McNally's Bluff (17 page)

But not for long, I was thinking. Joe is already making it with Palm Beach’s most sought-after young lady, which has to tell him he’s got more going for him than all the rich lotharios in a town lousy with rich lotharios.

I interrupted with, “I can see how Mack’s vanity has him refusing to be on-screen with Joe, and I understand your concern over losing your job, even if your husband doesn’t give a rap for reasons we don’t know. But that doesn’t say Mack has found the keys to show business heaven. Could be he’s just feeling his oats after being a witness to a sensational murder and impressing his audience with the ghostly details. Maybe Mack is just playing a game with his producer and the network.”

Marge started shaking her head even before I finished speaking. “I’ve saved the best for last, Archy.”

“Let’s have it,” I said, raising my glass.

She took a deep breath. “For years Mack has wanted to produce a pilot for a TV detective series. A very sophisticated and urbane detective, to be sure, like Dashiell Hammett’s
Thin Man.
What one needs, of course, is backing. A money man who’s willing to gamble on the success of the project. This morning, before I called you, our New York agent called. Mack was at Le Maze and I took the call. Andy, our agent, asked to speak to Mack. I told him Mack was out and could I take a message. No, he would call later, but before ringing off Andy said, ‘Marge, I want you to know how happy I am that Mack has found an angel for the pilot. It’s going to be a smash. Break a leg, honey.’”

“What did you say?” I quickly asked.

“I said thanks, Andy. What else could I say? I don’t know what Mack is up to and I didn’t want to queer whatever it is. But why is he keeping it a secret from me? Something is rotten in Denmark, Archy.”

“And in Palm Beach, unless I’m mistaken. All this has transpired since the night of Hayes’s ill-fated party? There was never any mention of a backer for the pilot before this?”

“That’s right.”

We were silent for a long time, both thinking the same thing, neither of us willing to go public with the astonishing idea. “Matthew Hayes,” I finally intoned.

“Who else?” Marge responded.

Who else, indeed? “Hayes told me he admired Mack. I quote,
He’s latched on to a good thing and is making the most of it. I would do the same,
unquote.”

“So he’s going to risk a few million to watch Mack solve crimes in black tie and opera pumps? I don’t believe it, Archy.”

“Neither do I, my dear.”

“Isn’t it strange,” Marge said, “how we all went to that little man’s vulgar party, intent on laughing behind his back, and now it seems the laugh is on us. The moment Marlena Marvel was found in the goal of that overgrown hedgerow all our lives changed, only we didn’t know it at the time. Joe Gallo’s rise. Mack’s great expectations. My trepidation and you hot on the trail. Why are you working for Hayes, Archy?” she asked again.

“Because I want to solve the mystery of the maze, and I think the wee man has the answer. That simple.”

“You think he murdered his wife?”

“I think he knows how it was done. More than that I won’t say at this time. Can you tell me how Mack found the goal that fateful night?”

She shook her head. “If I knew, I would tell you. Lord knows I’ve told you everything else.”

“You say this all began when Marlena Marvel turned up dead in the maze. I’ll backtrack and say it began when Mack found the goal. Do you understand?”

“Mack knows something,” she stated.

“Only he didn’t know what he knew until after the murder. What helicopter service did Mack use to photograph the maze?”

“There are two the network employs. Palm Beach Helicopter in Lantana and Ocean Helicopter in West Palm. It would be one of them, I’m sure.”

“Is Mack putting the squeeze on Hayes? If so, why?” I asked Mack’s wife.

She reached across the table and put her hand, ever so gently, on mine. Her nails were painted a lustrous pink. Funny what one notices at such moments.

“That’s what I want you to find out, Archy,” she pleaded.

I
ARRIVED AT THE JUNO
COTTAGE
just in time to catch the last five minutes of
Casablanca.
Bergman, in her lovely wide-brimmed hat, was kissing Bogart, in his lovely wide-brimmed hat, goodbye, before flying off with Paul Henreid and leaving Bogey to saunter off into the fog, arm in arm with Claude Rains.

Georgy, in pigtails, slacks and one of my shirts, sleeves rolled to her pretty elbows, was dabbing at her eyes. “It always gets me right here,” she said, pointing a thumb at where she imagined her heart resided.

I kissed her cheek and inhaled the tantalizing scent of lavender soap which said Georgy had soaked in a bubble bath in anticipation of joining Bogart and Bergman in Rick’s Café-American—no doubt humming the film’s nostalgic theme song. Georgy loves to relax in a bubble bath, lavender or jasmine, after a tough day ticketing speeders on Interstate 95. I have, on more than one occasion, joined her in the aromatic and effervescent waters but that, too, is another story—and it beats playing with a rubber duck, let me tell you.

Georgy returned my kiss with ardor, no doubt inspired by Bergman’s performance. I did the gentlemanly thing and responded in kind. Not an hour ago I was captivated by the freckled face of Marge Macurdy, but now it was Georgy’s impeccable peaches and cream complexion that tickled my fancy. There’s a song (by Sigmund Romberg, perhaps?) that was written with me in mind, I’m sure.
When I’m not near the girl I love, I love the girl I’m near.
Go on, call me a cad. See if I care.

“You should give that suit to Goodwill,” she noted, eyeing me up and down. “They might find someone it would fit.”

“Cute, Georgy girl. Real cute. Living so far from the ocean I have neglected my daily two-mile swims in the surf and have put on a pound or two. I intend to lose them momentarily.”

“How? By taking off the suit?”

“For starters, yes.”

I left the parlor, went past the galley kitchen and turned left to enter the bedroom. That, plus the bath off the bedroom, constitutes the cottage. I began to get out of my tan gabardine straitjacket and when I was down to my briefs in walks Georgy.

“Don’t you believe in knocking?” I scolded.

“Why? It’s my house.”

“And what am I? Your concubine?”

“Sure. And I’m the pharaoh disguised as a woman.” She put her arms around my waist and squeezed. “You’re getting love handles.”

Feigning indifference, I said, “So you heard about Witch Hazel?”

“Who hasn’t?” She pinched me where once a crab had nipped me while I was skinny dipping with Connie. Now how did Connie get into this?

“Let me put on a shirt,” I begged, modestly.

“Which shirt?”

“The one you’re wearing, that’s which shirt.”

We laughed, kissed and fell onto the bed where she traded her shirt for my...

An hour later I came out of the shower wrapped in a terry robe and found my girl pouring a white Orvieto Classico into two chilled wineglasses. A chicken, roasted and missing a leg and hip joint, sat on the table in the breakfast nook.

“I made it myself,” Georgy boasted. “Are you hungry?”

“Starved. Toast some bread and I’ll have a chicken breast sandwich with mayo.” I picked up the two glasses and handed one to her. “You are lovely,” I whispered.

“So are you,” she answered.

“But not as lovely as you,” I insisted.

“Okay, you win,” she surrendered with a resigned shrug.

She put two pieces of rye in the toaster (I have outlawed soggy white bread) and I got a carving knife from the kitchen cupboard and began slicing the bird’s breast which glowed a golden brown. It came away white and succulent.

“Did you really roast this?” I questioned.

“Who else. It’s the cook’s day off.”

From the refrig she extracted a salad bowl containing freshly washed and cut iceberg and romaine lettuce, a quartered tomato and thin slices of cucumber. Basic, but for Georgy girl an overwhelming culinary achievement. Before my arrival on the scene her salads were whatever side dish came from a variety of ethnic take-out establishments.

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.”