Max Collins - Carnal Hours

Her skin was pale, improbably pale for the tropics, and the effect of her white one-piece bathing suit, white open-toed sandals, was that she looked like a seductive ghost. The only hint of something darker was the shadow of her pubic triangle beneath the suit. Her eyes were almost exactly the light blue of the Bahamian sky, rather small but seeming larger thanks to the framing of thick brown eyebrows and long, apparently authentic lashes. Her lips had a puffy, bruised look, and were painted blood-red, under a tip-tilting nose; apple-cheeked, but not at all wholesome-looking, she had a white terry robe like Nancy’s over one arm and white-framed sunglasses in the opposite hand.

You had to look close to tell, but she was not the twenty-some-year-old she seemed at first glance; gentle crow’s-feet, extra smile lines, the way her eyes sat deep in their sockets…I put her at thirty-five.

“I simply must get out of this sun,” she said. Her voice was thin but not unattractive, a brittle, British wind chime of a voice.

Nancy was beaming, half-standing. “Di! You look fabulous in that new suit. Schiaparelli?”

“Travella.” Her smile was surprisingly wide, her teeth the dazzling white Pepsodent promised, but rarely delivered.

And now she had turned that smile on me. “You must be Nancy’s charming private eye.”

I was standing, straw fedora in hand. “Nathan Heller,” I said.

She arched an eyebrow. “You must be good at what you do.”

“Why’s that?”

“To sneak in here with a name like that.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh politely or slap her.

“You’re outrageous, Di,” Nancy said, almost giggling. “Don’t mind her, Nate. Di’s the least prejudiced person I know.”

“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.”