McNally's chance (mcnally)

by Lawrence Sanders

I opened the door for her and sang, “Last night we met, and I dream of you yet, with the wind and the rain in your hair.”

  She giggled. “What’s that?”

  An old song.”

  “How old?” she insisted.

  I got in the driver’s seat and started the engine. “How old are you, Bianca?”

  Twenty-two.”

  I shifted and got us free of Binky’s space and onto the road leading out of the Palm Court. “Let’s say the song is older than you but younger than King Tut.”

  “How old are you, Archy?”

  “Older then you but younger than King Tut.”

  “Binky told me how old you are,” she said, laughing. It was such a pleasant sound. Like a child poking fun at a doting uncle. Should I have worn a black mustache and a cape instead of bells and boat neck? I must do something about my cravings. Was there a twelve-step program?

  I would ask Dr. Gussie.

  Her laugh was charming, but her question was disconcerting. If Binky had disclosed my age, why did she ask? Was she testing my integrity?

  Was she clever or obtuse? Was I on a fool’s errand? How wide the ocean? How deep the sea? Questions, questions. “Binky lies,” I said.

  “But he’s cute. Do you know he does birdcalls?”

  Blessed mother of Sam Spade, did that boy really do his pathetic birdcalls for her? But why not? He does them for anyone forced to listen. “Yes,” I said. “I do know. His loony bird is remarkably accurate.”

  “Oh, Archy,” she scolded, and rested her head on my shoulder.

  Her perfume was potent and top-of-the-line. Her hair, moving gently in the breeze, wafted over my right ear. I was an excellent driver, even one-handed…

  “Binky told me you have a steady girl,” she said matter-of-factly, as if commenting on the price of gowns at Martha Phillips on The Esplanade.

  And I had foolishly spared Binky’s life this very afternoon. Did he do nothing over his Chinese takeout with Bianca but talk about me and imitate birds? “Binky has a big mouth and, as I said a few moments ago, he lies. I see someone more often than I see others, that is true, but she is not my so-called “steady” and we have an open relationship. Why only recently she was out with Ferdy Attenborough, a good Mend of mine. They had a delightful time.”

  “That’s nice. Did you tell her you were taking me to dinner tonight?”

  Clever or obtuse? Something told me to keep both hands on the steering wheel as prescribed by law. “I didn’t because I do not have to report to her on my whereabouts. In fact, she is dining with Binky at the Pelican as we speak.” And I was up to my chin in cow dip.

  “Is that why we’re going to Charley’s Crab?”

  “There’s a gun in the glove compartment, dear; would you pass it to me?

  I promise to stop before I shoot myself in the foot again.”

  “Oh, relax, Archy,” she said, putting her hand on my knee. How that gesture was supposed to relax me I’ll never know. All it did was cause a muscle spasm that sent the speedometer up ten notches. “I was involved in an open relationship for two years.”

  “When was that?”

  At college. He played basketball. He was a mile high and an inch wide. I like the type.”

  I sucked in my tummy and almost keeled over. “What happened?” I asked.

  “He had an open relationship with six other girls.”

  “Surely not six?”

  “Six, Archy. Tall and thin gives ‘em endurance, like on the court.

  When we all found out about each other we had a meeting and drew straws. I lost.”

  “Who won?”

  “Virginia Miles. She was tall and thin.”

  “I must say your generation is casual about these things. I remember poor Tim Hicks, who was tall and thin and engaged in multiple open relationships in our freshman days at Yale. When the ladies compared notes they formed a vigilante group to liberate Tim from his pants. It was the day Tim had mislaid his clean laundry and he was running about with nothing under his jeans but Tim.”

  Bianca laughed that laugh and squeezed my knee. If she kept that up we would qualify for the Daytona 500. We had reached Ocean Boulevard and I turned south.

  “What happened to Tim?” she wanted to know.

  “As I recall, he was bombarded with invitations from women as far south as Miami and as far north as the Canadian border.”

  “Oh, Archy!”

  Was she blushing? I fear not. But my knee was.

  At Charley’s Crab we had time for a drink at the bar, which offers an ocean view. The sky was remarkably clear over the horizon, cutting a sliver of blue across a dark sea. The prevailing cloud cover might pass before it rained on my parade. There were a few couples at the bar and several diners circling the salad bar. “What’s your pleasure?”

  I asked my date.

  “What are you having?”

  This told me she wasn’t a drinker and afraid of ordering the wrong thing. I would bet my authentic

  NY Yankees baseball cap that the preference at the U. of Miami was for Alabama Slammers or a cup of grain-alcohol punch dipped from a trash can. Drawing straws? Wait till I told Mrs. Trelawney that one.

  I ordered two apple martinis. Trust me. You’ll like it.”

  “I do trust you, Archy. To pin the goods on Antony Gilbert.”

  She persisted like a locomotive at full steam and Antony Gilbert was tied to the tracks. The only thing I was going to take a pin to was her balloon. I promised Binky I would let her down gently, but why should I keep a promise to someone who said nasty things behind my back? Like my age.

  The bartender put our drinks before us and I raised mine to her. We touched glasses and sipped. “Hummm, this is good,” she said.

  “You didn’t tell me Gilbert was returning the barbell from the recycling bin where it had been used as a paperweight, and the housekeeper confirmed his explanation.”

  She didn’t like this one iota and let me know it. “Who told you that?”

  “Sergeant Al Rogoff of the PBPD,” I said.

  “You told him you were acting on my behalf?” She spoke as if I had betrayed a confidence.

  “Calm down, missy. I am not acting on your behalf because I don’t think you have a case. You told me what you suspected and I agreed to meet with Gilbert.

  That’s all. But you didn’t level with me, and so I feel no obligation to bother the guy.”

  She was seething and drinking much too fast, neither of which helped her cause. Did she look this way the day she lost her basketball player? “I thought you asked me out to discuss the case. You like to get particulars, or did I misunderstand?”

  Clever or obtuse? Definitely clever. “It was an excuse to have dinner with a pretty girl, Okay? I’m not ashamed of it. And stop gulping that drink; it’s supposed to be enjoyed.”

  I’m so mad I could spit,” she said. “Why did you go running to Al Rogoff?”

  This was going from bad to badder in leaps and bounds. A few stools away, a couple were looking at us and so was the bartender. That’s all I needed to get bounced out of Charley’s Crab and onto the police blotter with a pretty girl in tow. How do I get into these situations?

  Easy. I work very hard at it. About this time Connie would be giving Binky his towels and Priscilla would be handing over her cutting block.

  Would I be missed?

  Coming back to the present, I told Bianca, “I went to Al because I’m a professional. I don’t compete with the police, I work with them. I wanted to know what ground they had covered in their investigation of Mrs. Gilbert’s death so I would not waste my time reinventing the wheel. Doesn’t that make sense?” Fearing she would say it didn’t, I went on to tell her how foolish it was of her to ask the police to dust for prints on the barbell. “It’s Gilbert’s home. His prints should be all over the place, and he didn’t deny carrying the barbell back to where it belonged.”

  Looking contrite, she made a hopeless gesture with her shoulders. “I know i
t was foolish, but I was desperate. He had everything worked out so perfectly I was grasping at straws.”

  Grasping straws was definitely not the poor child’s forte. “What did he have worked out? He was at breakfast and she was taking her swim.

  Sounds like the usual morning routine.”

  “Oh no,” she cried. “It wasn’t. Both the housekeeper and I were out of the house.”

  “Where were you, Bianca?”

  “At Publix shopping, with the housekeeper.”

  “Did you usually accompany her shopping?”

  “No.” She was so thrilled to be making a point, her cheeks flushed and her hands waved in the air as she spoke. “No, never. But that morning Lilian asked me to go with Louisa, the housekeeper, because she wanted me to pick up fresh cut flowers for the dinner table that night. She always said I had an eye for flowers and friends were coming.”

  I didn’t see the point and I told her so. “What did Gilbert have to do with this?”

  As if exasperated by my inability to see what was perfectly clear to her, she sighed and said, “Tony must have told her to get me out of the house that morning.”

  “But why?” I could have throttled her.

  With a quick glance from right to left she told me, “They sometimes swam together in the nude at Tony’s instigation, of course, and poor Lilian couldn’t resist. He must have suggested it that morning and I was gotten rid of.”

  I wasn’t put off by the thought of a woman Lilian Ashman Gilbert’s age doing the backstroke in the buff. Lady Cynthia Horowitz, Connie’s boss, has been known to do the Australian crawl in her birthday suit and Lady C admits to celebrating seventy of those anniversaries. As with Hollywood folk, I add five years. Although Lady C has a face that could stop Big Ben, her figure has been, shall we say, an inspiration to many.

  “By your own admission, Bianca, it wasn’t unusual for the two to cavort like Adam and Eve prior to sampling the apple tart.”

  “But never in the morning,” she declared.

  “Yeah, and never on Sunday.” The captain was beckoning. I told the bartender to transfer the tab to our dinner bill and left a few bucks on the bar. “I’m starved,” I said, taking Bianca’s arm.

  Are you going to come with me tomorrow, Archy?”

  “We’ll discuss it after dinner.”

  Did I happen to mention that Charley’s Crab features ‘cozy, tucked-away dining areas’? No? It must have slipped my mind.

  “This is cozy,” Bianca said, as if she had read the ad.

  And tucked away, to boot,” I pointed out.

  “Let’s not order another drink and have a nice white with dinner.” I asked the captain for the wine list.

  “I didn’t think you liked wine,” Bianca said. “You hardly touched the glass I gave you.”

  “Because it was appalling, dear. But hang on to it. In a few days it will be perfect for a vinaigarette.”

  With a deadpan delivery, Bianca said, “Binky brought it last night when he came to dinner.”

  Our cozy, tucked-away dining area pulsated with silence. Then Bianca laughed so loud I feared the captain would withhold the wine list. “Oh, Archy, you step in doo-doo every time out.” Wait till I tell Binky.”

  “No. I will tell Binky. The boy is a menace to himself and others.

  Now hush while I concentrate,” I was torn between a white Burgundy, a Graves, and a Taminer. I went with the Burgundy. “Would you like to share a seafood pasta pagliara to start?”

  “It sounds yummy. What is it?”

  “Egg pasta. Paglia is Italian for hay. There is a dish called paglia e He no straw and hay, which is egg-and-spinach noodles. Delizioso.”

  “You know a lot about food, Archy.”

  A hobby and a huge capacity to enjoy all life has to offer. Here’s our wine, tell me what you think?”

  The waiter had me inspect the label before he removed the cork from the bottle. I nodded because one is supposed to nod when shown you’re getting what you asked for. After removing the cork he poured my libation. I sipped, pursed my lips, and nodded my approval. In all my years of dining out in the better chop houses from Palm Beach to New Haven, I have never seen anyone sip, grimace, and request another vintage.

  He poured Bianca’s before refilling my glass. Civilized customs are so time-consuming. When accompanying a lady into the backseat of a car do you know she should plop right by the door, forcing her knight to crawl over her legs to plop beside her?

  “This is good,” Bianca said, ‘but I wouldn’t have minded another apple martini.”

  “One should not drink them with dinner. It simply ain’t done.” If nothing else, I would teach her a few things before the night came to a close. As it turned out, she had a few lessons of her own to impart.

  Our pasta arrived looking good enough to eat. “Will it leave room for the crab cakes?” Bianca wondered.

  “And a few claws, I’m sure.”

  I must say she had a healthy appetite and with good reason. The pasta was molto deliziosa. She forgot about her vendetta against Antony Gilbert long enough for us to enjoy polite conversation over our meal.

  In the seesaw between clever and obtuse I will say that Bianca Courtney was a little bit of both. Like the very young she knew a little bit about a lot of things and a whole lot about nothing.

  She was remarkably naive about her former employer’s desire to marry an obvious gigolo. “How could she do it?” And blase regarding her brother. “Ken is gay but very well adjusted to his sexual orientation.

  I guess he’s getting it on with his new roommate in New York.” The young think they have an exclusive copyright on sex.

  Her major was computer science and her minor was, of all things, psychology.

  “What did you intend to do with the Computer Science?” I questioned.

  “I intended to marry someone young, cute, and very rich. If it didn’t happen, I could teach.”

  Ask a stupid question…

  To do justice to the crab cakes and claws we limited ourselves at the salad bar to the basic greens crisp iceberg, leafy spinach, romaine, bibb, arugula, and radicchio for color. We both avoided the vinaigrette dressing. One of the joys of summer are freshly picked tomatoes, which we enjoyed, sliced, with nothing but sea salt, cracked pepper, some torn fresh basil, and a tiny drizzle of olive oil I ordered a second bottle of wine, and although I imbibed more than my share, Bianca wasn’t far behind.

  “Are you trying to get me drunk, Archy?”

  “But of course. Omar recommended a loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou.”

  “Good for Omar. Art thou dessert?”

  “I thought the creme caramel if you don’t mind. It goes down so much easier than your sass.”

  She began to laugh. “Oh, come on. I’m just having some fun with you.

  You got me here under false pretenses and now you’re wondering what you’re going to do with me. You don’t want to go back to my place where your red car will stick out like a neon calling card, and you wouldn’t dare take me to a motel because I wouldn’t go. Checkmate.”

  She was a barrel of laughs, all at my expense. “What do you suggest, Ms Courtney?

  “Have the creme caramel, Archy, and we’ll take a walk on the beach.

  Then you can drop me off — real fast.”

  “He who makes love on the beach knows the meaning of true grit.”

  “Archy, that one is older than you.”

  “But younger than King Tut.”

  The clouds were dispersing to uncover small patches of stars but the moon remained hidden. The steady sound of the surf and the distant sound of cars moving north and south on the Al A are the heartbeat of Palm Beach. With a beautiful woman in your arms it takes on the tremor of a rhapsody.

  “Do you kiss on a first date, Bianca?”

  “Only when I’m asked.”

  She was warm, tender, yielding, and doing the most amazing things with her hands. “Did you learn that in college?”

/>   “No, high school. Oh, buttons. How quaint. Will you come with me to meet Tony tomorrow?”

  “You little devil, you have me by my compromising position.”

  “That’s the idea. Yes or no, Archy?”

  What’s a Discreet Inquirer to do? “Yes. Yes, yes, yes.”

  Seventeen

  As you may have guessed I awoke late the following morning and Ursi surprised me with one of my breakfast favorites, kippers and scrambled eggs.

  “Everyone is talking about Sabrina Wright and her daughter, Archy. Have you heard about it?” Ursi asked as she poured my coffee.

  “I’ve heard something, Ursi. What are people saying

  “It seems Sabrina Wright’s daughter, Gillian, and her boyfriend are down here looking up old society news stories at the library. Well, Mrs. Marsden over at Lady Cynthia’s says that Lady C thinks the daughter and her boyfriend must be looking for someone from these parts who was on the social scene some years back. And Hanna Ventura told Lady Cynthia that Sabrina adopted the girl, Gillian, as a single parent and raised her in the lap of luxury. Mrs. Ventura read about it in Vanity Fair, and she thinks the girl is looking for her true mother who may be someone we all know. There could be a scandal brewing, Archy, as we speak.”

  Dear Hanna didn’t know how close she was to the truth. But with that kind of talk going around and the only other parent one could have was the father, Appleton and Cranston must be quivering in their limos.

  In the interest of learning what other rumors were making the rounds, I queried, “So what else have you heard, Ursi?”

  Jamie, as always, sipped his coffee while reading the morning paper and listening to every word. They say N. Bonaparte, Buonaparte, could also read and listen at the same time and look what they did to him. Would Jamie one day be exiled to Fisherman’s Island in Lake Worth?

  “The girl’s boyfriend,” Ursi continued on pouring a cup for herself,

  ‘is a newspaper reporter, and he’s going to write about the investigation. You know many adopted people now go in search of their natural parents. It’s exciting. But if the girl’s natural mother put her up for adoption and signed away all rights, she wouldn’t know the girl had been taken in by a famous author. Won’t she be surprised, Archy?”