McNally's chance (mcnally)

by Lawrence Sanders

  Enthusiastically indulging our vices, Sabrina told me her story, that was old and trite but, as she stated, “It’s new when it happens to you.” What happened was a brief encounter with a college boy when Sabrina was eighteen, resulting in the birth of Gillian some nine months later. Once again borrowing from Hollywood royalty, Sabrina put her baby girl in an orphanage and then legally adopted the infant.

  “And the father?” I questioned.

  “The father was the scion of American nobility, their coat of arms consisting of crossed oil wells over a sea of gilt-edged securities. To form an alliance with the likes of me would have been his ruin. Besides which, he was engaged to a young lady who was Main Line Philadelphia or Back Bay Boston, I forget which, but I do know it was rumored that her family kept in their safe-deposit box a splinter from the deck of the Mayflower.

  “He paid me handsomely to keep a low profile. Very handsomely, Mr.

  McNally. I was able to brush up my Shakespeare, as the song goes, live comfortably, and travel extensively. London, Paris, Antibes, Monte Carlo in and out of season, Zurich, and Rome were my playgrounds. I rubbed shoulders, among other things, with the well-to-do, and became au fait with the ways of the world, which is to say the ways of the rich, the super rich, and the mega rich. Darling Desire was the child of my wanderlust. The rest, Mr. McNally, is history.”

  I tossed her a curve with, “And what of the child of your womb, Ms Wright?”

  “Gillian?” Sabrina said as if amazed that I would ask. “Gillian had the best of everything. I enrolled her in a fancy Swiss school from day one.”

  “You sent your daughter to the first grade in Switzerland?” I exclaimed.

  “What’s wrong with that? Little Swiss children go to the first grade in Switzerland.”

  “They live there, Ms Wright.”

  “My daughter lived there, Mr. McNally. You don’t think she got on a little yellow jet every morning toting a lunch pail.”

  The woman was insufferable, but I have to add, infectious. Sabrina Wright was a package. By that I mean there were no loose ends no ifs, buts, or maybes. Like Faust, she would sell her soul to the devil in return for a bestseller and then buy it back with ten percent of the gross. “How often did you see your daughter?” I asked.

  Puffing on her onyx holder, she said, “We met frequently at airports when our connecting flights crisscrossed. We dined in the V.I.P

  lounge. I always paid.” She gave it a beat and then burst into a raspy guffaw. Chauncey, giving the impression that he was in on the joke, joined in. Moments later everyone in the bar was sporting a grin. Yes, Sabrina Wright was infectious.

  “Why did you suddenly decide to tell her the truth?”

  “It wasn’t sudden. I had been thinking about it. And then one night oh, you know a couple of white chicks sitting around talking. I was trying to talk her into giving up Zachary Ward. He writes under the name Zack Ward.”

  “Writes?”

  “In a manner of speaking. He’s a reporter for a dreadful tabloid of the “I Was Impregnated by a Martian at the Church Rummage Sale’

  variety. They met at a writers’ workshop where he was the guest lecturer, which gives you some idea of the workshop’s caliber.”

  I wanted to remind her of the precarious position of those who reside in glass houses but refrained. I know it’s popular, especially in bombastic Palm Beach, to put down anything popular with the common folks, be it literature, music, or a hit film, and label it bourgeois.

  I refuse to go along with this line, not only because I am a member in good standing of the bourgeoisie, but because all art is valid and appealing to the masses doesn’t make it less so.

  If Gillian was enrolled in a writers’ workshop, that meant she aspired to emulate her famous mother. Was Sabrina unhappy over her daughter’s career choice? Testing the waters, I said, “I assume Gillian aspires to be an author. As is the mother, so is her daughter, the Old Testament tells us.”

  Quick as a cobra on the offensive, she snapped, “In this case, Mr.

  McNally, it would be more a case of a bastard emulating a bitch.”

  The lady had wit, however acerbic, and I was beginning to enjoy her company, but then I have always been an easy mark for well-turned ankles and calves. With anyone else, the black-tipped cigarette might have been construed as overplaying her hand, but Sabrina Wright overplayed every move, making the Mata Hari weed almost unnecessary.

  Reluctantly I extinguished my English Oval in an ashtray and encouraged Sabrina to go on with her story. “You told Gillian you were her natural mother and she fled. Is that more or less what happened?”

  It was Sabrina’s turn to douse her smoke and she did so by first removing it from the holder before tamping it in the ashtray. Chauncey, ever helpful, removed it and provided us with a clean one. Would he save Sabrina’s black-tipped butt and press it into his memory book?

  Sabrina told Gillian the truth because she thought her case against Zack Ward would be more compelling coming from a flesh-and-blood mother than from a surrogate parent. “I wanted her to know how sincerely I had her best interests at heart,” Sabrina explained.

  “What have you got against Ward, other than his profession?”

  “I believe,” Sabrina said, ‘that his only interest in Gillian is to pump her for information about me for his rag. Gillian is a rather plain girl and Zack is very attractive, if you get my drift. She has had beaus but never one as comely as Zack, or as ardent. When I made my confession she was, of course, surprised but pleased. We had a good cry and celebrated the occasion with champagne.”

  Sabrina didn’t say that getting rid of Ward was in her best interests, too. She did say that it was several days later when Gillian began to pester her mother to disclose the name of her father. “I know she told Zack her news, and he immediately saw in it the scandal about me he was longing to write about. Of course the story would be worth twice as much in dollars and notoriety if it named the father. You see, I told Gillian that her father was a man of great wealth and pedigree. Given the combination of my name and her father’s, the story would not only make Zack’s career, but his fortune. A week later Gillian and Zack left New York for Palm Beach.”

  “Why Palm Beach?”

  With a gesture that said she had gone this far so why not go all the way, she answered, “Because I told her she was conceived here and that her father still lived here. At the time, I was in Fort Lauderdale on spring break. Gillian’s father was slumming.”

  “Zack notwithstanding, why, after all this time, are you reluctant to tell Gillian who her father is?”

  “Because I struck a bargain, Mr. McNally, and I intend to comply with the rules. I was given a great deal of money by my paramour, as I told you. Enough to raise my daughter in style and live a life that granted me the time and the experience to write and become the darling of publishers as well as investment bankers.” Sticking out her chin, she added, “And I will go to any length to honor his anonymity. Any length,” she repeated.

  “What are the odds of Gillian and Zack finding what they came looking for?”

  A million to one, but even those odds are too close for comfort. That’s why I sent Robert to see what they were up to and to wheedle Jill into returning home.”

  I forgot all about the missing Robert. “Is he Robert Wright?”

  “No, he’s Robert Silvester, but he is my Mr. Right. Robert is my editor and was fresh out of college when they assigned him to my first book. You know how it is with a first book. When we weren’t lunching together, we were on the phone. To cut expenses, he moved in. When Darling Desire was published to great acclaim we celebrated by eloping to Las Vegas.”

  As she filled me in on her marital exploits, I began doing a little arithmetic. She was eighteen when she had Gillian, who was nearing thirty. That would mean

  Sabrina Wright was nearing fifty. Sofia had told me that Sabrina’s first novel came out about a dozen years ago when Robert Silvester was fresh out of
college. Unless he was a dolt, which I doubted, that would make him closer in age to Gillian than to his wife.

  Interesting.

  “Robert made a reservation at the Chesterfield,” she went on, ‘and checked in four days ago. He called me the night he arrived. The following evening he called to say he had found them and was dining with them that evening. He said he would call when he got back to the hotel, but he never did.”

  “Did he say where he found them?”

  “I’m afraid not. There was really no reason to ask.”

  “Did you try calling him?”

  “Yes. When I was connected to his room, it just rang and rang. I left a message for him to call me when he got in, but he never called. I hoped he was still with Gillian, trying to talk some sense into her.

  When he didn’t call the next day I again called the Chesterfield. They told me Mr. Silvester had checked out that morning. I couldn’t imagine what had happened but hoped he might be on his way back to New York, although that didn’t seem possible. I mean he would have called me before leaving. When I didn’t hear from him that day I flew down here the next day, yesterday. So now I’m at the Chesterfield.”

  “Have you questioned them about your husband?”

  “Not directly. I’m sure they don’t know Robert is my husband. I just asked them if Mr. Silvester was still registered. I told them he was a friend and that I knew he was going to be in Palm Beach this week.

  They said he had been there but had left. I asked if he had left a forwarding address and they told me he had not. I didn’t want to seem too interested.

  “I’m sitting on a time bomb, Mr. McNally. My daughter is here with that awful Zack, looking for her father, and now my husband, who was here looking for my daughter, has disappeared into thin air. If any of this gets out it will create a cause celebre that will be heard around the world.”

  And sell a lot of books. I hated to start the clock ticking on that time bomb, but I thought the lady should know that Lolly Spindrift had not only announced her arrival but had also alluded to Robert’s disappearance. This had her reaching for another cigarette without benefit of holder. She was so quick on the draw she had it lit before Chauncey could strike a match. “I don’t see how…”

  “I do. Lolly must have a shill at the Chesterfield who happened to be at the desk when you arrived and heard you inquire about Mr. Silvester.

  Maybe no one at the hotel knows Robert is your husband, but I’m sure Lolly does, dot, dot, dot.”

  “The man that got away,” she moaned. “Do you realize that if Gillian’s father sees that item he will think I’m in Palm Beach in search of him?”

  She had a point. Not knowing Sabrina’s husband was missing, Gillian’s sire would surely think he was the man that got away especially since he was.

  Sabrina’s concern also confirmed that Gillian’s father was alive and well and living in Palm Beach.

  She put her hand on mine. It was ice-cold. The lady was truly frightened. “Will you help me, Mr. McNally?”

  Sabrina took one look at my fire-engine-red Miata and opted to take a cab back to her hotel. Smart move. While she was not exactly traveling incognito, neither was she here on a book-signing tour, and my car, unlike my professional methods, is more Palm Beach kitsch than discreet, but it does keep me amused. In this world of card-carrying terrorists, West Nile virus-carrying mosquitos, and E.coli-carrying cows, I zip happily along in my Miata like there’s no tomorrow, because there’s a good chance there won’t be one.

  I told Sabrina to sit tight and I would be in touch. I didn’t know when, or what I would have to offer when I did, but that is, after all, the standard line when parting with a distressed client. It gives them hope and me a chance to ruminate over the facts and a bite of lunch. I decided to take the case, that is, try to locate Robert Silvester, for two reasons.

  The first one was because I liked the lady. She had what show folks call pizzazz. It’s a word, like pornography, that’s hard to define but you know it when you see it. Having been handed a golden parachute and tossed out of the family Cessna, she refused to sink, meekly, into the abyss. Against all odds, she had defied gravity and soared. Instead of disappearing, she had literally lit up the sky with her talent and a zillion book covers with her startled gaze. What’s not to like?

  Reason numero two? Greed or did you think I was about to O.D. on altruism? My father takes great pride in the abundance of moneyed names, both old and new moola, on McNally amp; Son’s client roster. Were I to be responsible for adding Sabrina Wright to that list it would go a long way in mitigating my trespasses at Yale, lo, those twenty years ago, as I have long forgiven those who trespassed against me. Now, like the message inscribed on a sundial, I number only the sunny hours.

  I crossed from West Palm into the land of conspicuous consumption via the Flagler Memorial Bridge and then along Royal Poinciana Way, passing golfers on The Breakers Ocean Golf Course, all consuming conspicuously, before heading up Ocean Boulevard, alias the A1A. I believe everything Sabrina Wright told me was true. What wasn’t said was what she didn’t want me to know, such as who had introduced her to Discreet Inquiries.

  If it was a former client, that person could or could not still be living in Palm Beach. Was it this former client who also recommended that we rendezvous at a pub where we were least likely to be seen by those who matter in the Town of Palm Beach, or had Sabrina programmed a list of such joints into her computer for when the need arose, be it for the writing business or monkey business?

  The idea that her Palm Beach confidant might be Gillian’s father also crossed my mind. If Sabrina had broken her part of the bargain and contacted him, perhaps to warn him of Gillian’s arrival, he may have given her my name should the need arise. She had said that she would go to any length to honor his anonymity. To what length would he go to make sure she did?

  Next we had Robert Silvester, the subject of my nascent investigation.

  My first impression was that he might have joined forces with Gillian to escape Sabrina, but that was before I knew why, and with whom, the girl had fled. Mr. Right was acting on his wife’s behalf, but, and I forgot to ask, did he know Sabrina’s secret? He must, or she would not have sent him in search of Gillian, who would tell him when he caught up with her.

  Then why did Robert come to Palm Beach alone? Why didn’t Sabrina accompany him? Why did he check out of the Chesterfield after he found Gillian and where had he gone to?

  Was Gillian a plain Jane forever in the shadow of her charismatic mother? Did her attractive suitor talk her into going in search of her roots, or had it occurred to her that being acknowledged by a father whose blood was blue and bank account green would legitimatize her in more ways than one?

  And let’s not forget Zack Ward, a tabloid reporter hot on the trail. To what length would he go to expose Gillian’s father?

  Finally, we had Lolly Spindrift, who had inadvertently opened this can of worms. He would make every sacrifice, including canceling his subscription to Playgirl, in return for the real scoop on Sabrina Wright’s presence in Palm Beach.

  In retrospect, there was more to the case than Sabrina’s plot outline, and the cast of characters alone promised a page-turner. As the old drinking song had it, “This is number one and the fun has just begun …”

  I turned off the Al A and onto the graveled driveway of my favorite restaurant the Chez McNally on Ocean Boulevard.

  Three

  For those who wonder why a charismatic bachelor in possession of a functioning medulla oblongata one who is approaching his fourth decade chooses to live at home, the answer is Dollars amp; Sense. I occupy my own snug garret in our faux Tudor palace, tucked beneath a charming but leaky copper roof. The drip, drip, drip of the raindrops makes my three-room suite sitting room, bedroom, and bath tres bohemian, an ambiance difficult to come upon in south Florida where postmodern is all the rage.

  The lord and lady of the manor are currently on a long overdue holiday, crui
sing the Caribbean on a luxury liner from which father can ship-to-shore the office every day and inquire of his private secretary, the formidable Mrs. Trelawney, as to the day’s receipts and, no doubt, Archy’s whereabouts.

  Mother, Madelaine by name, suffers from a touch of hypertension and has grown a tad forgetful in her golden years, but remains a gentlewoman of immense charm. A gardener who raises only begonias, she has as many varieties of that tropical plant as are recognized by certified horticulturists, and then some. Her newest, an Iron Cross, was about to come into its own just as she and the guy were due to ship out of Ft. Lauderdale. Mother consented to go only after we had secured a member of her garden club to look after the new arrival and its numerous relations.

  Looking after Archy were Ursi Olson, our cook-housekeeper, and her husband, Jamie, our houseman. Ursi’s cooking is one of the perks of living at home, another being the Atlantic Ocean just across the A1A from our abode where I can indulge my passion for swimming two miles every day, weather and time permitting. Our climate and my job permit far more often than they deny. While Ursi would not know a cordon bleu from a 4-H Club, she could make anything edible delectable, which accounts for the continuing shrinkage of my waistbands.

  Hobo, our canine of blended heritage, peeked out of his gabled cottage as I emerged from my car. Satisfied that I was not a thief, bill collector, or religious zealot in search of converts, he returned to his afternoon siesta. I always get the feeling that I should apologize to our quadruped sentry for interfering with his power nap.

  Archy!” Ursi exclaimed as I entered the kitchen, “I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “I wasn’t expecting me either,” I told her, ‘but I had a noon appointment that cut into my lunch hour and thought you might whip up a snack to fill the void.”