McNally's Dare (32 page)

As if reading my mind, Lolly said, “Alejandro is fast becoming a political force in Miami and points north. They say he’s the odds-on favorite should he choose to run for mayor.”

Alex is first-generation American and has vowed, via his column in a popular Miami daily with a tremendous Cuban-American readership, to return to Cuba, rout Castro and reclaim his heritage. The Gomez family harvested sugarcane and the Zapatas exported rum. Alex isn’t clear as to just how he is going to accomplish this mission, but those who hear him at political rallies (or see him bumping and grinding on the conga line) never think to ask. He is young, he is handsome, he is hope personified and that, it seems, is more than enough for his numerous followers—including Connie. Alex has mastered the art of politicking—you can fool all of the people some of the time and you run with it when that time has come.

Lolly sees all liaisons as potential love affairs so it would not occur to him to even suspect a political aspect to his informant’s sighting. I refrained from voicing this interpretation for fear that Lolly would formally announce that the widow Taylor was financing an armada of luxury yachts for Alex’s Cuban conquest. At this time I had no way of knowing how right I might be, nor could I predict the lethal consequences of my association with Matthew Hayes—but I get ahead of myself.

Carolyn and Alex? Curious. This very afternoon I had sat in on a meeting between her stepson, Linton Taylor, Jr., and my father. In his quest for legal counsel, Laddy, as he is known locally, told my father that Carolyn Taylor had taken up with a young man so soon after the demise of Linton, Sr., it was obvious that the affair had been going on long before old man Taylor met his maker by way of myocardial infarction. The young man, who is not Alejandro Gomez y Zapata, had moved into the Taylor abode, Flamingo Run, as the funeral cortege had filed out. This rather theatrical description of the comings and goings at Flamingo Run is taken, verbatim, from the mouth of Laddy Taylor. Client confidentiality, and the sensitive nature of this meeting, forbade me from mentioning it to my dinner companion lest he would devour the plates, glasses table linens and silverware for dessert.

Again exhibiting his prowess in reading my mind, which was getting scary, Lolly stated, “I understand Laddy Taylor is seeking the help of McNally and Son, Do you want to confide in Lolly?”

I would rather confide in a convention of investigative reporters. So much for trying to keep a secret in Palm Beach. “Where did you hear that?” I foolishly asked.

“From Laddy Taylor, who else?” Lolly answered. “He’s screaming his head off to anyone who will listen. Big Linton left it all to Carolyn, lock, stock and barrel, and Laddy Taylor is threatening to contest the will. Correct?”

An Inofficious Will, my father the lawyer had termed it. A will inconsistent with the moral duty and natural affection of the testator. You see, as the money came from Laddy’s natural mother, he felt it should have been passed on to him rather than to his stepmom, Carolyn. But there were extenuating circumstances, not the least being that Laddy Taylor and his father had been estranged for years and Junior had returned to Palm Beach just in time to see Carolyn’s stud enter and the cortege exit.

However, to show her heart was in the right place, Carolyn offered Laddy Taylor his late father’s wardrobe, which included a dozen pairs of silk boxer shorts, all emblazoned with the image of a flamingo on the run. This did nothing so much as set the perfect stage for a crime of vengeance.

I did not want to discuss our meeting with Laddy Taylor, no matter how obliquely. Determined to get what I was paying for, I abruptly shifted gears and asked, “What do you know about Matthew Hayes, Lol?”

Lolly dropped Laddy Taylor and picked up on Matthew Hayes without missing a beat (or a bite). “Finally, the reason for your largesse,” he sighed. “Did you get your invitation to the opening of the maze?”

“How did you know I was invited?”

“I worked with Hayes on the list of invitees.”

Besides his gab column, Lolly does obits, weddings and bar mitzvahs for extra cash. He is also available for “consultation” for those wishing to break into Palm Beach society, which is comprised of three strata. The old-money folks, who speak only to each other and shun trendy restaurants, dining only at their clubs, the Everglades and the Bath and Tennis. The new-money people, who will speak to anyone who is kind enough to notice them and dine out, ad nauseam, at trendy restaurants. And finally, there’s the Smart Set, made up of the offspring of the former and the latter, with a soupcon of young boys and girls whose entree is their youth and comeliness.

Don’t tell father, but the McNally money is too new to be considered old, but old enough not to be labeled
nouveau.
Hence we transcend the system, which is a boon to business.

“What’s the poop on Matthew Hayes, Lol?” I repeated.

“You want the official bio, or the awful truth?”

“The awfuler the better, Lol.”

Over an outrageously expensive bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau (it doesn’t age so well, like we humans, the younger the better), Lolly imparted what I had come to hear.

To wit: Hayes was a second-generation carny who began his professional life as a human cannonball. His stature, five-feet-four in heels as high as a man could don without arousing suspicion, made him not only suitable for the job but also had his father eyeing Manny the Midget with malevolent scorn.

Hayes was literally catapulted into the big time when the cannoneer, who was not licensed to kill, misdirected his missile, sending Hayes over the net and head first into the amazin’ bosom of Marlena Marvel. To be sure, at the time of this encounter of head and heart, she was plain old Molly Malone, but unlike her namesake of song, this modern Molly did not proffer mussels and cockles, alive, alive, all. This Molly proffered alcoholic beverages in downtown Des Moines where she was affectionately known to her loyal customers as Stretch, due no doubt to the fact that she stood six-feet-two in her stocking feet. When Molly ambled about in her work shoes, towering red satin high-heeled slides, she resembled an L.A. Lakers center in drag.

Molly settled the disoriented cannonball on her lap as an enterprising photographer took a snap. When he sold it to the local press, who ran it beside a shot of the popular dummy of yore, Charlie McCarthy, seated on the lap of his creator, Edgar Bergen, a star was born.

Hayes talked Molly into joining his traveling carnival. To ensure that she didn’t stray, he married her in a very public ceremony. Ever aware of photo ops, the groom climbed a ladder in order to plant a kiss on his blushing bride’s cheek. The newlyweds billed themselves as the Amazin’ Matthew Hayes and the Marvelous Marlena Marvel: he as the carny pitchman and she as the show’s main attraction. They owned the carnival after two seasons on the road. Devoid of talent, hubby made the most of Marlena’s six-two frame, flowing red mane and, naturally, the ample bosom that saved his life.

Marlena was presented as Venus de Milo before a black curtain that cleverly made her appear armless. She rode a white horse as Lady Godiva, wearing nothing more than a long red wig. She mounted a drugged tiger as Sheena Queen of the Jungle, clad in a leopard-skin sarong. As the Elephant Girl she rode—you guessed it—wrapped in the animal’s ears.

Marlena Marvel was the perfect draw for the men Hayes fleeced with rigged games of chance, illegal gambling, and sex shows. A petting zoo and rides kept the wife and kids occupied while daddy lost a week’s pay to Matthew Hayes’s exchequer.

Now retired, rich and infamous, the couple had arrived in Palm Beach to baffle us with their hedge maze because they were unable to dazzle us with their brilliance.

“I understand,” Lolly concluded, “that Amazin’ was often caught in the sack with curies he liked to pick up on the fairway while Marlena was shivering inside the elephant’s ears. She threatened to sit on his lap if he didn’t mend his ways.”

“One final word to the wise,” Lolly intoned as I gasped at the bill just presented. “I told you the Adonis I rescued from Bar Anticipation left me for a woman.”

“Yes,” I said, surrendering my credit card with great reluctance.

“The woman was Carolyn Taylor.”

Well! One never knows, do one?

L
ADIES AND GENTLEMEN, GOOD
evening and welcome to Le Maze.” Our host stood on a black drum about three feet high, which I imagine was once festooned with bunting. Matthew Hayes, dressed in a tux and sporting a red cummerbund and matching carnation, had a fine head of gray hair and piercing blue eyes. His lean figure could easily fit into the trousers and blazers offered in the prep department of better men’s shops. His voice, that of a true carny hawker, belied his spritely appearance and immediately commanded the attention of the crowd of perhaps twenty couples milling about the great room of the house just christened Le Maze.

I think the former owners of the villa on Ocean Boulevard would have been amazed to see what Amazin’ Matthew Hayes had done with it. The furniture, strictly rental, was a potpourri of this (early hotel) and that (late motel). The art, twelve-by-six four-color posters, depicted scenes from Hayes’s former carnival in all its gaudy splendor. A strong man, a tattooed lady named Lydia, a bearded lady, male Siamese twins joined at the hip (no doubt with Super Glue), Ferris wheels, ferocious tigers, parachute jumps, a two-headed dog, the fairway and, most conspicuous of all, Marlena Marvel in all her many guises.

There were booths offering cotton candy, candied apples on a stick, soda pop, franks, burgers, beer from a keg and a moviola advertising French films. (Really!) There was an organ grinder with a monkey, a fortune-teller (Madame LaZanga) with a deck of tarot cards, a man who guessed your age (his was a thankless job with this crowd), several pinball machines and a guy in a bowler hat and arm braces (so help me!) running a three-card monte scam across a portable bridge table. There was a knife thrower asking for volunteers (ha!), a sword swallower and a lion tamer short on lions but long on tight breeches, blond locks and whip.

There was also a platoon of boys and girls in the traditional black pants, white pleated shirts and black bow ties, passing around trays of crystal flutes (rented) filled with surprisingly good champagne.

Lolly, in his trademark white suit, painted silk tie and panama hat, breezed by munching a candied apple and whispered, “My dear, it gives new meaning to the word gauche.”

“Didn’t you advise him?” I whispered back.

“I suggested the guest list, not the decor. Look, there’s Katie Mann with her new husband. Or is it Trish Manning’s new husband Katie’s got her mitts on? Oh, dear. Tata, dearheart.”

“Before you ta-ta, Lol, will you tell me if that’s Carolyn Taylor’s beau?” I asked, discreetly nodding toward the couple in question.

The widow Taylor is a looker in her forties. She wore her auburn hair in a rather mannish cut that was surprisingly sexy on her. In a miniskirt and black satin bolero blouse knotted above her toned bare midriff, there could be no doubt as to her gender.

Her partner was at least twenty years younger and as good-looking as all the young men, usually from the Midwest, who come to our town not seeking fame (they go to N.Y. and L.A. for that) but fortune. This one came in natural blond.

“That’s him,” Lolly said, pouting over his loss. “Billy Gilbert. There’s less to him than meets the eye, if you get my drift.” With that he took off to see just who Katie Mann was hitting on.

Not far from Carolyn and Billy I spotted Laddy Taylor in the crowd but could not ascertain if he was with a date or on his own. He was far enough from his stepmother to prevent him from engaging her in fisticuffs, but the night was young.

Judging from the din, the Smart Set appeared to be enjoying a night out. They were garbed in the suggested casual attire: shorts, sneakers, polo shirts, tees with naughty words in block letters and jeans worn low enough to reveal the brand of underwear beneath the denim—a fad I wish would go the way of long-playing records and telephones anchored to a wire.

My near-six-foot frame looked splendid in a pair of trim madras slacks (I believe the relaxed look is for those who have something to hide) and a blue Ralph Lauren button-down. For contrast, I added a white-on-white ascot to the outfit and shod my size eleven hoofs in a pair of canvas docksiders—sans socks,
naturellement.
My underwear will be revealed on a need-to-know basis.

“I guess you’re wondering why I gathered you all here tonight,” Hayes continued, to laughs, catcalls and applause. “Well, wonder no longer, for the moment of truth has arrived. You will be the first of whom I hope will be many to enter the maze of Le Maze and search for the goal.

“To make your quest more interesting I am going to ask the ladies to pick a name out of this bonnet”—Hayes pointed to a woman’s straw bonnet resting on the rim of the platform next to a man’s top hat—“and the gentlemen to pick a name from this hat. Those with matching names will be partnered to search for the goal.”

Feet shifted and necks craned to size up the possibilities.

“By matching,” Hayes explained, “I mean a lady who picks, let’s say, Bonnie, will have to find the man who has selected Clyde.”

This got a smattering of nervous laughs, giggles and moans.

“Before we begin,” Hayes went on, still holding the room’s rapt attention, “I would like to introduce you all to the little woman whom I have loved, admired and looked up to since the day we met.”

The silence that followed was embarrassing until one brave soul let out an insidious snicker. A moment later the entire room was rocking with laughter, led by Hayes himself who egged everyone on like a maestro sans baton. As the laughter subsided the lights began to dim, slowly, until the great room was dark and eerily still.

A spotlight came on and moved to the foot of the curved marble stairway that descended gracefully to the great room and rose to the upper floor and a balcony where, decades ago, an orchestra once played to the waltzing couples below. The spotlight mounted the stairs, crossed to the balcony, hesitated, and then illuminated Venus de Milo in all her glory. The crowd gave a collective gasp before breaking into unbridled applause.