On my last visit the place had been as silent, deserted, and mournful as a crypt. Now, with the lit windows and the sound of music, or what some call music, Hillcrest was more Studio 54 in its heyday. But unlike Studio 54, where many came but few were chosen, there was no guardian of the velvet rope to banish the many and welcome the few.
At Studio Hillcrest all I had to do was turn the knob and walk in. The music was pure disco, the beat of which has always reminded me of how the ogre’s heart must have sounded when he chased Jack around the beanstalk. I found myself in a huge entrance foyer, facing a broad staircase. The center hall was flanked by archways to reveal two enormous rooms nearly devoid of furniture but overflowing with humanity. Rather young humanity. I could see makeshift bars set up in both rooms, their surfaces crowded with wine bottles that never knew a cork. The air was so thick with the aroma of funny cigarettes, one could get arrested for breathing.
It was a scene out of Our Dancing Daughters, and I half expected to see Joan Crawford doing the Charleston on a grand piano while wiggling out of her panties from beneath her crepe-de-chine gown. What I got, alas, was Binky Watrous.
“Archy, what are you doing here?”
“I came for the cuisine. Et tu?”
“I came to cohabitate.”
Binky’s statements of fact often defy the snappy retort. This was one of them. “Whose house is this?” I asked.
“Beats me, Archy.”
Need I say here that in order to be heard Binky and I, hands cupped about our lips to simulate megaphones, were shouting into each other’s ears?
“Who invited you?” I asked next, knowing I might as well have asked Binky to define the theory of relativity. Binky has always reminded me of a grown-up version of the child actor Claude Jarman Jr. Limp blond hair, limp blond mustache, and large, limpid eyes not unlike those of the fawn poor Claude toted about in The Yearling. Binky, in fact, could have been cast as both the boy and his pet—an all-time first, even for Hollywood.
“No one invited me,” came the not surprising answer. “Who invited you, Archy?”
“Same guy.”
“Who’s that?”
“Never mind, Binky. Did you just happen to drop in? I mean, it’s a bit off the beaten path for gate-crashing, or were you rowing down Lake Worth when you saw the lights and heard the enchanting music of the Sirens?”
“Neither, Archy. Hillcrest is the talk of Palm Beach.” Then, after a pause, “With the young set, that is.”
I am on the good side of forty, by several years, and Binky, I’m sure, is in clear view of thirty. So, if Hillcrest was the talk of the young set, I could have asked Binky Watrous how he heard about it. I didn’t because we would then have to play this painful scene again.
But mention of the young set did inspire me to look more closely at the boys and girls—gyrating, imbibing, and puffing—now that my eyes had become more accustomed to the lighting that was on par with the radiance of my penlite. They looked barely old enough to drink, let alone gyrate. It all appeared illegal and immoral, but then I’m neither the law nor the guy able to cast the first stone.
“Fill me in on the talk of the young set,” I shouted at Binky.
“This is a party house. Something going on most nights of the week. Everything is very loose and no one asks for ID.”
There was nothing loose about the way these modern-day vamps clung to their Valentinos. “And the booze is compliments of the house?”
“It’s BYOB, Archy. Bring your own bottle. But the ice is on the house.”
But not, I was certain, the cannabis and any other mood enhancers being offered to our young set. I did know, from my aforementioned investigation of the place, that Hillcrest had been built many years ago by a man who had made his money manufacturing portable johns. That product’s particular odor, it seems, was destined to haunt Hillcrest. I also knew the man had left it to his wife, who, when her time came, left it to her alma mater.
Their children contested the bequest, and while school and progeny did battle the house was available on a month-to-month basis with the rent going into an escrow account to be presented to the winner. I also knew the rent was five thousand bucks a month. The present tenant either had a thick wallet or had come up with an odious scheme to pay for his keep.
All speculation, I know, but I thought it wise to caution my young friend. “I don’t think I would make this place a habit, Binky, unless you enjoy riding in paddy wagons.”
“You know I’m not into anything heavy, Archy.” Poor Binky was offended.
“I know,” I assured him, “but guilt by association in a joint like this is still guilt.”
The G word made Binky wonder, “Are you on a case, Archy?”
“Actually, I’m looking for Veronica Manning.”
Binky smiled, revealing a fine set of teeth. Here was a topic to which my friend could instantly warm. “Some dish,” he informed me.
“Like I said, Binky, I came for the cuisine.”
It takes Binky a few moments to get the drift of my verbal acumen, but when his brain made the connection he let out an appreciative chuckle and patted my shoulder. “Is she here?” I asked.
“I talked to her a while ago and then I saw her go off to one of the chat rooms.”
“The what rooms?”
“Private chat rooms, just like on the World Wide Web. In case you haven’t noticed, it gets a little noisy in here, so if you connect with someone and want to get it on, one-on-one, you just slip off to a chat room. I tell you, Archy, this place has everything.”
Another Watrous statement better left undisputed. Instead I queried, “Was Veronica with someone when you saw her head for a chat room?”
“You don’t go to a chat room alone, Archy.”
“What about people who like to talk to themselves?” Before Binky could utter yet another profound observation I told him to point in the general direction of the chat rooms where those connected could get it on, one-on-one. I am proudly computer illiterate, but I know the difference between a World Wide Web and a spiderweb.
Moving in the general direction of Binky’s protruding forefinger, I walked down the dark passage beyond the staircase and came to a small hall and three closed doors. What I guessed was the dining room was to the right, and what must have been called the sunroom, with a panoramic view of the lake, to the left. Another door, directly under the staircase, I was sure would open to reveal a flight of stairs leading down to the kitchen and pantry. I would wager my weekly stipend that the kitchen was connected to the dining room by a device once known as a dumbwaiter, a label that has surely been deemed politically incorrect for obvious reasons.
I chose the dining room, opened the door, and looked in. The room was lit by a chandelier hanging from the center of the ceiling and dimmed by a rheostat to feign the warm glow of candlelight. Veronica’s hair, blond and shoulder length, shimmered in the flattering light, and her slim body was silhouetted against a curtainless window.
“Room’s taken,” a masculine voice belonging to the shadow facing Veronica advised me.
“I’m looking for Veronica Manning,” I advised the voice.
“What do you want?” The shadow was annoyed.
“Archy?” Veronica spoke. “Is it Archy McNally?”
“In person.” I advanced into the room. The chandelier looked large enough to have once graced a table that could seat twelve. Someone had removed the table but had left the accompanying chairs and placed them haphazardly about the room. Much to my relief, there was not a bed in sight.
“Archy?” Veronica called again. “What are you doing here?”
“If I said I was here for the cuisine, would you believe me?”
“Who is this guy?” Veronica’s one-on-one was not pleased with my presence.
I couldn’t see his face clearly enough to pick him out of a lineup, but the voice told me he was young and cocky, and his outline suggested someone tall, and (by de facto reasoning) dark. I wondered if
he was the young man Connie had seen Veronica with at Lady C.’s reception.
“He’s Archy—” Veronica began, but I interrupted. I didn’t fancy my name resounding through the unhallowed halls of Hillcrest twice, in rapid succession.
“I’m a friend of Veronica’s mother and my business is with Veronica.”
“Look, buddy...” The shadow took a step forward, but Veronica put out her hand to restrain him.
“But how did you know where to find me, Archy?” A note of apprehension crept into her voice.
“Melva told me you would be here.”
“My mother?” Veronica cried. “My mother sent you here, Archy?”
“She did.”
“Why? What’s happened?”
She came toward me and the young man was wise enough to stand his ground. I touched her bare elbow and said, “Let’s go outside, Veronica. I’ll explain everything.”
“Something’s happened to my mother. Please, Archy, what is it?” Apprehension was fast giving way to hysteria.
Taking a firm grip on her arm, I began to lead her from the room. Before her young swain could follow, I looked over my shoulder and told him to stay put. “It’s a family matter, and I’m taking Veronica home. No need to see us out.”
Veronica cut his protest short. “I’m going with Archy,” she said. “Please don’t interfere. I’ll be fine.” If he had a name she never spoke it, and it occurred to me that she might know him as well as I did.
As we passed through the doorway I caught the scent of her perfume. Its aroma was very exotic, very arousing, and, surely, very expensive. Walking side by side, I was aware of her height—the top of her blond hair, parted on the left, came well past my shoulder and I doubted that she was wearing high heels. Melva’s little girl had truly grown up.
As we went from the dark passage into the somewhat better-illuminated entrance foyer, I could see that she was wearing a sleeveless ice-blue sheath, knee length, with a scoop neckline and no jewelry. She didn’t need any. Her flawless complexion, blue eyes, and sensuous lips would have dimmed the Hope Diamond. A brief year had transformed Melva’s darling from a cute teenager to a ravishing woman.
When I recovered and was sure I could speak with some semblance of authority, I pointed to her smart Judith Leiber minaudière, suspended from her shoulder by a gold chain. “Your car keys in there?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Let me have them.”
She stopped short and shook her hand free of my arm. “I will not. And I won’t take another step until you tell me what this is all about.”
Actually, I couldn’t blame her for drawing a line on my intrusion into her life. I had invaded this den of iniquity, interrupted her one-on-one with the shadow, and now I demanded the keys to her car. I owed her an explanation and decided to give it to her without preamble or apology. Knowing that it was impossible to be overheard, I blurted, “Geoff is dead. Your mother shot him.”
She froze. Her eyes held mine like two blue agates. I feared she had stopped breathing and hoped I wouldn’t have to slap her face, as they do in the movies, to bring her back to the land of the living. I was relieved when she finally mumbled incredulously, “Tell me this is a nightmare, Archy.”
“I wish I could, my dear, but it isn’t. I’m here, you’re here, and Geoff is very dead.” If I sounded a bit glib, it was only because I didn’t know how else to sound. Telling a young woman that her mother had just committed murder was an all-time first for Archy McNally, and may it never happen again.
“I want to go home,” Veronica stated.
“Not tonight, Veronica. There’s no one there except a team of policemen doing their job.” And poor Hattie, I didn’t add, with her fist in her mouth.
“Where’s my mother, Archy?”
“By now, in custody, I’m sure.”
“I want to be with her,” she insisted.
“You can’t. At least not now. You’re spending the night with me.” Under any other circumstances the statement would have been embarrassingly suggestive. Here it came off as a declaration of fact, nothing less and surely nothing more.
“Tell me what happened, Archy.”
“I will, on the way home. Now please give me your car keys.”
“Why?”
“I have a friend here. He’ll drive your car home. You, as I said, will come with me.”
She obeyed meekly. “What are you driving, Veronica?”
“Mercedes convertible.”
Knowing the young set of Palm Beach, I imagined there was more than one Mercedes convertible parked at Hillcrest. “Color?”
“Silver with a blue canvas top.”
She handed me the keys and, certain she couldn’t leave without me, I told her to wait for me outside the front door. I elbowed my way into the room I had seen Binky emerge from and found him wandering about, still unattached. Poor Binky.
“Did you find her?” he shouted.
“I did. And I need a favor, Binky.”
“That’s what I’m here for, Archy.”
I didn’t remind him of his earlier reason for being here and figured he must have given up all hope in that direction. As luck would have it, he had come with a friend, so he could drive Veronica’s car to my place while his friend followed in Binky’s car. I told him what I wanted him to do, but not why, and gave him Veronica’s car keys and a description of her wheels.
“Neat,” Binky commented.
“Mercedes-Benz thinks so, too, Binky.”
“Is this a case, Archy?” he asked again, hopefully. Binky enjoys playing Watson to my Sherlock.
“The game is afoot, my boy.”
With that, I headed for the door, wondering if Veronica Manning would ever express sympathy at the demise of her stepfather.
5
I TOLD VERONICA MANNING everything I knew of the events that had taken place in her home after she had left for the evening. She listened with a stony silence that remained for a long time as we drove north. The A1A was now even emptier of cars than on my trip down. Sitting in the passenger seat, my jacket draped over her shoulders and her eyes fixed on the road, the sophisticated lady of impeccable dress and one-on-one encounters now looked more like a bewildered child in need of a champion but not a handkerchief. No one could accuse the Manning women of overreacting.
When I had led her to my car she was shivering, and I suspected the condition was due to shock and the brevity of her dress. Archy the gallant had immediately offered his jacket. Now, driving in my shirtsleeves, I realized her condition could also have been due to the early-morning temperature, but being a loyal Floridian I refused to turn on the Miata’s heater.
“Do you have a cigarette?” These were the first words she spoke since my disclosure.
“No. But you do.”
Without hesitation she dug into my jacket pockets until she found what she was looking for. “What are these?”
“English Ovals,” I informed her. “You’ll like them.”
“Do you want one?”
“Please.”
She put two cigarettes between her lips, struck a match, lighted both, and passed one to me. “I saw a man do this in a movie on the late, late show,” Veronica said.
“The man was Paul Henreid and the woman he handed the lit cigarette to was Bette Davis.”
“I didn’t like him,” Veronica announced.
“Paul Henreid?”
“Don’t be arch, Archy.”
I don’t think “arch” was the word she wanted, but rather than put a damper on her clever rebuttal I kept my opinion to myself. Besides, there was an edge to her voice that told me this was not the time to engage in verbal sparring with Veronica Manning.
“If you mean Geoff, one shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, my dear.”
“Why not?” She smoked, I noticed, without inhaling. The cigarette was merely a prop. Was her stiff upper lip also more show than substance? There was a lot to be learned about this young lady and I imagined the
lessons would be sheer delight.
“I don’t know why not. It just isn’t done,” I told her.
“My stepfather did many things that just aren’t done.”
“Your mother never complained.”
“My mother was a fool. Did she ever give you that line about not frightening the horses on Main Street?”
“As a matter of fact, she did.”
“Don’t rock the boat. Don’t rattle the beads. Leave well enough alone. Less said, soonest mended. Those are some other tenets my mother swore by. She knew what he was up to, but instead of tossing him out on his behind, she pretended it didn’t matter as long as he didn’t frighten the horses on Main Street. When her own eyes blew the cover on her denial, the volcano finally erupted.”
Melva’s daughter sounded like a cross between a page out of a Psychology 101 text and a lawyer summing up the defense’s case.
“Maybe she loved him. Did that ever occur to you?”
“If you’re referring to his prowess in the bedroom, Archy, just say so.”
“I would, if that’s what I was referring to.”
She rolled down the window and discarded her cigarette. Waste not, want not was a tenet I lived by, but didn’t say so. The cigarette’s glow carved a red line in the early-morning breeze, and I recalled the red line extending from the hole in Geoff’s chest down to his navel—his body as cold as his stepdaughter’s feelings for him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, raising the window. “I’m just rambling.”
“I understand.”
She turned her head toward me. “There was a time when I thought mother would marry you.”
“And would that have pleased you?” My heart gave a tiny leap in anticipation of her answer. Archy the fool.
“I liked you and you made me laugh a lot. But the way you dressed! I was afraid of what the girls at school would say if they saw you in one of your silk berets. I think I was going to try to palm you off as an artist.”
“Con artist, no doubt.”
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