That unfocused gaze shifted to me and he floated away. “Surely that’s not necessary,” he said and began to yawn, great jaw-cracking yawns. He shook his head and the flesh on his fat face waggled. “If you say he’s gone, he’s gone. I don’t take credit cards. Or out-of-state checks.”
Binky was completely confused, but I knew where the doctor was coming from and I was delighted. Druggie or not, he had been suckered.
“How much, doctor?” I asked him.
“A thousand,” he said, squinting at the ceiling.
“We’ll be back here with the cash in an hour,” I lied. “And to pick up the death certificate. Thank you for your kind cooperation, doctor.”
“Thank you, doctor,” Binky said humbly.
“Twenties and fifties,” Pflug said, glaring at that droopy skeleton. “Jacksons and Grants.”
We left, never having shaken his hand, and moved out to the waiting room. The nurse had finished lacquering her nails and was talking animatedly on the phone. She flipped a hand at us as we departed. “Ta-ta!” she sang out.
We stood alongside the Miata in the parking area.
“Got him!” I said exultantly. “The guy is a dyed-in-the-wool wrongo. Strictly a doc-for-rent. Binky, I despaired of you at first, but then you performed brilliantly. I congratulate you.”
“She shook me at the start,” he said. “The nurse.”
“Yes, I saw you making goo-goo eyes at her. But she’s not that attractive.”
He looked at me with a shaky grin. “Archy, you don’t understand. She’s Ernest Gorton’s carrottop. His date at the wild party Mitzi and Oliver had at their place after his parents’ reception. Oliver went upstairs with her later.”
“Ah-ha,” I said. “The plot curdles.”
17.
WE STOPPED AT A Deerfield joint for an enormous platter of barbecued ribs and a carboy of beer. While enjoying an hour of unalloyed gluttony we discussed which addiction it was that caused Dr. Pflug to act in such an irrational manner. Binky thought it might be cocaine. I thought it might be the nurse.
On the drive back to Palm Beach I gave Binky his next assignment.
“Look, gramps,” I said, “you acquitted yourself with distinction this afternoon, and as a natural progression in your on-the-job training I think it’s time you take on an independent inquiry with no assistance from yours truly.”
“You want me to interrogate the nurse?” he said eagerly. “Force a confession?”
“No,” I said sternly, “I do not want you to cozen Ms. Carrottop at all, except possibly to learn her name, which may prove useful in the future. What I want you to do is run a trace on Dr. Omar K. Pflug. Is he licensed to practice in the State of Florida? What are his antecedents? Where is he from, and has he ever been disbarred elsewhere? What was his education, and where did he receive his medical training? Any malpractice suits against him? Any criminal record? Where does he live? Is he married? In other words, I need a complete dossier on that reprehensible quack.”
“Archy,” he said plaintively, “how do I find out all that?”
“Ask questions,” I told him. “You and the Duchess have a family physician, do you not?”
“Oh sure. Old Doc Fellows. He’s a bit of a codger but a nice man. Every time I have a checkup he gives me a Tootsie Roll.”
“He knows you,” I said. “Start with him. Tell him a friend of yours wants to investigate the legitimacy of a new doctor he’s thinking of consulting. Ask your family physician how this imaginary friend should go about it. What State licensing boards to phone, what professional organizations to contact, how he can get a report on the new doctor’s medical education and competence.”
“I guess I can do all that,” Binky said doubtfully. “But isn’t there an easier way to handle it?”
“No,” I said, “there isn’t.”
There was, of course, but I didn’t want to tell a beginner national agencies could provide all the poop required in twenty-four hours—for the payment of a substantial fee.
I was not being mean or trying to create unnecessary labor for my freshman student. I merely wanted him to learn the nitty-gritty of investigation before he discovered how modern technology has rendered obsolete the role of the literary PI. Computers have replaced Lew Archer, the Continental Op, and their brethren. And the Compaq DeskPro/M Pentium doesn’t drink bourbon.
We separated in the garage of the McNally Building. Binky chugged away in his bruised Cabriolet, and I went upstairs to my office, dreaming that the chore I had off-loaded onto my lieutenant would keep him out of my tousled locks for at least a week.
I found on my desk a plump FEDEX envelope from the agency I had faxed, requesting financial reports on the principals involved in the Whitcomb ragout. I lugged the bundle down to the garage, tossed it into the Miata, and headed for home, sweet home. It was then twilightish and what started as a so-so day had definitely become melancholy. It wasn’t raining, but the pewter sky looked ready to weep at any moment. I decided against an ocean swim and instead went directly to my dormitory and flopped onto my bed for a short snooze. First a balding spot and now an afternoon nap! What was happening to the debonair, vigorous A. McNally we all know and love? Was I becoming a young geezer? Perish forbid!
Morale had been rejuvenated by the time I awoke. I showered, pulled on casual duds, and galloped downstairs in time for the family cocktail hour. That went well and a dinner of broiled Maine lobster went even better. The noble crustacean was nestled on a couch of Ursi Olson’s special risotto with just enough saffron to banish my blahs completely. I returned to my desk ready to labor, convinced I would unravel the Whitcomb tangle tout de suite, my temporary attack of alopecia would disappear, and I might become the Peter Pan of Palm Beach.
Fortunately, the dossiers I had received were succinct, resembling computer printouts in their use of abbreviations. I mean, they weren’t novellas—just precis of the information requested, factual and exact to the penny.
I started with the reports on the four Whitcomb department heads, in charge of purchasing, maintenance, personnel, and merchandising (including public relations). Their records were brief and I went through them swiftly.
All four (three men and one woman) were earning generous salaries, and their annual expenditures and investments seemed commensurate with their income and net worth. There were no suggestions of wild profligacies, although one gentleman, the maintenance supervisor, had made a great number of recent purchases from L. L. Bean. I couldn’t understand what need a South Florida resident would have for heavy wool mackinaws and fleece-lined boots. Then I noted his age; he was sixty-four and nudging retirement. I reckoned he was planning to spend his remaining semesters in the Maine woods or thereabouts.
When I turned to the dossiers on the chief directors of the three Whitcomb Funeral Homes, it was a nag of a different hue. Each of the trio (all men) was also earning a more than adequate salary, but their current net worth seemed excessive when linked to annual income.
It didn’t take long to discover that the good fortunes of all three were of recent vintage, like the past six months. The bank deposits of the first had increased appreciably. The second had made a large cash down payment on a million-dollar Boca Raton town house. And the third had purchased a Lexus, a customized hot tub, not one but four gold coin Corum wristwatches, and similar costly doodads.
I stared at those records in amazement. Where on earth was their loot coming from? The funeral director who was banking his cash was acting prudently, if not cautiously, but the other two were plunging and taking on heavy debt as if their newfound income was just going to go on and on.
I put this puzzle aside for the moment and turned to the balance sheets of the individuals who interested me most: Horace Whitcomb, son Oliver, and Sunny Fogarty. But before I could focus my gimlet-eye on their journals, my phone pealed and the caller was one of the objects of my curiosity—and possibly the object of my affection.
“I trust I am not disturb
ing you, Archy,” Sunny Fogarty said formally.
“You trust correctly,” I assured her.
“I now have information I believe is significant. I think you will be interested. Could we get together? Not tonight of course; it’s too late. But I was hoping you’d be free tomorrow evening.”
“Never free,” I said loftily. “There’s always a price to pay. But yes, I’ll be available tomorrow evening. What time and where?”
She hesitated half a mo. “Could you come over to my place at nine o’clock?”
“Sounds fine to me.”
“I’ll expect you then,” she said crisply and hung up.
I sat staring stupidly at the dead phone. It had not been the warm, intimate conversation of a female and a male who had recently shared one of life’s sublime gifts. I wondered if she now regretted our joust. It was a discomfiting thought, and I resolutely cast it from my mind—with as much success as one might ignore a hangnail.
I took up the reports on the three principals.
Horace Whitcomb wasn’t yet a decamillionaire but inching close. In addition to his handsome salary, he was also drawing a hefty annual bonus. Total income, I figured, more than covered his basic living costs. And he had wisely invested in a large portfolio of tax-exempt municipal bonds, the income of which, in the form of dividends and capital gains, he promptly reinvested, obviously believing in what Wall Street likes to call “the miracle of compounding.”
Our client’s personal ledger showed a heavy outlay for medical expenses which, considering his wife’s condition, was understandable. I had a vague feeling that his periodic cash withdrawals, in various sums ranging from five hundred to five thousand dollars, seemed excessive. But they could be explained by the upkeep on that palazzo he had inherited as well as the purchase of his museum-quality ship models.
All in all, I found nothing in Horace’s management of his wealth that ran up red flags and set bells ringing.
I began scanning the analysis of son Oliver’s financial health. I must confess I expected to find the heir to Whitcomb Funeral Homes in deep doo-doo. From what I had learned about his lifestyle, I had assumed he’d be in hock up to his nostrils with a balance sheet revealing wild and careless expenditures that had him teetering on the edge of personal bankruptcy.
I couldn’t have been wronger—or more wrong, whichever Mr. Webster prefers.
Oliver had a net worth in the neighborhood of three million—which is a pleasant neighborhood if you’re thinking of moving. Yes, he had liabilities—mortgages, loans, and such—but they amounted to less than twenty percent of his assets: no reason for panic. And while he seemed to be a free-spending bloke with a taste for big-ticket items, he was quite capable of paying his bills from Whitcomb salary and bonus plus investment income.
I won’t say I was shocked, but I was certainly surprised. He proved not to be the profligate I had anticipated. In fact, I thought he was managing his money remarkably well: no splurging on real estate in the Australian outback or on ostrich farms in Texas. I mean, the lad appeared to be a semiconservative investor with a keen appreciation of the risk-benefit ratio.
I had obviously misjudged him. He was not the pot-smoking resident of hippiedom I had imagined. Instead, his balance sheet presented a portrait of a knowledgeable businessman. It was a puzzle.
I put his record aside, took up the dossier of Sunny Fogarty, and encountered another puzzle.
That perplexing lady had never exactly talked a poor mouth, but she had emphasized how important her job and salary were to her, how horrendous the expenses were of keeping her mother in a nursing home, and had generally given me the impression that the legitimate prosperity of Whitcomb’s was her sole concern.
But her ledger painted a somewhat different picture. I don’t wish to imply she was loaded. She was far from that, but she was also far from hurting. Her salary and annual bonus from her employer easily covered her expenditures with enough left over to build a small but profitable portfolio of Treasury notes and bonds.
There were a few things in her report that baffled me—or rather things that were not included. Her new car was listed under her assets, as was her condominium. But there was no mention of a loan on the former or a mortgage on the latter. In addition, Sunny’s credit card charges for new clothes, accessories, and jewelry were practically nonexistent. Yet I knew how smartly she dressed, and not cheaply, I assure you.
I stacked all the credit accounts, bound them with a thick rubber band, and slid the whole pile into the bottom drawer of my battered desk. Then I spent a half hour ruminating on everything I had just read.
I admit I felt like a voyeuristic CPA, but what I had done—although it may seem to you a shameful invasion of privacy—was necessary if I was to discover what offenses were occurring that threatened our client’s well-being. I now had no doubt there was frigging in the rigging at the Whitcomb Funeral Homes, but as to what crimes were being committed, by whom and for what purpose, I hadn’t the slightest.
I would love to be able to tell you that at this point, almost halfway through my narrative, I began to get an idea of what was going on. Unhappily, I didn’t have a glimmer. I was as befuddled as I had been the first evening the investigation began.
But from long experience I have learned how to deal with befuddlement. You disrobe, take a hot shower, don a silk robe, light a cigarette, and enjoy a small nightcap while listening to a tape of Sinatra singing “One for My Baby...” Then you go to bed.
Your befuddlement remains, but you just don’t care. You sleep well and dream of a holiday weekend at Veronica Lake.
18.
OCCASIONALLY I HAVE BEEN accused—unjustly, I aver—of devoting entirely too much wordage in these accounts to rhapsodic delineation of meals I have enjoyed. It is true that I believe good food is the second-greatest pleasure life has to offer. It is also true there is a hand-lettered and framed inscription hanging on the wall of my study that declares: “Nutritious Ain’t Delicious!”
But I assumed everyone feels the way I do, and it comes as something of a stun to learn I have calorie-conscious readers who count grams of fat and the sodium content of their daily nutriments—and probably prefer a nibble of tofu to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on Wonder bread.
It is out of respect for the convictions of these demented few that I shall limit the description of my luncheon with Oliver Whitcomb at Renato’s on Tuesday to a single comment: The salmon parisienne was heavenly. I don’t wish to titillate anyone’s taste buds by extolling the splendor of the brandy Alexanders we drank as dessert. You must seek your own heaven; I found mine.
Of more significance to this magnum opus is the conversation that took place during our feast. Oliver showed up clad in black suit, white shirt, black tie—quite a contrast to my glad rags.
“I have an important funeral to supervise this afternoon,” he explained.
I thought it curious phraseology. I mean, all funerals are important—are they not?—and especially to the star.
He wasted little time on small talk: nothing about the weather, sports, or the inflated cost of a good bagel.
“I’m really excited about our expansion to the Naples area,” he said. “I figure if our business—or any business— isn’t growing, then it’s falling behind. Don’t you agree?”
“Perhaps,” I said cautiously. “But there can be dangers in too-rapid expansion. It’s meant taps for a lot of healthy companies.”
He waved my warning aside. “We’ll be able to afford it out of current profits,” he said confidently. “They’re increasing enormously. And opening on Florida’s west coast will be only the first step in establishing the nationwide chain I see as our future. I have a plan all worked out, and believe me, it makes sense.”
Then he was silent as our food was served, and I had an opportunity to observe him more closely. He had inherited his father’s patrician handsomeness, but Horace’s features had a certain craggy strength while son Oliver’s face was softer.
I don’t wish to imply it was weak, but there was a discernible fleshiness testifying to a good life that included much rare roast beef and fortified wines.
“Y’see,” he continued, “the mom-and-pops are finished. Bigness is the name of the game. Look at how the giant discount chains have put so many local stores out of business.”
There was no doubting his seriousness. It was obviously a subject to which he had given a lot of thought. What amazed me was that I now saw no evidence of that easy charm he had exhibited at our previous encounters. It made me wonder if that genial warmth was not a natural attribute but a role he played to win what he sought.
That might be true, I reckoned, unless his present performance as an earnest, intent businessman was the facade and he really was the lightweight charmboy I had presumed him to be. People are endlessly fascinating, are they not? I mean, even the dullest are Chinese puzzles. Sometimes they can be solved—but not always.
“I owe it to my father,” he went on solemnly. “As well as my grandfather. They built the family business with a lot of hard work and by taking risks to expand. I want to do the same thing.”
He paused and looked at me expectantly, as if waiting for praise.
“Mmm,” I said, finishing my salmon.
“It’s doable,” he said with conviction. “I want to establish a national network of brand-name funeral homes, either company-owned or franchises. I’ve met with some very smart moneymen, we’ve crunched numbers endlessly, and everyone believes we can swing it.”
My plate was now empty. His was not but he seemed to have little interest in those wonderful viands. I was now convinced he had prepared a business presentation for me, a script, possibly even rehearsed, all to persuade me, to win my acquiescence. It was a selling job he was doing, and doing well. But why he needed my approval I could not have said.
That was when he ordered the brandy Alexanders and continued his spiel.
“The brokers I have selected worked out a three-part program. The first requires start-up or up-front money for fees to get this thing rolling. Those funds will be provided by Whitcomb’s current cash flow without the need of a bank loan. The second step will be a private placement of stock to interested investors. And the third move will be a public offering of stock, probably initially listed on the NASDAQ exchange. How does that sound to you?”
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