Well, any way you spell it, the fritters are tasty.”

She grinned. “You’ll be eatin’ a lot of conch while you’re here, Mr. Heller.”

She wouldn’t let me help her with the dishes, but I walked her into the kitchen and said, almost whispered, “Please don’t mention that I’m a detective…to anyone.”

“Mr. Heller,” she said warmly, “you’re a nice man. I wouldn’t do anything you didn’t want me to.”

Our eyes locked, and there was a moment between us-a man/woman moment, that transcended culture and time and taboo-but it was just a moment, and we both looked away, embarrassed.

“I best take you to Sir Harry, now.”

She did.

Oakes was in a medium-size room with a fireplace, oriental rug and tall windows that looked out on the ocean; a billiards table took up much of the floor space. On the walls here and there, stuffed big-game fish and mounted wild-game heads were mute observers.

Looking like a sight gag in his plaid shirt, jodhpurs and riding boots-I was reminded of Harpo dressed as a jockey in A Day at the Races-Sir Harry was standing bowlegged, leaning on a bending cue as he spoke to a rather disheveled-looking little man sucking desperately on a cigarette.

Both were frowning; perhaps we’d interrupted an argument.

But Sir Harry smiled tightly, seeing us, and said, “Ah! My guest. Have a decent lunch?”

“Swell,” I said. “Turtle soup and conch fritters.”

He laughed shortly. “We’ll make a Bahamian out of you by nightfall, Heller. Marjorie, fetch me my checkbook.”

“Yes, Sir Harry.”

Miss Bristol left, and Sir Harry gestured to his diminutive but muscular-looking friend, who was so tanned I wondered if he might be mulatto.

“Meet the real baron of Nassau, Mr. Heller-Harold G. Christie. Best damn pard an old prospector ever had.”

So much for interrupting an argument.

Christie was fiftyish, nearly bald, with an egg-shaped head and shaggy, sandy eyebrows over piercing money-green eyes. He was homely as a toad: face seamed, nose bulbous, chin weak; his light-weight white suit looked slept-in, his dark tie hastily knotted.

This was the real baron of Nassau?

“This is Nathan Heller,” Oakes told his friend. “He’s a detective from Chicago I hired for some personal business.”

Christie’s eyes widened momentarily as he flashed Oakes a wary look. “A detective? Why, Harry?”

Sir Harry sniggered; put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “It’s personal, Harold. You have a personal life. I have a personal life.”

Christie frowned up at Oakes, then turned to me and smiled in a surprisingly engaging way; the toad could become a prince when he switched on the charm.

“Welcome to Nassau, Mr. Heller,” he said. His voice was mellow. “Though why you’d come to the Isles of June in July is a mystery even to a Bahamas booster like me.”

“If you want that mystery solved, Harold,” Sir Harry said, “you’ll have to hire your own goddamn detective.”

What was going on here? Was Oakes goading his pal?

But Christie only kept smiling, albeit in the strained way of the underling whose boss has just made a joke at his expense. He crushed his cigarette out in an ashtray on the edge of the billiards table and immediately lighted up another.

“Nate, if you’re not careful, Harold here will have you in a villa on the oceanfront before supper.”

“You’re in the real-estate business, Mr. Christie?”

Christie smiled, blew out smoke and was about to answer when Oakes interrupted. “Saying Harold is in the real-estate business is akin to saying Hitler’s in the land-grab business.”

That comparison made Christie wince, but Sir Harry bellowed on.

“Few years back, Harold buttonholed me in London, talked me into coming to New Providence, and then managed to sell me half the goddamn place.” Oakes snorted a laugh. “Do you know why Mr. Christie here is the most influential man in these islands? And I’m counting our little friend the Duke of Windsor, too, mind you. Harold