McNally's Alibi

by Lawrence Sanders

  Nine o’clock on a Saturday night and the Pelican was jumping. I did manage to find an empty stool in a far corner of the bar and commandeered it, resting my cargo and Binky’s cell phone on the counter. Priscilla was too busy to verbally accost me, and I noticed that Todd, the young man who assisted Priscilla on busy nights, was also working the floor. Todd, who was born Edward, wanted to be an actor and I believe he had taken his stage name from his idol, the producer Michael Todd, who once announced that he believed in giving his customers a meat-and-potato show, which our Todd was now doing. However, M. Todd defined meat and potatoes as “Dames and comedy.”

  “You heard about Tommy Ambrose?” Mr. Pettibone said when he had a chance to come my way.

  “Ad nauseam,” I replied.

  “They say Binky made the bust.”

  “Who’s they, Mr. Pettibone?”

  “Binky,” he said with a wink. “You look like you could use a martini.”

  “A gin martini,” I ordered, “with a few of those tiny onions.”

  “That’s a gibson, Archy.”

  “What’s in a name, Mr. Pettibone?”

  “A lot if it’s Rockefeller, Du Pont or Astor.”

  You know, he had something there.

  I untied the string and opened the package that had caused so much trouble and a death. A typed cover page said Answered Prayers without benefit of authorship. I began the task of going through the pages, most in type, some handwritten with annotation in the margins, diligently comparing it to the published text.

  When Simon Pettibone brought me the gibson, he asked, “Is that the manuscript, Archy?”

  “It’s a manuscript,” I answered. Happily, he was far too busy to hang around and snoop. I suspect Mr. Pettibone can read upside down.

  A half hour later, I started when an unfamiliar buzz began to emanate from Binky’s cellular. I picked it up, pressed what I hoped was the right button and said hello, never expecting anyone to answer.

  “Bingo!” It was Georgy. “A car just came into the space outside Whitehead’s room and three of them went in. Two of them are wearing pants.”

  “Never judge a book by its cover,” I said, “or a manuscript either, for that matter. Do nothing till I get there, and alert your cohorts to join you.”

  Georgy had given me the address of Whitehead’s motel in West Palm and, should it be necessary, Harrigan’s digs in Juno. I knew where to find Claudia Lester. I drove into the parking lot, which, I must say, was larger and better lit than the Crescent’s. Rodney Whitehead had gone upscale for his stay, perhaps thinking he could now afford to do so.

  Georgy, in uniform, was waiting for me. “They’re all in the room. I called my assists and gave them the room number. I told them to wait outside till they were needed. Is that the manuscript?”

  “It is,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  Georgy had her hand on her holster. “I don’t think that will be necessary,” I told her.

  “The first thing we learn on the force, Archy, is to assume nothing and treat every speeder as a potential assassin.”

  “You sound like your old landlady.”

  “I’ve been standing out here so long, I feel like my old landlady.”

  Florida motels come in all shapes, sizes and colors, mostly pastels. The Lakevue, which did not have a view, or even a vue, of the lake, was a long, narrow rectangle, two stories high with a balcony running across the second story and a wood deck fronting the first-floor row of units. Its stucco facade was painted yellow and its doors, perfectly aligned above and below, were painted a glossy black, each sporting an overhead light.

  Whitehead’s room was on the lower level. The shade was drawn on the unit’s only window. “You wait here,” I told Georgy. “I’ll go in and call you if I need you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if they see a uniform they’ll clam up and demand to call a lawyer. And if it’s a washout, you won’t be involved and your boss can’t say he told you so.”

  She agreed but wasn’t happy with the idea. “I’m tired of waiting for something to happen,” she said.

  “All things come to he who waits,” I preached.

  “Well, make it snappy or I’ll leave you to the wolves.”

  I knocked on the door, which a brass plate told me was number twenty.

  “Who’s that?” I recognized Whitehead’s voice.

  “Archy McNally.”

  There was a hush, followed by a great deal of activity behind the shade. Shadowy figures running in circles, as if tidying up before receiving guests. Could they be flushing the money down the toilet? Never. This crowd had too much respect for America’s legal tender.

  I knocked again, louder, the noise attracting the attention of the Lakevue dwellers in numbers nineteen and twenty-one. I saw someone hanging over the balcony above our heads.

  The door opened a crack and I pushed my way in, shoving Whitehead aside. Claudia Lester was seated, smoking. I addressed the woman standing behind Lester: “Mrs. Vera Fortesque, I presume.”

  “You have no right to break in here like this,” Whitehead said.

  “I didn’t break in,” I answered, “you opened the door.”

  “What is this?” Whitehead shouted, removing his glasses as if they interfered with his ability to grasp the situation. All it did was make him squint.

  “A sting,” I said. “Like the one Matthew Harrigan told me you were going to pull to get an extra fifty out of Fortesque—and almost succeeded.”

  “Harrigan is a liar,” Whitehead ranted.

  “No, Mr. Whitehead,” I said, “Matthew Harrigan is the only one who was telling the truth. The fact that he’s not here proves it. Trouble was, he didn’t know the whole truth. He thought he was part of a trio, not the expendable patsy of a quartet. Which, incidentally, I believed until my associate told me he saw Claudia Lester strolling on the Esplanade with a girlfriend. I didn’t think Ms. Lester had a lady friend in Palm Beach, unless it was one who had joined her here from New York. Correct, Mrs. Fortesque?”

  The two women, one seated, one standing, had said nothing till now. Smart cookies, they knew the value of silence.

  “How did you find us?” Vera Fortesque asked. She was a woman approaching fifty, looked a good ten years younger and must have been a knockout twenty years ago. Dark hair with streaks of gray she smartly didn’t try to conceal, dark eyes, good skin and a full figure that was a welcome relief from the current craze among fashionable women to emulate Olive Oyl. She had discarded her chauffeur’s cap and jacket but was still in black trousers and white shirt.

  Good question, and one the hysterical Rodney Whitehead had not thought to ask, relegating him a drone to the Queen Bee. Not wanting to give away Georgy’s position, I gave Vera the old standby: “I’m not at liberty to reveal my source.”

  “How clever,” she said with a snide glance at Whitehead. “And what are you accusing us of, Mr. McNally?”

  “Extortion, times two,” I stated. “The bills I gave you a few hours ago were marked, and this,” I wielded the manuscript, “is pure poppycock. It may, or may not, have belonged to Truman Capote, but it contains nothing more than the stories that appear in the published text of Answered Prayers. By the way, Mrs. Fortesque, you sure do know your way around Palm Beach.”

  “I used to live here,” she said.

  Of course, could this be Deci’s ex-stewardess who had encumbered him with a jet and took off with the pilot? If so, she hadn’t married the guy. None of Deci’s ex-wives had remarried. That foolish move would cost them their alimony.

  “If it is a fraud,” Claudia Lester spoke up, “I was unaware of the fact. I am an agent, and was given the provenance of the manuscript by a supposed expert before contacting Mr. Fortesque.”

  “Ditto,” Vera Fortesque announced.

  Whitehead almost jumped out of his skin. “Liars. They’re both damn liars. I told them it was just one of Capote’s working drafts and it was her idea to sting Fortesque for a hundred
grand.” Whitehead was pointing at Vera, who, like Claudia, appeared unperturbed by the accusation. Poor Whitehead was as far out of his league as was Matthew Harrigan.

  I hoped Georgy had her ear glued to the door, although she had no interest in who stung Decimus Fortesque. The extortion case would be played out in court, if, in fact, it ever got that far. If Fortesque got his money back, he might not want to bring charges against an ex-wife and a disreputable agent of collectibles who might serve him well in the future. A court case would only prove salacious fodder for the tabloids and expose Deci’s voyeuristic tendencies. In short, it would be all the talk of Deci’s club, and among the Palm Beach elite, the only crime is to get caught.

  Georgy was here on a far more serious matter, and she was giving me space to wrap up my case with the expectation that I do the same for her. Pray I didn’t disappoint.

  From Whitehead’s sometimes disjointed invective I mentally put together the jigsaw puzzle, and the picture it formed was much what I envisioned since suspecting that Vera Fortesque was in town. Whitehead got back from Key West and his visit to Lawrence Swensen. At one of those New York cocktail parties where those who have, those who have not, and those who want, gather, he told Claudia and Vera about his unproductive tip and the manuscript he had rejected.

  Vera was aware of the mystery and conjecture surrounding the Capote book, and of her ex-husband’s penchant for collecting such esoterica. She got Claudia to contact Fortesque and the plot was hatched.

  “She was a third wife,” Whitehead blasted. “It was almost twenty years ago, and alimony doesn’t keep up with inflation.”

  Vera Fortesque nodded her head as if in agreement. Claudia lit another cigarette. Watching someone chainsmoke is the best inducement for quitting.

  When Deci would only go fifty it was, as Harrigan had said, Claudia’s idea to pull the sting, keep the fifty, retrieve the manuscript and hit Deci for another fifty. Vera and Whitehead were delighted. The plan needed two fall guys. One to swear to Fortesque that Lester had made a fair exchange—label him Archy McNally. And one to drug Swensen and get the money back to Lester without implicating the other three in the swindle—label him Matthew Harrigan.

  “What no one expected,” I said, “was a murder.”

  “That crazy Harrigan.” Whitehead was once again off and running. “He lost his head.”

  “Why did you go back to the Crescent that night, Mr. Whitehead?” I asked him.

  Suddenly he had nothing to say. Neither did the two ladies, who had assumed the air of curious but disinterested observers. What a pair!

  “Come on,” I urged. “You just admitted to the sting operation. Harrigan took the money to Claudia and you went to the Crescent to get back the manuscript. Someone had to take it from me. If I had delivered it to Claudia, she might give it to Fortesque, as agreed, and keep the money.”

  Whitehead removed his glasses before mopping his forehead with a handkerchief that was seeing a lot of duty tonight. “Harrigan attacked you in the parking lot and took back the manuscript,” he charged.

  “He did not, sir,” I rebutted. “Harrigan was told I was going to bring Claudia Lester the manuscript and believed I had. You were assigned to get back the manuscript.” Vera Fortesque gave an almost imperceptible nod. She would see Whitehead fry to save her own skin. She might be charged with extortion, and probably get away with it, but not for a murder she had nothing to do with.

  “You were in that parking lot the whole time I was making the exchange with Harrigan,” I continued. “Last night you said you didn’t take the manuscript from my car. Only the person who clobbered me and took it would know I had tossed it in the car before getting in. I am charging you with assault with a deadly weapon and murder, Mr. Whitehead.”

  “This is outrageous,” he cried.

  “You slugged me, took the manuscript from the seat of my car and went back to Swensen’s room. The door was open because Harrigan had not hit the lock switch when he left. You locked the door behind you, strangled Swensen and waited until you heard me try the door and leave before unlocking it and calling the police.”

  “Why would I kill Swensen?” he insisted.

  “Because you were the only one Swensen knew by name and place of employment. The only one he could trace. When he awoke with the manuscript gone and not a cent for his trouble, he wouldn’t have gone to the police. He would have known better. He would have come after you, not these lovely ladies or Harrigan, whom he probably wouldn’t remember.

  “If Swensen was into drugs, those connections would help him get what was coming to him, and them, even if they had to travel to Costa Rica to get it. You would have to sleep with one eye open the rest of your life, while your cohorts never missed a minute of their beauty rest.

  “Also,” I went on, “it was the Fortesque name that had Swensen agree to a private swap. Both you and Harrigan told me that. If Swensen went to Fortesque with his tale of woe, it would have alerted Fortesque and jeopardized the scam and the second fifty thousand. He might have even described the contents of the missing manuscript to Fortesque, and that would have been the kiss of death for all of you. Lawrence Swensen was more of a danger alive than dead, and you went for the better odds.”

  “Prove it,” Whitehead said, eyeing the door.

  “That ain’t my job, sir.”

  Turning nasty, he ordered, “Then get out of my face.” To make sure I did, he pulled a gun from his jacket pocket and aimed it at me. “You see, I prepared myself for a possible visit from Swensen’s goons, and how fortunate. I killed once, Mr. McNally, and I’ll do it again if I must. Beware a desperate man holding a loaded pistol.”

  “Don’t be a fool, Whitehead. How far do you think you can get?”

  “As far as a hundred thousand dollars and the Palm Beach international airport can take me.” Without taking his eyes off me, he ordered the women to remove the briefcase and the attaché case from the closet. “For the record, Mr. McNally, a more urgent need to do away with Swensen was the fact that when I returned to his room he had come out of his stupor. He was an addict, remember, and the few pills Harrigan had given him wouldn’t keep him unconscious for long. That’s how pill addicts die, you know. They keep waking up and popping more to put them back down until they ingest the fatal dosage.

  “Swensen was muddled, but awake. And guess what? He told me that stupid Harrigan, who pretended to be Fortesque’s man, told him that the fifty thousand dollars was on its way. Can you believe it? I should have killed Harrigan. As you said, I was the only one in contact with Swensen, and, looking to make a little extra for my trouble, I had told him that Fortesque was willing to pay ten thousand for it, not fifty. Swensen had no idea what such a thing might be worth, and to him ten thousand was a fortune and fifty was a king’s ransom. He wasn’t very happy, but, lucky for me, he was very groggy.”

  The women, who seemed to have lost their cool at the sight of Whitehead’s gun, stood holding the briefcase and the attaché’ case.

  “Take the money and go,” I said to Whitehead. “Leave me and the women alone.”

  He laughed. “I’m taking the money, and all of you. My car is outside. Vera, as we now know, is a very good driver. She takes the wheel. Claudia, my love, you sit next to our driver, and Mr. McNally and I will head up the rear. We will drive some fifty miles to a desolate area, where you will all get out and we will part company. Sorry I can’t offer you a ride back. The gun will be on Mr. McNally. Any nonsense and he gets it first. Mr. McNally, please remove the cell phone from your coat pocket and leave it on the dresser.”

  “How do you know it’s a cell phone?”

  “If it were a gun, you would have shown it to us long before now.”

  “You won’t get away with this,” Claudia Lester said. “You don’t have the brains.”

  “Do you want to come with me, Claudia dear?”

  She hesitated. For a woman like Claudia Lester, a hundred thousand bucks was hard to part with, especially when
you had half of it in your hand. “No, thanks. Are you taking the manuscript with you?”

  “No,” he said. “You and Vera can fight over it.”

  Vera told him what he could do with the manuscript, which was a physical impossibility.

  “Open the door, Mr. McNally.”

  “With pleasure, Mr. Whitehead.”

  24

  “AND HE WALKED RIGHT into the three waiting cops?” Fortesque said the next day when I reported to him the results of our Counter Sting Operation.

  “He did, sir.”

  “Capital, man. Capital.” He applauded, eyes bulging with delight.

  I also brought him the attaché case containing the first fifty thousand, explaining that the briefcase with the marked bills and the manuscript were in police custody pending his decision to press charges against Vera and Claudia.

  “How naughty of Vera.” He sighed. “She called to apologize, you know. How does she look, man?”

  “Lovely, Mr. Fortesque. She’s put on a few pounds, but on her it looks good.”

  “She always was a bit zaftig, if you know what I mean.

  “Between us, Archy, I’m taking them to dinner at the club tonight.”

  “Them, sir?”

  “Vera and Claudia. They want a chance to explain their transgression while under the influence of the dissolute Rodney Whitehead.”

  I almost laughed in his face. Poor, bug-eyed Deci. He would be like a hunk of clay in their hands, begging to be kneaded and molded to suit their fancy. Either Vera would get an increase in her monthly stipend or Claudia would become the ninth Mrs. Fortesque. But one thing was certain. The ladies from Sutton Place would be forgiven their transgressions.

  “Why don’t you join us,” Fortesque invited.

  “Sorry, but I have a date to watch Hotel Berlin with a woman who is in love with the late actor Helmut Dantine.”

  Fortesque’s eyes bulged. “Dantine? I’ve met him, man. He was married to Charlie Wrightsman’s girl. You remember Charlie, the oil baron. They had a house down here. Maybe still do. Friends of the Kennedys. In fact, the Wrightsmans’ place was called the winter White House when Camelot was in full bloom.