When she began dressing my salad, not with something spooky in a plastic squeeze bottle, but with a mixture of olive oil and red wine vinegar, I almost applauded. A perfectly roasted chicken breast on toasted rye, with mayo, and a fresh salad bowl, no matter how mundane, was the best meal Georgia O’Hara had ever prepared for me—and I told her so.
After our post-Casablanca interlude, Georgy had gotten into a white cotton wrap, belted with two patch pockets, that came just to her knees. Handing over my toast she flashed me a silly grin and said, “Bon appétit.”
With my sandwich, salad and properly chilled wine now in front of me, I wondered if this was domestic bliss. All appetites sated and...and what? Rewind Casablanca and go to bed? I had wished for an Ursi in Georgy’s body and got a chicken breast sandwich and a salad for a response. In my heart of hearts what I wanted was Ursi cooking, Georgy girl in a bubble bath, Connie skinny dipping and Marge Macurdy on the side. Hey, I’m honest, if nothing else.
Could I retract my wish? The gods work in strange ways, and never stranger than when they’re deciding the fate of Archy McNally. I finished my glass of wine and poured another. Georgy cut off the bird’s remaining leg and daintily began to nibble on it, while I topped off her wineglass.
“Now tell me all about Matthew Hayes, Marlena Marvel, the witches, the ghouls and things that go bump in the dark.”
While eating I gave Georgy a recap of my day, including why I took on Hayes and my meeting with Marge Macurdy. Georgy, remember, is an officer of the law, sharp as a tack and, like Al Rogoff, a professional colleague. Also, like Al, she is often privy to information that can help my cause.
“You had drinks with the woman from the TV show at the Four Seasons?”
Women are really something else, as the saying goes. I had just given Georgy my take on a murder that had garnered national headlines, a firsthand account of the characters involved, and the astounding effect it was having up and down our gold coast, and what does she hit on? My cocktail date with Marge. Mon Dieu.
What do women want? Freud lamented. They want to know who you had cocktails with—and why—that’s what they want, Ziggy.
“Yes. I believe I told you that was why I would be late.”
“I didn’t catch her name,” she said.
“I didn’t throw it,” I rejoined. “I said I was going to have drinks with a lovely lady at the Four Seasons. And I did.”
“And she ratted on her husband,” Georgy pounced, waving the drumstick at me.
“Put that thing down and curb your imagination. She didn’t rat on her husband. She’s worried, scared even, and came to me for help because I’m now officially involved with Marlena Marvel’s murder and so, it seems, is her husband. That’s what I do, Georgy, I help people in trouble.”
She finished her drumstick, dabbed at her lips with a napkin and twirled the wine in her glass thoughtfully while I made myself another sandwich. Like other, more esoteric things, one is never enough.
“Let’s take it from the top,” she began. “Hayes’s party, where you all met. Did Macurdy give any indication that he knew Hayes, or had met him before that evening?”
Liberally coating the freshly cut slices of chicken breast with mayo, I responded in the negative by shaking my head.
“But he had hired a chopper to fly over the maze and took along a TV cameraman to record the event for his audience. Why?”
“Because it was the thing to do,” I explained. “Everyone was talking about the construction of the maze thanks to Hayes’s big mouth and inbred penchant for getting his name in lights. Marge does a five-minute spot during the hour entitled ‘What’s New in Palm Beach,’ and the maze got mentioned, naturally. Being a TV show they needed visuals and Mack came up with the idea to photograph it from the air.”
“You call her Marge?” Georgy questioned.
“What should I call her, Nelly?”
“What about Mrs. Macurdy,” Georgy offered.
“We got on a first-name basis the night of the party. Didn’t I tell you we were paired off to search for the goal? I was Adam and she was Eve.”
“Quaint, I’m sure. Did you wear fig leaves?”
“Come off it, Georgy. I’m not amused.” (Possibly because I was feeling a smidgen of guilt.)
“Okay. Okay. Just having my little joke,” she said. “And this Macurdy found the goal, or made the goal, as they say?”
“He did. But don’t think he learned the key to the grid from that helicopter ride. They reran the tape the morning after the murder, when Joe made his TV debut. You can’t see much from that distance, and certainly not the passages that lead to the goal. The speed of the copter is also a factor. It passed over the maze so quickly one would be hard-pressed to memorize the layout.”
“But he saw something,” Georgy persisted. “Something that has him milking Matthew Hayes. You said the mystery begins with Macurdy making the goal. I don’t think so, Archy. I think it begins with that helicopter ride.”
“I got the names of the two helicopter outfits the network uses when in need. I intend to question the pilot who flew Mack over the maze. He might be able to tell us something.”
“Just what I would do,” Georgy agreed. “And see the cameraman. Remember, there were three of them, including the pilot, in that chopper.”
That was a good point. I had forgotten all about the cameraman. “Even if we do learn Mack’s secret, it won’t help solve the mystery of how Marlena got from the house to the maze, or who put the digitalis in her tea water.” I accentuated the negative.
Georgy poured out more wine for us which finished the bottle. Just as well, it was getting on to midnight and there was much to do in the morning. “Which brings us to Tilly the Toiler and the merry widow, Mrs. Taylor,” she pondered. “What about the widow’s paramour? Does he figure in this?”
“His name is Billy Gilbert...”
“Billy Gilbert,” Georgy shrieked. “You remember him, Archy. He was the big, fat character actor who was always being harassed by Laurel and Hardy or the Marx Brothers.”
“This Billy Gilbert is young, slim and handsome, and he doesn’t figure into anything that I know of. Laddy Taylor thinks Carolyn was seeing Billy before her husband died and as a result hastened the senior Mr. Taylor’s death with digitalis, and...”
Georgy held up her hand, a gesture learned in state trooper school and used for stopping vehicles. It certainly stopped me. “Easy. You’re getting ahead of the story. Indulge me, and let’s take it in sequential order. We may come up with an inconsistency.”
“Be my guest.” I pulled a pack of English Ovals from the pocket of my robe and lit up. My first of the day which would end in five minutes. Were it not for this brainstorming session, I would have had my first tobacco-free day. I had made a pact with myself stating that after my first day without a cigarette, I would give them up forever. Had something deep within my unconscious made me have one before the stroke of midnight? I’m sure it did.
As I succumbed to my waning addiction, Georgy ran through the events I had gone over mentally a dozen times since they transpired.
Marlena appears in the guise of the famous statue of Venus, sans arms.
Tilly comes downstairs to tell Hayes that Marlena will rest and join us after the search for the goal.
The guests enter the goal, two by two, and Mack Macurdy makes the goal.
We return to the house and Tilly sounds the alarm. Marlena has disappeared.
We later learn that Tilly had drawn a bath for Marlena after the showing and brewed her a cup of tea. She then left her mistress resting on the chaise lounge and went to her own room. When she returned, Marlena was not there.
The search, the arrival of the police and, finally, finding Marlena Marvel in the goal of the maze, dead.
“And I saw it all,” I reminded Georgy.
“Or what you thought you saw,” she said. “Something you saw was not what you thought it was and I think that something was Marlena Marvel h
erself.”
“I went over that,” I sighed. “If it was an impersonator, where did she disappear to? And forget Tilly. She’s barely two inches taller than Hayes, and Marlena towered over him. If Marlena was already in the goal, why didn’t we all see her? It always comes down to the fact that a human body left the second floor of that house and turned up in the maze which was teeming with people. Finis.” I stubbed out my English Oval a few seconds before the birth of a new day.
“Now this Tilly says she saw Carolyn Taylor on the second floor of the house just before Marlena went on and that the water for Marlena’s tea was in the pot, ready to boil,” Georgy stated.
“That’s what Tilly claims,” I said. “She also claims Marlena and Carolyn Taylor had met in secret several times before the death of Linton Taylor. So Laddy, who has been left out of his father’s will in favor of Carolyn, is claiming that Marlena, who was some sort of quack healer—read: abortionist—told Carolyn how to get rid of Linton with his own medication, and then Carolyn thanked Marlena by giving her a dose of the same stuff.”
“And this Tilly, who fingers Carolyn, is smitten with Laddy Taylor who wants Carolyn fingered,” Georgy said. “Add the fact that this Hayes guy, who sounds like a control freak, claims to know nothing, and I would say either everyone is lying, or no one is telling the truth.”
She wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know. This conversation had cost me an English Oval and an hour’s sleep. However, it did add the cameraman to the list of people I had to see, and laying out the facts as we did put Georgy in the loop. They say two heads are better than one, whoever they are.
“There’s something else,” I said, stifling a yawn. “Lolly Spindrift told me that Carolyn Taylor and Alex Gomez y Zapata have been seen together on more than one occasion at a marina in Miami.”
“Doing what?”
“That’s what I’d like to know. I asked Connie and she gave me the brush-off.”
“Maybe Connie doesn’t know,” Georgy speculated.
“Ha!” I laughed. “Connie knows the last time Alex changed his socks. Believe me, I’ve been there.”
“But does it have anything to do with the murder and Mack Macurdy?”
I shrugged. “Who knows? Carolyn is the common denominator in both cases. I have much to ask the lady when I see her, which I hope will be tomorrow.”
“Suppose she refuses to tell you anything, or even refuses to see you?” It was Georgy’s turn to accentuate the negative.
“It’s one of the hazards of the trade, Georgy girl, now let’s go to bed.”
“First tell me about Joey and that dreadful girl.”
“Let’s go to bed.”
“Tell me what I want to know or you sleep on the couch.”
I groaned. “She’s not a dreadful girl. She’s a member in good standing of Palm Beach’s Smart Set and, as such, above reproach. So there.”
“How did they meet?”
“Who knows?” I said. “He’s a roving reporter, so maybe he roved into her one day. And what’s it to you?”
“Nothing, but I worry about him. He’s a boy at heart and can’t take care of himself,” she whimpered.
Recalling Binky’s description of Joey’s night with Fitz, I would say the boy was doing exceptionally well on his own. “He’s an overnight TV star, Georgy, with a growing fan club. Get used to it.”
“All that dark forces nonsense and showing off that asinine plant. Do you know where he got the plant, Archy?”
“Binky says it came from a nursery in Boca that deals in rare plants.”
“Rare plants, is it?” Georgy cried. “Well, the guy’s most profitable crop is a rare plant called cannabis. The police have been on to him for years but he’s cagey. It’s a wonder Joe didn’t go before the camera holding an armful of marijuana. You see what I mean? And now he teams up with Binky Watrous. What next?”
What next? Binky gets a job delivering “rare plants” for the nursery in Boca. I was going meshugah over what Georgy had just told me. And I had better warn Joe before the vice squad joined his witch hunt.
“Binky is okay,” I said in defense of my friend. “A little spacy, but loyal, I’ll say that for him.”
“Spacy? He can’t walk and chew gum at the same time.”
“That’s cruel, Georgy, and unworthy of you. It’s Joe you’re down on and you’re using poor Binky to get at Joe.”
“I’m not down on Joe. I just don’t want to see him get hurt. Right now he’s enjoying his fifteen minutes, but that’s all it’ll last, fifteen minutes. Then what? And that girl will break his heart.”
I couldn’t think of a better way to break a heart than by tripping over Fitz. Georgy, of course, was being unreasonable, and I think it was Joe’s success that had her nettled, the same way Connie’s success with Alex had me perturbed. You see, when you break up with someone the first thing you do is wish them well. Then, if they do well, you shout foul.
“Lighten up, Georgy, and let Joe Gallo go,” I counseled.
She got up, came around the table, put her arms around my neck and kissed the top of my head. “I let him go the day we met, and maybe I’m a little jealous of his sudden success. When he was with me he was a caddie, for Pete’s sake.”
“And you were a rookie, and now you’re a lieutenant. I’m a little jealous of your jealousy of Joe Gallo.”
“Don’t be. Don’t ever be, Archy. Your Georgy girl loves you.”
“Good. Now let’s go to bed.”
“I thought you would never ask.”
It began to rain just as we got into bed. The pitter-patter on the roof above us as we snuggled together was paregoric as well as seductive. A time for whispering sweet nothings into a pretty ear. No sweet nothings came to mind so I did the next best thing.
“Would you like to go to New York for a long weekend?”
“New York? Oh, Archy, I would love it. When? Why?”
“You remember Todd Brandt, whose real name is Ed Brandt and who now goes under the name of Rick Brandt? He was a waiter at the Pelican.” “Sure, I do,” Georgy said. “The actor. We saw him at the playhouse in Lake Worth.”
“Well, he’s got himself a part in an off-Broadway show and he sent me two ducats to the opening. We can book into the Yale Club and play tourist.”
She was all over me, laughing and threatening to quit the force if they didn’t allow her time off. “But I have time coming,” she said. “When, Archy? When?”
“First Saturday in November, I believe.”
“Just a few weeks off,” she lamented. “Will you be finished with the case?”
“Or the case will have finished me, but either way we’re going to New York that weekend.”
She giggled, kissed me and cuddled closer. “What should I wear?” was the sweet nothing she whispered in my ear before she withdrew, sat up and jumped out of the bed.
“Where are you going?”
“I forgot to rewind Casablanca,” she called out in the dark.
I pulled the covers over my head and shuddered.
14
FLAMINGO RUN CAN BE found in the fifteen hundred block of Ocean Boulevard. A prime location in a hamlet of prime locations, the area is the jewel in the crown. A few doors down, a dot com billionaire is in the process of erecting a palace which is rumored to be costing him ninety million dollars. The landscaping includes trees of not less than one hundred feet in height, giving the appearance of antiquity so sought after by the nouveau riche which fools no one but the nouveau inhabitants of the mansion. Strange how a society that worships youth dotes on things antique, from furniture to autos to pedigree. Will he call his new, trying to pass for old, mansion Xanadu? One hopes not.
Did I mention that he is tunneling under the Boulevard and building a beach house not a hundred yards, as the mole crawls, from the villa? The line between sumptuous and coarse has been breached often in this town but never with such a blatant disregard for propriety, which means Mr. and Mrs. Dot Com
will be lionized socially unless they do something crass, like lose their money.
Flamingo Run, a white stucco villa with a twenty-foot-high center hall and north and south wings, is not hidden by tall trees but fronted by a well-kept lawn and is therefore in full view of those traversing the Boulevard, should they choose to look. The housekeeper answered my ring and I asked if Mrs. Taylor was at home and receiving.
“She’s here.” The woman, wearing the housekeeper’s trademark white uniform and gum-soled white bucks that often had me wondering if these domestics divided their time between housekeeping and nursing, eyed me suspiciously. She took in my summer flannels, fuchsia Lacoste, penny loafers and straw boater with its band of matching fuchsia silk shantung before espying my red Miata in the driveway, and immediately came to the wrong conclusion. “You want Mr. Gilbert?”
“No. I would like to see Mrs. Taylor.” I gave her my card. “This is a social call. I’m not selling encyclopedias nor the path to salvation.”
She looked at my card, opened the door wider and gestured for me to enter. “I’ll give Miz Taylor your card. Please wait here.”
I stood, hat in hand, in the entrance hall whose vaulted ceiling was painted sky blue behind billowing white clouds with pink linings. I looked about for a font to bless myself but saw none. There were two settees of museum quality flanking the rather austere hall. The parquet floor, which could be seen on either side of the long narrow oriental rug that ran the length of the hall, was polished to a glossy shine.
The housekeeper returned. “Follow me, please.”
I tossed my hat on one of the settees and did as I was told. I was led to the rear terrace where the lady of the house was at table. Carolyn Taylor was in athletic attire: white sweats and sneakers. Her short auburn hair was crowned with a white sailor’s hat, the brim turned down roguishly. In short, a typical PB matron taking her elevenses after her morning jog on the beach. Needless to say Mrs. Taylor could pose for a poster proclaiming the benefits of jogging and the good life in sunny Florida. She’s slim, tan and lovely to look at.
“Mr. McNally. I’ve been expecting you,” she called as I approached.
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