McNally's Folly
Authors: Lawrence Sanders,Vincent Lardo
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Mystery & Detective
McNally’s Folly
An Archy McNally Novel
By Vincent Lardo
ONE
W
HAT COULD BE
nicer than holding the hand of a beautiful young lady with the lights turned low? Why, holding the hand of a beautiful young lady with the lights turned off, that’s what. And when the young lady is none other than Elizabeth Fitzwilliams—“Fitz” to her intimates, whose number, according to Palm Beach gossip, is legion—the experience can be quite uplifting, if you get my drift.
I was restrained, literally and figuratively, from joining the ranks of Fitz’s intimates by that pillar of Palm Beach society, the formidable Penelope Tremaine—“Penny” to her intimates, whose pedigrees make up for their numerical paucity—who was holding my other hand.
Penny’s hand that wasn’t holding mine was attached to that of her husband, Vance Tremaine. Vance had a serious predilection for pretty young ladies, so it’s always wise to know exactly where his hands are with the likes of Fitz in the immediate vicinity.
Vance, in turn, held the hand of the charming Mrs. John Fairhurst. If Penny was a pillar of Palm Beach society, Emily Fairhurst was the concrete in which the pillar was embedded.
Moving right along, Emily held the hand of her secretary, Arnold Turnbolt, and to complete the circle, Arnold and Fitz played bookends to Palm Beach’s current diversion, Serge Ouspenskaya.
Me? I’m Archibald McNally—Archy to my intimates, whose number can be counted without going into the higher mathematics of double digits—of McNally & Son, Attorney-at-Law. Father is the attorney and I, having been expelled from Yale Law, am the son and director of a small department (employees: one) at McNally & Son assigned to Discreet Inquiries. We represent some of the wealthiest residents of the Town of Palm Beach, whose problems often require private investigation rather than the assistance of the local police. The very rich like to keep a low profile, especially when a spotlight might reveal them to be as foolish and sinful as lesser folks who don’t have a portfolio to call their own.
By now, those of you who are ardent readers of Conan Doyle, Dashiell Hammett and Dick Tracy know that on this (may the PB Chamber of Commerce forgive me) chilly January night we had not come together to play ring-around-the-rosy, form a daisy chain to protest the pollution of our planet or pray. We were, in fact, in the midst of Palm Beach’s latest craze—a stance. And lest you think that I have taken leave of my senses (and there are those, whose number is myriad, who would say that one cannot take leave of what one never possessed) I am here not as believer, agnostic or neophyte, but in pursuit of my duties as a discreet inquirer.
As we sit, emptying our minds—with this crowd a feat easier done than said—I will recapitulate, for those who do not have ready access to a crystal ball, the events that got me from home to here (in my fire-engine red Miata and not upon a flying carpet).
My office, in the McNally Building on Royal Palm Way, is slightly larger than a duplex coffin. I can only assume that my father relegated me to this minuscule closet to show those he employs that he, Prescott McNally, is not an adherent of nepotism. Though deprived of a window, he did permit me an air-conditioning vent; he has not, as yet, installed a razor-sharp pendulum in the ceiling, swinging in an ever widening and descending arc. Father is a devotee of Dickens, not Poe, and I am thankful for small blessings.
When my phone rang I picked it up after the third ring giving the impression, I hoped, that the caller was intruding upon a business conclave of paramount importance. It was Mrs. Trelawney, my father’s secretary, who knew better. “Mrs. Trelawney,” I cooed, “I was just about to call you.”
“Meaning you have completed cooking the books, as they say.”
“I don’t know who
they
are, Mrs. Trelawney, but if you are referring to my expense account the answer is, yes, I have just completed reconstructing last week’s expenditures.”
“I hope you’re not billing us for yet another lunch at the Pelican Club, Archy.”
“As a matter of fact I did not,” I assured her, then added, “However, now that you mention it, I do recall lunching there on Tuesday last in the line of duty.” I quickly added fifty bucks to my paltry list as recompense for a meal I had shared with my lady friend, Consuela Garcia. It had not been a business lunch, in the strictest sense, but Connie has so often aided and abetted me in my duties that I saw nothing wrong with advancing her a lunch in expectation of future assistance. And besides, my father could well afford it.
“You’re a con artist, Archy.”
“I’ve been called worse, Mrs. Trelawney.”
“And all deserved, I’m sure.”
“Mrs. Trelawney,” I sang, “you make a sunny day cloudy.”
“Well, before it starts raining, put away your wish list and get yourself down here. Your father is with a client and for reasons known only to my boss and God, your presence is required.”
If I was required, the client with pater was not in need of legal counsel but of the services of Discreet Inquiries. “Anyone I know, Mrs. Trelawney?”
“A Mr. Richard Holmes. He’s new to me and I’ve been here since before the flood.”
Assuming she meant the biblical flood and not an ambitious leak in her basement, that would put Mrs. Trelawney’s age somewhere between classic and antique. The name Richard Holmes rang a distant bell—more of a faint tinkle, actually—but I could not connect it with a face, occupation or previous encounter. This was as frustrating as encountering a familiar face and being unable to assign it a name. I chalked this memory lapse up to my hectic schedule and not an early onset senior moment.
I took the elevator down and entered my father’s outer sanctum, where Mrs. Trelawney eyed me from head to toe before exclaiming, “Tennis anyone?”
I was wearing a pair of white summer flannels with a navy blazer emblazoned with the Pelican Club’s crest: a pelican rampant on a field of dead mullet. I gave her weary cliché as much time as it was worth before answering, “Would you please announce me, Mrs. Trelawney.”
“As who? Andre Agassi or Pete Sampras?”
“Touché, Mrs. Trelawney. Touché.” I love sparring with my father’s secretary, who is one of my favorite people in spite of, or perhaps because of, our mutual delight in pelting each other with verbal abuse. She is a charming beldame with an ill-fitting gray wig and a penchant for risqué jokes. As she buzzed the inner sanctum, I slipped my expense account on her desk and ventured into the lion’s den. Here begins the latest adventure of Archibald McNally, aged preppie, who is not licensed to kill.
The McNally Building is a modern edifice of glass and stainless steel. The office of the man who commissioned it is oak-paneled and furnished in a style that is more Victoriana than art deco. One of its treasures is an antique rolltop desk boasting thirty-six cubbyholes and four secret compartments—that I know of.
A major drawback of such a museum piece is that the owner cannot converse vis-à-vis with visitors while seated at his prize possession. For this reason, a more conventional desk is also present in the guv’nor’s suite but I suspect, when alone, my father sits at his rolltop and examines the contents of its secret niches. Ladies with hourglass figures in black silk hose and corsets? I believe that in a former life my father, Prescott McNally, was the man who left Miss Havisham waiting at the church.
“This is my son, Archy,” the sire introduced me as I entered the office. “Archy, this is Mr. Richard Holmes.”
“How do you do, sir,” I said, taking the hand Holmes extended toward me as I again rummaged in vain through my mental Rolodex in search of a card that bore his name and profile. Richard Holmes was a portly man but the excess adipose tissue, except for his rather prominent jowls, was solid rather than flabby. Here was a man who refused to deny himself that second helping of
mousse au chocolat,
but made up for this indulgence by regular visits to the gym and sauna. I drew a picture of a good-time-Charlie with the soul of a penitent.
I put his age at sixty, give or take a few years, which was about forty years older than the Lilly Pulitzer jacket he wore atop a pink polo shirt. Ms. Pulitzer’s men’s line was all the rage in Palm Beach a quarter of a century ago, when her famous flower-print fabrics had her faithful looking like walking hothouses. Mr. Holmes’s heirloom was a bouquet of daisies, carnations and pink rosebuds. I drew a picture of a man who clung to the past and would wager that he donned his plus-fours to play golf.
“Mr. Holmes and his wife are here for the season, Archy,” my father was saying as I took the other visitor’s chair, “and have taken a place on Via Del Lago. He was recommended to us by Bob Simmons.”
Modest but not a bad address, about a block from the ocean. Simmons was a longtime client of McNally & Son and a man of great wealth.
Mein papa,
no doubt, was hoping Richard Holmes was in the same tax bracket as the guy who sent him our way.
“They may decide to purchase a home in the Town of Palm Beach, and if they do we will advise and act on their behalf via our real estate division,” father continued. “However, Mr. Holmes is here on more urgent business that I think is more in line with your expertise than mine.” With a smile, father passed me the proverbial buck.
No surprise to this Jr. McNally. If Holmes was merely looking for a house, Simmons would have introduced him to his realtor. As we had rescued Simmons’s son from an embarrassing situation involving a lady of the evening and a controlled substance, Simmons had directed the man to Discreet Inquiries for a more pressing matter.
“How can I be of help, Mr. Holmes?” I began my usual spiel.
“We speak in confidence?” he answered, in my clients’ usual spiel.
“Discreet, sir, is our name.”
With a nod that put his jowls in high gear, Holmes said, “Are you familiar with a man who calls himself Serge Ouspenskaya?”
“No, sir, I am not.” But I was familiar with the European character actress, Maria Ouspenskaya, who made a name for herself on this side of the Atlantic in a role that was more kitsch than camp as the mother of a werewolf. I hoped Serge was not one of her offspring.
“He claims to be a psychic,” Holmes informed me in a tone that implied Ouspenskaya was anything but.
“A resident psychic is de rigueur for Palm Beach, Mr. Holmes. They come and go like the rise and fall of the fairer sex’s hemline, some achieving more fame than others, but few survive more than one season. We had the Ouija board craze, the crystal craze, ESP, EST and reincarnation, when every gentlewoman along Ocean Boulevard claimed to have been Cleopatra, Josephine or Mona Lisa.” Only my father’s presence deterred me from adding, “And we had the Lilly Pulitzer craze.” Instead, I ended the lecture with, “It’s a rich community, sir, and diversion is the name of the game.”
“I know what you mean, Mr. McNally, and my wife is no stranger to diversions, the occult included, but this guy has caught her fancy and I believe he’s milking her for every buck she’s worth, which happen to be my bucks.”
Not a new scenario. I was involved with a psychic a few years back who spoke in the voices of those who have passed over, as psychics refer to the dearly departed. Her name was Hertha Gloriana and I never learned if she actually had the power or if she was a phony. What I did learn was that Hertha preferred Sapphic love to the more conventional kind and proved it by running off with the lady I was romancing at the time. My ego has not yet fully recovered. I decided not to relate this tale of unrequited amour to Mr. Richard Holmes.