McNally's Folly

by Lawrence Sanders

  “That’s for me to know and you to find out, Mr. McNally.”

  And Y is a crooked letter. Another childish response. The guy had a turban full of them and they were beginning to wear thin. “I’ve taken up too much of your precious time, sir, so if you’ll excuse me I’ll let you get back to observing. I’m sorry I can’t say it’s been a pleasure.”

  As I moved away from him, Ouspenskaya called, “Remember my dream of Narcissus, Mr. McNally?”

  I nodded my response.

  “I believe the youth of my vision is with us tonight.”

  Another turn of the screw. With a quick glance to the left and right, I whispered, “In a town like Palm Beach, Mr. Ouspenskaya, I wouldn’t tell too many people you dream about pretty boys.” It took him a beat to catch my meaning and I moved off just as his tan cheeks began to take on a tinge of crimson.

  From this point on DeeDee’s cocktail party took on the aspect of a human kaleidoscope as the guests met, mingled, parted and regrouped to the disco beat of a hidden sound system. Fitz, looking like a goddess in a long gauzy white skirt and coordinating tank, told me that she and Buzz had already started rehearsing their lines. I told Fitz to lighten up.

  I introduced myself to William Ventura, who wanted to know if Hanna had told me how the “guru guy” found her diamond clip. When I told him she had, he said, “Don’t believe a word of it. They had it planned to help his career. She’s getting it on with the guy.”

  Nice kid.

  I moved around the room, shaking hands, getting kissed and avoiding Connie, who had the undivided attention of Richard Holmes. Cha-cha-cha.

  “What do you think of Desdemona?” I asked Joe Anderson.

  “There’s more to her than I remember,” he said with a sly wink, “but she’s still a beauty, Archy.”

  At the moment DeeDee was literally hanging on to Buzz as Phil Meecham looked on with a smile on his face that didn’t hide the malice in his heart.

  “I thought our Creative Director would be here tonight,” Joe was saying.

  “Our premier hostess, Lady Cynthia Horowitz, has several aversions, most notably cigar smoke, men who wear pinkie rings and other people’s parties. She demands attendance but will not reciprocate, if you see what I mean. But knowing her as I do, I can assure you that she will not be outdone by Desdemona Darling and will give her own gala for the community theater participants in a matter of days.”

  “According to Lolly Spindrift, she’s an old friend of Desdemona’s.”

  “Friendly enemies, I would say. You see the hunk DeeDee is charming as we speak? Well, he belongs to Lady Cynthia and she got him from the guy who is shooting daggers at DeeDee.”

  Before Joe could reply, Arnie Turnbolt, a little flushed from the green concoction in his glass, joined us and announced, “I’m playing Dr. Einstein, Archy. The role that gets all the laughs. Have you ever heard my imitation of Peter Lorre?”

  “No, and I don’t want to, Arnie. Let’s try to be creative, not imitative.”

  “Oh, dear, listen to our director. I think our hostess is in her cups and do you know Fitz and Buzz are rehearsing their love scenes nightly?”

  “And no gossip,” I warned him. “What’s Vance doing here?”

  “For the record, he’s going to take the role of Teddy, the demented nephew. Off the record, he’s doing it to keep in close proximity to the gorgeous Fitz. Penny is furious because she wanted the role of the other spinster sister so she could keep an eye on Vance, but Lady C told her the part was spoken for.”

  “Really? Who’s getting it?”

  “You tell me, you’re the director.”

  Lady Cynthia and Desdemona Darling were running the community theater like two steamrollers on a rampage. The sooner I asserted my authority as director, the better the chances of my surviving this ordeal. Just as I was about to put this to DeeDee the unbelievable sight of Binky Watrous, on his hands and knees, crawling around and between people’s legs, caught my eye. “What in the name...” I shouted.

  “Oh,” Joe said. “I forgot to tell you. A young lady lost an earring and Binky is helping her look for it.” As if the sight of Binky on all fours was a precursor of things to come, Joe bid me goodnight with a wave of his hand. “I’m history, Archy. See you at the office.”

  It was now near nine o’clock and the rest of the party-goers looked like they were about to join Binky on the floor. Suddenly, everything seemed to be happening at once and a few days hence, when the laughter had turned to tears, I would try to recall all the little dramas taking place around me, never suspecting at the time that one of them was a prelude to murder.

  Joe was saying his goodnight to DeeDee when she suddenly began to list, like the Titanic in its final hour. Ouspenskaya rushed to her side but Richard Holmes got there a moment later and confronted the psychic, roughly pushing Ouspenskaya aside and taking charge of his wife. The Ventura boy, watching the episode, was clearly laughing at Ouspenskaya’s plight.

  Penny Tremaine chose this moment to crash the party and, followed by an angry Jorge, pushed her way through the crowd to get at Vance, who had cornered Fitz.

  Phil Meecham was arguing with Buzz Carr and when Arnie stepped in to arbitrate, Meecham shouted something that sounded like, “Get out of my face, Arnie.”

  Connie, with my megaphone, and Binky, without the girl who had lost an earring, were at my side. “Are you kids ready to leave?”

  “I think that would be wise,” Connie answered. “I’ve had my taste of show business for one evening.”

  “It’s called ‘tripping the light fantastic,’ ” I informed Connie.

  “Well, before we start tripping over the bodies fantastic, I suggest we get something to eat. If you’re not afraid of going to the Pelican in those bloomers and boots, I’ll buy you dinner.”

  “And I’ll tag along, if you don’t mind,” Binky said. “I came with Joe but he left without me.”

  “He thought you were going with the girl who lost her earring,” I said.

  Digging into his jacket pocket Binky came up with one pearl earring. “I found it, Archy, but I lost the girl.” It was the story of Binky Watrous’s life. Before he got back on his hands and knees to look for the girl, I led them out of the house on Via Del Lago.

  It was decided that Binky would go in Connie’s car, leaving me alone in my Miata where I lit an English Oval without having to hear one of them say, “I thought you gave up smoking.” I knew I gave up smoking and didn’t have to be reminded of the depressing fact on the rare occasions when I fell off the wagon.

  Speaking of wagons, I wondered if my leading lady had a drinking problem or if tonight was the exception to the rule. I didn’t want her getting into the elderberry wine during rehearsal so I made a mental note to tell our stage manager to fill the prop decanter with grape juice instead of the real thing.

  By Palm Beach standards, DeeDee’s party had offered all the components of a rousing success. The hostess got smashed. Her husband fought off a competitor. An irate wife came searching for her wayward husband. The gay boys got into a scrap and a rich kid poked fun at the season’s celebrity psychic. As Noel Coward had put it, “I’ve been to a marvelous party, and I couldn’t have liked it better.”

  Ouspenskaya and I had given up the cat-and-mouse routine, which suited me fine but didn’t make a hoot of difference in aiding or frustrating my investigation. After my second encounter with the man I still had no idea how he was working his scam—unless he was the real thing, which I doubted. I would have to list in my journal everything Ouspenskaya had told me that he couldn’t possibly know and begin in earnest to discover how he knew them. Right now I was anxious to discover what Chef Leroy Pettibone had brewing in his kitchen.

  I had no reservations about appearing at the Pelican in my jodhpurs because the club was founded by a group of congenial men, like myself, who believe that there is a little bit of treachery in some of us and a little bit of lechery in the rest of us. Therefore the rules of the
house are there are no rules and let he among us who is without sin cast the first stone. The cognoscenti would think I had just come from a polo match and forgot to change, while all others would assume I was a fugitive from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Just to play it safe, I left my megaphone in the Miata.

  Simon Pettibone was behind the bar, Jasmine was greeting guests, son Leroy was in the kitchen, daughter Priscilla was taking orders, God was in his heaven and all was right with the world. The dining room was hopping and with the exception of a roll of her eyes, Priscilla had no time to comment on my attire as she sat us and handed out the menus.

  I stuck to bourbon, Connie stuck to her favorite gimlets and Binky stuck to his beer. We rehashed the party as we drank and when there was nary a person or an occurrence left to rake over the coals, I said to Connie, “I suppose you will give your lady boss a full account of the evening.”

  “Not necessary,” Connie answered. “By now she’s getting a blow-by-blow report of the evening’s proceedings.”

  “From who, may I ask?”

  “From whom,” Connie corrected me. “Any one of her network of spies. They dish the dirt with Lady C and she keeps them on the A list. It’s the supply and demand theory of Palm Beach society.”

  I banged the table with my fist, startling Connie and Binky, before exclaiming, “That’s how Ouspenskaya does it. A network of spies. How else?”

  “Are you still smarting from that séance, Archy?” Connie goaded me. “Lolly Pops! It’s all over town.”

  “I hear everyone is calling Lolly Spindrift Lolly Pops,” Binky joined in.

  “A professional gossip by any other name is still a professional gossip,” I responded.

  But I was certain that I had hit upon the answer to the mystery of Serge Ouspenskaya, or rather Connie had, inadvertently to be sure. Out of the mouth s of babes, Ouspenskaya had said and how apropos to the moment. A network of spies. That had to be it. The FBI, the CIA, the KGB, big business espionage—it was the key to survival in the modern world and it had to be the key to Ouspenskaya’s operation. But how many did he have? Where were they and who were they?

  “Binky was telling me about his job on the way over,” Connie said, changing the subject, for which I was grateful. If there were spies about, the less said the soonest mended.

  “Tell me, Binky,” I said, “what are you doing at the animal hospital?”

  “I walk the ambulatory patients three times a day.”

  “Ambulatory patients?” I couldn’t believe my ears. “You mean the mutts who still have the use of their four legs?”

  “They’re called patients, Archy, and they have a patients’ bill of rights.”

  Priscilla rescued us from the depths of fatuous chitchat with the news that Caneton à l’Orange (roast duck with orange sauce to the common folk) was the evening’s special and we all went for it. Served alongside were garlic mashed potatoes and buttered asparagus tips. For starters we also agreed on a salad of roast peppers and anchovies with a vinaigrette embellished with herbs, capers and onions.

  “You always look so lovely, Pris,” Connie complimented our waitress.

  “Why thank you, Connie. So do you.”

  Priscilla was an African-American of great beauty with a figure to match. If she spent the majority of her leisure time enhancing her natural attributes it was time well spent, as Connie had just observed. “I love the way you use makeup, Pris,” Connie went on. “It doesn’t cover, it enhances as it should. What’s your secret?”

  “I learned how to do it at school,” Priscilla told us. “The Venus de Milo School of Beauty in Lauderdale. They teach makeup, hair—the works.”

  “Oh, we need you,” Connie cried, clapping her hands.

  “You do? What for?”

  “The community theater, Pris. We’re putting on a show and we need a makeup consultant to help the cast look their best on the stage. Please say you’ll do it.”

  “Well...” Priscilla began.

  “And you’ll get to rouge the cheeks of Desdemona Darling. She’s going to be our star,” Connie crowed.

  Priscilla responded to this with a blank stare. “Who’s she?”

  “She was a big star,” Connie said, “before your time—and mine, of course.”

  “I’m the stage manager,” Binky said. I didn’t know if this was meant as an inducement or a deterrent.

  “And what are you?” Priscilla asked me.

  “Only the director,” I told her.

  “So you don’t get made up?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Then I’ll take the job, Connie,” Priscilla agreed.

  “Wonderful.” Connie applauded.

  “I’ll see you at rehearsal, Pris,” Binky promised.

  Having been auditioned and hired, our company’s Perc Westmore reverted to the role of waitress. “Would you like to see the wine list?”

  “Just bring me a carafe of elderberry wine laced with arsenic,” I moaned.

  TWELVE

  CONNIE VOLUNTEERED TO DRIVE Binky home but I insisted on that honor. I didn’t want them comparing Leroy’s repast with last night’s Tex-Mex. But the two were going to see a lot of each other in the days and weeks to come. Connie had muchos orders for the stage manager, compliments of Lady C, the first of which was to pick up the show’s scripts, being prepared by a service in Miami. Binky would also be supplied with the names and phone numbers of everyone connected with getting Arsenic and Old Lace before a live audience, as he would be liaison between them, Lady C and myself. And that was just the beginning.

  “Don’t worry, Archy. I can handle it,” he insisted when I expressed my doubts. “The Duchess has promised to help me.”

  The Duchess, a sobriquet to be sure, was the aunt who had raised Binky and was now looking for a return on her largesse. She would help him walk the ambulatory patients if she thought it would get him off the dole. “Do me a favor, Binky, and keep the Duchess out of this. If you run into any problems, come to me, that’s what directors are for.”

  “Thanks, Archy.” When I pulled over to let him out he reflected sadly, “No one mentioned my clean upper lip.”

  “Tell me, Binky. Did anyone ever mention your mustache?”

  “No, Archy. They didn’t.”

  “Good night, Binky.”

  I was home before midnight where I prepared for bed, poured myself a diminutive marc, which is brandy made from wine sludge, and lit my second English Oval of the day. I deserved both.

  I recorded the evening’s events in my journal and then made a list of Ouspenskaya’s revelations regarding yrs. truly. He knew the names of the two ships my father was considering for his proposed trip. He knew I had been hired by Holmes to investigate him. He knew I would be asked to join the community theater. And he knew every detail of my lunch with Hanna Ventura. If I were to accept my spy theory as fact, it meant the psychic had an informer in the homes of Lady Cynthia Horowitz, Richard Holmes, Hanna Ventura and our castle on Ocean Boulevard. Impossible. But once you rule out the impossible, you have to consider the improbable.

  Did the spy have to be in these places to learn the facts? The way Lady C and Desdemona gossiped, they could have told almost anyone that they intended to ask me to direct this year’s showcase and the someone could have passed it on to Ouspenskaya. Ditto my lunch with Hanna. Had she discussed our meeting with a friend over a pitcher of “lemonade,” complaining bitterly of her stepson’s behavior?

  That left Holmes. He had been recommended to Discreet Inquiries by Bob Simmons. How much had Holmes confided in Simmons? And Simmons’s son, Kenneth, was just about William Ventura’s age. Could they be chums? They could. If Simmons blabbed to his son and wife, they may have passed the word along to a number of people in what I believe is called arithmetic progression, the final number being the entire population of Palm Beach. On this tight little island everyone’s path crosses sooner or later.

  What proof was there, other than his word, that William Ventura
was in England when the diamond clip went missing? And could the boy’s animosity toward Ouspenskaya be a ruse? William Ventura might just be the most talented actor in our company.

  The possibilities were endless and my efforts fruitless. It was time to check once more with Al Rogoff and see if the long arm of the law had managed to penetrate the hereafter.

  I put out the light and went to bed thinking of Kate Mulligan. I shouldn’t see her again but I knew I would. Or, I should at least wait until the mater and pater were on the high seas before doing so—but I knew I wouldn’t. I doubted that our love was here to stay, as the Messrs. Gershwins proclaimed in song, but I wasn’t ready to write us off as a one-night stand. In spite of Kate’s protestations that she was not on the rebound from her failed marriage, I felt our passion was an effort on her part to banish sad memories. I hoped I had not disappointed.

  From a more practical point of view, I rationalized that Kate could teach me a few tricks of the magician’s trade, thereby facilitating my dealings with Serge Ouspenskaya. In conclusion, my motives in courting the lady were not purely prurient—which is even harder to pronounce than believe. I have often promised myself to one day draw up a blueprint of my moral code; then, perhaps, I might know why I do what I do. Until then, I will just have to keep on doing whatever it is I do.

  Sleep came so quickly I didn’t even have time to stroke my cheek.

  I breakfasted with my parents, like a good boy should. Father departed for the office in his Lexus and Mother hurried off to the greenhouse to greet her begonias and await Kate Mulligan. I drove my Miata to the McNally Building, parked in our underground garage and used the phone in Herb’s security booth to call a cab. I had the driver take me to a car rental agency in West Palm and drove out in a black Ford Escort GT, my usual choice for covert trailing or, in this case, surveillance.

  I had told Richard Holmes that I was keeping an eye on Ouspenskaya’s headquarters and now, after the fact, I was going to do just that—for whatever it was worth. The Clematis Street building was a four-story affair, white brick, glass entrance door and windows displaying identical white, horizontal blinds, all of them tightly closed to Florida’s warm winter sun. I found a convenient parking space almost directly across the street from the building, pulled into it and waited. Then I noticed the yellow VW parked not fifty feet from the building.