McNally's Dare (7 page)

“I have no idea,” I said, “mostly because I didn’t know there was a connection between the two until you told me.”

Again, he asked, “Are you working for Malcolm MacNiff?”

“I plead client confidentiality,” I told him before asking, “Why haven’t you told the police why you came to Palm Beach?”

“That would be revealing a source, which I never do,” he said.

“Your source is dead,” I reminded him, “and what he told you could help the police in their investigation of his death.”

“It could also help you, Archy. That is, if you are looking into Jeff’s murder on behalf of a client.”

“We’re shadowboxing, Denny,” I said, thinking that we had reached an impasse and I was getting bored with the charade and with Denny. True, he had given me a connection between the assignments I had undertaken for Nifty—Jeff’s murder and the legitimacy of Lance Talbot’s claim—but I wasn’t about to tell Denny that. In fact, I was going to tell Denny as little as possible and learn as much as I could. In the game of give-and-take, the object is to take as much as you can get and give as little as you can get away with. And, lest I forget, I was playing with a pro.

Denny again signaled our waitress and indicated by pointing that we were ready for another drink. It’s long been rumored that reporters are big-time boozers and Denny wasn’t doing anything to dispel the supposition. “If you’d like a cigarette we could move out to the terrace,” he offered.

“What makes you think I’m a smoker?”

“You’re beginning to fidget,” he said, mockingly.

“And you’re beginning to bore, Denny. Now if you’ll excuse me...”

“Cool your heels,” he said, motioning me to stay seated. When I kept my place he leaned forward and, speaking in earnest, got down to the purpose of our meeting. “Look, Archy, I need your help and I’m willing to pay for it. What’s your fee?”

“Steep, like everything else in Palm Beach, but I’m sure you, or your magazine, can afford it. What did you have in mind, Denny?”

The waitress deposited our drinks and took away the empties. When she was out of hearing range Denny said, “I want you to. find out what Jeff had on Lance Talbot. I thought I had come down here chasing a rainbow but the kid’s murder changes all that. He was on to something. Something so big it got him killed. Drugs? Kinky sex? Maybe. But my guess is that Jeff Rodgers knew who Lance Talbot’s father was and the disclosure would make headlines.”

“So you know he was born on the wrong side of the blanket,” I said, impressed with Denny’s facts.

“My assistant compiled a dossier on Talbot, his mother, grandmother and the Detroit Reynolds connection. My first thought was that Jeff had learned who fathered Lance and that it was a man of note who would like to remain anonymous. It’s why I came down here.”

This, of course, opened a can of worms I had not even considered nor, I suspect, had Malcolm MacNiff, who was unaware of the link between Jeff and Lance. It was Lance’s identity, not his father’s, that worried Nifty. As for Jeff’s murder, all Nifty cared about was clearing his friends of the crime. Denny, on the other hand, didn’t have a clue that Talbot might not be Talbot. If I signed on with Denny for a hefty fee it would be for a completely different reason I had been engaged by Nifty—thus not a conflict.
N’est ce pas?
Greed, thy name is Archibald McNally. I was in the catbird seat and enjoying the view, which prompted me to quip brazenly, “I thought you came down for a respite from February in New York.”

“Touché,
Archy, I deserved that.” He downed another swig of Johnnie Walker Red. “If I start asking questions it will draw the attention of every hack in the country and they will make a beeline to Palm Beach in search of the honey. I say that with all due modesty to my fame as an investigative reporter. Plus, I don’t know my way around these parts and you do.” He raised his glass in a toast. “Partners?”

I gave that a moment’s thought and raised my glass. Denny had given me a connection between my two cases for Nifty that I might never have discerned on my own. I owed the man something and, let’s not forget, he would pay well for my largesse.

“You said you had one meeting with Jeff. What did he tell you?”

“Not much,” Denny said. “He wanted to know how much I would pay for his information. I told him, yet again, it would depend on what he was selling. He asked for a ballpark figure, as he put it, and I got the feeling that he was engaging in a private auction.”

“You mean he was talking to another magazine?”

“No. I think he was talking to Lance Talbot, or Lance’s dad, and using my presence as a threat. He wanted to know how much I would pay so he could tell either party it would cost him double to keep his mouth, and mine, shut. Smart kid, right?”

“So smart it got him drowned,” I said, finding it impossible to believe Jeff Rodgers could know who had fathered Lance Talbot, but said, in spite of this conviction, “And if it was the father Jeff was dealing with it’s very possible Lance knows nothing about the blackmail scam or who his father is.”

“It’s possible,” Denny said, not sounding too happy with the hypothesis. Denny wanted the young, handsome and rich Lance Talbot to be the focal point of his story, not a footnote.

“Did you give Jeff a ballpark figure?”

“Guessing he knew the name of Talbot’s father, and that it was a big name, I said twenty thousand was not unheard of for the right information.”

It was my turn to whistle through my teeth. “Lance did not kill Jeff Rodgers,” I stated for the record.

“I’m aware of that, Archy. Remember, I had an interest in Lance Talbot. I got my editor to pay big to get me invited to MacNiff’s fund-raiser and Lance Talbot was never out of my sight yesterday afternoon. He never went near the pool.”

“Did Jeff tell you Lance was going to be at Malcolm MacNiff’s yesterday?” I asked.

“But of course.”

So the waiter knew the playboy’s social schedule. The more one learned, the less one knew. At this juncture I had to ask, “Tell me, Denny, are you interested in a story or justice?”

“A story, of course. If the bad guys get their comeuppance along the way, that’s fine, too.”

“I appreciate the candor,” I told him, “and I have no problem with learning the facts and reporting them, but I will have no part in
creating
a story that doesn’t otherwise exist.”

“Fair enough. And may I remind you that since I am your client you are not obligated to tell the police what I have told you. Client confidentiality, remember?”

I had already thought of this but insisted on saying, “Unless withholding information endangers anyone, and I reserve the right to go to the police with what I learn about Jeff Rodgers and Lance Talbot directly after giving you your scoop.”

I did not say that the police would consider Denny’s information hearsay, as was Jeff’s claim that he had something on Lance Talbot. Cold, hard facts were woefully lacking, which had me thinking that this could be an ingenious plot on behalf of Dennis Darling to rock the boat on a calm sea with Archy enlisted to get the wind up.
Beware investigative reporters bearing gifts
would be my mantra when dealing with Denny.

“I will pretend to be gathering information for my Palm Beach story,” Denny was saying, “and continue being snubbed by all the right people and patronized by those who don’t matter.”

That reminded me of Lolly. “Have you met Lolly Spindrift?”

Denny thought a moment. “You mean the little guy in the white suit at MacNiff’s?”

“That’s him. He’s our local gossip columnist,” I said, “and you might interview him as part of your cover.”

“He gave me the cold shoulder,” Denny complained, “like everyone else at the MacNiff party.”

“I happen to know that Lolly can’t refuse an invitation to be wined and dined at someone else’s expense. Cafe L’Europe is his favorite.”

Denny nodded. “I’ll give it a try. Would you like to be wined and dined at my expense right here? The food is excellent.”

“Thanks, but I have a dinner date.”

At that moment, from out of nowhere, the sound of a shaky but robust tenor rose above the din, belting out Verdi’s rousing drinking song from
La Traviata.
I turned to see one of the waiters, a little older and a little stouter than the rest of Daniel’s crew, playing Alfredo in the middle of the small parquet dance floor and, appropriately enough, wielding a glass of champagne to the delight of his audience.

“The room’s singing waiter and main attraction,” Denny informed me. “They call him the fourth tenor.”

Our Caruso wanna-be finished with a theatrical flourish to his imaginary Violetta and to a standing ovation. I couldn’t wait to drag Al Rogoff to the next performance.

I
CROSSED BACK TO
the island and drove north on Ocean Boulevard with the top of my red Miata down, under a canopy of glittering stars and a new moon. I have traveled this route countless times but have yet to become jaded to the sights and sounds and splendor of my hometown on a balmy winter night when a gentle ocean breeze sets the palm trees swaying to the music coming from my car’s radio.

I drove past sumptuous white brick condos with terraces overlooking the Atlantic and grand homes with their windows ablaze as limos and sports cars with foreign plates pulled in and out of gated driveways. Farther along, the island widens to accommodate palatial villas on both sides of the highway and I found myself sandwiched between the rich and the richer in the land of Oz, on my way to see the Wizard.

Forgive the blather, but the easy listening music beneath the stars and swaying palms had me waxing poetic—as do two martinis, unsolved murders and singing waiters. I was actually on my way to the land of Juno to see my current flame, Georgy girl, known to her coworkers as Georgy and to her parents as Georgia. My green-eyed blonde is the happy result of a union between Ireland and Italy. I speak of her parents, not the nations. I read that this mix, especially in New York, is the most popular in our melting pot but has not, thanks to the blessed memory of Georges Auguste Escoffier, led to the joining of boiled potatoes and pasta.

Instead, it has given us handsome lads and gorgeous colleens with attitude. There are those who, in the garden of love, always manage to get hit on the noggin with a falling lemon. I was struck by a peach who packs heat and is licensed to kill. Lieutenant O’Hara, a state trooper if you please, and even if you don’t please. We met over a corpse in a seedy motel room. Given that beginning I figured the relationship had no place to go but up, so I invited her to dinner. We’ve been an item ever since.

Georgy’s electronic message this afternoon had instantly reminded me where and when I had heard the name Joe Gallo, the affable young man Holga von Brecht and I had beat two games out of three before the discovery of Jeff Rodgers’s body in the MacNiffs’ pool. The name came not from a wine commercial as one might expect, but from the ruby lips of Georgy girl. Gallo was her ex-lover who had forsaken her for the good life with a rich divorcée of advanced years whom I now suspected was none other than Vivian Emerson. Really! In Palm Beach in season one needs a
dramatis personae
to tell who’s who, but that’s what we have Lolly Spindrift for.

Driving past Mar-a-Lago, I thought of my lunch with Malcolm MacNiff, which, in turn, led to thoughts of the meeting I had just left with Dennis Darling. Odd, how all the names rattling around in my head on this enchanting evening, with the exception of Georgy girl, were present when Jeff Rodgers met his maker. Now I knew of a link, however tenuous, between the dead boy and one of Nifty’s guests, namely Lance Talbot; and between Joe Gallo, Vivian Emerson and Georgy. If one dug deep enough, would everyone at the MacNiff house yesterday afternoon emerge holding hands like paper dolls stretched the distance from the tennis courts to the pool?

Today saw the first time two clients had hired me to investigate the same person for different reasons. Nifty wanted me to prove that Lance Talbot was, or was not, Lance Talbot and, incidently, to learn what I could about his backyard murder. Denny wanted me to find out what the murdered boy had on Lance Talbot, not knowing that Lance Talbot might not be who he claimed to be.

Clearly, what I needed to learn were the elements and circumstances in which the crime was committed. In this instance, the number one element is, Why was Jeff killed? The leading circumstance is, Who was able to go from the tennis courts to the pool, without being missed or seen, to commit the dastardly deed?

I believed the answers would K two B’s with one S: solve Jeff’s murder and old Mrs. Talbot’s tantalizing riddle, “The king is dead.” The latter, I suddenly decided, would be the title of the case I would begin recording in my journal when I arrived home this evening, or, with a little bit of McNally luck, tomorrow morning.

Georgy girl lives in what was once the guest cottage of an antebellum mansion that has seen better days. Her old landlady, a recluse who is the sole occupant of the manor house, checks the traffic in the driveway leading to Georgy’s digs by peering surreptitiously from behind a beaded curtain. In the months I have been calling on Georgy, the old lady and I have devised a coded form of communication. She peeks through the beads and I beep the Miata’s horn in reply.

The first time I spent the night with Georgy, leaving in the early morning, I do believe the old biddy shook a fist at me from behind her beaded shield. In the weeks that followed she seems to have come to terms with the facts of life, or the facts of her tenant’s life, and we are once again on nonspeaking terms.

Georgy invited me to supper, which, given her cooking skills, is tantamount to playing Russian roulette with your digestive system. Georgy holds the “Fast Food Queen of Florida” title and has been short-listed to take the world title faster than you can nuke a weenie in your microwave.

When I entered the cottage she was at the stove in her cute galley kitchen emptying a can of tuna into a pot of cooked noodles. Turning, she lovingly greeted me with, “I hope that’s not an alligator shirt.”

“I hope that’s not a tuna ’n’ noodle casserole.”