McNally's Folly

by Lawrence Sanders

  If a red Miata was akin to a flashing neon sign, so was a yellow VW. While I was certain mine was the only red Miata in the Palm Beach area, I couldn’t say the same for Kate’s wheels. The new edition of VW Bug was proving to be as popular as its predecessor. I was so mesmerized by the possibility of its being Kate’s car I almost missed seeing the creamy cocoa-colored Rolls that came to a halt directly in front of the glass entrance. A uniformed chauffeur jumped out and opened the rear door for Penny Tremaine. Looking very smart in a white suit with matching shoes and a wide-brimmed bonnet, she spoke a few words to her driver before entering the building. He got back into the Rolls and drove off. It was going to be a long session. Was she still trying to contact her father or was she putting out a contract for poor Fitz?

  A few minutes later a cab deposited two women on Ouspenskaya’s doorstep. One of them was Hanna Ventura and the other a woman I had seen last night at Desdemona Darling’s cocktail party, but whose name escaped me, if I ever knew it. The cab drove off minutes before another chauffeur-driven Lincoln arrived, bearing two Palm Beach society matrons. The ladies who lunch were hell-bent on making Serge Ouspenskaya a rich man.

  I waited another five minutes and decided no one else was expected to attend today’s broadcast. I was curious to see who owned the VW but not curious enough to set up housekeeping in a rented Ford Escort. Like the rest of my investigation to date, my surveillance proved a flop. But in the detective business persistence is the name of the game. I turned the key in the Ford’s ignition and just as I did so the glass door across the street opened and Kate Mulligan emerged. She was dressed in her gardening clothes, denim skirt and Topsiders, so I knew where she was headed once she got into the VW and drove off. This was an interesting turn of events, to say the least.

  I slumped down in my seat as Kate drove past me and then got out of the Ford and marched up to the glass door. Entering, I was in an air-conditioned lobby of imitation marble and confronted with another glass door. An ebony plastic placard mounted on a chrome stand displayed the names of the building’s occupants and their location in shiny white letters.

  1. Interior Designs by Beaumont

  2. Xavier Santiago, Accountant

  3. Temporarily Yours

  4. Serge Ouspenskaya

  Coincidence? What else? Unable to resist, I entered through the second door, pressed for the elevator and rode up to the third floor. The elevator door opened directly onto the reception area of Temporarily Yours. A woman who looked the prototype for a caricature of a schoolteacher, circa 1932, was seated behind a desk flanking the elevator. She had gray hair with a no-nonsense cut, wore rimless glasses, and sported a white blouse under a cardigan sweater. I couldn’t see her feet but I imagined she was shod in brown lace-ups with a college heel. The sweater told me she was the office grouch who went around turning down the air conditioner when no one was looking.

  “May I help you?”

  “Please,” I responded. “A friend recommended you and I was in the neighborhood and thought I would stop in. Is that all right?”

  “Of course, sir. How can we be of assistance?”

  “My wife took a fall the other day and broke her leg.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that, Mr. ...”

  “Mark, ma’am. Tobias Mark.”

  “I’m so sorry to hear that, Mr. Mark. I’m Sally Duhane.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Duhane. She’ll need some help in running the house for the next four weeks. That’s how long it will be before the cast comes off.”

  “I understand,” the woman replied.

  “Nothing very special,” I said. “Just someone to help with housework and shopping. I can handle the rest.”

  “I’m sure we can help, Mr. Mark.” Her tone and manner were as reassuring as a school nurse administering TLC to a first grader with a scraped knee. She selected an application from a twin pile on her neat desk and offered it to me. “If you’ll just have a seat and fill this out for us, one of our placement people will be with you as soon as you’re done.”

  There were a half dozen student chairs in the room, each with a ballpoint pen resting on its broad arm.

  “How long have you been here?” I asked her, taking the application.

  “The agency has been in West Palm for a dozen years or more. We took it over last fall, moving to this more modern location and changing the name to Temporarily Yours. Catchy, isn’t it? We’ve also managed to recruit some very skilled personnel.

  “You see, Mr. Mark, we advertise in newspapers as far north as New York and as far west as California, attracting people who want to relocate to the Palm Beach area, even if it’s just for the season when we’re busiest.” Her smile displayed a set of teeth that were as perfect, and perhaps as phony, as her demeanor. Did Kate Mulligan spot their ad in Las Vegas and head east in search of a new life—and a new husband?

  Her editorial “we” could mean she was the establishment’s owner, a partner or just a gung-ho employee.

  I took a chair and pretended to examine the sheet of paper she had handed me. Minutes later the door leading to what must be the interview rooms opened and a young man entered and exchanged a few words with the receptionist before retreating. This was obviously a perfectly legitimate business operation and I was beginning to feel a little foolish for having snooped.

  Getting up, I asked Ms. Duhane if I could take the application home. “My wife is better qualified to describe exactly what we need.”

  “Certainly, Mr. Mark. You can return it yourself or put it in the mail.” She gave me a business card along with an envelope for the application.

  I returned the Ford and took a cab back to the McNally Building. I called Al Rogoff but he wasn’t at the station house. I left word for him to call me, giving my office number.

  Then I called Connie to see if there was any fallout from last night’s party.

  “I was just going to call you,” Connie said. “Madame is giving a reception for the community theater tomorrow night at eight. Come as you are, buffet dinner.”

  I knew it wouldn’t take Lady C long to go DeeDee one better. “What did she have to say about last night’s imbroglio?”

  “She’s furious at Desdemona for getting drunk but from what’s being said I think our leading lady has been on a twelve-step program for years but can’t seem to get past the first rise.”

  Just as I had feared. “Anything else, Connie?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact. Lady Cynthia is also furious with Richard Holmes for punching out Ouspenskaya.”

  “He didn’t punch him out,” I countered, “he gave him a little shove.”

  “A little shove goes a long way in this town, Archy. Madame wanted Mr. Holmes to apologize to Ouspenskaya. Mr. Holmes told Madame what she could go do to herself and Madame said she would if she could. Then Desdemona threatened to quit the show unless Madame apologized to Mr. Holmes.”

  “And on top of all this Lady C is organizing a reception for tomorrow night? It’s madness,” I told Connie.

  “Lady Cynthia thrives on it, Archy. It’s the quiet days that wear her out.”

  “So what was the end result of all the verbal abuse?”

  “The Holmeses came here, Madame mixed a batch of the hair-of-the-dog and the ladies fell into each other’s arms and cried. Then they began planning the party.”

  “You work in an asylum, Connie, and the inmates are calling the shots.”

  “I know, but it pays well and until Prince Charming comes along and takes me away from all this, I have no choice. Which reminds me. I can’t see you tonight, Archy. I’ll be working late, preparing for the party.”

  This was fortuitous because I had no intention of seeing Connie that night. But, cad that I am, I immediately took advantage of her candor. “Oh,” I sighed, “the weather has been so nice I was going to suggest a picnic on the beach and a midnight plunge, in our birthday suits.”

  “The last time we did that, Archy, a crab nipped you right on you
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  “I know where the crab nipped me,” I cut in before we were given an X rating by our local telephone exchange. Needless to say that cheeky crustacean also nipped any impure thoughts I may have harbored that moonlit night and for weeks thereafter I gorged myself on crab cocktails, crab cakes and linguine with red crab sauce, hoping to even the score.

  “I thought it was Binky’s job to alert the company as to where to be and when.”

  “He’s incommunicado at the pound, or whatever it is, and I figured I may as well make a start and give Binky any leftovers this evening if he gets home in time. He’s picking up the scripts in Miami. By the way, Archy, the press was invited, too, and Lady C will formally announce the show and its cast and crew. I’ll get my name in the paper and so will Pris.”

  “Did you mention Priscilla Pettibone to Lady C?”

  “But of course. She loves the idea of having a resident makeup artist. It makes us look very professional.”

  With that, Connie rang off, only to have Al Rogoff take up the slack.

  “Hi, Al. Where have you been?”

  “Out protecting your butt from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. What’s up?”

  “You’ve been reading Hamlet. How quaint.”

  “I think he should have abdicated and married the woman he loved.”

  “That would make it soap opera, Al.”

  “So what’s wrong with the soaps? You’re a snob, Archy.”

  “And you’re an intellectual posing as a policeman. What’s the word on my friend, Serge Ouspenskaya?”

  “Neat as a pin an’ clean as a whistle.”

  “That’s not what I want to hear, Al.”

  “I don’t make up stories, pal. The guy blew into town last November and rented space on Clematis Street. It ain’t cheap: He’s licensed and bonded like the law requires and we ain’t had no complaints about him.”

  Al’s intellectual pursuits did not include a crash course in remedial grammar. If slaughtering the King’s English were a crime, Al Rogoff would draw fifty to life with Johnnie Cochran defending him. “Do you know where he came from, Al?”

  “Last known address, the City of Angels. Ain’t that a misnomer? He put down two months’ security on the office space and furnished references.”

  “Who supplied them?”

  “Archy, the guy is legit. We got no cause to probe more than I already have.”

  “Sorry, Al. Did you happen to get his home address?”

  “He has a rental in Lantana. Nothing too impressive. He lives with a woman and a young man.”

  “Wife and son?”

  “Who knows? Who cares? I didn’t see a marriage license or a birth certificate. Ask him.”

  “Thanks, Al. I’ll send you a recording of Swan Lake by the New York Philharmonic.”

  “No, Archy. It’s by Tchaikovsky.”

  “Now you’re a comedian. See you when I see you, Al.”

  “One more thing, Archy.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Your friend charges five hundred bucks for a séance and he’s averaging about ten a week. I make that out to be five G’s every seven days.”

  “That’s more than you pull in, even with the graft.”

  “I’ll remember that the next time you want a favor.”

  “Good night, sweet prince; And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”

  “He should have married the girl, Archy.”

  I rang off knowing I had reached the nadir of my case. That moment when you’ve hit an impasse in the shape of a brick wall and all you want to do is bang your head against it. I had exhausted all my leads, which weren’t many to begin with, and had hoped that Al Rogoff would supply a few I could follow up on. All he had to tell me was that Hamlet never married and Ouspenskaya was on a roll—neither of which was exactly an epiphany.

  I WENT HOME, CHANGED into my swimming togs and threw myself into the Atlantic, contemplating playing Norman Maine and never returning to shore. But I did return after my two-mile workout. I showered, donned heather-gray briefs with matching T-shirt and slipped on a pair of jeans that would do a Gap ad proud. I accessorized with a classic Brooks Brothers button-down, loafers, no socks, and my original NY Yankees baseball cap.

  Then I phoned Kate Mulligan and invited myself to dinner.

  “I have nothing in the house,” she whined, “and it’s past four. Besides, I’m a lousy cook.”

  “I’ll stop by a little place I know and treat you to the best takeout in Palm Beach.”

  “Not Tex-Mex, please.”

  “Cross my heart.”

  The little place I knew was our kitchen, which wasn’t very little, and said to Ursi, “Once, in the not too distant past, you put together a picnic lunch for me and I’m imploring you to do it again.”

  “When, Archy?”

  “Right now.”

  “The best I can do is fill you a basket with what I’m preparing for tonight.”

  “And what might that be, Ursi?”

  “Fried chicken, cooled. German potato salad. A green salad of arugula and radicchio, raspberry vinaigrette and for dessert a blueberry tart with vanilla ice cream.”

  “You’re making me hungry, Ursi love. I’ll get the picnic hamper. It’s in the utility room, I think.”

  “It is,” she called as I hurried out of the kitchen.

  I also managed to snare a bottle of zinfandel from Father’s wine cellar before returning to help Ursi. In a little over an hour we had gotten it all together. I turned down linen napkins in favor of paper—after all, it was a picnic—and was off to Currie Park with my little yellow basket. I even remembered to bring a corkscrew.

  THIRTEEN

  PALM BEACH LORE HAS it that if you’re planning a day at the beach, or an evening barbecue, do it on a day Lady Cynthia Horowitz is giving a pool party or a sit-down dinner al fresco, sans tent. It does not rain on Lady C’s parades and her outdoor buffet for the community theater corroborated the maxim. Does God favor the rich? If he didn’t they would be poor.

  It was a sterling evening. No full moon, but there were a jillion stars lighting up the sky. I had attended several of Lady C’s outdoor bashes and the decor and ambience seldom varied. But if it ain’t broke, why fix it? The patio surrounding the pool was aglow with Chinese lanterns and there were scented candles within the hurricane lamps on every table. The tables also held pots of narcissi growing straight out of their bulbs. Narcissi? A cryptic message for Archy? And would young William give us a demo of his swimming prowess wearing his naughty bathing trunks?

  A portable bar was being manned by one of the caterer’s staff and several young men and women were passing around the finger food—pigs in a blanket were not among the pickin’s. The chef, wearing a toque blanche, was roasting perfectly trussed beef tenderloins (not chestnuts) on the open fire. Finally, as Cole Porter had put it, “down by the shore an orchestra playing and even the palms seemed to be swaying.” The orchestra was a six-piece combo playing—who else?—Cole Porter, and the palms were truly swaying in a cool ocean breeze.

  A class act? And why not when the hostess was said to be worth a hundred million, give or take ten mill? Tonight she wore a white sheath that I suspected served a dual purpose. It did justice to her still bewitching figure and made her chum, Desdemona Darling, pea green with envy. Bitchiness was one of Lady C’s more noticeable traits. The rest of the gang, who hadn’t seen each other since L’Affair de Desdemona Darling, as Lolly Spindrift had dubbed it, tonight cavorted in everything from jeans to cocktail dresses. I wore an Ultrasuede jacket in sand and navy pants.

  Lady C, with Buzz at her side, was greeting her guests. He looked every bit the movie star in a yachting cap, double-breasted blazer and white flannels. Fitz was at a safe distance charming William Ventura and Arnold Turnbolt. I would notice, as the evening progressed, that Fitz and Buzz kept a wide berth in the presence of Buzz’s patroness. But then illicit sex is always so much more exciting. I should know.
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  “Nice party,” I said to our hostess.

  “Nice of you to notice, lad. You didn’t happen to come in with your friend Binky, did you?”

  “No, I didn’t. Why?”

  “He hasn’t shown up with the scripts.”

  “Lost between Miami and Palm Beach. It’s happened before, Lady Cynthia.”

  “Not to me, it hasn’t.”

  “I know all my lines, Archy,” Buzz said, pumping my hand. He had the grip of a vise.

  “Knowing them is half the battle, Buzz. It’s how you deliver them that gets the applause.”

  “And we’re counting on you to see that he delivers them to a standing ovation,” Lady C reminded me.

  “I’ll do my best, ma’am.”

  “You’d better, lad.”

  “There’s Binky,” Buzz called. “The scripts have arrived.”

  I could see that Binky had arrived, but I wouldn’t be too sanguine about the scripts. With nary a curtsey to our Lady of the Performing Arts I headed for the bar like a horse wearing blinders. I asked for a Sterling vodka on the rocks and got it. A minute later I was two sips closer to a party mood and began surveying the crowd when Richard Holmes approached. “What’s happening, Archy?”

  “I could lie and say I’m working on a few leads, but that would be crap of the purest nature. Zilch, Mr. Holmes. What’s new with you?”

  He was wearing his Lilly Pulitzer and drinking something the color of dirty water. A bullshot, I believe: a concoction of vodka and beef bouillon. I would rather drink castor oil while sticking pins in my eyes.

  “DeeDee was a mess the other night, as I guess you noticed. She does that when her nerves get the best of her, otherwise she can hold her booze pretty good. Since the party she’s been in constant touch with that effing con artist and I don’t know what she’s been telling him but I know what I told him.”