McNally's Dare

by Lawrence Sanders

  “I thought you were working for me,” he insisted.

  “I’ve not formally taken the assignment,” I reminded him. Here I baited his fancy with, “And should I accept your commission, that does not mean I can divulge information gathered for another client.”

  He tapped the imaginary ash off his unlit cigarette. If I was beginning to decompose his composure, it was not unintentional.

  To accentuate his frustration, I advised, “You will have to get used to the new rules that govern smoking in our republic, Lance. It’s now something you do outdoors.”

  With an arrogant air he waved the unlit Gauloises at me and stated, “I have to get used to nothing, my friend. I have no intention of making my home in Palm Beach, or anyplace else in America. I consider Switzerland my native land and Europe my playground. Here, I am a rich bastard. There, I am only rich.”

  He waved to a passing waiter and pointed at our drinks. Being behind, I tossed back my bourbon to catch up. His stand-up martini was already down to a landlocked olive.

  I was tempted to ask if his mother had ever revealed the name of his father to him but thought better of it. If, as Denny suspected, Jeff had known who it was, I deemed it best not to even hint that others had picked up the scent. Also, the label bastard had become synonymous with scoundrel as well as illegitimate. How embarrassing if I popped the question and Talbot was not referring to the circumstances of his birth. But surely he was aware that he carried his mother’s maiden name and not his father’s.

  “Then there are others interested in finding Jeff’s murderer?” he posed.

  “The Palm Beach Police Department, among others,” I asserted.

  Waving this aside, as was his annoying habit, he said, “There is an investigative reporter in town who is with a particularly odious tabloid. We played tennis against him and Malcolm MacNiff, as I’m sure you know. Is he interested in Jeff’s murder?”

  Were we dueling with rapiers instead of words, it would be time for someone to shout en garde. Any doubts that Lance Talbot was fishing were now dispelled. Did he know that he had given away more than the question warranted? I think he did. I also thought he had no choice in the matter.

  As Denny and I suspected, Jeff must have put Lance’s secret on the auction block and was waiting to see who, Lance or Denny, would make the winning bid. Lance was now desperate to know how much Jeff had told Denny. If not, why Lance’s interest in the reporter from the odious tabloid?

  “If he is here because of Jeff, he would have anticipated the murder,” I said, “which is very unlikely. Dennis Darling arrived in Palm Beach a few days before Jeff was shoved into the MacNiff pool.”

  “How silly of me,” he apologized.

  To let him know that I was not oblivious to his concern with Denny’s presence, I added, “Unless you have information that links Darling’s visit to Jeff’s murder.”

  He leaned toward me across the small table, bringing our faces very close indeed. I took the moment to notice that the area abutting his hairline was noticeably whiter than his tanned face. I concluded that his crew cut was recently acquired, and exposure to our Florida sun had not as yet darkened the skin beneath his newly cropped hair to match his handsome puss. Interesting?

  It was then I remembered that I had forgotten to bring the photograph of Lance and the boy we thought was Jeff Rodgers for show and tell. The oversight would prove providential.

  The waiter brought our drinks, forcing Lance to pull back, making his body language less foreboding. When he spoke, his words were less curt than they would have been had the waiter not forced him to reconsider.

  “Let’s cut the crapola, Archy. I haven’t got the time or the patience for it. I told you I wanted to hire you to find Jeff’s murderer, and I told you why I wanted the fink caught. I was sincere. If you have a client after the same thing, that’s fine. My guess is that it’s Malcolm MacNiff, as the crime was committed on his turf. I know he paid for the funeral. I offered to do the same and was told it had all been taken care of. Use what you’ve already learned and build on it at my expense. I’m willing to pay you double your going rate.”

  My going rate, even by Palm Beach standards, was usurious. Doubled it was delightfully iniquitous. Who knows, I might yet get to like Lance Talbot.

  “The clock is ticking,” I warned before going in for the kill. “Jeff Rodgers was boasting that he expected to come into a huge chunk of money, compliments of Lance Talbot. I also learned that Jeff was being paid to keep his mouth shut.”

  Much to my chagrin, Lance looked amused. “Keep his mouth shut? About what?”

  “You tell me. You were the supposed banker.”

  He sighed, looking relieved. “Is that what all the fuss is about? Really?”

  “Fuss?” I exclaimed. “The guy is dead. Murdered. He threatens you and he’s wasted. That’s not exactly much ado about nothing, my friend.”

  He shook his head as I spoke. “No, no. This is all a gross misunderstanding. Jeff never threatened me. That’s preposterous.”

  “Had you talked with him since you came back to Palm Beach?” I questioned.

  “Naturally. Why not? We were old friends. Classmates at your quaint Day School.”

  Quaint? There, yet again, was that continental put-down of things American. And it wasn’t my Day School. It was his. Or was it?

  “Jeff was always a bit jealous of me, Archy,” he explained. “Correction. Let’s be honest. Jeff was always incredibly jealous of me and anyone else who was rich. In this town, that’s a hell of a lot of folks. I was too young to recall exactly how Jeff and I teamed up. I believe his father brought him to the house one day when his own sitter was unable to care for Jeff. Rollo was a widower. After that we were inseparable. At the age of four, one bonds very quickly.

  “I told you his father, Rollo, was our chauffeur. When my mother enrolled me in the Day School, she enrolled Jeff also, paying his fees. Rollo took us to and from school. Poor Jeff made me promise not to tell our classmates Rollo was his father. He had pretentions, Archy. Pretentions far above his station in life. When my mother took me to live in Switzerland, Jeff was left without a benefactress. Tuition at the Day School was beyond Rollo’s means, so Jeff got dumped.”

  He paused long enough to sip his gin martini. So far, Lance’s account of his association with Jeff Rodgers corroborated with Todd’s version.

  Lance continued: “Dumped is the operative word, Archy. It was a bum thing to do to my best pal. But remember, I had no say in the matter. I was a kid, too. When next I saw Jeff, we were no longer children and I had come into my inheritance prematurely. I found Jeff waiting tables, which did nothing to inhibit his pretentions. I owed him, Archy. I owed him big time. He talked about buying a restaurant or bar in New York. The Hamptons, I believe, where he worked summers when things were slow here.

  “As I will always be a rich bastard in Palm Beach, so Jeff would always be someone the rich tipped. The Hamptons was his escape. I told him I would act as his silent partner, putting up all the cash necessary for his enterprise, give him an allowance until the business began to pay, and even throw in a house to sweeten the deal.

  “And there’s the answer to Jeff’s newly acquired wealth, compliments of Lance Talbot.” Still holding his Gauloises, he opened his arms wide and finished with, “Case closed.”

  It’s closed only because a rebuttal from Jeff Rodgers was impossible, due to circumstances beyond my control. Talbot didn’t know if Jeff had actually talked to Denny, but he was betting the farm that Jeff had not. I would apprise Denny of Talbot’s account of Jeff’s windfall and watch the fur fly when the two faced off at the MacNiffs’ tomorrow afternoon. Would Denny bare what he knew, which wasn’t much? Or hint that Jeff had sold his story? That, to be sure, was up to Denny. My sage father had said that if Jeff had been murdered for what he knew, the murderer wouldn’t hesitate to eliminate anyone seeking to learn Jeff’s secret. Beware, Dennis Darling—et tu, Archy McNally.

  After a m
oment’s contemplative thought, I offered, “How very altruistic of you.”

  He nodded as if in agreement. “Thank you, Archy. Are you satisfied now that you know the facts?”

  “Me?” I said. “It’s the police you’ll have to satisfy.”

  “Do they know about Jeff’s boasting?”

  No, but they soon will. After listening to Talbot’s story, I had decided it was time to bring Al Rogoff into the picture. The stakes were high and getting more dangerous by the moment. I enjoy going with the flow, but after sparring with Lance Talbot I saw a tidal wave on the horizon.

  “If the police don’t know about Jeff’s claim, they will when they finish questioning his friends. As I said, he bragged about his expectations.”

  “Then perhaps I should tell them the truth before they jump to the wrong conclusion. You think, yes?”

  His English seemed to deteriorate under stress. “I think, yes, Lance. The sooner, the better.”

  “The Baron arrives tomorrow” he said. “Holga and I must meet him at the airport. He comes here from Zurich via New York. In the afternoon is the MacNiff gathering. After that I will go to the police. I see no reason to alter my plans over this misunderstanding. It has nothing to do with Jeff’s murder.”

  The statement left me nonplussed. If the Baron was who I thought it was, the ladies who lunch would be queuing up for his services, led by Lady Cynthia Horowitz. “The Baron?” I tried to raise one eyebrow and failed.

  “Holga’s husband,” he said with nary a blush. I guess they had never heard that two’s company and three’s a crowd in the snowy Alps, but perhaps, over there, husbands don’t count. The tongue waggers would grow hoarse over this trio.

  “The title is a little joke between Holga and me,” he elucidated. “Uncle Claus is not from a noble family, although he likes to play the part. He is a renowned doctor of surgery, specializing in reconstruction. He operated on my mother some years ago and during her convalescence at his clinic they became good friends and remained so. He and Holga became our extended family.”

  So the late Jessica Talbot had had a face-lift and got tight with her Svengali and his spouse. “The von Brechts have no children?” I ventured.

  “No. I’m their surrogate son,” he said, seemingly proud of the fact.

  How much of this should I believe? I wondered. The guy’s imagination was as rich as his wallet. And was he taking some kind of warped pleasure in the fact that his supposed mistress’s husband was coming to live with them? This was beginning to make the British colonization of Kenya look like a church picnic.

  “I had the pleasure of drawing Ms. von Brecht as a partner at the MacNiffs’ benefit,” I told him. “From her speech I gathered she was American.”

  “By birth only,” Lance informed me. “True, she was born in America. Maine? Vermont? It’s never discussed. After college she took the tour, as it was called, met and married Uncle Claus in Switzerland and never returned here. She is as Swiss as the Alps, believe me.”

  Then I asked something that I would later regret. “We played opposite Vivian Emerson and her escort, Joe Gallo. I got the impression that Ms. von Brecht and Ms. Emerson were friends.”

  With an emphatic shake of the head he denied this. “Holga knows no one here. If she did, I’m sure she would have mentioned it to me. What made you think Holga knew this woman?”

  I wasn’t about to give him any more than I already had, but even at that point it was too late to undo the damage. “Nothing, really,” I said with an uncaring shrug. “Just an impression which was obviously false.” Quickly changing lanes, I told him I would be at the MacNiff shindig on the morrow.

  “Then you will meet the Baron, if he chooses to come. You don’t think a social gathering so soon after the tragedy is a bit macabre?” he asked.

  “Mr. MacNiff is using the occasion to announce that in the future his scholarship fund will become a memorial to Jeff Rodgers.”

  “Again Mr. MacNiff outmaneuvers me. I was going to establish something like that in Jeff’s memory.”

  “Perhaps you can make an annual donation to the MacNiff charity on Jeff’s behalf.”

  “I’ll do just that,” he said. “Would you care for another drink?”

  “No, thank you. I have dinner plans.”

  “And do you accept my commission?”

  “At double my fee, I would be crazy to refuse.”

  He extended his hand. “The name Archibald is derived from the German. It means ‘distinguished and bold.’ I enjoy researching the origin of names to see if they are an apt description of the bearer. Lance comes from the Arthurian legend of Lance-of-Lot or Lancelot. The knight who gained the Holy Grail.”

  I took his hand and shook it with gusto. “Afraid not, kid. Galahad gained the Holy Grail. Lancelot was caught in bed with Guinevere.”

  SIXTEEN

  “THE KING IS DEAD.” The rambling of an old lady, or the solution to this case? Which was the answer? More to the point, what was the question? Was I looking for the true identity of the man calling himself Lance Talbot, or for the secret that got Jeff Rodgers killed? It didn’t take an Einstein to conclude that the two might very well be opposite sides of the same coin.

  Denny believed that Jeff knew who sired Lance and the absentee daddy preferred to remain anonymous. Denny wanted to believe this because it would make the most sensational story, especially if Lance’s dad was a household name who was as pure as a babe in arms. The purer the better, because such falls from grace are the meat and potatoes of the tabloid press.

  Denny’s zeal for a kinky headline had clouded his otherwise clear vision. If Jeff knew who the man was, and if the man did not want the fact known, Jeff would have blackmailed the father, not the son. And Jeff would have done it years ago, not now, as if Lance’s return spurred his memory. But suppose the man’s position made him incommunicado to lesser mortals, making it necessary for Jeff to bargain via Lance?

  Then again, could Lance’s father have also recently returned to Palm Beach? Or would, shortly? Lance wouldn’t pay to protect a father who had abandoned him. Did Jessica Talbot go to Switzerland, taking her son, because her lover was there? The Baron? Why would the doctor wish to remain anonymous, and where did that leave poor Holga?

  Sorry, Denny, all of the above are possible, but surely not plausible. However, I’m sure that if Denny knew about the grandmother’s doubts as to her heir’s identity, he would give up the search for Lance’s father and pick up, with me, the search for Lance himself.

  The two people who knew Lance Talbot for the first ten years of his life were both dead. One by natural causes, after she may have expressed doubts as to his legitimacy. The other murdered, after he had allegedly leaned on Talbot for hush money. With Mrs. Talbot gone, Jeff was the only other person who could spot Lance Talbot for a phony—if that were the case.

  Some secret shared by the two boys the returning Lance failed to remember? A word, or phrase, tossed at him by Jeff that required a response Lance had not tossed back? Ten toes, when there should be only nine? It could be any or all of those things. Or, if one believed Lance, none of them.

  I had just come from hearing Lance’s side of the story and could find no concrete reason why I should not believe him, while believing what Jeff had told Denny. Todd had labeled Jeff a wiseguy and a malcontent. Certainly not the kind of recommendation that inspired confidence in the boy’s integrity. Was Jeff getting a generous handout from Lance while using the celebrated Talbot name to lure Dennis Darling to Palm Beach with the hope of selling a story to Denny that was either trumped-up or fatuous?

  After our chat in the Leopard Lounge only one thing was now certain. Lance Talbot had something to hide and he was afraid Dennis Darling knew that, or might even know the secret itself. My money was on old Mrs. Talbot. “The king”—meaning her grandson—“is dead.” So who had stood me two bourbons at the Leopard Lounge this evening, and who wanted me to find Jeff Rodgers’s murderer? The killer himself? But Lance had
close to a hundred reliable witnesses, including Denny and Archy, to swear he was nowhere near the scene of the crime. I have looked upon many a well-turned ankle in my time but I never thought I would live to see the day I lusted after the sight of a guy’s foot.

  Thus was my mind occupied as I drove to the Pelican. I took the Royal Palm Way Bridge on this balmy winter night with the temperature in the seventies and a breeze off the Atlantic making a cashmere wrap appropriate for the ladies and jackets more serviceable than show for Madame’s escort. The lit windows of the new steel and glass office buildings in West Palm reflected playfully on the dark waters of Lake Worth, and I imagined I could hear music coming from the Governor’s Club in the penthouse suite atop the opulent tower it called home.

  My red Miata raced through an animated picture, postcard of Palm Beach in season, in all its flamboyant splendor—and how I loved it. Also, I was very hungry.

  Georgy girl was seated at the Pelican bar. So too were Binky Watrous and Isadora Duhane. They were chatting like old friends and drinking what I thought to be champagne cocktails. The dining room was hopping and I spotted Todd working the floor along with our Priscilla.

  Georgy looked gorgeous in one of those sack dresses she favored. This one in white, with a silk paisley scarf cinching her waist. White flats adorned a pair of gams that did not need the classic high heel to show off their allure. Her emerald eyes lit up at my approach and my silent admiration was rewarded with a kiss.

  “You’re not late,” Georgy said, “I was early and Binky and Isadora were good enough to keep me company before going off to dinner.” Turning to Isadora, she went on, “This is the famous Archy McNally. Archy, this is Binky’s friend, Isadora Duhane.”