“Neither do I, sir.”
“Are you going to take the case?”
“Hayes thinks he’s hired me, but I don’t know if I want to get involved with him and his traveling carnival. Also, these are early days, very early days. We don’t know how Marlena Marvel died and we don’t know the intimate circumstances of the Hayes household, both of which the police, I’m sure, are now working to learn. I do know that Hayes is a bully and a boor whom I would be more inclined to suspect than work for. When the police complete their investigation he might need a lawyer more than a private investigator.”
“Don’t give him my card,” father cautioned.
Before leaving I said, “Did I mention that both Laddy Taylor and Carolyn Taylor were at the party?”
That piqued his interest even more than the murder. “Really?”
“Lieutenant Eberhart told me that Laddy has been pestering the police to investigate his father’s death.”
“And what was their response?”
“That Linton Taylor has had a serious heart condition for years and died of a severe angina attack. His doctor found nothing unusual in his death.”
“Just what I told him,” father said. “I made it perfectly clear that there were no grounds to contest his father’s will, especially since he and his father had been estranged for many years.”
I described the scene I had witnessed between Laddy and Carolyn at the end of the evening.
“If he continues to harass her, she may have cause to petition the police to keep him from approaching her,” father said.
“I hope it doesn’t get nasty.”
“It already is, Archy. Hell hath no fury like a disenfranchised heir.”
On that ominous note I took my leave only to be stopped by Mrs. Trelawney on the way to the elevator. “This expense report you dropped on my desk,” she began, removing her pince-nez and waving the said report in the air.
“What about it, Mrs. Trelawney?”
“The item entitled dinner at Acquario.”
“Do you have a problem with it, Mrs. Trelawney?”
“How many people did you feed?”
“We were two.”
“Then I have a problem with it and will authorize payment of one half the amount presented, which could feed a family of ten for a year.”
“And I will let it be known that you drink in private and have a passion for South American soccer players.”
“You’re incorrigible, Archy McNally.”
“Only when provoked. Also, it may interest you to know the expense was incurred yesterday in pursuit of information regarding Matthew Hayes who is today’s headline from coast to coast.”
“Are you saying you anticipated that woman’s demise?”
“I am saying, Mrs. Trelawney, that I am worth every cent of that expense report, and then some.”
“I heard you were there last night. Your name was mentioned on Breakfast with Mack and Marge. They were there, too, and the reporter Joe Gallo who was their guest this morning. The three of them talked of nothing else but the party and the maze and the discovery of the body. The show is going to be repeated this evening by popular demand.”
It didn’t surprise me that Mrs. Trelawney was a fan of Breakfast with Mack and Marge. A woman of her ilk was just the charismatic Mack Macurdy’s cup of tea. “You watch the show regularly, Mrs. Trelawney?”
“I never miss it,” she cooed and almost blushed.
“I’ll try to catch the repeat,” I said.
“You can catch it sooner if you go to the mailroom,” she called after me.
I paused and turned. “Pray elucidate, madame.”
“Binky taped the show and is running it off in the mail-room on his VCR. Half the office has been down there when they should be working.”
“I don’t get it. How did Binky know this morning’s show was going to be a blockbuster?”
“Joe Gallo told him, I guess.”
“Binky is matey with Joe Gallo?” I exclaimed. “Since when?”
We do not have an electronic security system in the McNally Building but something far more reliable. We are sandwiched between Herb, our security person in the basement garage, who checks our comings and goings, and Mrs. Trelawney on the top floor who monitors our movements when in residence. They work in tandem like the jaws of a vise. Herb is a retired police officer and Mrs. Trelawney claims to be a graduate of a prestigious business academy. I believe she attended the FBI school for spies with a master’s from the KGB. However, there are times, like now, when her information is most interesting.
“I assume, since they’re neighbors,” she explained.
My knees turned to water as they used to say in pulp fiction, a genre sadly missed by discriminating readers.
“Gallo rented the trailer next to Binky’s at the Palm Court. Didn’t you know that?”
No, I did not know that, but I do know that Sergeant Al Rogoff calls the Palm Court home. Rub-a-dub-dub, three men in a tub—and give unto me a break!
6
I STUCK MY HEAD into the mailroom and caught a show in progress. By this time all the big boys and girls had had their viewing so Binky’s audience now consisted of secretaries on their lunch break. Binky had tried to date most of them but I fear his appeal is more to the mother instinct in ladies of Mrs. Trelawney’s generation than to the raging hormones of lassies looking for a mate. A sage once wrote that for every man there’s a woman but given Binky’s record this may prove to be presumptuous, to say the least.
Binky’s blond hair is desperately in need of “body,” and Binky’s pink-and-white body is desperately in need of hair. His brown eyes are woeful, even when he laughs. But perhaps I am being too harsh on one of my best friends. After years of job hunting that was no more successful than his quest for romance, I secured Binky Watrous a position as mail person for McNally & Son where he seems to have found a home. Translation: Mrs. Trelawney adores him.
On Binky’s minuscule TV screen the dynamic trio of the moment were reporting, with gusto, the events leading to the discovery of Marlena Marvel’s body in the goal of the maze. I must say it was riveting reportage by two pros and a rising star. Joe Gallo’s small-screen debut was more than promising and while he wasn’t as yet the suave anchorman with trendy tonsure and Savile Row suit, he was the boy-next-door with a bright future. The boy sported jeans and a tee, explaining, “I rushed right over and didn’t bother dressing.”
Didn’t bother? Joey’s garb was as calculated as his ambition. The comment got a glare from Mack and a smile from Marge. Poor Mack suddenly looked stodgy in his blazer and summer flannels. Marge, in a white pantsuit with a rainbow ascot at the throat, was the epitome of Palm Beach chic. I knew she was made up for the show (the endearing freckles were not visible) but the makeup artist, no doubt taken by her wholesome good looks, kept the war paint to a minimum and let her smile say it all.
Naturally they ran the footage of Mack’s helicopter ride over the maze and, as I had recalled, it was not possible to distinguish the passages that led to the goal, but I did catch a fleeting glimpse of the sundial. I now knew it to be in the goal itself, but one would not know that from Mack’s film. Also, the show’s director ran a tape of Joe’s reportage from inside Le Maze, more to Mack’s annoyance and Marge’s amusement. Was it all part of their act or were hubby and wife more competitors than helpmates?
Marge kept the hour from being totally maudlin by telling her audience about the fairway side shows and the clever way Hayes had contrived to pair off his guests for their search for the goal, and she gave the ladies (and perhaps the gentlemen) a titillating description of Carolyn’s miniskirt and bare midriff.
“The beautiful Elizabeth Fitzwilliams wore a skirt that showed off her lovely legs, topped by her father’s dress shirt, tails out, that showed off the rest of Fitz, as she is known locally. And Fitz was our own Joe Gallo’s date.”
Cut to a big fat close-up of Joey’s boyish mug, grinning sheepishly. Oh
dear, Georgy girl was going to blow a gasket over this telecast.
My name was mentioned as being present and as having been asked by Matthew Hayes to help find his wife when the maid reported her missing. So much for my desire to keep a low profile in this town.
Mack concluded the show with, “We saw Marlena Marvel in her fascinating portrayal of Venus de Milo only a few short hours before we saw her body being carried from her husband’s celebrated maze. How did she die, almost before our very eyes, and how was she transported from her luxurious bedroom, through the dizzying passages of that labyrinth and to its hidden center without being seen by the dozens of guests she and her husband were so lavishly entertaining? These are the questions the police, the nation and you, our loyal viewers, must be asking themselves this morning.
“Marlena Marvel was a woman of a thousand faces, a seer and a healer. What dark forces, beyond our ken, did she summon to assist in her calling and, like Mephistopheles, did she finally have to pay the piper? We hope to have Matthew Hayes himself as our guest in the very near future, as well as Lieutenant Oscar Eberhart of the Palm
Beach police who is in charge of the case, and even Archy McNally, who may well be conducting his own investigation of Marlena Marvel’s untimely demise. This show will be repeated at six this evening. Enjoy your day in enchanting Palm Beach.”
Not a bad close if you like a cliffhanger, but I didn’t appreciate his suggestion that Eberhart and I were in competition to solve the mystery of Marlena’s strange death. Also, I hope Mack remembers to send his guest wish list to Santa.
When the show was over the girls turned to leave, chatting not about dark forces but about the cute reporter, then spotted me in the doorway. They smiled politely. After all, I am the CEO’s favorite son. “You were there, Mr. McNally,” one of them said in passing.
“What name did you pick?” another asked.
“Adam,” I said.
“And who was Eve?”
“Marge Macurdy.”
For some reason this got a laugh.
Binky was rewinding, no doubt in preparation for the afternoon showing. “Is this a postal holiday, Mr. Watrous?” I demanded.
“With the kind of mail you get, Archy, what difference would it make?”
And what is this? Sassing his betters? “Mrs. Trelawney knows what you’re doing here, Binky. Beware the wrath of the Dragon Lady.”
“Of course, she knows,” he told me. “Mrs. Trelawney and your father were down here for the first show. We need an auditorium that can accommodate the entire staff. That’s what I told your father.”
My knees yet again turned to water having hardly solidified from the last jolt. “My father is a kind and patient man, Binky, but beware the length of the unemployment line.”
Binky pushed some buttons and ejected the cassette. I hate people who are efficient at this sort of thing. I have recently converted from vinyl to tape in an effort to “get with it” as Georgy girl insists I should do. I reminded her of what Shakespeare accomplished with a quill pen but she didn’t buy it.
“Joe told me Hayes hired you last night.” Binky spoke as he rummaged through the letters, postcards and manila envelopes on his work station. “You and Joe Gallo are neighbors, I hear.”
“Jealous, Archy?”
What cheek! “And why would I be jealous?”
“Maybe you wanted that trailer. The Palm Court is hot right now in case you haven’t heard.”
“Moi? Moi?” I exploded. “Moi rent a trailer in the Palm Court? Why would I trade a home on the Boulevard with an ocean view for a glorified railroad car mounted on concrete blocks?”
“You’re a snob, Archy.”
I had been called incorrigible and a snob and the day was only half over. Who knows what other honors would be bestowed upon my person before the sun set? Binky continued to move the mail around his work station as if in search of two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that meshed. Also, he was avoiding eye contact when talking and he had not, as yet, begged to assist me should I tackle the Marlena Marvel case. Add to this his surly responses to my civilized queries and I suspect a subtext to this tiresome meeting.
“How did Joe hear about the vacant trailer in the suddenly highly desired Palm Court?”
“It’s a long story,” he said to an envelope with a foreign stamp.
“I have all day,” I encouraged.
“Joe was having a drink with Connie at the Pelican...” Binky began.
I should have known. Women and the Pelican, a lethal combination. The Pelican is a social club founded by a group of gentlemen, myself included, who find the more traditional Everglades and Bath and Tennis a tad too supercilious for our taste. The fact that neither of the aforementioned clubs would court our membership was not relevant to our decision to form a more perfect union. And perfect it was until some blockheads suggested we allow women to join our fraternity.
I opposed the movement on the grounds that when dating Connie and others, I could take and others to the Pelican without fear of running into Connie brandishing a stiletto. I fought a long, tough campaign for keeping women out of the Pelican, except when escorted by a member—and lost. Good Queen Victoria said the women’s suffrage movement sounded the death knell of civilization; however, Her Majesty didn’t know it would one day get Joe Gallo digs in the Palm Court.
So Connie became a Pelican and I could no longer take the and others to my club for a meal. Now I take Georgy to the club and Connie takes Alex to the club when he’s in town, which is very often. It was inevitable that we four should one day collide. Introductions were made and Connie and Georgy took an instant dislike to each other and became good friends as women who dislike each other often do. Georgy invited Joe Gallo to join us one evening when Connie and Alex were also there and lo! we are now one big unhappy, extended family.
For those who are keeping score, let me remind you that I am an ex of Connie Garcia’s, Joe is an ex of Georgy girl’s, leaving Alejandro Gomez y Zapata the only virgin (in the broadest sense of the word) among us. Does it bother me that I am the oldest of this male trio, threatened by a Latino hunk and a Norman Rockwell poster boy? Yes, it does. In fact, if I could evoke Marlena Marvel’s dark forces to transport the pair to Oz, I would do so without a moment’s hesitation.
So Connie and Joe are at the bar of the Pelican when in walks Binky (whose membership I sponsored), and when Joe mentions that he is a man in search of a residence, Binky tells him about the vacant trailer at the hot Palm Court.
“I assume it’s the trailer twixt you and Al Rogoff,” I said.
“That’s the one.” Binky addressed a letter in a priority mail envelope. I wondered how long it had been sitting in the mail room.
“What does Al think of his new neighbor?”
“You know Al. He doesn’t say much,” Binky told the priority mail.
Al thinks Binky insipid and after last night he will declare Joe Gallo verbose, a word I added to Al’s lexicon to replace yenta.
And what was Connie doing at the club with Joe? My guess is she was scouting him out as fodder for her boss lady’s insatiable appetite for male pulchritude while pretending to enlighten him on the newsworthiness of Lady C’s latest chanty. Connie’s job description now includes dangling goodies before her boss in order to keep her eyes off Alejandro Gomez y Zapata. And Lady C has enough dinero to buy back Cuba, which makes Connie one nervous senorita—and Archy one happy guy.
From experience I knew the only way to get Binky to tell me what was on his mind was to pretend I didn’t want to know. “Well, Binky my boy, a blessing on all three of your households. Now I must be off, as duty calls.”
With that he swung around and faced me. “You’re going to take the Marlena Marvel case, Archy?”
“I think I’ll wait to learn how she died. There’s a possibility that there may not be a case here at all.”
“If you do take it,” he said, “I might not be at liberty to assist you.”
All things consider
ed, that might be the best piece of news I had all day, however it was also the most curious. “Are you leaving our employ, Binky?”
“Actually, I’m moonlighting as a stringer for Joe Gallo,” he finally confided.
A stringer in the news business is many things. Among them: assistant, gofer, snitch, wannabe and ambulance chaser. Yesterday, Joe Gallo was practically a stringer himself, but since breaking the Marlena Marvel story we have a Lowell Thomas in our midst. Setting priorities, I cautioned, “I hope you remember that anything you see or hear in your position with McNally and Son is considered confidential and must never leave the confines of this building.”
“I know that, Archy,” Binky protested.
“Just make sure you don’t forget it,” I lectured. “I take it Joe Gallo wants to further his career by solving the Marlena Marvel case. Yes?”
“He was in on it from the start,” Binky reminded me.
“So were dozens of others,” I reminded him. “If I get involved in this brouhaha, and it’s a big if, may I know why you would rather string for a novice like Joe Gallo than a pro, which I am?”
“It’s a matter of compensation, Archy. Joe is talking ready cash for services rendered.”
“And, like someone else I could mention, thirty pieces of silver bought your loyalty. Shame on you, Binky Watrous.”
“I knew you would have an attitude over this,” he countered.
“Attitude? Not at all. I wish you well in your new career path, Binky, but I also wish that you and Joe would keep your noses out of the Marvel case and leave it to the police. It’s their job as it’s Joe’s job to report the news, not make it.”
“Joe has some very original ideas about what happened,” Binky said with an enthusiasm for his new leader once reserved for me. Such is the power of ready cash, a commodity I lack.
“And may I know what Joe Gallo thinks of all this, Binky, or are you sworn to secrecy?”
“He’s going public on the ten o’clock news tonight,” Binky proudly announced, “so it won’t be secret for long.” Here Binky took a deep breath, squared his rather bony shoulders and exhaled the word, “Levitation.”
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