McNally's Alibi

by Lawrence Sanders

  Mother and father can never agree on the temperature setting for their bedroom air conditioner. He scolds her for drinking sauterne with meat and fish, while she thinks he’s nuts to demand starched collars and cuffs on all his shirts. Once, I recall, she referred to him as “father” and he bristled, telling her that as he was not her father she should not call him father. However, on numerous occasions he has referred to her as “mother.” Go figure.

  If one did become formally engaged, how long before one had to take the next step? Now, that was something to think about. A countermove to stall for time. But how much time? Next March? April? May? May the first or may it never happen? I could enter a Trappist monastery, but brown is not my color.

  “In fact, I talked to her just yesterday,” I said, spreading Ursi’s homemade beach plum jam on my liberally buttered muffin.

  “Is Alejandro still here?” mother asked rather timidly. “I hear he’s a very brave young man.”

  “Talk is cheap,” Ursi announced, saving me the trouble of doing so.

  “He’s gone back to Miami,” I answered mother.

  “For good?” Ursi spoke the thought aloud and startled even herself.

  “I don’t know the liberator’s travel plans,” I said, weary of being grilled by those I loved, “but I doubt if Cuba is on his itinerary.”

  “You should think of settling down,” father advised. “Remember, tempus fugit.”

  Tempus was not fugiting fast enough this woeful breakfast hour. “I don’t think I’m unsettled, sir.” I spoke in defense of my right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. How much did one have to surrender in return for room, board and an open relationship? A great deal, I was beginning to learn—but don’t count me out. Where there’s deluxe accommodations and fringe benefits, there’s Archy McNally.

  “The guest suite has a lovely sitting room and a commodious dressing room and bath,” mother reminded me.

  I put down my fork for fear of choking. Connie move in with the in-laws? She would rather parachute into Cuba with Alejandro’s flying tigers—and so would I.

  “More coffee, Archy?” Ursi offered, hovering over me.

  “No, thank you, I really must toddle.”

  “Would you like a lift to the office, Archy?” Father played his ace.

  “No, thank you, sir. I’m not going directly to the office.” Striking a blasé air, I put a finger to the bump on the back of my head and laid down my trump. “I have a business meeting with Decimus Fortesque at his place.”

  There is nothing like dropping the name of a millionaire potential client to get father’s rapt attention. Prescott McNally is a man of honor, but that does not deter him from being a man of business. Upon learning my destination, he stroked his mustache contemplatively, a sure sign of his approval,

  “I’ve met him,” mother cried. We all three looked at her as if she had confessed to having had tea with J. D. Salinger. “Well, I did,” she insisted. “He lectured at the C.A.S. just last month.”

  The C.A.S. is the Current Affairs Society, of which mother is a devoted member. Over the years the group has honed in on such diverse topics as the dwindling ozone layer, the increase in single-parent parenting and the bias encountered by transgenders in upscale boutiques.

  “He spoke,” mother told us, “of his mania for collecting.”

  “Did he bring his collection of wives for show-and-tell?” Ursi asked.

  “No,” mother answered, “but he brought a snuffbox that belonged to the king of France. I don’t remember which one.”

  “What’s he like?” I wanted to know. I had no visual image of Decimus Fortesque. I knew I had never met the man, and if I had ever seen a picture of him it had left no lasting impression. If I was going to his home uninvited, the more I knew, however peripheral, the more confidence I would have in my mission.

  Mother sat quietly, her head tilted in deep thought. Then her eyes lit up and she exclaimed, “He looks like Mischa Auer.”

  Mother and I often describe people, their look and manner, in terms of bygone film personalities. However, in her euphemistically labeled golden years, mother’s recall is far from total. Thus, I had to prod to see if she had named the correct film actor of yore. “Tall and thin,” I stated rather than asked, “prominent eyes and a black mustache that looked as if it had been drawn on with a fine pencil point.”

  “That’s him,” mother cried with joy at her lucky guess.

  Father’s stroking turned to tugging, a sure sign of his growing displeasure at our game. The sire does not cotton to those he respects being likened to character actors. “You will see me directly after your meeting with Mr. Fortesque,” he ordered.

  “I will, sir.” I rose, kissed mother, said ta-ta to Ursi and left in triumph. Now, if I could only grand-slam Alejandro.

  5

  JAMIE WAS IN THE driveway hosing down mother’s wood-bodied Ford station wagon. The classic car would see duty this morning on one of three errands: a shopping expedition to the Publix for groceries, a tour of the nurseries in search of orphaned begonias in need of adoption or a run to transport mother’s prize specimens to a flower show. My Miata was where I had left it last night, on the graveled turnaround in front of our three-car garage, not blocking the left-hand bay that housed father’s Lexus. Even nearly concussed, wet, angry and hungry, I knew better than to thwart the Don from his appointed rounds.

  Hobo ran happily through the puddles created by Jamie’s labors and stopped only briefly to sniff the cuff of my trousers before returning to his footbath. “Decimus Fortesque,” I spoke the name to Jamie.

  Without a pause he mumbled, “The collector.”

  “That’s the one,” I said.

  “Sam Zimmermann is his houseman. He was hired by the first Mrs. Fortesque, outlasted her stay and the seven that followed.”

  If the domestics of Palm Beach were formally organized, our Jamie would be the union boss. He knew them all intimately and therefore knew as much as they did about their employers—which was more than the employers knew about their respective spouses, significant others and blood kin. Jamie was often an invaluable source for my discreet inquiries.

  “Maybe, he should have married Sam,” I speculated aloud but did not get a laugh, or even a smile, from the guy with the hose. “Where does he hang out, Jamie?” I asked.

  “Fortesque or Sam?” Jamie responded in short, clipped grunts that did not get a laugh from me, nor, I imagine, were they intended to.

  Rather than spend the morning watching Jamie playing fireman and Hobo splashing about the gravel, I stated my need in more pragmatic terms. “What’s Fortesque’s address, Jamie?”

  Because God put more millionaires in Palm Beach than he made oceanfront lots, it was necessary for some moneyed folks to reside inland, which, on an island, is never very far from water, be it the briny or the Intracoastal Waterway, aka Lake Worth. Jamie told me that Fortesque’s digs were on the Intracoastal down toward South Palm Beach. I slipped Jamie a tenner, which, if he knew it, would outrage my father. The Olsons are handsomely rewarded for keeping us McNallys in the comfort to which we were not born, but as dispensing classified information was not in their job description I thought it only fair to recompense my informant with the extra quid or two.

  I put the Miata in drive, lit an English Oval and headed south on the Al A, never thinking that I was taking the first step into a maze of deceit, chicanery, backbiting and murder most odious—but then one never knows, do one?

  Chez Fortesque was a genuine Mizner. A pile of whitewashed stucco with red trim that I appraised at five mil—give or take a mil. The iron gates that separated the driveway from the road were wide open, and if there was an alarm system it was neither evident nor announced by one of those dreadful metal disks attached to a stake and bearing the security company’s logo. I’m afraid the likes of these were becoming more and more in vogue on our once pristine island in the sun.

  Sam Zimmermann, who had seen eight wives come an
d go, greeted me at the front door almost before I had a chance to announce that I wished to gain entrance. In appearance Sam was every inch the English butler, but his accent bespoke Brooklyn rather than Berkeley Square. He wore a gray suit and black bow tie. “Good day, sir,” Sam said.

  “Good day to you,” I responded. “Archy McNally here to see Mr. Fortesque.”

  “Very good, sir.” Sam bowed from the waist. “He’s expecting you. Right this way, please.”

  Expecting me? Did Sam mistake me for an invited guest? Could be, but that wasn’t going to stop me from having a word or two with Decimus Fortesque. In my line of work, gaining entrance by subterfuge was an accepted business practice. As I followed Sam from entrance foyer to drawing room I surmised the place was furnished in what I believe is called Mediterranean, but whether that made its provenance Barcelona or Beirut was Greek to me.

  Thanks to mother I recognized Fortesque immediately, but even forewarned I was more than a little amazed at his likeness to the late Mischa Auer. Tall and lanky, he had a razor-thin mustache that must have been tedious to maintain and could have been a testimonial to the tonsorial talents of Sam Zimmermann. All Fortesque needed was one of my berets and a pad and pencil to take your order for the prix fixe grenouille Provençal. From the moment I entered the room, Fortesque’s striking eyes stared at me with such apprehension I feared he was about to upbraid me with, “Who the hell are you?” He did indeed pounce, but his words were, “Well, where is it?”

  Had I entered a loony bin whose inmates masqueraded as deceased character actors reciting lines from imaginary scripts? Standing between Jeeves and Mischa I had no place to run, so I joined the cast. “Where is what, Mr. Fortesque?”

  Eyeing me like a Boston bull pup who was expecting a bone and got a pat on the head instead, he moaned, “My manuscript, man, my manuscript.”

  Clearly, it was time to end the charade. “Mr. Fortesque, you and your butler have mistaken me for someone you were expecting this morning. I have nothing for you.”

  Fortesque took a step back and looked at me as if I were daft. “You are Archy McNally?” he asked.

  “I am, sir.”

  “The Archy McNally that woman hired to deliver the fifty thousand in return for the manuscript?”

  Woman? Fifty thousand? Mazel tov! “May we sit down, sir, and talk about this?”

  “Of course. Of course,” he muttered. “I was so intent on getting my hands on the manuscript, I seem to have forgotten the basic civilities. Please, do have a seat.” With a wave of his long arm he addressed his servant. “Sam, why don’t you get us some coffee.”

  The room was slightly smaller than an airplane hangar, with floor-to-ceiling windows for a west wall that opened to a balcony and a majestic view of Lake Worth. The day being one we Floridians like to think is typical, and isn’t, a profusion of pleasure crafts and catamarans, with colorfully billowing sails, lazily traversed the sparkling waterway. All the scene lacked was a sound track rendering the haunting refrains of Offenbach’s Barcarolle.

  The vast space was divided into several sitting areas, some obviously designed for reading, others for a game of cards or, in the case of the grouping featuring an antique captain’s chest bookended by a pair of comfortable club chairs, for polite chitchat. I took one of the clubs as my host settled into the other. Leaning across the chest that separated us, he sighed. “I gather, you don’t have the manuscript.”

  “Before we go any further, sir, may I know if the woman in question is Claudia Lester?”

  “But of course it is, man. When she asked me to recommend someone she could trust to close the deal—actually a bagman, but no offense, I’m sure—I recommended you.”

  Bagman? Insult had just been added to injury. I felt the bump on my head quiver. Claudia Lester deserved to be hanged by the thumbs, and I was ready to donate the rope. “And who recommended me to you, sir?”

  “I won’t say,” he snapped, “and in your profession I’m sure you understand why.”

  Not certain he didn’t mean the bag profession, I let that one go and had my say. “Claudia Lester hired me to deliver fifty thousand dollars she said was hers, to a man in a motel she said was her ex-lover, in return for a diary she said was hers.”

  Fortesque grinned like a schoolboy who has just been told a naughty story. “Is that what she said? Clever minx, I’ll say that for her. What she was doing, you see, was keeping our business all in the family, as they say. The less people knew, the better the chances of getting our hands on the manuscript. With something like this, you don’t want a lot of avid collectors with deep pockets bidding on the item, not to mention the tabloid press.”

  “Will you tell me what this is all about, sir?”

  Fortesque waved a finger at me. “Oh, no. Not just yet. First tell me what became of my fifty thousand and the manuscript.”

  “Gladly,” I began. “In fact, it’s the reason for my visit. I delivered the fifty thousand to the Crescent Motel, unit nine if you care to know, and gave it to Matthew Harrigan, Claudia’s ex-gigolo.”

  “Never heard the name,” Fortesque informed me. “Did he give you the manuscript?”

  “Harrigan showed me a stack of bond paper, some covered in type, some in script, which I believed to be the lady’s diary because I had been told that’s what it was. He rewrapped the package in brown paper tied with string and handed it to me. Naturally, he kept the fifty thousand.”

  “So where’s the bundle of brown paper tied with a string?” Fortesque interrupted.

  “I’m not finished with my story, Mr. Fortesque,” I protested.

  “Sorry, man. Do go on.”

  “I carried the package out into the rain and to the motel’s guest parking area to retrieve my car. Here, I was attacked from behind—hit on the noggin with a rock or lead pipe, is my guess. When I awoke the diary was gone. Meanwhile, back at unit nine, the door was locked and the carport reserved for number nine empty. I assumed Harrigan had done me in and absconded with Claudia’s loot and the diary.”

  If I thought I was going to get a bit of solace from Decimus Fortesque, I was wrong. Instead of asking after my noggin, he reminded me that “it was my money and my manuscript, man. Does Claudia know about this?”

  “I called the Ambassador to report in and was told that Ms. Lester had flown the coop. I’m here because she told me you had steered her my way, which makes you my only link to the lady. As you can imagine, I’m most eager to have a word with her.”

  “You think she stiffed you,” he quipped.

  “If it was your fifty grand, Mr. Fortesque, I would say it was you who got stiffed. When was the last time you spoke to Claudia Lester?”

  “Last night,” he confessed, “just before you arrived at her hotel. She told me that she had hired you to make the exchange, so when you showed up on my doorstep this morning I assumed you had come to deliver the manuscript.”

  At that moment Sam came into the room wheeling a tea cart burdened with a carafe of coffee, bone china cups and saucers that I was certain bore the logo of the potter Josiah Spode, and an array of delectable-looking miniature pastries. My connoisseur’s eye spotted napoleons, babas au rum, cream puffs and biscuits à la cuiller, or ladyfingers to the common folks.

  As Fortesque poured he explained, “Sam is a Cordon Bleu with a specialty in French pastries. He makes them by the dozens, freezes them and then pops them in a warm oven, never a microwave, for ten minutes before serving them up. Help yourself.”

  I did as ordered. A cream puff, light as air, and a rum baba, equally palatable. It was no wonder Sam had not gone the way of his master’s harem. “He’s a find,” I said, reaching for a napoleon.

  “He also sings,” Fortesque confided. “Says he’s related to the great Broadway star.”

  I couldn’t imagine which one but didn’t challenge Sam’s claim. I was here to trace Claudia Lester, not the butler’s family tree. The possible loss of fifty thousand big ones didn’t seem to affect Fortesque’s ap
petite, but then a loss of fifty thousand to a man like Decimus Fortesque was like Joe Blow taking a hit for fifty bucks at the track. “How do you keep your figure with these goodies crowding your freezer?” I asked.

  Fortesque shrugged. “Metabolism is my guess. I can make a meal of these things and drop five pounds in the process.”

  Bully for you, I thought with envy. Knowing I would gain five pounds if I had one more, I stopped reaching for the specialties of the house, pulled in my tummy, and pleaded my case. “As I’m the innocent victim of your dealings with Claudia Lester, I think it’s only fair that you tell me what the deuce this is all about, Mr. Fortesque. I might even come up with a clever plan to get back your fifty or this manuscript you seem besotted to possess.”

  Fortesque put down his cup and nodded sagely. “And I will, but before I do may I ask the extent of your knowledge on the art of collecting, Mr. McNally?”

  Collecting, which I doubt is a bona fide art form, is a very popular couch sport in Palm Beach. The more outré the objects of desire, the more zealous the team players. At one time I collected crystal shot glasses, my piece de resistance being a Lalique two-ounce jigger. I then plunged into swizzle sticks and managed to acquire a Stork Club, a Park

  Casino, a Romanoff’s and a Kit Kat Klub. I was told the latter cabaret existed only in Christopher Isherwood’s mind and, were this true, I wouldn’t be the first collector to be duped. After hearing Fortesque’s story, I knew I wouldn’t be the last, either.

  One of my favorite musical shows, which I have preserved on vinyl so the music goes round and round, has a very clever song that pokes fun at collecting mania. Some of the coveted items vocalized are, “A hat that belonged to Wally Simpson before the Prince of Wales was in the bag... A shirt with Henry Richmond’s laundry tag,” and even “A G-string Sally Rand wore at a stag.”

  I told Fortesque about my jigger and swizzle-stick combinations but spared him the witty lyrics, as I didn’t think he would be amused.

  “Besotted is the operative word, Mr. McNally,” he mused. “Louis Auchincloss—do you know him?”