Carnal Hours

understands that the basic asset of these islands is land…not for mining or crops, mind you: but for selling to rich goddamn fools like me. Ah! Here’s Marjorie….”

She was bringing his checkbook; he put down the pool cue and went with her to a small table by a lamp with a silk shade.

Christie said, very softly, “You’ll have to forgive Harry. Talkativeness is among his worst vices.”

“And tact is not among his chief virtues.”

“Hardly,” Christie said, and chuckled, and sucked in smoke.

“Nate!” Oakes called, waving at me. “I’ll see you out….”

“Pleasure meeting you, sir,” I told Christie.

“Likewise,” he said pleasantly, and nodded.

Oakes slipped an arm around my shoulder as we walked, handing me a ten-thousand-dollar check that glistened with wet ink. Miss Bristol had gone on ahead to open the door; our conversation remained private.

“That’s thirty-four days, approximately,” he said, “at your three-hundred-dollar-a-day rate…counting today, which was a flat thousand.”

“Did you want me to start today?”

“Hell, yes! You’ll find de Marigny at the Yacht Club. He’s racing there this afternoon. This card will get you in anywhere.”

It was a small white card that simply said, “The bearer is my personal guest” signed “Sir Harry Oakes, Bart.”

“I’ll need de Marigny’s photo….”

Sir Harry waved that off. “Just ask somebody to point him out. He’s a tall horsy-looking frog, skinny as a plank. He’s grown a goddamn devil beard, too. You can’t miss the son of a bitch. Look for his yacht.” Harry’s thin upper lip curled in disgust. “It’s called the Concubine.”

“It would be,” I said.

Miss Bristol had the door open for us. We walked out under the balcony’s overhang, toward the garage, the young woman following at a respectful distance. There was a breeze now, Bahamas balmy, but the humidity remained oppressive.

“You’re to check in with me every day, by phone. Miss Bristol will give you the number.”

I glanced back at her and she smiled. God, I loved her smile.

He was squeezing my shoulder, getting my attention back. “I’ve a car for you…it’s rented in your name. Nassau and New Providence road maps in the glove box with a list of pertinent addresses-de Marigny’s house, his business interests.”

I nodded. These rich guys were efficient.

He swung open the garage door. “But for Christ’s sake, remember to stay on the wrong goddamn side of the road!”

“You mean on the left.”

“Right,” Sir Harry said.

The car was a dark-blue 1939 four-door Buick, big as a tank, which is what it handled like; not the best vehicle for a shadow job, and it was unnerving, heading back down Bay Street into town, staying on the left-hand side of the road. The occasional bicycle gave me a start, and the tropical scenery, burning with color, remained a distraction.

I was saved by the sudden appearance of the sprawling pink terra-cotta monstrosity that was the British Colonial Hotel, which even had a parking lot where I could leave the Buick and get back on my own two feet for a while.

The room that awaited me at the British Colonial wasn’t a suite, but it was plenty big, and seemed bigger, thanks to the light pink walls and white woodwork. It had a double bed, a chest of drawers, lots of closet space, a writing desk and a good-size bathroom. I could live here awhile.

There was also a wrought-iron balcony and an ocean view to go with it, but the white beach was near empty under the graying sky.

I unpacked, and figured I ought to get to work, but I had a couple of things to do, first. For starters, I’d only brought this one, currently sweat-soaked, suit. The guy at the front desk pointed me toward a little tailor shop near the hotel. I stopped in and from a cheerfully weary, berry-brown tailor named Lunn bought two white linen suits off the rack. He would have preferred to make them to order (promising them within two days!) but reluctantly sold me a couple in my size, sighing, “Can’t argue with you, sir! You’re a forty-two reg-nothing special!”

Story of my life.

Next stop was the Royal Bank of Canada, which seemed a fitting place to cash Sir Harry’s check; I had them wire most of it to my account at Continental Bank back home.

Off Rawson Square, I bought a Panama hat with a light brown band from a heavyset, gregarious straw lady whose cart was piled high with hats and bags and mats; she asked “fifty cent,” I argued her down to a quarter, then gave her a buck for the fun of it.

She gave me a little extra value by pointing me to a camera shop where, since every good bedroom dick needs one, I picked up a flash job, a fifteen-buck Argus with universal focus. Also some 35mm black-and-white film and bulbs.

“Don’t you want color film, sir?” the cute little Caucasian clerk asked; she had a corsagelike flower in her brunette hair. “You can catch all the beautiful colors of the island….”

“I’m going more for mood,” I said.

By the time I got back to the hotel it was nearly two p.m. and I had an armful of clothes-including two short- sleeve white shirts, four obnoxiously colorful sport shirts, some sandal-like leather shoes and three ties with painted tropical scenes-all of which would keep me in comfort and looking properly touristy.

Wearing one of my new white linen suits over a flowery sport shirt, hiding under my Panama and behind a pair of round-lensed sunglasses, I tooled my Buick down the left, remember, left-hand side of Bay Street. Most of the cars I encountered were, like the Buick, of American extraction; but now and then a Humber Snipe or Hillman would roll by in the “wrong” lane and befuddle me further, with their drivers sitting on the right. Bell-jangling surreys, donkey carts, wheel-barrows and your occasional straw-hatted native leading a goat kept traffic less than brisk; then at the east end of Bay Street, after the shopping district petered out, near the modern Fort Montagu Hotel and the old fortress the hotel was named for, was the Nassau Yacht Club.

The rambling pale yellow stucco clubhouse, while typical of Nassau’s nineteenth-century, plantation-owner- style architecture, was clearly a recent structure; its landscaped grounds, with their not-yet-tall-enough-to-be- sheltering palms, had the unspoiled, sterile look of the new.

I ambled into the clubhouse. Nobody stopped me to see if I was a member or a Jew or anything. I was almost disappointed. The bar had framed photos of famous yachts and yachtsmen, as well as a few customers and a white-jacketed bartender (in the flesh-not photos). A wall that was mostly windows looked out on the eastern harbor. I stepped outside, where I was on the edge of terraced grounds that ran down to a surprisingly modest marina where small yachts were docked.

A handful of other yachts, three to be exact, were clustered out on the water, presumably racing. Not having ever been to a yacht race, I couldn’t be sure. Perhaps one of them was de Marigny’s Concubine.

None of them seemed to be going very fast; there was a breeze of sorts, but it wasn’t cooperative. The sky was gun-metal gray now, the ocean a rippling sea of molten lead. The white boats and their white sails seemed trapped in the wrong seascape.

Back in the bar, I took a stool and asked for a rum and Coke.

The bartender was a blond young man of perhaps twenty-four. “Are you a member, sir?”

Finally! I showed him Sir Harry’s card, and he smiled, raised his eyebrows and said, “Allow the Nassau Yacht Club to buy you a drink, sir. Could I recommend our special rum punch?”

“Yes to both.”

He served it up in a round red glass with fruit in it; I tossed the fruit aside and sipped the punch-it was bitter with lime, sweet with brown sugar.

What do you think?” the kid asked.

“Delicious and deadly.”