McNally's Dare

by Lawrence Sanders

  His story was similar to what I had heard from Todd and Lance Talbot, except that now I was given more pertinent details. Rodgers was chauffeur to old Mrs. Talbot. Her daughter, Jessica, and her boy, Lance, lived in the house on Ocean Boulevard. Rodgers was a widower who employed a sitter for his boy, Jeff, who was four at the time. On a day when his sitter was unable to take Jeff, Rodgers brought the boy to the Talbots’ and asked if the child could sit up front with him as he had no place to leave him.

  Mrs. Talbot insisted that the child would be happier spending the day in her home, in the company of her grandson. “And that was the start of it,” Rodgers said.

  Like many an only child growing up in a house full of adults, Lance was lonely and bored. He was delighted to make a friend and begged to have Jeff visit daily. His request was granted and a year later, when Lance went off to the Day School, Jessica Talbot sent Jeff along and picked up the tab.

  “Lance called me Rollo, and so did Jeff. Never Dad or Father. You see, Mr. McNally, my son was ashamed of me. I should have taken a belt to his behind but I didn’t because I loved him. We do some terrible things in the name of love.”

  Having been down that road I could empathize with poor Rollo. My romantic adventures, to date, had not got me chloroformed and dropped into a pool to drown but I wasn’t counting my chickens.

  “Do you know why Jessica Talbot decided to live abroad, Mr. Rodgers?”

  He puffed on the Camel and I noticed his fingers were stained yellow from the weed. “Young Ms. Talbot was a rebel with a cause,” he said with a smile. “She wanted a child but she didn’t want a husband. She moved to New York, the Village I think, where it wasn’t hard to find someone willing to accommodate her. Old Mrs. Talbot blamed it all on women’s liberation.

  “When Lance was born she came back home but not with her tail between her legs, believe me. She refused to name the father, and old Mrs. Talbot, who was a proper Victorian lady, never got off her case. I know all this because Ms. Talbot used to talk to me about the old days and how unhappy she was then and how miserable she was now. She used to smoke dope in the back seat of the Rolls while I drove her around town. She couldn’t do it in the house, you see.”

  “Why do you think she came back to Palm Beach?” I asked.

  “Because of the boy. She was a Talbot and he was a Talbot and she was going to see that he was raised proper, not in some fleabag apartment full of junkies. She was wild, Mr. McNally, but no fool.”

  “Did she tell you who fathered Lance?”

  “No, sir. She did not. Meaning no disrespect, I would guess she didn’t know herself, if you get what I mean.”

  I got it and, I expect, so did grandma. “Why did she suddenly decide to live abroad?” I ask again.

  “It wasn’t sudden,” Rodgers said. “She talked about it often. Then, one day, she couldn’t take her mother’s lip no more and off she went, taking the boy. The old lady was mad as hell because she loved Lance, regardless of where he came from, and when they were gone she was alone. I believe Ms. Talbot was independent financially, having been left a trust fund by her father.”

  “Did old Mrs. Talbot dismiss you?”

  “No, sir. I quit, thanks to Jessica Talbot’s generosity, and got my own cab.”

  And poor Jeff got kicked out of his ivory tower and landed in a seat in the Lake Worth elementary school next to Edward (Todd) Brandt. If life was a crapshoot, Jeff had rolled snake eyes at the ripe old age of ten.

  “Mr. Rodgers, I know you liked Jessica Talbot.” These words are always the precursor to something the listener would rather not talk about and from the look on Rodgers’s face he guessed what was coming. “However, I must ask a delicate question. Mr. MacNiff is eager to help the police find the person who killed Jeff. Because the crime took place in his home, he feels he owes it to Jeff, and you, to learn just why this happened.”

  “Mr. MacNiff has been very kind,” Rodgers said. “He paid all the funeral expenses. Do you know how much it costs to get buried in style, Mr. McNally?”

  I nodded, knowing it cost more than Mr. Rodgers was currently worth. “Was Jessica Talbot a drug addict?” I finally got out.

  He stubbed out his own addiction in an ashtray and, without looking up, answered in the affirmative. This explained Mrs. Talbot’s concern, which probably led to her harping on Jessica to seek help. It also told me why Jessica fled to Europe.

  I showed the photo Mrs. MacNiff had given me to Ronald Rodgers. He removed his glasses and dabbed at his eyes with a paper napkin. “Jeff and Lance,” he mumbled, his voice cracking. “I took that after a ball game. They were on the team at the Day School. I think I have the same picture someplace around here.”

  The nostalgic reverie was just the lead-in I needed to comment, “I guess his missing toe didn’t prevent Lance from participating in sports.”

  “You know about that? It happened before I started working for the family. I heard one of the help accidentally shut the Rolls door on the boy’s foot. They had to amputate the little toe on his right foot. No, it never slowed Lance in any way.”

  Moving right along, and before he started to wonder about my mission, I said, “Was Jeff in contact with Lance Talbot since Lance returned to Palm Beach?”

  “He was. Jeff said they had met and talked, and it was Jeff who told me about Ms. Talbot’s being killed in a ski accident.”

  “Did Jeff’s talk about coming into money coincide with Lance’s return?”

  He pondered that a moment and then, as if suddenly realizing what it implied, cried, “Are you saying Lance Talbot was going to give my Jeff money? A lot of money?”

  “Lance told me he was going to bankroll Jeff in a bar and restaurant business up north, in the Hamptons.”

  Rodgers looked stunned. “I know that was one of Jeff’s pipe dreams. He talked about it often. But he never said anything about Lance Talbot giving him money. No, Mr. McNally, he never said that. Is that why Lance has been so generous? Because he couldn’t give it to Jeff, he gave it to me?”

  “Lance has been generous,” I remarked.

  “Yes, sir. He called after the funeral. He said he wanted to pay all the expenses but Mr. MacNiff had already taken care of things. He asked me where I banked and said he was going to transfer money to my account in memory of Jeff.”

  “And did he, Mr. Rodgers?”

  “I called the bank this morning and learned I was ten thousand dollars richer. Everyone is being so kind, Mr. McNally.”

  Speaking of altruism, I thought it the right moment to mention Nifty’s grand gesture. “I’m at liberty to tell you that Mr. MacNiff is going to dedicate his scholarship charity to the memory of Jeffrey Rodgers.”

  The man was truly awed. “How can I ever thank him?” he asked.

  “You’ve been very helpful, and that’s thanks enough,

  I’m sure.” Affecting a blasé air I asked, as if it were a trivial detail, “Was the man you spoke to in church yesterday, calling you Rollo, Lance Talbot?”

  Rodgers looked puzzled. He was a bit slow on the uptake but sooner or later he could put two and two together and come up with something resembling four. “You’re asking me more questions about Lance Talbot than about Jeff. The police never asked me about Lance or my time working for the Talbots. What’s this about, Mr. McNally?”

  “It’s about finding your son’s murderer. The police are questioning all of Jeff’s friends but haven’t as yet made the connection between Jeff and Lance. However, they soon will.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I’m going to tell them. Please answer my question, Mr. Rodgers. Was that Lance Talbot who spoke to you in the church yesterday?”

  “Was it Lance? Sure it was. Who else could it be?”

  The group gathered around the MacNiff pool acted more like they were there for a memorial service than a party. Thankfully, the area was no longer surrounded by a yellow ribbon emblazoned with the words POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS, but the memory lingered
on. There were about two dozen people milling about in clusters of two, four or more, speaking in hushed tones and avoiding eye contact with the watery centerpiece.

  I recognized many faces from the Tennis Everyone! affair, which was unfortunate as well as unavoidable. They were the MacNiffs’ social set and, like most social groups, limited in number. People like Lady Cynthia Horowitz, who were more glitter than substance, did not bend elbows with this crowd, who were all substance and rather lackluster.

  The MacNiffs had done it up in style because I doubt if they knew how not to put on a good show. There were “His” and “Hers” pavilions for changing, their colorful red and white satiny facades billowing in the breeze coming off the ocean under a cloudless sky and radiant sun. It was a perfect afternoon for a swim but the pool, which had been drained, scrubbed and refilled, was conspicuously empty.

  The caterer had set up a buffet table presided over by two waitresses, and there was the obligatory portable bar being manned by our Todd. Lolly Spindrift, in his Panama hat, was scurrying like a mouse in a maze between Dennis Darling and Isadora Duhane. “Yes, you heard right—Isadora Duhane. I knew why she was here, but had yet to learn how she got here, and was too busy trying to get this show on the road to care at the moment. If we didn’t get people into the pool this would all be for naught and the MacNiffs would have my scalp for saddling them with a Stella Dallas flop so soon after having hosted a murder.

  Things perked up with the arrival of Jackson Barnett. I could have kissed Helen MacNiff for having remembered to invite him. He was in (what else?) tennis shorts and a polo shirt with crossed rackets over the breast. I believe he endorsed the shirts as well as the white sneakers he was parading around in, shaking hands, smiling, and looking like a Greek god among us mortals.

  He was accompanied by his agent and a group of Hollywood types, recognizable as such by their wraparound sunglasses, closely cropped hair in a variety of shades Mother Nature never dreamed of inflicting on her children, and Gucci loafers. Nifty, I noticed, greeted the Guccibaggers as if they were the great white hope. The agent wore his custom-made suit, black silk tie and nervous tic.

  Mrs. MacNiff told me later that she had invited Barnett, telling him the purpose of the gathering was to establish the Jeffrey Rodgers memorial, and he was more than happy to do his share. I imagine Jackson Barnett would go to the opening of an envelope if he thought it could get him some press. Lolly was now bouncing between Denny, Izzy and Jackie like the silver ball in a pin-ball machine going for a grand slam.

  None of the celebrated arrivals was toting a tote, so if they didn’t have their swimsuits under their trousers they had no intention of taking a dip.

  This was not going well.

  I went to the bar for a much needed jolt to my system and as Todd mixed my gin and tonic he nervously asked me if I knew any of the men with Jackson Barnett. “The guy in the undertaker garb is his agent, I’m sure, and the others must be the Hollywood contingent.” I recalled that these were just the people Todd wanted to meet and hopefully impress.

  “Do you know any of them, Mr. McNally?”

  “Sorry, kid. But look, when they come for a drink dazzle them with your charm and give them a few of Biff’s lines from Salesman.”

  “They won’t know I’m alive, Mr. McNally.”

  My experienced eye told me that some of them would certainly know Todd was alive, but it was best the boy didn’t know this—or was I being naive?

  Denny, Jackson, Izzy and Lolly were in a huddle, and I think Izzy was playing cruise director. How did that girl do it? She was in shorts with a sailor’s middy that was rather fetching. No neckerchief and no pearls.

  I found our host and told him it was time for him to make his announcement and rally the troops into the pool.

  “What should I say, Archy?”

  “Something on the order of Marc Antony’s eulogy for Caesar.”

  “You want me to say I come here to bury Jeff Rodgers, not to praise him? You’re daft, Archy.”

  “No, sir. Say we’re here not to mourn, but to celebrate the memory of a young man who was the victim of a heinous crime and to establish a memorial to Jeff Rodgers in the form of ongoing scholarships to worthy young men and women.”

  I rambled on extemporaneously, which is my forte, as Nifty listened, nodded, and finally whispered, “Let’s get our feet wet.”

  I clapped my hands to draw the attention of those gathered who were only too happy to stop pretending to be having fun and assemble around Nifty and me.

  Nifty cleared his throat, opened his arms and began his oration with, “We’re here not to mourn...” and in a few well-chosen words, some of them mine, got the message across with a minimum of schmaltz and a plethora of showbiz pizazz. He was politely applauded and the ice was broken, which saved me the trouble of fetching a blowtorch.

  Seeing Dennis Darling holding up his recorder to tape Nifty’s speech, Jackson Barnett couldn’t resist getting in on the act. In a voice trained for television commercials, Jackson announced, “I will donate one thousand dollars to the scholarship fund for every person who jumps in the pool in the next ten minutes.”

  Amid an outbreak of screams, giggles and friendly moans, there began a mad scramble to the changing pavilions.

  This was the scene that welcomed the arrival of Lance Talbot, Holga von Brecht and Herr Doktor von Brecht.

  NINETEEN

  IN THE MAD SCRAMBLE to donate a thousand bucks to Nifty’s philanthropic cause without opening their wallets, no one took much notice of the new arrivals. I did see the MacNiff housekeeper, Maria Sanchez, puttering around the buffet table and watched as she took off for the house to call Ursi and report that the husband of the ninety-year-old lady with the twenty-year-old lover had just landed.

  Thus began rumors of the most titillating domestic triangle since the Windsors shacked up with playboy Jimmy Donahue at the Donahue Palm Beach mansion. Then, as now, who was doing what to whom was the question. Lolly, who never removes his white suit and hat except to don his silk jammies, looked like a man on the verge of expiring from sheer bliss. A celebrated journalist, a Battle offspring, a tennis pro who looked like Adonis and, now, the Michelangelo of cosmetic surgery, all in the same place at the same time, and all within arm’s reach.

  Dr. von Brecht was an inch or two over six feet and carried himself so ramrod straight I thought he might be wearing a corset under his beautifully tailored light gray suit. His fair hair was parted on the left and cut short enough to lie dormant in a wind tunnel. He didn’t click his heels together when he took Mrs. MacNiff’s hand, but he did bow and say something that seemed to please her. He was as good-looking as casting directors allowed German officers to be in old World War II movies. The only thing missing was a monocle in his left eye.

  Holga von Brecht looked the quintessence of the Palm Beach socialite in a navy, knee-length dress with spaghetti straps that alternatingly hung and clung as she walked. A wide-brimmed white hat protected her delicate skin from the sun and a pair of dark glasses shielded her eyes.

  Lance was in jeans, a pocket tee and sneakers, but not the brand Jackson Barnett endorsed.

  As the MacNiffs performed their hosting chores, I lolled in the background. Denny got himself a drink from Todd and then surreptitiously meandered to where I was standing. “I was afraid he wasn’t going to show up,” Denny said, extending his hand as if introducing himself.

  “He was at the airport picking up Holga’s husband,” I reported, shaking Denny’s hand. I wondered if we looked as silly as I felt. “That’s Dr. Claus von Brecht of the clinic high in the Alps where he injects patients with something unmentionable at the dinner table.”

  “We all know who he is,” Denny said.

  “Really? How?”

  “Mrs. MacNiff,” he answered with a smile. “She told everyone that the famous doctor would make his Palm Beach debut right here this afternoon. That’s how she got all the ladies to come. And, she told Jackie Barnett that I woul
d be here to cover the christening of the newly named charity event for Bare Facts. Sassy lady, no?”

  “Yes. And I’m glad she’s on our side,” I said.

  “So what’s new?” Denny asked.

  “Lance explained Jeff’s bragging about coming into money by saying that he had offered to financially back Jeff in buying a bar and restaurant business up north. He’s also curious as to what you’re doing here. Worried might be a more apt description than curious.

  “I got the impression that Jeff threatened Lance by telling him he would sell his story—whatever that might be—to you and Lance wants to know just how much Jeff told you before he met his untimely death.”

  “You don’t believe that Lance was going to back Jeff?” Denny said.

  “After talking to Lance, I wasn’t sure who to believe, Lance Talbot or Jeff Rodgers. This morning I talked to Jeff’s father. He said Jeff boasted of coming into money, but he didn’t say where it was coming from. Why? I mean why wouldn’t he tell his father that his rich boyhood buddy was playing Father Christmas? Everyone who knew him says Jeff wasn’t reticent when it came to boasting about his expectations, real or imagined, and of his former but brief enrollment at the Day School.

  “If Lance was backing him, Jeff would have taken an ad in the shiny sheet to announce the union. Instead he calls you and wants to know how much you’d pay for a tell-all story on Lance Talbot.”

  “Conclusion,” Denny concluded. “Jeff was blackmailing his old buddy.”

  “I don’t think there’s any question about it. Lance also gave Mr. Rodgers ten thousand dollars in Jeff’s memory.”

  “To atone or to keep Rodgers silent, in case Jeff confided in his father?”

  “Perhaps hedging his bets,” I answered. “I don’t think Rodgers suspects a thing, unless he put on a good show for me, which I’m not buying. The man is painfully credulous.”

  “In case you haven’t noticed,” Denny said, “Lance Talbot can’t keep his eyes off us.”