Best of all, the chair awaiting me was next to this vision of youthful pulchritude.
Ruby, her mouth twitching with amusement at my open admiration for the girl, said, “Isabel Bell, this is Nathan Heller—my husband’s investigator.”
“Charmed I’m sure,” she said. She didn’t look at me.
Isabel Bell was studying a menu whose cover depicted a slender island beauty with blossoms in her hair; the glowing airbrushed blues and yellows and oranges were a dreamy promise of the Polynesian paradise presumably awaiting us at Oahu.
Darrow said, “Miss Bell is Thalia Massie’s cousin. I’ve invited her to join our little group—she’s on her way to lend her cousin some moral support.”
“That’s swell of you,” I said cheerfully to this beauty who had not yet deigned to cast her baby blues upon me. “Are you and Mrs. Massie close?”
“Langouste Cardinal,” she said, still gazing at the menu. “That sounds yummy.”
I took a look at the menu. “I was hoping for lobster, on a fancy barge like this.”
“Langouste is lobster, silly,” she said, finally looking at me.
“I know,” I said. “I just wanted to get your attention.”
And now I had it. Whether she’d been pretending not to notice the best-looking (and one of the few) unattached males in the room, I can’t say; but those big blue eyes, and long natural fluttery lashes, were suddenly locked on yours truly.
“Very close,” she said.
“Huh?”
With a snippy sigh, she turned her attention back on the menu. “Thalo and I, we’re very close…. That’s her nickname, Thalo. We practically grew up together. She’s my dearest friend.”
“You must be torn up about all this.”
“It’s been simply dreadful. Ooooo…coconut ice cream! That ought to get us in a tropical mood.”
I could have written her off right then as a trivial shallow little creature. But because she was probably no older than twenty, and a product of her heredity and environment, I decided to cut her some slack. Her pretty puss and swell shape had nothing to do with it. Or everything. One of the two.
“Actually,” I said, “Hawaii isn’t really tropical.”
She looked at me again; she may have been shallow, but those blue eyes were deep enough to dive into. “What is it, then?” she challenged.
“Well, while the Hawaiian Islands do lie between the Tropic of Cancer and the Equator, they simply aren’t sultry or hot. There’s always a breeze.”
Darrow said, “Mr. Heller is right. A land of no sunstroke, no heat prostration—just trade winds sweeping in continuously from the Pacific.”
“From the northeast, more or less,” I added sagely.
“This is my first trip to the Islands,” she admitted, as if ashamed.
“Mine, too.”
She blinked, cocked her head back. “Then what makes you so darn knowledgeable?”
“The National Geographic.”
“Are you making fun of me?”
“What do you think, sister?” I asked.
There were smiles all around the table—except from Miss Bell. In fact, she didn’t speak to me again through dinner; but I had a feeling she was interested. Cute stuck-up kids love it when you needle them…unless they’re completely hopeless and humorless. In which case, even a pretty puss and swell shape wouldn’t make it worth the trouble.
We were halfway through our coconut ice cream when Leisure—who’d seemed distracted throughout the endless sumptuous courses of dinner—asked Darrow, “When you’ve had a good look at those transcripts and affidavits, could I have some time with them?”
“Take ’em tonight,” Darrow said, waving offhandedly.
“Stop by my stateroom, take ’em away, and pore over ’em to your heart’s content.”
“I’d like a look at them myself,” I said.
“You can have ’em after George,” Darrow said magnanimously. “I love to be surrounded by well-informed people.” He turned to his wife, next to him. “They’ve a full orchestra and a nightclub, dear…and there’s no Prohibition at sea. A fully appointed bar awaits us.” He patted her hand and she smiled patiently at him. “What a wonderful, decadent place this is. You up for some dancing?”
We all were.
The ship’s cocktail lounge—the size of which redefined the meaning of the phrase—was a streamlined moderne nightclub ruled by indirect lighting and chrome trim; with its cylindrical barstools and sleek decorative touches, we might have been on the Matson Line’s first spaceship.
The dance floor was a glossy black mirror so well polished, remaining upright was a challenge, let alone exhibiting any terpsichorean grace. The orchestra had an ersatz Crosby, and, as I danced with Ruby Darrow, he was singing Russ Columbo’s tune “Love Letters in the Sand” while a ukulele laid in the main accompaniment.
“They seem determined to get us in the island mood, don’t they?” I asked.
“When are you going to ask Miss Bell to dance? She’s the prettiest girl here, you know.”
“You’re the prettiest girl here…. I might get around to it.”
“You’ve danced with me three times, and Mrs. Leisure four.”
“Mrs. Leisure’s pretty cute. The way her husband’s all caught up in this case, maybe I can make some time.”
“You’ve always been a bad boy, Nathan,” Ruby said affectionately.
“Or maybe I’m just playing hard to get,” I said, glancing over at Miss Bell, who was dancing with Darrow, who was windmilling her around and occasionally stepping on her feet. She was wincing with pain and boredom.
I felt sorry for her, so when they played “I Surrender, Dear,” with the would-be Crosby warbling the lyrics, I asked her to dance.
She said, “No thank you.”
She was sitting at our table, but everyone else was out on the dance floor; I sat next to her.
“You think I’m Jewish, don’t you?”
“What?”
“The name Heller sounds Jewish to you. I don’t mind. I’m used to people with closed minds.”
“Who says I have a closed mind?” She turned her pouty gaze out on the dance floor. “Are you?”
“What?”
“Of the Jewish persuasion?”
“They don’t really persuade you. It’s not an option. It comes with the birth certificate.”
“You are Jewish.”
“Only technically.”
She frowned at me. “How can you be ‘technically’ Jewish?”
“My mother was Irish Catholic. That’s where I got this Mick mug. My father was an apostate Jew.”
“An apost…what?”
“My great-grandfather, back in Vienna, saw Jew killing Jew—over their supposed religious differences—and, well, he got disgusted. Judaism hasn’t been seen in my family since.”
“I never heard of such a thing.”
“It’s true. I even eat pork. I’ll do it tomorrow. You can watch.”
“You’re a funny person.”
“Do you want to dance or not? Or did Darrow crush your little piggies?”
Finally she smiled; a full, honest, open smile, and she had wonderful perfect white teeth, and dimples you could’ve hidden dimes in.
It was the kind of moment that can make you fall in love forever—or for at least as long as an ocean voyage.
“I’d love to dance…Nathan, is it?”
“It’s Nate…Isabel….”
We danced to the rest of “I Surrender, Dear,” then snuggled close on “Little White Lies.” We left in the middle of “Three Little Words” to get some air out on the afterdeck. We leaned against the rail near a suspended lifeboat. The fog of San Francisco was long gone; the stars were like bits of morning peeking through holes punctured in a deep blue night.
“It’s cool,” she said. “Almost cold.”