McNally's Dare

by Lawrence Sanders

  Nodding, Nifty broke the spell. “In a sense, we would be using Darling, not him using us.”

  “Exactly, sir,” I encouraged, eager to depart the MacNiff abode and my lapmate, whom I now believed to be a witch.

  “So be it,” Nifty stated with a sigh of resignation.

  Already planning her guest list, Helen MacNiff asked no one in particular, “Do you think we should have the tennis player, too? He was so good to help us out and now he’s stuck here because of it.”

  “That would be very nice,” I mumbled, nudging Iago before getting to my feet. She hissed her indignation before slinking back to Othello. “Before I go I would like to have Talbot’s Swiss lawyer’s name and his fax number. Also, Mr. Rodgers’s phone number. Did you say the funeral is tomorrow, Mrs. MacNiff?”

  “It is, Archy. St. Edward’s on North County Road. Eleven tomorrow morning.”

  Well, if Jeff had been barred from joining the noblesse in life he was certainly having his last hurrah in their bailiwick. In the halcyon days of the Kennedy administration, when Charlie Wrightsman’s mansion was known as the Palm Beach White House, St. Edward’s was the place to be seen on Sunday mornings in your Saturday night attire. It made a statement.

  Being given the information I requested, I took my leave. With a firm handshake, Nifty told me to keep him posted. Mrs. MacNiff asked to be remembered to my mother. Then, when I was almost out the door, she called after me. “Oh, Archy, do you know where Dennis Darling is staying?”

  “The GulfStream,” I responded without thinking.

  “Thank you,” she cooed, stroking Desdemona’s back.

  I was glad Helen MacNiff was on our side.

  On the ride back to Royal Palm Way I decided it was time to apprise Father of what his favorite son had been up to these past two days. We talked last the night before my lunch date with Malcolm MacNiff, which now seemed aeons ago in light of all that had transpired since then. If Father was going to make a bid for Lance Talbot’s business, I thought it advisable to inform him that this Lance Talbot might not be the grandson and heir of the late Margaret Talbot, thereby earning my keep.

  The way to Father’s executive suite is guarded by my favorite nemesis, Mrs. Trelawney.

  “Well,” she exclaimed as I stepped off the elevator. “If it isn’t the man who does everything but windows, and where did you ever find a belted cord jacket?”

  “So, you read the interview.”

  “Who didn’t?” she said, as if I were the sole cause of a national decline in literary values. “Archy McNally attended Yale. Strange, your class year was omitted.”

  “He didn’t ask, so I didn’t tell,” I tossed back. Mrs. Trelawney and I are never happier than when we are engaged in a spirited game of verbal knock-hockey. “I don’t do windows because my office lacks one. I’m the guy in the converted broom closet, lest you forget, and my jacket is from one of the better men’s shops on the Esplanade, an area of our community bereft of your patronage.”

  Mrs. Trelawney favors severely tailored suits, usually pinstripe with padded shoulders, the skirt hemmed at midcalf. Pince-nez, lapel watch and penny loafers complete the picture of a Katharine Gibbs grad from the Eisenhower era. Her grammar is impeccable, her spelling faultless and her attendance record perfect. In short, she is as indispensable to McNally & Son as the law degree hanging over my father’s desk.

  “The office that has a chronic problem with the answering machine recently installed at company expense?”

  “One and the same, Mrs. Trelawney. The plug keeps popping out of the wall socket.”

  “So Binky tells me. He’s had to reconnect you several times in the past two days.”

  “Which keeps his nose out of other people’s mail.”

  “Binky is a great help to me,” she said, as if I didn’t know. Moving right along she glibly asked, “And what did Officer O’Hara have to say about your confusing her with your pet canine in print?”

  Mrs. Trelawney takes vicarious pleasure, though some would say vicious, in my love life. Mr. Trelawney, who was an auditor for the IRS, filed his final return some years back, leaving his widow a modest pension and his government guide on the arts of spying, probing and harassing.

  “Georgy is a good sport,” I lied.

  “And what did Connie have to say, may I ask?”

  “Why do you ask permission after the fact, Mrs. Trelawney?” My dander aroused, I let go with another whopper. “Connie and I are the best of friends.”

  “With a hunk like Alejandro on her arm, Connie can afford to be generous,” was her cutting reply.

  Getting out while behind, I stated, “It’s always a pleasure sparring with you, Mrs. Trelawney, but right now, I need to borrow a pad and pen with which to write a fax I would like you to type up and send ASAP.”

  “Where is it going, Archy?”

  “Bern, Switzerland. To Mr. Gregory Hermann, Esq.”

  “Do you have a charge number?”

  “A what?” I remonstrated.

  “Archy, you must start reading office memos before stuffing them in the bottom drawer of your desk to hide your English Ovals.”

  There wasn’t a nook or cranny in the McNally Building that wasn’t subject to search by our Mrs. Trelawney. I vowed to stuff that drawer with enough unmentionables in a variety of colors and flavors to knock the intruder off her pins.

  “Your father and I created a list of all possible reasons one might incur extraordinary expenses and assigned each a number,” she lectured with all the patience of a first-grade teacher leading a classroom full of hyperactives. “A fax to Switzerland is extraordinary, thus I need a charge number.”

  Knowing better, but having nothing to lose, I ventured, “What is the number for miscellaneous?”

  “There is no such thing as a miscellaneous extraordinary expense, Archy.” She shrugged her shoulders dramatically, setting her dangling pince-nez and lapel watch in motion. “Which reminds me, the outrageous expense report you handed in last week was charged entirely to miscellaneous.”

  “And that should be reason enough to assign it a number,” I advised while reaching for a pad and pen. Mrs. Trelawney huffed and puffed as I wrote a brief message to Hermann, stressing the urgency to contact me soonest regarding Lance Talbot and the von Brechts without so much as a hint of our doubts regarding the legitimacy of his former client. Coming on Father’s stationery, Hermann was apt to think the request concerned nothing more than a routine legal matter.

  Mrs. Trelawney mellowed considerably when she read my note. Impressed, she politely asked, “Lance Talbot? Are you working for him?” Suddenly, the only extraordinary thing at McNally & Son was my presumed business association with the heir apparent. Such is the power of the Talbot name in this town.

  “I have a finger in several miscellaneous enterprises, Mrs. Trelawney.” I do so enjoy kicking people when they’re down.

  “Could one of them be that poor waiter who was killed at the MacNiff fete?” she asked. “I hear you were on the scene when it happened.”

  “Just clearing up a few details for Mr. MacNiff. What do the papers say?”

  “Not much,” she answered. “They’re still questioning people, mostly the catering staff, and Jackson Barnett is being detained although the police keep repeating that he’s not a suspect. Is he really camping out on Phil Meecham’s yacht?”

  Let me make it perfectly clear that the word camping in Mrs. Trelawney’s lexicon, means sleeping under the stars and nothing more—Phil Meecham notwithstanding. “According to Lolly Spindrift, he spurns a berth in favor of a sleeping bag à deux,” I reported.

  “That sounds dirty,” Mrs. Trelawney frowned, proving Oscar Wilde’s assumption that if one speaks German, no one listens, and if one speaks French, everyone thinks it’s naughty. Not wishing to further titillate our monarch’s equerry I asked in plain English, “Is our leader in?”

  “He is,” she said, “and he’s been asking for you. I take it you didn’t sleep at hom
e last night.”

  “As a matter of fact I shared a sleeping bag with Jackson Barnett.”

  “You are impossible, Archy McNally.”

  I knocked before entering the inner sanctum. Father, all prim and proper, was seated behind his desk, stroking his mustache.

  “Ah, Archy. I’m so glad you’re here. I have some interesting news.”

  I took a visitor’s chair and waited to be enlightened.

  “I received a call from Lance Talbot,” he said with obvious glee. “While he intends to keep his grandmother’s attorney, he wants to diversify and employ us primarily on a consulting basis. Needless to say, I told him we would be honored to be of service.”

  “Well, sir,” I commenced, “I, too, have some interesting news.”

  TWELVE

  “THIS IS VERY DISQUIETING,” Father reflected woefully.

  I seemed to be the bearer of disquieting news this afternoon, however I remembered to be thankful that the messenger of ill tidings is no longer shot for his troubles.

  While Father liked nothing better than to recruit a new paying client, especially one of note as well as fortune, he would gladly surrender gain in the pursuit of justice. Prescott McNally ran an honest game and the apple does not fall far from the tree.

  His grandiose mustache prevented him from exhibiting a stiff upper lip but an insistent tug on it betrayed his dismay at learning a well-heeled client might in fact be a penniless swindler. “I made no definite appointment to meet with young Talbot,” he said. “We left it that he would contact me when things were more settled. In light of what you’ve told me, Archy, I now wonder what he meant.”

  “I wouldn’t start looking for dark, hidden meanings behind his every word at this stage of our inquiry. I think, sir, when he does call you should meet with him and conduct business as usual. No sense in jeopardizing what could be a lucrative liaison in the event this is all a red herring.”

  “Good point, Archy,” he answered with an appreciative nod. While this thought didn’t cajole him into stroking his guardsman’s mustache, it did ease the serious tugging. “I take it this problem has gone no further than you and Malcolm.”

  “And Mrs. MacNiff, sir.” That I confided in Father was S.O.P. for the team of McNally and son. It was not only my obligation to keep him in the loop when on a case, it was also beneficial to air my thoughts and profit from his legal expertise and learned feedback.

  “Am I to understand that you have not told this reporter what Malcolm suspects regarding Talbot; nor have you told Malcolm that Darling informed you of the blackmail scheme?”

  “That is correct, sir, and I have my reasons. I promised Darling anonymity because if it gets around that he’s down here to investigate a blackmail threat against Lance Talbot, it will start a media stampede to Palm Beach and cost him his exclusive, if there is a story here. However, I believe Mrs. MacNiff suspects that I have been in contact with Darling.”

  “Helen is a very clever woman,” Father said.

  “And a very engaging one,” I added, before continuing. “And I didn’t tell Darling that the executor of Mrs. Talbot’s estate is uncertain of young Talbot’s claim because less said, soonest mended. The collateral from such gossip could prove disastrous.”

  “Very wise, Archy,” father complimented. “I imagine Darling is looking for something libidinous in Talbot’s past. Has he said anything about the woman who is visiting with Talbot?”

  Visiting? Now there was a euphemism if ever I heard one. A true Victorian, Father always substitutes a socially acceptable word for one that might even hint at sexual impropriety. Thus, we get “visiting with” as opposed to the more brazen “living with.”

  “She wasn’t even mentioned,” I reported. “Could be that Denny doesn’t even know about Lance’s relationship with Holga von Brecht. He’s a new arrival in town and, his reputation preceding him, people are not opening up to him, but I expect his date with Lolly Spindrift tonight will change all that.”

  “Denny?” Father questioned, arching one eyebrow. This is a trick he has mastered to perfection and one that escapes me.

  “We got rather chummy,” I admitted. “He’s not at all what one would expect of an ambulance-chasing newsman, crass and overbearing. I found him very well bred and, if anything, more laid back than aggressive. I think you would like him, sir.”

  “Well, I hope you’re still chummy when he learns you’ve been holding out on him.”

  “After the pool party it might not be necessary for Denny to know I’ve been less than truthful with him. If Talbot is missing that little toe—so be it, amen, and finis my business with Malcolm MacNiff. From that point on I’ll be working only for Dennis Darling, trying to uncover Jeff’s secret and perhaps his murderer.”

  Father eyed me thoughtfully. “Talbot’s true identity, or what Jeff might have known about him that could prove pernicious to Talbot’s reputation or claim, doesn’t interest you as much as finding the person who murdered Jeff Rodgers. Am I right?”

  “You are, sir.”

  “Be careful, Archy. If Jeff was murdered because of what he knew, the murderer won’t hesitate to eliminate anyone seeking to learn Jeff’s secret. The closer you get to the solution, the more dangerous the game. A man who would chloroform a boy and shove him into a pool to drown is deranged and consequently a formidable enemy. As always, you have my blessing in this, but I insist you act with caution and not bravado.”

  We McNallys are not a demonstrative clan, so I refrained from any show of gratitude for his concern, which I knew would only embarrass him. Also, as I was arranging a pool party on Ocean Boulevard in Palm Beach, and not a breaking-and-entering raid on a harem in some unfriendly desert kingdom, any panoply of emotion would be gratuitous, if not mawkish.

  On that note, I rose, saying, “Your point is taken, sir, and I will keep you posted.”

  It had been a day of awesome disclosures, but the best, or worst, was yet to come. The messenger was no less a personage than he who wheels his mail cart through the hallowed halls of McNally & Son, ever vigilant for homeless plugs. I speak of Binky Watrous, possessor of the doleful brown eyes of a doe caught in the headlights of a speeding SUV.

  Binky and his cart entered my office like a sword being sheathed, trapping me behind my desk with my back literally to the wall. In case of fire I had the sporting chance of a snowflake.

  “Hi, Archy” Binky said, placing a pathetically small pile of junk mail before me. Then, with more enthusiasm than his greeting, he asked, “Are you working on the murder at the MacNiff party? The papers are full of it. ‘Waiter Wasted While Socialites Play. Jackson Barnett Detained,’” he quoted with verve. “Is there anything I can do to help, Archy?”

  Binky has assisted me on several occasions, with dire consequences to his safety and my sanity. Binky Watrous stirs every dormant poltergeist. Gentle animals, like my Hobo, snarl at him. Tender two-year-olds, like my nephew, Darcy, bite him. In supermarkets, pyramids of canned tuna implode when he passes. His blender purees when it’s set to chop. His microwave reduces frozen foods to ash. His checks bounce, his beach balls sink, his credit cards are maxed out and his love life is vicarious (Victoria’s Secret catalogues bound in genuine vellum) to say the least.

  Binky has been apprenticed to a multitude of occupations, all terminating on the unemployment line. Therefore, I had no scruples in suggesting that he assist our retiring mail person during the Christmas rush, several Noels ago, secure in the knowledge that he would be gone along with the old year. Alas, I was wrong. On the twelfth day of Christmas he replaced our retiree with the blessing of his benefactress, Mrs. Trelawney.

  Binky fancies himself an incipient PI under my tutelage. What he doesn’t realize is that graduation is a long way off. Not content to play Watson to my Holmes, he now wants to emulate their creator—but I get ahead of myself.

  “As a matter of fact, there is something you can do for me, Binky my boy.”

  Standing tall, he snapped at the
bait. “Name it, Archy.”

  “You can keep your hands off my answering machine.”

  “I never touched your answering machine,” he assured me with the rectitude of a carny pitchman.

  “Semantics” I accused. “You know to what I refer.”

  “If you mean your loose connection, it was a pleasure to be of assistance, I’m sure.”

  My, that was certainly an unBinky-like response, and he had certainly quoted those tabloid headlines with unprecedented gusto. Was I mistaken, or was there a certain swagger to his bearing today as well as a sharpness to his usually dull tongue? Even his slack blond hair seemed to have more body and less droop. Mousse? On closer inspection I noticed the cornsilk appeared to have been cut by a Worth Avenue stylist who was worth every cent of his exorbitant fee. (I should know, as he’s the keeper of my mane.)

  As the tunesmith said, “There’s something amiss, and I’ll eat my hat if this isn’t love.” Not that Binky hasn’t been in love before. Au contraire, Binky is always in love, however, it is usually of the unrequited variety. Could he have found someone who wasn’t made of paper to commiserate with?

  “Well,” I said, disregarding the affront and probing for the cause, “what’s new, Binky?”

  “I’ve joined a writers’ workshop,” came his unexpected reply. “I don’t intend to be a mail person for the rest of my life, Archy.”

  I wanted to say, Thank God for small favors, but went with, “I didn’t know you had literary aspirations, Binky.” But I did know he was a closeted reader of lusty bodice-busters.

  “I didn’t either,” he confessed, “until Izzy told me I was a cauldron of seething talent on the verge of boiling over.”

  Gadzooks! What metaphor. A cauldron of seething talent? Binky Watrous? “Izzy, I take it, facilitates your workshop.”

  “No, she’s my squeeze,” he answered with a smugness that went counterpoint to his blush. “And you might as well know before you read about it in Lolly Spindrift’s column.”

  Before Lolly announced that Binky Watrous had a squeeze, Beelzebub would be handing out ice skates to his guests.