McNally's Dare

by Lawrence Sanders

  Alex is first-generation American and therefore more American than apple pie. Between them, Alex and Connie have about three thousand cousins in Miami, making weddings, christenings and funerals a weekly occurrence. Being a political columnist for a Miami Hispanic daily seemed to give Alex enough free time to practically commute between his hometown and Palm Beach. But when the imminent invasion of Cuba is your sole topic, you can afford to play the hook. One hour in Cuba and Alex would come running back to the comforts of Miami if he had to swim all the way.

  “Archy,” Connie said in that voice I knew only too well meant a major grievance. “My lady boss is furious with your pal, Lolly Spindrift. She wanted to entertain Dennis Darling, but Lolly forbade it on the grounds that Darling was here to trash us and anyone associating with him would be social poison in this town. Now we hear Lolly and Darling were chatting it up over dinner at Cafe L’Europe.”

  “Do as Lolly says, not as Lolly does,” I quipped, unmoved by Lady Cynthia Horowitz’s plight. I find it difficult to get sentimental over a lady with ten million bucks, ten acres on Ocean Boulevard and six ex-husbands. Lady C’s passion for gorgeous hunks made Alex most vulnerable. Connie must be keeping her new love as far from the Madame as possible, but Lolly certainly gave Lady C all the ribald details just to goad her.

  “If we all did as Lolly does we’d all be at the Colony right now,” Connie said. When this got her three blank stares, she told us that Thursday night at the Colony was now where the boys gathered in rather large numbers. “Lolly is probably holding court as we speak.”

  What was this world coming to when you had to check what day of the week it was before you went out for a few pops? The right pub on the wrong day, or the wrong pub on the right day, and you become suspect. Georgy and Alex were listening to all this with rapt attention. They both enjoyed hearing the Palm Beach scuttlebutt, which had as much impact on the real world as an elephant delivering a mouse.

  “And,” Connie went on, “the Hollywood crew has arrived to screen-test Jackson Barnett. Read all about it in tomorrow’s dailies.”

  “Are they staying on Meecham’s yacht?” I asked.

  Connie shook her head. “At the Colony. And make of that what you will.”

  Mr. Pettibone arrived to take their drink order, giving us the opportunity to relinquish our stools and head for our corner table. The girls touched cheeks and kissed the air over their heads. I waved bye-bye at Alex to avoid serious damage to my hand.

  “You make a handsome foursome,” Priscilla said when she presented us with menus. “A study in contrasts, if you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah,” I answered. “The sublime and the ridiculous.”

  “Archy, that’s not kind,” Georgy reprimanded, as if I didn’t know.

  “Meow. Meow.” Priscilla meowed.

  “Are you auditioning for Cats, Missy? If not, kindly take our drink order.”

  “Are you sticking to champagne cocktails?”

  “No, but I’m sticking to wine. I’ve already had two bourbons.” Without consulting the wine list I ordered, “A bottle of our best Pouilly-Fuissi.” To Georgy, I said, “Does that suit, or would you prefer a proper drink?”

  “I’m in your hands,” she acquiesced.

  “You might want to reconsider, Georgy,” Priscilla suggested.

  “Hush, and go fetch our wine,” I barked.

  She performed a perfect curtsy before scurrying off, leaving Georgy and me alone for the first time that evening. It was now close to ten and the late diners were just settling in as the early crowd began to make their exit. Couples and singles greeted each other in passing and Mr. Pettibone’s bar was standing room only. Alex and Connie, I noticed, were now part of a group of revelers. We were a congenial crowd at the Pelican with an eclectic mix of guys and dolls who believed in life, liberty and the pursuit of different strokes for different folks, regardless of what day of the week you felt like doing your thing.

  “Alone at last,” I sighed.

  “Where did you have those bourbons?” Georgy grilled me.

  “Don’t you have to read me my rights, first?” I objected.

  “This is off the record, McNally.”

  “At the Chesterfield,” I admitted.

  She thought a moment, looking adorable, then said, “Isn’t the Leopard Lounge in the Chesterfield?”

  “Off the record, yes.”

  “Then Connie was right,” she concluded. “Why didn’t you admit it?”

  “I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction,” I sulked.

  Georgy and I had met on the rebound. Me, from Connie’s demands to legalize our open relationship, and Georgy from Joe Gallo who had succumbed to the lure of a rich Palm Beach widow. What neither of us expected was to be confronted with our past loves and our reaction to it. We had run into Connie and Alex at the club where I was forced to introduce them to Georgy.

  Out of curiosity, I think, the girls had become wary friends. Georgy, because she was curious about her predecessor, and Connie because she wanted to see just who had taken her place. As the fates would have it, I got to meet Joe Gallo and Vivian Emerson on a tennis court, of all places. I didn’t know who he was at the time, but Georgy reminded me with a reference to Gallo’s masculine appeal.

  Georgy, as she just made clear, is quick to tell me how well Connie knows me, which suggests a former intimacy, and I now wonder how often Georgy dwells on Gallo’s manly charms. Furthermore, I am discourteous to Alejandro Gomez y Zapata for no reason other than his affair with the woman I willingly gave up. What we obviously need is Minerva Barnes to sort it all out in twenty-five steamy chapters with a happily-ever-after ending. The only happy ending I see at the moment is me walking off into the sunset with Izzy Duhane in a pearl necklace and me in matching cufflinks.

  “You’re pouting,” Georgy accused.

  “I’m thinking about Binky’s cufflinks,” I said, in all honesty.

  “They make a cute couple, Binky and Izzy, don’t you think?”

  “No, I do not think any such thing. She’s interesting, in a way, and he’s in over his head. All she wants from him is info on me for her book. Lolly told me she’s a sucker for causes and hops from one to another like a bee in a garden. When she loses interest in this writing project she’ll leave Binky, move her clothes back to The Breakers and hightail it out of Palm Beach. As Lolly would say, you heard it here first.”

  “Promise me you won’t tell her Binky is not undercover on a case,” Georgy requested. “It would break his heart.”

  “I want to break his neck, but I won’t rain on his parade. The day of reckoning is near enough.”

  “You’re a softie, McNally.”

  “And you are the prettiest cop in Juno.”

  “What about the rest of Florida?”

  Todd brought a bucket of ice on a tripod to our table and greeted me. I introduced him to Georgy.

  “Handsome,” she dubbed our sommelier when he went off to get our wine.

  “He’s spoken for,” I told her. “Her name is Monica. She’s a political science major when she isn’t waitressing at the Ambassador Grill.”

  “How do you know all this?” Georgy wondered.

  “A lot has happened since last we met, Georgy girl. Do you want to hear what Skip McGuire has been up to?”

  “I’m listening, Skip.”

  Todd brought our wine, did the honors and poured. “I’m working the MacNiff party tomorrow, Mr. McNally. You going?”

  “I am, Todd.”

  “A little creepy, don’t you think? Jeff was just buried today and now they’re having a party around the pool he drowned in.”

  That gave Georgy a start. “What’s this?”

  “Mr. MacNiff is going to announce that his scholarship fund will be renamed in memory of Jeff Rodgers. I think you’ll find it all in good taste, Todd.”

  “If you say so, Mr. McNally” He withdrew, unconvinced of Nifty’s good intentions.

  “Jeff Rodgers is the kid wh
o got done in at the charity party,” Georgy said. “Was he a friend of Todd’s?”

  “Cheers,” I toasted, and proceeded to tell her all the salient facts of “The King Is Dead.”

  Georgy’s position makes it possible for me to confide in her, trusting that she would not repeat what she heard. Her keen assessment of the facts was always welcome as well as helpful. It’s the same relationship I am lucky to share with Al Rogoff, but I must say that Georgy girl offers additional tangible assets that Al could not possibly compete with.

  Georgy heard me out like the pro she was and interrupted only to clarify a point I had not made clear. When done, I refilled our wine glasses and waited for her learned commentary. Not exactly unexpectedly, she opened with, “Have you told the police this?”

  “Not yet, but after talking to Talbot tonight, I decided to call Al Rogoff and share with our boys in blue.”

  “You should have done it sooner,” Georgy said. “I’m not telling you how to run your business,” she added, telling me how to run my business. “I hear the Palm Beach police haven’t got a thing out of the boy’s friends, and they have no reason to suspect any of the guests at this point. Your story changes all that. You could have saved Al and his partners a lot of sweat, tears and shoe leather.”

  “Please, don’t lecture,” I complained. “What else do you hear?”

  “The chloroform has them puzzled. It’s a controlled substance but readily available in hospitals. Any nurses at the party?”

  To the best of my knowledge, there were no nurses at the party and Holga’s doctor hubby had not yet graced us with his presence.

  “Georgy girl, if I had a buck for every controlled substance on the open market I could buy Binky’s cufflinks.”

  “You and those cufflinks, McNally. You’re obsessed.”

  “Okay. If I had a buck for every controlled substance on the open market I could buy you Izzy’s string of pearls.”

  “Now you’re talking my language, McNally. But before you run off to Harry Winston’s emporium, go to the police and tell them what you know.”

  “I will after the pool party tomorrow. With any luck I can get Talbot into a pair of trunks and count his toes. If he is Talbot, I won’t worry the police on that score, and we can look elsewhere for the key to Jeff’s blackmail scheme.”

  “If Jeff was blackmailing Lance Talbot,” Georgy said. “And if he isn’t Lance Talbot. What then?”

  “Malcolm MacNiff, the executor of old Mrs. Talbot’s estate, goes to the police and motive is established. Then all we have to do is find out who done it on behalf of the faux heir.”

  Georgy smiled thoughtfully. “Is there a butler on the list of suspects?”

  “Nary a one,” I lamented. “What’s your take on all this?” I asked, looking for a fresh angle on the case.

  “Let’s toss it around over dinner,” she said. “I’m a hungry working girl and it’s after ten.”

  I signaled Priscilla and she came to take our order and impart the specials.

  “Osso buco, served over polenta with grilled peas and prosciutto. Calf’s liver, sautéed with onions and bacon. New York steak with fries and corn niblets.”

  “I want them all,” Georgy said. “But osso buco is something I seldom do at home, so I think that’s what I’ll have.”

  Osso buco is a veal shank, braised in a vegetable and herb broth. Loosely translated it means a hollow bone. Properly cooked, the meat is so tender and savory it needs no knife to accompany your fork. I didn’t think Leroy’s presentation would be disappointing.

  Polenta is Italian-style cornmeal, combined with water and cooked slowly to create an unctuous, creamy base for the meat drippings. It’s often compared, erroneously, to grits.

  “You’ll find it a tad better than Mama Mia’s Italian Take Out,” I assured her. “I’ll have the same, Priscilla. Any suggestions for starters?”

  “Being in an Italian frame of mind, Leroy has stuffed artichokes to die for,” the chef’s sister recommended.

  “Let’s go all the way,” Georgy exclaimed.

  “Well, aren’t you nice,” I teased. I love to see Georgy girl blush. The color begins at her lily-white throat just before two patches of pink appear on her cheeks like a Raggedy Ann doll of yore.

  “You’re hateful,” she cried.

  Priscilla laughed as she asked if we cared for a salad before or after dinner.

  “After,” Georgy declared, “and then espresso with dolci. If we’re going to dine Italian we...”

  “Might as well go all the way,” Priscilla finished when Georgy hesitated. “We have fresh spinach with chives, leeks and tiny tomatoes, topped with an olive oil and balsamic dressing.”

  “Sold,” I said.

  “And another bottle of wine,” Georgy ordered.

  “You’ll get tipsy, Officer,” I cautioned.

  She shrugged. “When in Rome, McNally. When in Rome.”

  Todd brought our bread basket and a saucer of oil for dipping, along with a plate of green and black olives, chickpeas, carrot sticks and mini celery stalks.

  As we dipped and nibbled, Georgy asked, “Where did that crab bite you, McNally?”

  “I’ll show you when we get home.”

  I love to see Georgy girl blush...

  EIGHTEEN

  “I HAVE MY OWN taxi now,” Mr. Rodgers said. “Been working for myself since Ms. Talbot went off to Switzerland, taking the boy with her. She gave me the money to set up in business. Severance pay, she called it. Very generous lady, she was.”

  We were sitting in Rodgers’s kitchen in a neat bungalow located just off Lake Worth Road in Greenacres. The neighborhood was similar in look and affordability to Palm Springs, Lake Clarke Shores and Glen Ridge. A bedroom community far enough west of Palm Beach and Lake Worth to be affordable and close enough to the Gold Coast to keep its inhabitants employed.

  Ronald Rodgers was a thin, bespectacled man who was approaching or just past the half-century mark. He had kindly offered to brew a pot of coffee, which he served in mugs that now sat before us at the breakfast table. As he spoke, he clasped his mug between the palms of his hands as if trying to warm them.

  I had had my usual breakfast on the run after leaving Georgy’s cottage this morning, stopping at home only long enough to change my clothes and visit with Mother in the greenhouse to assure her that I was still alive. She reported, thanks to Ursi to be sure, that the MacNiff pool party was the talk of Ocean Boulevard, coming so soon after the tragedy. I told her it was for a good cause but did not mention that her favorite son was the catalyst of the shocking affair.

  I had called Mr. Rodgers from home, telling him that I was looking into his son’s death on behalf of Malcolm MacNiff and would like to see him at his convenience. He said this morning was as good a time as any. I got into a pair of smart, white bell-bottoms with a buttoned fly and a madras shirt in anticipation of the afternoon gathering. Shoving a pair of black-and-white-striped trunks in a leather tote bag, I drove the Miata to Lake Worth, thinking of Denny as I sped past the GulfStream, hoping he had remembered to pack his bathing togs.

  I apologized to Rodgers for disturbing him so soon after his son’s funeral. He told me he had gone back to work directly after the interment because “working keeps my mind off thinking on what happened to Jeff. He wasn’t perfect, Mr. McNally. Don’t know anyone that is. But he didn’t deserve what they done to him.”

  Ronald Rodgers had a midwest accent with a slight drawl that made me think of supporting actors in old Western flicks. He was in black trousers and a black tie, a uniform he was unwilling to give up when he stopped driving for others and bought his own cab. I pegged him as a hard working, sincere, kindly man who had spawned a rebel and didn’t know quite what to make of it.

  “Have you any idea who murdered your son, Mr. Rodgers?”

  He shook his head. “The police have asked me that over and over and I’m telling you what I told them—I don’t know. Like I said, he was no angel. Discon
tent with his lot and always looking over the fence for greener pastures. I figure he got in with a crowd of punks who made him believe they could make big bucks with some half-ass scam that blew up in their faces, and my Jeff took the fall. Either they turned on him and put him in that pool or the people they were stinging done it.”

  “What makes you think that, Mr. Rodgers?”

  “My boy was a braggart,” he admitted. “He was always talking about some get-rich-quick scheme that was in the works and almost ready to pay off. But these last few weeks he sounded as if he really did have something in the fire. I mean he was walking around like his ship had come in and it was loaded with ready cash. He even promised to buy me another cab, although I don’t know who he expected would drive it. Not him, that’s for sure.”

  Jeff had something in the fire, all right, but he was working alone and his patsy was Lance Talbot or Dennis Darling, or maybe both of them.

  “I wanted him to come in with me,” his father said. “We could work two shifts, I told him. Days he covers the airport, train depot and hotels. Nights, I work the bars and restaurants. In no time we could have had that other taxi and...”

  He shrugged his thin shoulders in a hopeless gesture.

  “Jeff had other ideas,” I prompted.

  “Fancy ideas,” he said. “And maybe I was to blame.”

  “You mean introducing him to Lance Talbot?”

  “You know about that?” he asked.

  “I talked to Lance,” I said. “Do you mind telling me how the boys came to be such good friends?”

  Rodgers got up to pour himself another cup, bringing the Mr. Coffee carafe to the table. I refused seconds. He took out a pack of unfiltered Camels and asked me if I minded. I had puffed one English Oval while dressing and making notes in my journal this morning and vowed not to have another until after dinner when I reported to Father over a glass of port.

  I told Rodgers to light up, resigned to inhaling what he exhaled, which I understand is just as harmful as going all the way. (Thinking of Georgy girl, I suppressed a foolish grin.)