McNally's chance (mcnally)

by Lawrence Sanders

Turning, she sashayed off in her silver mini-and matching top with the assurance that every male eye in the place followed her every move. One day a shrewd fashion photographer will walk into the Pelican and walk out with our Priscilla.

  As Mr. Pettibone served my daiquiri I wondered how Connie had gotten word of the Binky fiasco. As if my thought had conjured her up, Connie came into the bar area looking splendid in slim-fitting black pants, spectator heels, and a charmingly buoyant white halter. Her dark hair cascaded to her bare shoulders. Priscilla now had the attention of only half the men in the Pelican. I got a peck on the cheek before Connie took the stool next to me.

  “I’ll have whatever he’s having,” she said to Mr. Pettibone.

  I lost no time in venting my indignation at what was fast turning into a United Way for Binky Watrous. Triscilla bought Binky a chopping block, Herb in security got him a waffle iron, I have been ordered to purchase a microwave oven et tu, Brute?”

  “Oh, oh, the ladies are fawning over Binky and little Archy is having a tempter tantrum.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, reaching for my drink.

  “Get a life, Archy,” Connie advised, not for the first time.

  “No, my dear, it’s a microwave I have to get, remember?” When Connie’s drink arrived I ordered a second.

  “Mrs. Trelawney told me you were acting like a two-year-old over this.” She took a sip of her drink and proclaimed it “Delicious.”

  “You spoke to Mrs. Trelawney and she invited you to join the magi bearing gifts.”

  “Yes. I called you this afternoon and when you didn’t answer I tried Mrs. Trelawney. She told me you had gone to lunch so I came here looking for you.”

  “As a matter of fact,” I said, “I was lunching at The Breakers.”

  “In that suit?” Connie exclaimed as if I had gone to lunch in my birthday suit.

  “What’s wrong with this suit?” Actually I was getting bored with both the question and my response. I took refuge in my second frozen daiquiri.

  “I bet you were the only man at The Breakers in pink,” Connie wagered.

  “I was the only man at The Breakers who didn’t look like every other man in the joint.” Feeling the need I pulled out my English Ovals and lit one. “And don’t tell me you thought I had given these up,” I warned.

  “Okay, I won’t. And, for your information, I’m thinking of getting Binky bedding, twin size, I’m told.”

  “Don’t you think that’s rather intimate, Connie?”

  “I’m not going to share them with him. My God, Archy, you are acting like a spoiled brat and you know what I think?”

  “No. Nor do I care to.”

  That didn’t stop her. “I think you’re jealous,” she accused.

  I almost jumped off my stool. “Jealous. Moi, jealous of Binky Watrous. Are you out of your Iberian mind?”

  Connie smiled the smile she had smiled when she shared her eggs Benedict with me at Testa’s. This was not going well. I pulled on my English Oval for comfort and, as always, it did not disappoint. Was anything enjoyable also good for you? Sex? Yes, sex is indeed both enjoyable and healthy. Proof? I had read of a great sultan who kept a harem of one thousand wives. Every night he sent his faithful servant to select one to share his bed chamber. The faithful servant died at the age of fifty. The sultan lived to one hundred. Conclusion? It’s the chase, not the act, that does a man in. Later, in the quiet of Connie’s condo, we would discuss bedding.

  “Let’s face it, Archy. Binky is ten years your junior…”

  “Nine,” I said.

  Ten,” she said. “He’s setting up his own household as most of us do when we reach our majority. Before you know it he’ll be married and settled down.”

  Those two sentences were rampant with not so thinly disguised innuendo.

  Connie was treading on thin ice and she knew it. I was spared defending my puritanical ethics and my chance for a romantic interlude by the arrival of Mrs. Pettibone, bearing a dish of shrimp surrounding a paper cup of spicy red sauce.

  “Compliments of the chef,” Jasmine Pettibone said as Connie and I helped ourselves to what the Italians call il sap ore di mare, or the fruit of the sea. The little crustaceans were carefully shelled, perfectly prepared, and absolutely succulent. Leroy’s sauce lost nothing in the transfer from bottle to paper cup. Fresh shrimp is one of the rewards of living not too many miles from the Gulf of Mexico.

  Addressing me, Mrs. Pettibone said, “Simon told you about Lyle, my cousin’s boy, out in California.”

  I answered that he had and went on to say, “I have no idea what it’s all about. Any further developments?”

  “What’s all this?” Connie said, momentarily distracted from Leroy’s offering by the promise of gossip. Momentarily, and not a nanosecond more.

  As I related to Connie as much as I knew, Simon Pettibone joined us from his side of the bar.

  “Henry Peavey,” Connie said, shaking her head. “Doesn’t mean a thing to me. What about you, Archy?”

  As I told Mr. Pettibone, it means nothing to me either.”

  Huddled around the plate of shrimp we might have been participants in a taste-test happening. It did occur to me that Mrs. Pettibone had intended to pass the goodies around to the other early diners just beginning to arrive at the club, but if Connie and Mrs. McNally’s favorite son didn’t keep their hands off the pickin’s she would have to abort her mission.

  “There are more developments, Archy,” Mr. Pettibone declared with a glance at his wife.

  Jasmine Pettibone had been blessed with a particularly aristocratic bearing that had served her well. Now displaying what is politely called a full figure, and with streaks of gray in her hair, it was still un mistakenly clear from whence came Priscilla’s lovely face and form.

  “Lyle’s daughter called this morning,” Mrs. Pettibone told us. “She heard from her father.”

  “So,” I said, ‘the mystery is solved.”

  “Hardly,” Mrs. Pettibone said. “Lucy she’s Lyle’s daughter wasn’t home when his call came. He left a message on her answering machine.”

  “Saying what?” Connie asked. Now she, too, seemed to be caught up in the mystery of Henry Peavey.

  “Saying that he had arrived and was making contacts, and that it just occurred to him to tell Lucy not to answer any questions or make any statements to the press should they try to contact her,” Mrs. Pettibone stated with a resolute nod of her head.

  I said, “And that’s it?” at the same time Connie said, “The press?”

  Mr. Pettibone gave us both a nod. “And don’t ask where he arrived at because he didn’t say.”

  “He originally told his daughter he was going south,” I reminded the Pettibones.

  “South of Sacramento goes all the way to the Argentine,” Connie informed us. Consuela Garcia is practical to a fault.

  “The plot certainly thickens,” I told them. “Well, keep us posted. I’d like to know what Lyle has gotten up to.”

  “So would I,” Mrs. Pettibone answered.

  The club was starting to fill, but I noticed that our favorite corner table was still vacant. “What’s Leroy tempting us with this evening?”

  A crown roast,” Mrs. Pettibone announced as she moved away with the remainder of the shrimp.

  Leroy’s crown roast is a couple of rib sections of a loin of lamb arranged in a circle and roasted with strips of bacon wrapped around the lower section and also covering the ends of the rib bones, to prevent them from being scorched while cooking. Stuffing the cavity of the crown is optional, but I knew that Leroy’s recipe called for an apple-and-raisin filling held together with cubed country bread and garnished with mace, sage, nutmeg, garlic cloves, and enough melted butter to soften a stone. When served, the tips of the rib bones are decorated with paper frills. Truly a feast for a king and therefore aptly named.

  Picking up our drinks I led Connie to our table and once settled I noticed the attractive diamond earrings and
bracelet she wore. When I complimented her on her expensive taste she laughed and said, “You like them? They’re part of my collection of summer diamonds.”

  Now Palm Beach is the land of in-your-face ostentatious ness but summer diamonds? Tray tell, what are summer diamonds?” I asked.

  Thrilled with the chance to show her smarts, Connie blurted, “Some-are diamonds and some-are not. Get it?”

  “I’ll pretend this conversation never took place, if you promise never to call costume jewelry by any other name.”

  “The earrings are real, the bracelet is not, for your information,” she said, not hiding her displeasure. “You get so uppity when you break bread at ritzy diners. Were you at The Breakers with Sabrina Wright?”

  “So you’ve heard?”

  “Who hasn’t? Mrs. Marsden told Madam you were on the case,” Connie said.

  Mrs. Marsden is Lady Cynthia’s housekeeper and a confidant of our Ursi’s. Do you begin to see how Thomas Appleton got the message?

  “As a matter of fact, Archy, Sabrina Wright was one of the reasons I wanted to see you today.”

  “Really? And I thought you were pining to see me. Don’t tell me you want an autographed book.”

  “No. Madam wants to meet her,” she said.

  “So does half the world, I would imagine. What’s Lady C’s interest?”

  Connie rolled her eyes toward the Pelican’s ceiling, which was in need of a paint job. “It’s got to do with her latest project.”

  Lady Cynthia Horowitz had two passions in life: young, handsome, male proteges (and she’s a septuagenarian) and projects. She has championed the cause of nesting plovers, humpback whales, bald eagles, and hirsute violinists. Her last brainstorm was an ingenious scheme to install Art Nouveau pissoirs on Worth Avenue. Really!

  Cartier, Tiffany, Hamilton, and Verdura, among other local merchants, were appalled at the idea, but I understand many older gentlemen who spend countless hours trailing after their wives on that boulevard of expensive and useless merchandise joined Lady C’s committee in earnest.

  Priscilla breezed by and asked us if we were having the special. We were and I ordered a bottle of cabernet sauvignon to go with the meal.

  Then I said to Connie, “Okay, let’s have it. What has your boss got the wind up over this week?”

  “She’s going to write her memoirs,” Connie announced unhappily. “She thought she might get some helpful hints from Sabrina.”

  Her memoirs, was it? The lady had lived a long life, had had at least as many husbands as fingers on her right hand, all rich and one titled.

  She was a living Sabrina Wright novel. Did she imagine a book-signing party at the Classic Bookshop on S. County Road where the couturier and graphic artist Michael

  Vollbracht recently appeared to push the reissue of his book Nothing Sacred? The dishy primer is famous for Vollbracht’s sketch of the late Marjorie Merriweather Post holding up a box of Grape-Nuts.

  No one knew more about sex, money, and manipulation than Lady Cynthia Horowitz and I said as much. “There’s nothing Sabrina can teach the Madam, Connie. She’s been there, done that, and lived to tell about it. Besides, I’m off the case.”

  “So soon?” Connie seemed surprised.

  “Yeah. I found her daughter and the guy she ran off with.” It was a slight exaggeration, but who… found whom was now a moot question and when in doubt, take the credit, I always say.

  “Madam doesn’t believe the man that got away was Sabrina’s daughter’s lover,” Connie said. “Nor do I.”

  Nor do Thomas Appleton, do he? I kept that to myself, however. With Connie I often share and confide, but given the dramatis personae of this charade I immediately decided to play my hand close to the vest.

  Besides, I still was not sure what Thomas Appleton wanted to see me about. Not contemporary art, that’s for sure.

  “And who does Madam think the guy is?” I asked.

  “Sabrina’s young and gorgeous lover,” Connie gushed.

  That figures.

  Eight

  The next morning I called upon Sofia Richmond once again to get some background information on the Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art.

  When I’m able, I like to do a little homework before meeting with a new client, if indeed Thomas Appleton would become a client. As he was a patron of the museum it wouldn’t hurt to bone up on its history so as to appear smarter than I am. Who knows, the guy might ask questions.

  I didn’t have to delve into the Appleton family closet as its contents were more or less in the public domain. If it contained a skeleton, as I now suspected it did, its name was Sabrina Wright.

  The PBICA, as it’s familiarly referred to in print, owes its existence to the philanthropists, Robert and Mary Montgomery. He is a noted attorney. The Montgomerys renovated the Lake Theater, a landmark art deco movie house that now houses the PBICA, after purchasing it from the Palm Beach Community College. The facility formerly held the contemporary art and design collection of J. Patrick Lannan. When the Lannan Foundation relocated the collection to Los Angeles, they donated the building to the college.

  The PBICA purports to be a venue for major national and international art in all media and a meeting ground for the diverse populations who live in and visit the Palm Beach region. Who could find fault with that?

  I got there minutes after it opened its doors to the public and wondered whom I could bill the three-buck admission charge to Appleton or Sabrina? It was most likely to show up on my expense report as a miscellaneous disbursement, a category that often comprised fifty-five percent of my expenditures, much to Mrs. Trelawney’s chagrin. I ambled around, fascinated with what I looked upon, before making my way to the second floor and the New Media Lounge.

  Thomas Appleton was already there, seated before three television screens. He rose when I entered and came to meet me.

  “Mr. McNally, thank you for being prompt.” He offered his hand and we shook.

  “I glanced at the exhibits before coming up and was most impressed,” I said. “I intend to come back when I can give them more attention.”

  “Shall we sit?” When we did Appleton pointed to the screens. “Each shows a video presentation by a current artist. As you can see there is no audio.” Pointing to the earphones on an ultramodern glass-top table, he instructed, “One must use these, which allows for a private viewing. The two computer stations you see are connected to the Internet. With them, visitors are able to surf Web art sites worldwide via a list provided by the museum. The Lounge is the concept of our new director, Michael Rush.”

  “The medium is the message,” I quoted.

  Thomas Appleton looked like Kriss Kringle, clean shaven and out of uniform. Round face, ruddy complexion, and a shock of white hair combined to give the impression of a jolly gent more inclined to be an insurance salesman than a multimillionaire bon vivant, sportsman, and sidekick of presidents and kings. I had heard he was usually under par on the golf course, but judging from his waistline I would imagine he was more a devotee of croquet than tennis. In Palm Beach, croquet is taken quite seriously with teams competing from other states as well as the land-of-the-game’s origin.

  Being early, the New Media Lounge was empty except for us and knowing Appleton wanted to conduct our business as quickly and as privately as possible, I thought it prudent to get down to the particulars before he changed his mind or was spotted by someone he knew, in which case I would have to play the guy who came to service the earphones.

  “It’s all very interesting, Mr. Appleton, but not the reason for our meeting,” was how I approached the delicate subject.

  “Very true, Mr. McNally, and I respect your directness. Time, as they say, is money.”

  I could have said that not being officially in his employ, time was bleeding my wallet, but one didn’t talk that way to an Appleton without being blackballed from places that didn’t solicit my business. It was a no-win situation and one in which I felt very much at home.
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  “I understand that you represent the author Sabrina Wright,” he finally stated.

  “Represented, sir. My business with her has been concluded as of yesterday.”

  Was it my imagination or did those ruddy cheeks lose their glow? “Are you saying Sabrina, that is Ms Wright, has found what she came here looking for?”

  “I am, sir.”

  I knew what the guy was thinking, but did he know I knew? For a moment I thought about putting that heretofore jolly face at ease by telling him he was among friends, but I didn’t know how much Appleton was ready to ‘fess up to, and, more to the point, I had not forgotten my prediction that knowing the identity of Gillian Wright’s father could be dangerous. He had invited me here, therefore the onus was on him to say why he wanted to see me.

  In the ensuing silence Thomas Appleton stared at the three television screens as if he were waiting for the commercial to end and the show to begin. He sighed, rolled his shoulders, and finally said, “The girl, Gillian, ran off with a man, came here, and Sabrina hired you to find them. Is that correct, Mr. McNally?”

  It was the story I had spread around but the fact that he was asking for confirmation suggested that he didn’t believe it. No fool, Mr.

  Appleton.

  With a show of surprise I poured a little oil on the fire and stated,

  “You’re familiar with Sabrina’s daughter’s name.” What the hell, I liked the ambiance of the PBICA but I had no intention of spending the entire day here.

  To be sure,” he said. “It’s no secret. I mean the woman and her daughter do get their names in the press.”

  If he insisted on shadewboxing I would simply leave the ring. “I’m sorry, sir, but client confidentiality is sacrosanct even after I’ve closed the books on a case. If your purpose, for whatever reason, is to learn why Ms Wright hired me I’m afraid I’ll have to abort this meeting.” I half rose to prove my resolve.

  Appleton restrained me with a hand on my elbow. “Of course, Discreet Inquiries. Friends have told me the name factually delineates your work ethics. My compliments, Mr. McNally. But the truth of the matter is, I did ask you here for just that reason.”