McNally's Folly (36 page)

Now slicing an onion, followed by a green pepper, Ursi told me the library ordered no less than five copies of Sabrina Wright’s novels upon publication, but even with this extraordinary number in stock, one had to wait weeks before getting their hands, and eyes, on Sabrina’s latest assault on desire. “I met her today,” I announced as if stating that I had run into an old friend.

Ursi paused in her efforts to resuscitate last night’s roast and let out an “Ah.” Jamie’s head twitched, but from experience I knew that he had not missed a word of the conversation. In my years of discreetly inquiring around the Town of Palm Beach I have learned that the best way to find out what is afoot upstairs is to nose around downstairs. The domestics along Ocean Boulevard keep in constant touch, and a word from me to Ursi and Jamie would travel around our little island faster than a speeding bullet trying to outrace the man of steel.

Having no leads, I took my first chance in the case and sowed a few seeds into the fertile ears of our accommodating couple to see what, if anything, they would reap. I let it be known that Sabrina Wright was in Palm Beach in search of her daughter who had run off with a man Sabrina found odious. This was as much as I could say without betraying Sabrina’s confidence, and it was more a sin of omission than a lie. Like all natives, it did not occur to Ursi to ask why the couple had come to Palm Beach, but she would have commented on their choice of destination had they gone elsewhere. As onion and pepper, along with slices of leftover baked potato, were tossed into the skillet and enveloped by the fragrant olive oil, it occurred to me that once Ursi and Jamie passed on this version of Sabrina’s reason for being here, Lolly’s man that got away would acquire a third persona—Gillian’s beau.

Jamie, without so much as a nod, understood that I would be grateful for anything he could come up with regarding the whereabouts of Sabrina’s daughter and her current flame. I have often slipped Jamie a few large greenbacks in appreciation of services rendered, a fact that would drive my sire up a wall and get me expelled, yet again, from a safe harbor. But in my business the riskiest thing one can do is not tempt the fates.

The aroma ascending from Ursi’s skillet had me salivating as she lovingly sautéed the vegetables before adding the sliced roast pork and a touch of sherry. She left it on the flame long enough to warm the pork through and crisp the edges, then quickly deglazed the pan. As she transferred the contents to a warm plate, drizzling the lot with the savory pan juices, she complained, “You would think Sabrina Wright would know better. All her heroines fall in love with the wrong man, only they turn out to be the right man in the end.”

“That’s because in her novels Sabrina is calling the shots. In real life, Ursi, she can’t do that.”

My ragout was placed before me, along with several thick slices of Ursi’s own sourdough bread and a bottle of ice-cold Brooklyn lager. Nirvana.

“Then she should let her daughter follow her heart,” Ursi offered with my lunch.

It was clear that Ursi Olson had read too many Sabrina Wright novels.

When I returned to the office, the first thing I did was call Lolly Spindrift to see if he knew anything more about Sabrina Wright’s visit to our Eden than his blind item intimated. I was not too sanguine, as gossip columnists in general, and Lolly Spindrift in particular, tell all they know or think they know, keeping secret only their own libidinous behavior. Lolly’s column is called “Hither and Yon,” which in other words means Palm Beach and anyplace elsewhere he can beg, borrow, steal, or invent a scoop about the rich and famous.

“Lol? Archy McNally here.”

“You cad,” he attacked. “You never call to whisper sweet nothings into my eager ear even after I gave you three mentions this month.”

“Getting a mention in this town in July, Lol, is as newsworthy as telling your readers the pope attended mass last Sunday.”

“But unlike the pope, dear heart, your dalliances bring a blush to my cheek and a longing to my savage breast; however, I never tell, although I have a file with your name on it that would make the contents of Pandora’s box look benign.”

“Let’s keep it under lock and key, Lol.”

“It depends, Archy.”

“On what?”

“How nice you are to Lolly.”

Deflecting having to take him to dinner at some expensive bistro, I announced, “There’s a new bartender at Bar Anticipation who’s right up your alley.”

“And how would you know?”

“A wild guess, Lol.”

“Well, guess again. I’ve sworn off bartenders. The last one...”

It was a half hour before I was able to stifle his account of unrequited love. After making the necessary sympathetic sounds, I posed, “A favor, Lol?”

“I knew you wanted to pick my brains, Archy. What about pumping me over dinner this evening?”

The guy’s conversation was peppered with all kinds of innuendo that, believe me, was intentional. Lolly Spindrift is small of stature and favors white double-breasted suits, ascots, Panama hats, and expensive restaurants. His petite size belies a ravenous appetite and the word “abstemious” is not in his lexicon. At a buffet dinner party given by a PB matron of great wealth and little charm, I watched him consume healthy portions of all twenty delicacies on the smorgasbord table, belch daintily, and in lieu of a doggy bag, take home the chef.

“The Pelican Club?” I offered.

The Pelican Club is a private dining and drinking establishment housed in a somewhat dilapidated two-story shingled house near the airport and is the favorite watering hole of the young, the bad, and the beautiful of Palm Beach and vicinity. Founded by a group of like-minded men, yrs. truly among them, who find the traditional clubs a bit too fussy and stuffy and, let’s face it, unobtainable to the likes of us, the Pelican does not discriminate in any way, even to those who find us déclassé. For proof I give you the astounding number of traditional club regulars who find the Pelican an intriguing diversion.

“Get real, Archy. I wouldn’t be caught dead in that joint.”

If Lolly’s roving eye roved in the wrong direction at the Pelican, he might get caught just that way on his initial visit.

“I hear the
foie gras
at Testa’s will leave you panting,” he informed me.

So will the bill, I thought. “Look, Lol, I can’t make it tonight,” I lied, “but I’ll advance you a rain check if you advance me a little info.”

“Can I trust you, Archy?”

“Of course not. That’s what makes me so irresistible.”

“That’s what my bartender said and he was right. Okay, Archibald, what do you want to know about whom and why?”

“Sabrina Wright. What else do you know about her visit besides what your spy at the Chesterfield told you?”

“My spy?” Lolly exploded. “You jest, young man. I don’t have any spies. Not that I wouldn’t if I could afford them. I have to scratch for every item and can show you the broken fingernails to prove it.”

“Then how did you know she checked into the Chesterfield and asked if her husband was stopping there?”

“So she
is
looking for her husband. What joy. Can I quote you?”

Me and my big mouth. I had just told Lolly more than I was going to learn from him. It was too late to retrieve my words so I had to eat them, which did not sit well with Ursi’s stir-fry. “Quote me and kiss your
foie gras
goodbye. How did you get the item?”

“From an anonymous caller,” Lolly answered. “He told me Sabrina Wright had just arrived in town and was staying at the Chesterfield. He said she was here looking for a certain man. I called the hotel and they confirmed that she was registered, but when I asked to be connected to her room I was informed that she was not taking calls. Like Garbo, she
vanted
to be alone.

“I could tell my avid readers that Sabrina was in town, but I wouldn’t touch the bit about a certain man, which was pure hearsay and too specific. There are libel laws, so I dreamed up the man that got away, which could mean any man she had even so much as shook hands with.”

“You didn’t recognize the caller?” I asked.

“Not at all, and I don’t think he was disguising his voice.”

“But you’re sure it was a man?”

“Archy, when it comes to recognizing men, I have no equal.”

“Thanks, Lol, I...”

“Not so fast, Mr. Hit-’n’-Run. What is going on here? First I get an anonymous tip on Sabrina Wright, and then I get a follow-up call from Archy McNally of Discreet Inquiries. You don’t have to be a whiz kid to know that there’s something rotten in Palm Beach. Tell Lolly what you know or I will be very, very cruel to Archy.”

“You’re bluffing,” I said with more bravado than conviction.

“Really? Item: The girl dancing cheek-to-cheek with Archy McNally on the moonlit deck of Phil Meecham’s yacht, the oh-so-social
Sans Souci
, didn’t look like Connie Garcia, but then I wasn’t wearing my glasses, so I could be wrong.”

“That’s blackmail,” I accused.

“You bet your sweet tuchas it is, baby. Cross me and the item runs tomorrow.”

Consuela Garcia is my light-o’-love and has been for longer than I care to remember. She is a Marielito who toils as social secretary to Lady Cynthia Horowitz, one of Palm Beach’s more obnoxious chatelaines. Connie is a lovely senorita with a figure that brings to mind the dancer Chita Rivera of
West Side Story
fame. The musical play, to be sure, not the film, as Chita was not given the film role she had created on Broadway. But then Hollywood has not made an astute casting decision since replacing Myrna Loy with Anna May Wong as the daughter of Fu Manchu.

Connie and I have an open relationship, which I fear does not translate well into
Español
. I think it means I can dance cheek-to-cheek with a curvaceous blonde at one of Phil Meecham’s naughty mixes, and Connie thinks it means she can neuter me for doing so. Clearly, my need to head off Lolly’s item was of paramount importance to that which I hold near and dear.

Thinking fast, which is something I do very well when Connie reaches for a carving knife, I blabbed, “Look, Lol, I’ll level with you.” Here I told him the same story I had told Ursi and Jamie.

Recalling the laws of libel, Lolly demanded, “How do you know this?”

“Ms. Wright has hired me to find the culprit and her daughter.” McNally’s luck held out when Lolly, like Ursi, did not ask why the couple had fled to Palm Beach.

“My, my, Archy, aren’t you rubbing shoulders, and what a delicious tidbit,” was Lolly’s expected reaction. I could see him licking his lips and filling his Mont Blanc with acid. “Do you think he was my anonymous caller?”

“I’m sure he was,” I answered.

“Why did he expose himself to me, so to speak, dear heart?”

“He didn’t. You wouldn’t know who he was if I hadn’t told you. I think he did it to goad Sabrina.”

“This gets better by the moment. Ta, ta, Archy, see you in church.”

I had to again head Lolly off at the pass and took my second chance of the case, a wild one, to accomplish this goal. “Lol, can I ask you not to print a word of this just yet?”

“You could, lover, but your plea will fall on deaf ears.”

“What if I told you I could set up an exclusive interview for you with Sabrina Wright?” There is nothing, besides bartenders and food, that Lolly Spindrift likes better than the word exclusive followed by a celebrated name. I could almost hear his brain calculating the pros and cons of my offer. “To publish or not to publish, that is the question,” I intruded upon his deliberations. “One quickie blurb or an exclusive with Sabrina that might very well be picked up by the wire services and attributed to Lolly Spindrift.”

After a prolonged silence, he sighed, “She will speak to me? Promise?”

“Scout’s honor.”

“I’m not feeling too kindly toward the Scouts these days, Archy.”

“Sorry, Lol. How ’bout my word as a gentleman?”

“Good grief, that’s worse. You have forty-eight hours to deliver, dear heart.”

“You’re on, Lol. And the bartender works the day shift.”

“Why, you little devil,” Lolly giggled.

I hung up, praying I could talk Sabrina into talking to Lolly Spindrift. My trump card was that anonymous caller who had to be Zack Ward trying to flush out Gillian’s father. Ward was a loose cannon, and I could see why Sabrina wanted him stopped before he learned all and told all. But how did he know she had come to Palm Beach and was asking for her husband when she registered at the Chesterfield?

Sabrina would see the necessity of keeping Lolly from writing anything further until we had time to figure out what to tell him that would both defuse the man-that-got-away item and keep Lolly from learning the true reason for Gillian’s coming here.

What to tell Lolly I would leave to Sabrina’s creative genius. Remember, I had only consented to look for her husband. Never had a case taken so many diverse paths so quickly with so little hope for a quick solution. On that ominous note, enter Binky Watrous pushing his mail cart, a wagon that is indistinguishable from those that clog the aisles of supermarkets from coast to coast. Binky’s, mercifully, does not contain a screaming two-year-old reaching for everything he has seen advertised on the telly.

“Hi, Archy.”

“Good afternoon, Binky, my boy.”

Depositing a small packet of envelopes encased in a rubber band on my desk, Binky gave me a depressing forecast of my afternoon epistles. “The usual fast-food menus, requests for charitable donations, and a flyer from an X-rated video distributor in Miami.”

“Your job, Binky, is to deliver the mail, not read it,” I reminded him.

Binky suffers from EDS. Employment Deficiency Syndrome. Since leaving school he has held more jobs than Mother has begonias, all terminating disastrously for both employer and employee. While clerking in a liquor store in Delray Beach, Binky was held up at gunpoint. Ordered to empty the cash register, Binky told the intruder that the register was controlled by the digital scanner that reads the price labels, therefore the thief would have to make a purchase if he wanted to get his hands on the loot.

Remembering the dinner party he was giving that very evening, the miscreant asked Binky to recommend a pretentious
vin blanc
to complement his poached salmon. Summoning all he had learned while training to be a liquor store clerk, Binky talked the man into a pricey white Graves. Pleased, the bandit took home a case, along with the contents of the cash register. This is just one painful example of the entries on Binky’s CV. The full picture is available from the U.S. Department of Unemployment under the Freedom of Information Act of 1966.