She pursed her lips and regarded my costume thoughtfully. “Possibly,” she said. “Something to add a bit of color to the black and white. But we have no fresh flowers available other than your mother’s begonias, and they won’t do.”
“No,” I said, “definitely not.”
“I do have some fresh parsley available,” she offered. “Do you think a sprig of that would help?”
“Just the thing!” I cried happily, and a few moments later I had a small bundle of that marvelous herb pinned to my lapel.
I had a hazy hope of how I wanted that evening to progress and end. And so I entered the pantry and searched the shelves bearing the McNally liquor supply. (The costly vintage wines are stored in a locked, temperature-controlled cabinet in my father’s study.) I found what I sought: a bottle of Korbel brut. I slid it with two crystal champagne flutes onto the lowest shelf of our refrigerator.
Then I set out to rendezvous with the vanilla Popsicle.
Yikes! but Connie looked super, all slithery in white silk and with the excited, prideful look women get when they know they’re splendidly dressed. Her long black hair was down and gleaming. The only jewelry she wore was the diamond tennis bracelet I had given her. What a glittery manacle it was!
I embraced her gently, not wishing to crush her coat dress.
“Welcome home, darling,” I said. “I missed you.”
“Did you?” she said eagerly. “Did you really?”
“Scouts’ honor. I pined away while you were gone. Lost pounds and pounds.”
She pulled away to inspect me. “I don’t think so. Archy, you look spiffy, but what’s that in your buttonhole?”
“Parsley.”
“I hope you’re kidding.”
“I am not. It is a sprig of fresh parsley. It is decorative and should our dinner contain a gross amount of garlic, we can nibble on it to sweeten our breath.”
She hugged my arm. “Nutty as ever,” she said happily. “Let’s go.”
If Connie feared our finery would be greeted with raucous scorn by the raffish Friday night roisterers at the Pelican Club, she totally misjudged their reaction. Most of the lads and lasses beginning a bibulous weekend were clad in funky denim, leather, and T-shirts bearing legends ranging from the indelicate to the scabrous.
But when we entered, the chatter and laughter ceased as heads swiveled in our direction. Then many of our pals leaped to their feet and treated us to a vigorous round of applause interspersed with such cries of approval as “Oh, wow!” and “The baddest!”
Connie and I bowed graciously in all directions—royalty acknowledging their worshipful underlings. Then we paraded to the dining area where we claimed our favorite corner table. Priscilla came moseying forward to bring us down to earth.
“Going to a masquerade?” she inquired.
“None of your sass,” I said sternly. “We merely decided the joint needed a touch of class.”
“Gee,” she said, “I wish you had warned me; I’d have put on clean overalls. Naturally you’ll want champagne cocktails to start.”
“Naturally,” Connie said.
“I’ll have to serve them on paper napkins,” Pris apologized. “All our lace doilies are in the laundry. I’m sure you swells will understand.”
“Of course,” I said loftily. “Noblesse oblige.”
You would think, wouldn’t you, that in view of our splendiferous attire we might dine on pheasant under glass or perhaps a roasted capon stuffed with minced hundred-dollar bills. But the Pelican Club was unable to provide such amenities, and Chef Leroy’s special that night was pot roast with a fresh horseradish sauce so good it made one weep—literally.
Connie was at her magpie best during dinner, regaling me with trivia about her trip to Miami, the recovery of her injured cousin, the trials and tribulations of her multitudinous relatives.
Earlier in this account I suggested my attraction to this woman was due to her providing an island of normalcy in the sometimes violent sea I was called upon to navigate. I imagine some of you faithful readers must have shaken your heads sagely and thought, “That Archy! Just another example of his dissembling. He likes Connie because she’s a dishy broad.”
Well, yes, that was certainly part of it. But as mother has instructed me, intimacy is rarely simple. What human bonds are? Sgt. Al Rogoff once told me of a case he handled in which a woman bludgeoned her husband with a cinder block while he slept. Her reason? “He snored,” she told the cops. But surely that was only one motive in a long, festering record of grievances.
We had shared a single dessert—a wickedly rich raspberry shortcake drizzled with Chambord—and were lazing over double espressos when Connie asked me what I had been doing during her absence.
“This and that,” I said.
“I’ll bet it was the Whitcomb case,” she said. “It’s been in all the papers and on TV every night. I’m sure you were mixed up in it because you asked me weeks ago about Oliver and Mitzi.”
“I was involved,” I admitted. “Up to my dewlaps. But there’s little I can add to what you’ve already heard or read. It was a mess, Connie. Listen, do you know what I’d like to do now?”
“Yes,” she said.
I laughed. “Later,” I said. “There will be a short station break. Stay tuned.”
We drove back to the McNally mansion manqué. It was a glorious night, almost completely cloudless with a wispy breeze from the northwest. The moon wasn’t full, of course—that would have been too much—but there was enough showing to remind me of Guy Kibbee. It was a loverly stage set that convinced me I’d live forever.
I retrieved the chilled bottle of Korbel from the fridge and popped the cork. Carrying the bubbly and two glasses, I conducted Connie down the rickety wooden staircase to the beach. She asked nary a question nor made any objection. I led and she followed. What a sweetness!
She was wearing no hose and had only to kick off her suede sandals. But I had to pry off my patent leathers and peel away knee-high socks. I rolled up my trouser cuffs and we left all our footgear in the moon shadow of a palm. Before we started our stroll I poured each of us a glass of champagne. We linked arms before sipping. Cutesy? I suppose. But there was no one to see but God and I hoped He approved.
We ambled down to the water’s edge where mild waves came lapping in. The ocean was still calm and it seemed layered with a pathway of aluminum foil leading to the rising moon.
“Oh,” Connie said, staring out at the glistening sea and breathing deeply. She tilted her face up to the night sky. “Look at all those tennis bracelets!”
“Exactly,” I said.
We wandered southward through warm froth that rarely doused our calves. The packed sand was cool and provided easy strolling. We saw the lights of fishing boats and the blaze of a passing cruise ship. Once we heard the melodious call of a seabird neither of us could identify.
“Binky Watrous should be here,” I remarked.
“Bite your tongue,” Connie advised.
We paused occasionally while I refilled our glasses.
You may think this barefoot ramble along a moonlit beach by a formally dressed couple sipping champers was a schmaltzy thing to do. But schmaltz is in the eye of the beholder—and you’ve never read a more disgusting figure of speech if you happen to know the original meaning of the word.
It was a fantasy and I was aware of it. After experiencing the crudity of the Whitcomb case I wanted to recapture the laughing elegance of a world I never knew and perhaps never existed: the clever, self-mocking era of Noel Coward songs, Fitzgerald novels, Broadway musicals, and William Powell movies. I was trying to recreate a madly joyous time I imagined.
“A penny for your thoughts,” Connie said, “and not one cent more.”
“I was thinking about dreams,” I told her. “And how they shape our lives.”
Then I described some of the dreamers I had met during the Whitcomb investigation:
Mrs. Sarah: Dying while listening to a tin
kly music box.
Oliver: Driven by a fierce ambition to prove himself a money-spinner nonpareil.
Ernest Gorton: He of the green eyes with limitless greed and a vision of limitless wealth.
Mitzi Whitcomb: She saw a constantly expanding universe, of young studs and giggles.
Griffin Kling: A man nurtured by a vengeful rage that eventually destroyed him.
Rhoda Flembaugh: She yearned only for a chance to change her luck.
I said nothing of Horace Whitcomb and Sunny Fogarty. But they too had their illusions.
Dreamers all.
Connie listened intently to my brief recital and suddenly shivered. “Archy,” she said, “I’m getting chilly.”
I set bottle and glass in the sand, took off my dinner jacket, and draped it about her shoulders. She looked enchanting.
“Let’s go back,” I said.
“Let’s hurry,” she said.
We turned and skipped along the strand under the spangled sky, silvered by moonlight, and hearing the sea’s soft susurrus. We held hands and sang “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To.”
We had reclaimed our footwear and were preparing to board the Miata when Ms. Consuela Garcia declared, “I know what I want to do now, Archy. You?”
“I concur,” I said.
“Then let’s do it,” she said.
And so we did.
Turn the page to continue reading from the Archy McNally Series
CHAPTER 1
SHE SLAPPED MY FACE.
I have mentioned in previous accounts of my adventures that I am an absolute klutz when dealing with a weeping woman. I am even klutzier (if there is such a word) in coping with a person of the female extraction who commits an act of physical aggression upon the carcass of Archy McNally, bon vivant, dilettantish detective, and the only man in the Town of Palm Beach who owns a T-shirt bearing a portrait of Sophie Tucker. (She once hefted her voluminous breasts and said, “Hitler should have such tonsils.”)
But forgive these digressions and allow me to return to the problem of being the victim of a lady’s wrath: to wit, a sharp blow to my mandible. I mean, what was a gentleman to do?
1. Grit one’s molars and stiffen one’s upper lip in silence?
2. Return the slap while muttering a mild oath?
3. Bow politely and say, “I deserved that”?
Actually, the third choice would have been the most fitting but I was too startled by the sudden attack to make any reasonable response. Let me explain:
Her first name was Laura and her last name is of no consequence to this narrative. She and her wealthy husband of three years had recently finalized what was described as an “amicable divorce”—if there is such an animal, which I doubt.
Laura received a humongous cash settlement. Her ex-hubby retained possession of their Palm Beach mansion with all its rather atrocious furnishings and, of course, his personal property, including a famous collection of sports memorabilia. It had occasionally been exhibited in local museums which could not snare a traveling Monet show and had to be content with a display of ancient gutta-percha golf balls and a stained leather helmet once worn by Bronko Nagurski.
The star of the collection was a 1910 Sweet Caporal cigarette card bearing a likeness of Honus Wagner, famed shortstop of the Pittsburgh Pirates. It was believed only thirty-six of these rare baseball cards still existed, and one recently sold at auction for $450,000.
You can imagine the husband’s fury and despair when, shortly after his divorced wife decamped, he discovered his beloved Honus Wagner card had decamped as well. But he had no proof his ex had filched his most valuable curio. And so, rather than create a foofaraw with the local gendarmes, he brought the problem to his attorneys, McNally & Son.
My father, Prescott McNally, is the lawyer. I, Archibald McNally, am the son. I do not hold a legal degree due to a minor contretemps resulting in my being excommunicated from Yale Law. But I direct a small department (personnel: one) devoted to Discreet Inquiries. I do investigations for clients who would prefer to have potentially embarrassing matters handled with quiet circumspection instead of seeing them made public and possibly detailed in a supermarket tabloid next to an article entitled “I Am Pregnant with Elvis’s Love Child!”
It took only a bit of nosing about to discover the lady was a member of the tennis club to which I belong—although my dues are frequently in arrears. Soon thereafter we were confronting each other across the net. I am not an accomplished tennist, although I do have a ferocious backhand, and it didn’t take long to discover Laura was a calm and cool expert. To put it bluntly, she creamed me.
An after-set gin and tonic led to my inviting her to a luncheon and eventually a dinner. Working my wicked wiles, I capped a week of gastronomic seduction with a feast at the Chesterfield (rack of lamb and then a Grand Marnier soufflé). Replete and giggling, we returned to her quarters in a West Palm condo rental. By this time we were sufficiently simpatico that I do not believe either of us doubted how the evening would end.
And so it did. In my own defense I can only plead I was as much seductee as seducer. I mean this was an inexorable progression betwixt a frisky lass and an even friskier lad. What was one to do? Kismet.
But I did not neglect my motive for engineering this joyous occasion. And when the lady scampered into the bathroom after our frolic I scampered to the chest of drawers in her bedroom. And there, under a stack of perfumed undies, I found the stolid portrait of Honus Wagner, his baseball card sealed in plastic. I slipped it into my wallet, delighted with such a triumphant night.
But then, as I was dressing, she came trotting out, naked as a needle, and went directly to her store of flimsies. She discovered my theft almost immediately. She stalked over to me and I fancied even her satiny bosom was suffused with indignation—if not fury.
That was when she slapped my face.
After recovering from my initial shock, I launched into an earnest and detailed explanation. It was not actually larceny, I pointed out; I was merely recovering property illegally removed from the possession of the rightful owner. And as an employee of her ex-husband’s attorney it was my duty to reclaim that which was undeniably his. Besides, I argued, my act of pilferage had been to her advantage since it would prevent her ex from filing a complaint of her alleged crime with the polizia.
I prided myself on speaking sincerely and eloquently. As readers of my previous discreet inquiries are aware, I am rarely at a loss for words. Glib, one might even say. Laura was obviously impressed, listening to my persuasive discourse in silence. When I concluded she drew a deep breath. Lovely sight.
“I guess you’re right,” she said. “But I want you to know I didn’t intend to sell the stupid thing or profit from it in any way.”
“Then why did you take it?”
“I just wanted to teach him a lesson,” she said.
I shall never, never, never understand the gentle sex.
It was pushing midnight when I tooled my red Miata back to the ersatz Tudor manse on Ocean Boulevard housing the McNally family. It was the first week of November and it would be pure twaddle to describe the night as crisp. The weather in South Florida is rarely crisp, tending more toward the soggy, but I must report the sea breeze that Friday night was definitely breathable and the cloudless sky looked as if it had been decorated by Tiffany & Co.
Lights were out and no one was astir when I arrived home. I garaged my chariot and toed the stairs as quietly as I could to my mini-suite on the third and topmost floor. I disrobed and bought myself one minuscule marc and a final English Oval before retiring. It had been a somewhat stressful evening and I must confess I was plagued by a small tweak of shame. My successful gambit for recovering the Honus Wagner baseball card had not been strictly honorable, had it? Caddish, one might even say.
I occasionally suffer an attack of the guilts and have found the best cure is a good night’s sleep, when a mambo with Morpheus dilutes crass behavior to impish mischief. And so it happ
ened once again, for I awoke the following morning with a clear head, a pure conscience, and only a slight twinge in the lower jaw to remind me of Laura’s energetic slap the previous evening. She had been entitled, I acknowledged, and decided I was fortunate that in addition to her tennis prowess she was not also a master of kung fu.
I roused in time to breakfast with my parents in the dining room. Our Scandinavian staff, Ursi and Jamie Olson, had whipped up a marvelous country feast of eggs scrambled with onions, ham steaks, fried grits, hush puppies, and coffee laced with enough chicory to afflict us all with a chorus of borborygmus.
“Goodness,” my mother, Madelaine, said, “it is peppy, isn’t it? Just the one cup for me.”
My father was dressed for his customary Saturday golf game with the same cronies he had been playing with as long as I could recall. They were known as the Fearless Foursome at his club for they had once insisted on completing the back nine while a category three hurricane was raging.
Prescott McNally, Esq., wore his usual golfing uniform: white linen plus fours and argyle hose. This attire might have appeared ridiculous on a man of lesser dignity but pops, with his grizzled eyebrows and guardsman’s mustache, carried it off with casual aplomb, as if he might be heading for a round at St. Andrews.
“Archy,” he said as we left the dining room, both of us still rumbling dully from our gaseous breakfast, “a moment of your time, please.”
We paused in the hallway outside the door of his first-floor study.
“The baseball card?” he inquired.
“Recovered,” I said. “It’ll be on your desk Monday morning.”
“Excellent,” he said. “Any unexpected difficulty or expense?”
“No, father. The lady was most cooperative.”
He looked at me and raised one jungly eyebrow, a trick I’ve never been able to master. But he asked no questions. The pater prefers not to learn the details of my discreet inquiries. I do believe he fears such knowledge might result in his disbarment. He may be right.
“I’m happy the matter has been concluded satisfactorily,” he said in his stodgy manner. “Then you have nothing on your plate at the moment?”
McNally's Trial Page 25
