McNally's Dilemma (2 page)

Sable hair, dark eyes, and a little black dress. If the hair and eyes were the ones she wore last night, so, I assumed, was the dress. I could see what Vance meant by “more meat on the bone.” Ginny was more Elizabeth Taylor than Audrey Hepburn, but I’m not complaining.

I wore a three-button blue suit and rep tie,
à la
Vance, and Allen-Edmond cordovan kilties. Except for the kilties the look was very un-Archy, but business is business.

Commandeering the stool next to Ginny, I opened with, “Givenchy?”

The lady was quick on the uptake. “How kind,” she cooed. “But no. It’s from a shop in South Beach. They call it a knockoff.”

“A knockoff for a knockout,” I retorted, wishing I had a waxed mustache to stroke. “May I buy you a drink?”

Ginny giggled. “I have always depended upon the kindness of strangers.”

For this, Vivien Leigh and Tennessee Williams should have risen from their graves and strangled her.

One word led to another, one drink led to another, and Ginny’s hand led to my thigh, a territory she seemed to know rather well. All of this led to her motel room, where she plied me with cheap gin and suggestive gestures. When her cavorting failed to arouse her supposed mark, Ginny grew a bit frantic and announced that she was going to adjourn to the bathroom and “slip into something comfortable.”

This was my cue to ring down the curtain on this farce. “Forget it, my dear,” I told Ginny, “your Richard Avedon ain’t showing up tonight.”

That got her attention. “What are you talking about?”

“Snap, snap, pop, pop, five grand, and Bob’s your uncle.”

“Are you a cop?”

“No, but as we speak, your partner is handing over his photographic endeavors to one of Palm Beach’s finest.”

The sudden realization that she had been set up caused her to lose her cool and she shouted, “You skunk. You...”

I held her wrists in a firm grip to keep her ruby-tinted claws from gouging out my eyes. “The fix was in all the while,” she ranted. “What do you want from me?”

“Your cooperation.”

To a woman in Ginny’s profession, my retort had but one meaning. Her little hands stopped fighting my grip and she was once again ready to slip into something comfortable. “I wouldn’t let him take your picture, Archy,” she purred.

“Why not?”

“You know why not.” She actually blushed as she spoke. Mata Hari, meet your master. “I like you, Archy.”

Al Rogoff was not going to arrest her friend, for it would serve no purpose. Vance would have to press charges, and he might as well have the pair show the photos to Penny as do that. Al was going to put the fear of God in the guy and tell him and the lovely Ginny to get out of town.

But Ginny didn’t know this, so when I said, “And I like you, Ginny. That’s why I’m going to walk out of here and forget we ever met, if you hand over the negatives of last night’s ‘shoot’—and while you’re at it, any other negatives you might be hoping to turn into ready cash.”

Knowing a good deal when she heard one, Ginny complied while continuing to make suggestive gestures in hopes of a last minute reprieve. “Can I keep the ones from Disney World?” she asked.

“Absolutely not,” I scolded.

I left with my cache, wondering if I had saved Mickey a lot of grief.

Father was in his den. I knocked.

“Come,” he called.

He was sitting in the swivel chair behind his enormous desk, reading Dickens. “Yes, Archy?”

“The Tremaine case is closed, sir.”

“Very good, Archy.”

“Would you like to hear about it, sir?”

“No, Archy. Would you like a glass of port?”

“I think I would, sir.”

And that, as they say, was that.

T
HE FOLLOWING DAY I
was back at the Pelican, lunching with my fiancée, Consuela Garcia, to whom I am true in my fashion. Connie is social secretary to Lady Cynthia Horowitz, a labor that keeps Connie on the telephone longer than Barbara Stanwyck in
Sorry, Wrong Number.
Connie is a handsome woman of indeterminate age—“Don’t ask, don’t tell” is a policy Connie and I embrace wholeheartedly. She is also a woman of great patience which I put to the test more often than may be prudent.

While waiting for Priscilla to deliver our turkey clubs, we sipped Molson ale and munched the garlic pickle spears. Connie wore a beige Donna Karan pants suit and black shoes with those thick, chunky heels that do nothing for me but are all the rage. I wore my belted-back chinos, left over from my days at Yale; a pale yellow and white striped shirt with a navy silk ascot; a powder blue linen jacket; and, unlike Connie’s chunky heels, my blue canvas tennis shoes were more for comfort than show. I do not take my position as the Beau Brummel of the Pelican Club lightly.

Spearing a spear, Connie ventured, “I hear you lunched with Vance Tremaine yesterday.”

“Is nothing sacred?” I ventured back.

“Sacred? In this joint? You must be kidding.”

To defame my club is to defame me. And it’s also her club. Yes, we opened our doors to women some time back, and I now wondered at the generosity of this rash egalitarian gesture. The Pelican was founded by a group of like-minded gentlemen who find the traditional clubs stuffy and, in numerous cases, unobtainable.

We are also a charitable group whose jazz combo (I play the kazoo) performs relentlessly, one might say, for those less fortunate. Our last gig was at the Senior Citizens’ Center in Delray Beach. We opened with a bouncy rendition of “Enjoy Yourself, It’s Later Than You Think,” and closed with a rousing “Nearer My God to Thee.” In retrospect, perhaps poor choices, but we received a standing ovation from those seniors who could stand. The Center’s hostess, Ms. Magdalena Fallsdack, assured us that most of our audience was stone-deaf, adding, “God protects the elderly.”

“You’ve been talking to Priscilla,” I said, just as Priscilla arrived with our turkey clubs and a single order of
pommes frites.

“I don’t talk to anyone around this place who isn’t ordering food,” Priscilla announced, then left us to ponder the statement.

“No,” Connie said, spooning mayo out of a plastic tub that, I’m sure, once held margarine. “Lolly called to check some facts for his piece on Lady Cynthia’s cocktail reception and mentioned the Tremaine connection.”

I find it almost impossible to eat a club sandwich in the manner a sandwich should be eaten without doing serious damage to my jaw. Therefore, I discard the top piece of toast, remove the lettuce and tomato beneath it, and I am left with a perfectly manageable turkey and bacon sandwich with a side helping of lettuce and tomato. Archy, Gourmand Engineer.

“It was a business lunch,” I informed Connie.

“Discreet Inquiries?”

“Discreet, my dear, is the operative word.”

“You confide, Archy, only when you need my help.”

This is true. Lady Cynthia Horowitz is a leader of Palm Beach Society (note the capital S), and as the clients of McNally & Son and Discreet Inquiries are from that same social strata, their comings and goings and doings are of the utmost interest to me. Connie, in her capacity as Lady Cynthia’s secretary, is privy to much that matters on Palm Beach Island. What matters is Love, Hate, Envy, Sex, Bank Balances, Genealogies, and whose Versace is genuine and whose ain’t.

The only people more privy to this crowd than Connie are, of course, those who “do” for them. Our housekeeper and houseman, Ursi and Jamie Olson, along with their brethren up and down Ocean Boulevard, have a communications network that would give NASA pause.

I have shamelessly used Connie in my endeavors, and never more so when I was called upon to investigate the theft of Lady C.’s stamp collection, one that was insured for half a mil and worth zilch. But if you’ve been paying attention you know that story.

“I like to think of us as a business couple,” I told Connie, forking a
pomme frite
from a plate we were supposed to be sharing, but the hand (Connie’s) is quicker than the eye (mine).

“Was the black dress at Bar Anticipation also business?”

I tried to raise one eyebrow, a gesture
mon père
has mastered, and failed. I knew Lolly Spindrift didn’t tattle that one because Bar Anticipation is not a place Lolly would enter if chased by wild dogs. This begged the obvious question. “Who, among Lady C.’s crowd, frequents Bar Anticipation?”

“Discreet, my dear, is the operative word.”

Touché.

Hoping to divert Connie’s attention from the black dress to matters more pressing, I asked her what info Lolly was seeking regarding Lady C.’s cocktail reception. Lolly, I always assumed, knew everything, and what he didn’t know he simply made up based on evidence as solid as quicksand.

“Actually, he wanted a young man’s name.”

“That figures. Who was the guy?”

Connie shook her dark hair. “I have no idea. So many people bring a date or houseguests to these charity receptions I’m not always aware of who’s who, and neither is Lady C., but she couldn’t care less as long as no one smokes anyplace on the property.”

“Was the lad with Phil Meecham?” I asked. Meecham, owner of the
Sans Souci,
a yacht that gives new meaning to the term “pleasure craft,” is a buddy of Lolly Spindrift when they aren’t simultaneously mad about the same boy and at each other.

“You mean, was he one of Phil’s boys? I don’t believe so. In fact the few times I was able to survey the crowd I think the young man was talking to Veronica Manning.”

I tried again, and failed again, to raise one eyebrow. Why do I persist? “Are Melva and Geoff down for the season?” Melva and Geoff are Veronica’s mother and stepfather.

“I guess so. I know Veronica was there but I don’t remember seeing her parents and I’m sure they weren’t on our guest list, so I imagine someone brought Veronica.”

Veronica’s mother is Melva Manning Williams, née Ashton, an old friend of mine. Her second husband, Geoffrey Williams, is a handsome pain in the butt whom I suspect of being a gold digger and know for certain is a womanizer, second only to Vance Tremaine. Though Geoff Williams is not the light of my life, I’ve never let this interfere with the high regard I harbor for Melva.

“And knowing the very young,” I added, “Veronica brought the lad.” None of this really mattered, but it was diverting chitchat.

In fact, so innocuous was the subject of Veronica Manning and the lad, Connie answered by breaking our date for that evening. We were supposed to dine at Connie’s condominium. She’s not a bad cook if rice and beans are your thing. They are not mine, but then dinner is not the main attraction at Chez Garcia.

I was to bring my collection of lady songbirds, on vinyl, please, for an evening of bliss between consenting adults. Who better than Chris Connor, Jo Stafford, Lena Horne, Billie Holiday, and “Her Nibs” Miss Georgia Gibbs to set the mood?

“Lady C. is giving one of her intimate dinner parties,” Connie explained. “Thirty, under a tent, poolside. I know she’ll want me to stay until dessert, at least.”

“Does she ever spend an evening alone?”

“Not if she can help it.”

“Connie,” I said, taking her hand across the table and around the tub of mayo, “the black dress meant nothing. I mean, you do have to work tonight, or...”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

Touché, again.

The weather continued sunny but cool, which didn’t prevent me from changing into my cerise Speedo trunks, stepping into a pair of sandals, and donning a mini terry robe printed with a portrait of Donald Duck before crossing the A1A for my daily two-mile swim. Risking the wrath of the PB Chamber of Commerce, I will say the temperature this November afternoon was more brisk than tropical, causing me to tread the sand sans my pith helmet.

I had a “thing” (briefly) for hats when I was at Yale Law (briefly) that bordered on something of a fetish. The pith is part of that collection that has recently expanded to include linen berets in white, puce, and emerald green, courtesy of a custom hatmaker in Danbury, Connecticut. They cause Seigneur to look upon me with misgivings and make mother giggle.

We dined that evening on Ursi’s
caneton à l’orange
served with a perfectly chilled
meursault
and ended with a
crème caramel
as smooth as velvet. Those who wonder why I have never left home have never tasted one of Ursi’s culinary endeavors.

Mother, who would like to see me married, asked after Connie. Mother is a lovely woman whom I cherish dearly. As often happens when we cross that line between middle and old age, mother is now sometimes forgetful and her mind is apt to wander now and then. It is a trait that renders her more, not less, precious to father and me.

Mother is what might be called “pleasingly plump” or “stylishly stout,” and I use both of those archaic but kind descriptions in their best possible connotation. She suffers from high blood pressure, which may account for her florid complexion and shortness of breath. The latter causes father and me great concern. Last, but far from least, she dotes on sweets, her garden, and her son, Archy.

I told her Connie was working late that evening and mother opined, “Well, perhaps when she marries she can leave the employ of Lady Cynthia and enjoy life.”

“Are you implying,” the Master asked, “that working for Lady Cynthia is less than enjoyable?”

Lady C. is one of
mon père
’s richest, if not
the
richest, clients.

“I don’t think so, dear,” his wife cooed.

Alone in my third-floor digs, I lit my first English Oval of the day, poured myself a small marc, and put Chris Connor on the phonograph. “These Foolish Things Remind Me of You.” Of whom was I reminded? Consuela Garcia, or Ginny, whose dress was “off the rack”? I honestly didn’t know. Was it my fate to be forever cast in the role of the student prince who loves the girl he’s near when he’s not near the girl he loves?

I blew smoke rings and watched them drift toward the ceiling in slow motion. I imagined myself in tails, hand in hand with a girl in a beaded gown (Archy and Ginger?), skipping through the ethereal hoops. Ethereal, alas, is as real as my love life gets.