McNally's Dare

by Lawrence Sanders

  I pressed the button and heard:

  “Archy? It’s Connie. Lady Cynthia is furious because Phil Meecham has snared Jackson Barnett. She wants you to get the athlete out of Phil’s clutches and into hers. Pronto.” Click.

  “Archy? Georgy girl. I heard you played tennis with Joey Gallo. Doesn’t he have great legs? What do you know about the murder? I’ll be home tonight. Call me.” Click.

  “Mr. McNally? This is Dennis Darling. I am stopping at the GulfStream hotel just over the bridge in Lake Worth. Please call me at your earliest convenience regarding the death of Jeffrey Rodgers. Thank you.” Click.

  I pulled the plug on the bloody machine. How much can a healthy American boy take in one afternoon?

  SEVEN

  THE ROUTE 802 BRIDGE does not separate Palm Beach Island from Lake Worth, but links Lake Worth to the Lake Worth Municipal Beach, which is on Palm Beach Island. The Pier contains several shops that cater to tourists and a coffee shop the hungry queue up in front of every morning for their bacon and eggs fix. The area is a favorite hangout for teen surfers and as I approached it to hang a right onto the bridge I thought of Jeff Rodgers and wondered, as I had been doing since listening to Darling’s urgent message, if his summons would end up shedding light on Jeff’s murder.

  The bridge exits on Lucerne Avenue, which is one way, west, and skirts the Lake Worth Municipal Golf Club. The course is popular with Palm Beachers and boasts a new clubhouse. The par-70 spread was a favorite of baseball great Babe Ruth and is now home to the Nine Hole Club, a merry group of golfers who discourage competition with the motto, “Low handicap players need not apply.”

  The GulfStream Hotel is at the foot of the bridge on Lake Avenue, which is one way, east, forcing me to go up Lucerne, cross over, and come down Lake to arrive where I had just about started.

  The GulfStream is a first-class hostelry that offers guests a great panorama of Lake Worth and the southern end of Palm Beach. Daniel’s Lake Avenue Grill is the hotel’s restaurant, situated just off the lobby and features an outdoor terrace that fronts Lake Worth. It also features an oval-shaped bar that runs almost the entire length of the big room, keeping the two lovely barmaids it engulfed on the run this cocktail hour.

  My experienced eye judged the crowd to be a mix of tourists (shirts embossed with palm trees and Bermuda shorts with knee-length stockings, ugh!) and Floridians in more somber attire, making an oasis stop between work and home. Music was being piped in and those in conversation with their neighbor had to shout above it to be heard. The resulting din was more conducive to making whoopee than indulging in a tête-à-tête with the formidable Dennis Darling.

  I spotted Darling at a table for two abutting the windows facing the outside terrace and was tempted to go rushing over and shout, “Darling, I hope I haven’t kept you waiting long.” But with a name like Darling, a good Yankee name by the way, he must have grown callous to the approach or, more likely, might respond by getting up and kissing me on the cheek. At Daniel’s on a crowded evening the game was not worth the candle so I approached with caution and said instead, “Mr. Darling? Archy McNally here.”

  He rose and extended his hand, and we shook like civilized people. Remember, I had only seen Dennis Darling on the tennis court at Nifty’s so had no idea of what he might be like when clothed and shod for company. I was not disappointed. In fact, I was impressed. The summer grays with a white open-collar dress shirt and a lightweight navy blazer bespoke New York chic and was an outfit I myself have been known to favor. Darling was about my height, six feet, with dark hair and eyes that suggested a dash of the Mediterranean in the woodpile. Had his reputation not preceded him, I knew several PB hostesses who would have made Dennis Darling’s stay more welcome.

  Happily, I had gone for Ermenegildo Zegna jeans and a striped polo shirt in soft greens and blues, sans circus animal over the left breast, so we didn’t appear to be gazing in a mirror as we appraised each other.

  “We meet again, Mr. McNally. You do remember we played a few sets together on MacNiff’s court yesterday.”

  “On opposite sides of the net, Mr. Darling.”

  “Of course,” he said. “But perhaps we can play on the same team this time around.”

  “I’m not much of a team player,” I assured him.

  “So I understand,” he answered, eying me as if I were a job applicant. “Let me say how much I appreciate your coming, Mr. McNally” He pointed invitingly to the empty chair opposite his and continued, “I’m a stranger on your tropical island and about as welcome as a blizzard.” Signaling a passing waitress, he asked, “What are you drinking?”

  “Before you buy me a drink,” I answered, easing into the chair, “I want you to know that I will discuss neither the flora nor the fauna of Palm Beach only to be misquoted in Bare Facts magazine.”

  “Relax,” he said. “I didn’t get you here to find out what you know about Palm Beach society, but to tell you what I know about Jeff Rodgers. Interested?”

  I looked up at the waitress and ordered a vodka martini with a twist, straight up. Darling told her to bring him another Johnnie Walker Red Label, on the rocks. I have always been wary of men who take their whiskey neat but rationalized that the added ice gave Mr. Darling the benefit of any doubts I might have about him. “I didn’t think you knew anyone in these parts, Mr. Darling.”

  “I don’t,” he told me, adding, “with the exception of poor Jeff, and I only met with him once before his untimely death. He was murdered, wasn’t he?”

  “Are you asking me or telling me, Mr. Darling?”

  “My friends call me Denny, and I hope to count you among them.”

  The guy was engaging, I will admit, but he seemed intent on cementing our relationship with the speed of a gigolo at a debutante ball. I could see no reason to withhold what little I knew, as the full story of Jeff’s demise would be in tomorrow’s papers and was probably being aired on the evening news as we spoke. Also, as a crack investigative reporter for a national magazine he would know how to wrest information out of a desk sergeant on Palm Beach island.

  “Well, my friend, I would like to know why you chose me to impart information—whatever it may be—that would be of more interest to the police than to this disinterested civilian.”

  The waitress arrived with our drinks and Darling waited until she had served them and gone before responding. “Prior to coming here, I had my assistant check the bare facts of this Eden and one of the facts she came up with was that Archy McNally is employed with his father’s law firm as a PI, not a lawyer, because Archy was bounced out of Yale for reasons unknown. His job at McNally and Son is to run interference between the swells and any embarrassing problems that might arise, like dead bodies in their swimming pools.” He picked up his glass, “Cheers, Archy.”

  A lot of cheek but, again, the glib yet honest delivery was infectious. I would guess Dennis Darling had put together a few facts and was tossing out what he only surmised. I liked this élan and my McNally intuition told me I had found a kindred spirit. I would play it by ear and, if he didn’t disappoint, count him as a friend who could be very helpful now and in the future.

  I picked up my martini. “Cheers, Denny.” His smile told me he hadn’t missed the irony in my delivery.

  “So, you are working for MacNiff,” he stated.

  “Could be,” I said. “It depends.”

  “On what?” he wanted to know.

  “On what you have to tell me about Jeff Rodgers.”

  Darling shrugged. “Give-and-take, you mean?”

  “I mean, Denny, you invited me here regarding a most urgent matter, to quote you, and I’m not saying another word until you tell me what it is.”

  He sipped his Johnnie Walker Red and pretended to give this some thought. A moment later he was taking me into his confidence. “I didn’t come to Palm Beach to write an exposé on the resort. It’s been done, ad nauseam, as I’m sure you know.”

  “So why did you come?”
<
br />   “I got a call in New York telling me that for the right price I would be told the truth about Lance Talbot.”

  I almost started at hearing the name and hoped Darling hadn’t noticed, but I’m sure he had. Noticing such things was how he made his living. First Jeff and now Talbot. I wondered if Dennis Darling had been hanging out in my back pocket since last we met.

  “I’m sure you know who Lance Talbot is,” he went on, “but at the time I didn’t. However, my research assistant filled me in. A rags-to-riches story is always good copy as it gives people hope. I called back and said I might be interested. My contact wanted to know how much I would pay and I told him my magazine’s honorarium would be in keeping with the information being bartered.

  “I didn’t know if I was on a fool’s errand but things were slow and a few days in Palm Beach in February didn’t seem a bad way to fight ennui. In case it should turn out to be something interesting I put it about that I was here to write a piece on your popular and posh resort to throw other snoops off the scent.”

  “And who was your caller?” I asked, fearing the worst.

  “Jeffrey Rodgers,” he said, confirming my fear.

  Well, that not only made the cheese more binding and the plot more thick, it also made the two cases Nifty had asked me to look into clash like a couple of rams doing battle over a four-legged temptress. Jeff Rodgers and Lance Talbot. The waiter and the playboy. They couldn’t have less in common if they existed on different planets. However, they didn’t exist on different planets but on one tight little island.

  What could Jeff have known about Lance Talbot that would interest Dennis Darling? More to the point, what did Jeff know about Lance Talbot that got Jeff dead? That Lance Talbot wasn’t Lance Talbot? How could Jeff have known what Nifty, and perhaps old Mrs. Talbot, only suspected? My medulla oblongata was trying to process too much too soon which, I have always believed, was as dangerous as coping with too little too late. Besides, Denny seemed to be enjoying watching me squirm. It was my turn to give, and not taking any chances I parted with only what would soon be common knowledge.

  “Jeff Rodgers was murdered,” I said. “Chloroformed before being shoved into the pool.”

  Denny pursed his lips to whistle but if any sound emerged it was lost to the babble as early diners began arriving to join the bar crowd. He was too much of a pro to speculate on how Jeff had been shoved into the pool while Nifty’s party was in full swing, probably because he had already figured it out for himself. Who had done the shoving was the question which Denny now posed.

  “You think Jeff was made redundant because of what he had on the Talbot guy?”

  “I have no idea,” I said, “mostly because I didn’t know there was a connection between the two until you told me.”

  Again, he asked, “Are you working for Malcolm MacNiff?”

  “I plead client confidentiality,” I told him before asking, “Why haven’t you told the police why you came to Palm Beach?”

  “That would be revealing a source, which I never do,” he said.

  “Your source is dead,” I reminded him, “and what he told you could help the police in their investigation of his death.”

  “It could also help you, Archy. That is, if you are looking into Jeff’s murder on behalf of a client.”

  “We’re shadowboxing, Denny,” I said, thinking that we had reached an impasse and I was getting bored with the charade and with Denny. True, he had given me a connection between the assignments I had undertaken for Nifty—Jeff’s murder and the legitimacy of Lance Talbot’s claim—but I wasn’t about to tell Denny that. In fact, I was going to tell Denny as little as possible and learn as much as I could. In the game of give-and-take, the object is to take as much as you can get and give as little as you can get away with. And, lest I forget, I was playing with a pro.

  Denny again signaled our waitress and indicated by pointing that we were ready for another drink. It’s long been rumored that reporters are big-time boozers and Denny wasn’t doing anything to dispel the supposition. “If you’d like a cigarette we could move out to the terrace,” he offered.

  “What makes you think I’m a smoker?”

  “You’re beginning to fidget,” he said, mockingly.

  “And you’re beginning to bore, Denny. Now if you’ll excuse me...”

  “Cool your heels,” he said, motioning me to stay seated. When I kept my place he leaned forward and, speaking in earnest, got down to the purpose of our meeting. “Look, Archy, I need your help and I’m willing to pay for it. What’s your fee?”

  “Steep, like everything else in Palm Beach, but I’m sure you, or your magazine, can afford it. What did you have in mind, Denny?”

  The waitress deposited our drinks and took away the empties. When she was out of hearing range Denny said, “I want you to. find out what Jeff had on Lance Talbot. I thought I had come down here chasing a rainbow but the kid’s murder changes all that. He was on to something. Something so big it got him killed. Drugs? Kinky sex? Maybe. But my guess is that Jeff Rodgers knew who Lance Talbot’s father was and the disclosure would make headlines.”

  “So you know he was born on the wrong side of the blanket,” I said, impressed with Denny’s facts.

  “My assistant compiled a dossier on Talbot, his mother, grandmother and the Detroit Reynolds connection. My first thought was that Jeff had learned who fathered Lance and that it was a man of note who would like to remain anonymous. It’s why I came down here.”

  This, of course, opened a can of worms I had not even considered nor, I suspect, had Malcolm MacNiff, who was unaware of the link between Jeff and Lance. It was Lance’s identity, not his father’s, that worried Nifty. As for Jeff’s murder, all Nifty cared about was clearing his friends of the crime. Denny, on the other hand, didn’t have a clue that Talbot might not be Talbot. If I signed on with Denny for a hefty fee it would be for a completely different reason I had been engaged by Nifty—thus not a conflict. N’est ce pas? Greed, thy name is Archibald McNally. I was in the catbird seat and enjoying the view, which prompted me to quip brazenly, “I thought you came down for a respite from February in New York.”

  “Touché, Archy, I deserved that.” He downed another swig of Johnnie Walker Red. “If I start asking questions it will draw the attention of every hack in the country and they will make a beeline to Palm Beach in search of the honey. I say that with all due modesty to my fame as an investigative reporter. Plus, I don’t know my way around these parts and you do.” He raised his glass in a toast. “Partners?”

  I gave that a moment’s thought and raised my glass. Denny had given me a connection between my two cases for Nifty that I might never have discerned on my own. I owed the man something and, let’s not forget, he would pay well for my largesse.

  “You said you had one meeting with Jeff. What did he tell you?”

  “Not much,” Denny said. “He wanted to know how much I would pay for his information. I told him, yet again, it would depend on what he was selling. He asked for a ballpark figure, as he put it, and I got the feeling that he was engaging in a private auction.”

  “You mean he was talking to another magazine?”

  “No. I think he was talking to Lance Talbot, or Lance’s dad, and using my presence as a threat. He wanted to know how much I would pay so he could tell either party it would cost him double to keep his mouth, and mine, shut. Smart kid, right?”

  “So smart it got him drowned,” I said, finding it impossible to believe Jeff Rodgers could know who had fathered Lance Talbot, but said, in spite of this conviction, “And if it was the father Jeff was dealing with it’s very possible Lance knows nothing about the blackmail scam or who his father is.”

  “It’s possible,” Denny said, not sounding too happy with the hypothesis. Denny wanted the young, handsome and rich Lance Talbot to be the focal point of his story, not a footnote.

  “Did you give Jeff a ballpark figure?”

  “Guessing he knew the name of
Talbot’s father, and that it was a big name, I said twenty thousand was not unheard of for the right information.”

  It was my turn to whistle through my teeth. “Lance did not kill Jeff Rodgers,” I stated for the record.

  “I’m aware of that, Archy. Remember, I had an interest in Lance Talbot. I got my editor to pay big to get me invited to MacNiff’s fund-raiser and Lance Talbot was never out of my sight yesterday afternoon. He never went near the pool.”

  “Did Jeff tell you Lance was going to be at Malcolm MacNiff’s yesterday?” I asked.

  “But of course.”

  So the waiter knew the playboy’s social schedule. The more one learned, the less one knew. At this juncture I had to ask, “Tell me, Denny, are you interested in a story or justice?”

  “A story, of course. If the bad guys get their comeuppance along the way, that’s fine, too.”

  “I appreciate the candor,” I told him, “and I have no problem with learning the facts and reporting them, but I will have no part in creating a story that doesn’t otherwise exist.”

  “Fair enough. And may I remind you that since I am your client you are not obligated to tell the police what I have told you. Client confidentiality, remember?”

  I had already thought of this but insisted on saying, “Unless withholding information endangers anyone, and I reserve the right to go to the police with what I learn about Jeff Rodgers and Lance Talbot directly after giving you your scoop.”

  I did not say that the police would consider Denny’s information hearsay, as was Jeff’s claim that he had something on Lance Talbot. Cold, hard facts were woefully lacking, which had me thinking that this could be an ingenious plot on behalf of Dennis Darling to rock the boat on a calm sea with Archy enlisted to get the wind up. Beware investigative reporters bearing gifts would be my mantra when dealing with Denny.