McNally's Chance (22 page)

“You may, Tony.”

The swimmer did laps and if my eyes didn’t deceive me I would say it was a she in the pool. A long, slim, yet curvaceous she. Tony had certainly settled in since his loss.

In keeping with taking Gilbert by surprise, Bianca blurted, “Is Louisa not here?”

“No,” Gilbert said. “I’m afraid Louisa has left us. She was made an offer she couldn’t refuse and didn’t. I do the best I can, which is not very good, so if you have a dust allergy, Bianca dear, I suggest you keep out of the house.”

“No allergies, Tony, so I’ll just run in and take a peek at my old room. I’m missing a charm bracelet I think I left in the top dresser drawer. Won’t be a minute, Archy.”

It was as painful as listening to amateurs putting on a Passion play.

We watched her until she slid open the glass door and entered the house. Gilbert put out his cigarette in an ashtray and turned to me.

“The drawers in her old room are all empty. She knows that. I know that. And you know that. Correct, Archy?”

I don’t like having people pointing at the egg on my face, but who could blame the guy? “She’s young and foolish,” was the best I could offer by way of an excuse.

“Young, but not foolish and she loves to drive. Would you care to sit?

She may be hours. It’s a big house, full of drawers.”

I sat. “I did try to discourage her from coming,” I said. “But she’s very headstrong as I imagine you know.”

“It isn’t very pleasant being hounded by someone who thinks you’re guilty of murder.” Taking a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his robe he offered me one before lighting up.

“No, thanks. I quit. I think.”

“Bully for you.” He sat and blew smoke in the air. “How did you get involved with little Bianca, may I ask?”

I told him the truth without going into too much detail, like revealing my profession. “And I did try to discourage the visit.”

“I know she’s at that trailer court. Did she tell you I invited her to stay here until she found work elsewhere?” Before I answered, he hurried on. “Let me tell you something, Archy. I’m a man past his prime who’s been to the rodeo and back, as they say. I’ve been an actor, a bartender, a maitre d’, and a hustler, without much success at any of the above. I hooked on to the brass ring a few times, but it always slipped away for one reason or another.

“Then along came Lilian Ashman, the answer to a working boy’s prayer.

Did I love her? You know I didn’t and so does our Bianca, I’m sure.

Did she love me? I’m sure she did. And you know what, mister? I made her happy. She paid the price and I gave value for her money. I’m very good at that. When I learned about her will, did I try to get her to change it? Is the pope catholic? However, I am not as headstrong as dear Bianca, so didn’t push the issue. Finesse is my long suit.

“Lilian wasn’t that old, so I didn’t have to worry. I was a willing captive in a pink Palm Beach villa and thought I was set for life. Then Lilian dove into the pool.”

The present occupant of the pool now climbed out of it like Aphrodite emerging from her shell and walked majestically toward us. She was six feet high, barefoot, remember, and wearing a thong bottom and a bra top that covered only the essentials. Her hair, red and dripping wet, was pulled away from her face and fell down her back almost to her waist.

I rose on unsteady feet. “Please, don’t get up,” she called, extending a wet hand.

“This is Babette.” Gilbert introduced us. “She holds a bronze medal in the backstroke and free-form for the French. Babette was born in Algiers.”

“The Kasbah.” Babette pinpointed her hometown. “My mother sold favors, my father was a steady customer.”

“Hush!” Gilbert chided her. “You must excuse her, Archy, she likes to shock. Actually, her mother was a school teacher and her father was in the diplomatic corps. This is Archy McNally, Babs; he’s a friend of Bianca’s. She’s inside examining our drawers -furniture, that is.”

“Naughty girl,” Babette said. “She wants to send poor Tony to the pen.

May I have your robe, darling.”

“Sorry, but there’s nothing but me beneath it,” Gilbert told her.

“So?” Babette said with a shrug, ‘we’re all friends, no, Mr.

McNally?”

“Sorry, Babette, but we’ve just met,” I said. I couldn’t take my eyes off her and she reveled in the attention. No wonder Louisa had left.

She must have gone off screaming. The place was a zoo.

“Run along, Babs, and go dry off,” Gilbert advised. “I haven’t finished with Mr. McNally.”

“I run, but not with pleasure. Mr. McNally is cute. Do you swim, Mr.

McNally?”

Two miles every day, in the Atlantic. We don’t have a pool.”

“Do you like to do it on your back, Mr. McNally?”

“Will you get out of here,” Gilbert insisted.

Babette giggled, an incongruous sound owing to her amazing proportions.

She, too, disappeared behind the sliding glass door, looking as alluring from aft as from fore.

“I met her in Vegas,” Gilbert told me. “She worked the blackjack table where not even the most dedicated gambler could keep count. I saw a visiting fireman ask for a pull with two kings showing.”

“Is she staying with you?” I asked.

“Where else? Babette came to comfort me as soon as she heard of my loss. And a loss it was, Archy. I may be able to keep the house, which is doubtful at this time, but I couldn’t afford the upkeep, naturally.”

“It should net you a good sum,” I remarked, my mind on other things.

Algiers in July? Why not? It would broaden my horizons, among other things. I had been too long in Palm Beach pent, as the poet would say.

Gilbert was laughing and I feared I had missed the joke. “This pink palazzo, my friend, is mortgaged to the hilt. The rich don’t pay cash for anything and a huge mortgage has many tax advantages. Now tell me why I would want to murder my benefactress?”

I had to admit it. “You wouldn’t.”

Tell that to the lady who’s auditioning for the role of chief witness for the prosecution and here she comes.”

I sincerely hoped Bianca would not come rushing at us, waving a charm bracelet and shouting…

Bianca came rushing at us waving a charm bracelet and shouting, “I found it. I found it.”

Death, where is thy sting?

“Get her out of here, mister, and don’t come back!” our charming host said by way of a fond farewell.

Back in my car I read her the riot act. “That was the dumbest display I have ever seen in my life. You are loony, Bianca, with a capital L.”

“Oh,” she pouted, ‘what difference does it make? He knows what we’re after.”

“As of this moment we are not after anything and I suggest you stop playing Miss Marple and go find a job. The end.”

Undaunted, she went right on. “Did you see the woman he’s living with?

I met her upstairs. I think she’s a dominatrix.”

This was too much. “Can it, Bianca.”

“Okay. So, what did you think of Tony?”

“I think he’s sleazy and a leech who never did an honest day’s work in life, and he would sell his soul to the devil for a buck, only he can’t because even on a slow day hell won’t have him.”

“So…”

“So nothing. It doesn’t make him a guy who would murder to no advantage. He’s no dummy, Bianca, and he wouldn’t bite the hand that feeds unless he’s got a key to the candy store. It’s against his religion. His wife’s death has left him penniless. Now get off his case and mine.”

“Never!” Bianca cried. “Never.”

Good grief, she sounded just like Gillian Wright.

Eighteen

Casa Gran.

There was a panel truck parked near the main gate bearing the logo of a local security service and two guards on duty. These were clearly not Schuyler’s regular sentries, so they must have been hired for the occasion. More proof that he had interrupted his summer holiday in Southampton on short notice to put together a cocktail party in July.

It made no sense but then Harry Schuyler always had more dollars than sense.

The car in front of my Miata was being stopped at the gate and as I came to a halt behind it I noticed it carried a bumper sticker that read TROY APPLETON, in a blaze of red, white, and blue. It was a harbinger to which I paid scant attention. What was left of my mind after a morning with Bianca Courtney was focused on the Sabrina Wright mess and the Kasbah the ridiculous and the sublime. Or did I get that backward?

The car ahead moved on and I moved up just as another car lined up behind me. For a quickie reception someone had done a good job of rallying the freeloaders. But then who would turn down an invitation to Casa Gran? The guard looked into the car and, satisfied that I wasn’t carrying an arsenal, waved me through the gate. No name check?

This shindig was about as exclusive as a BYOB hop at the Feela Betta Thigh sorority house. Many are called and many more show up. Prescott would not have been pleased.

Thanks to Mrs. Trelawney I had gotten into a blue suit to represent McNally & Son. For a touch of color I wore it with a tie of vermilion silk. That worked so well I placed a matching hankie in my breast pocket. Humming “I’ve Got to Be Me,” I hastened to Casa Gran at the appointed hour.

It was a good mile drive from the gate to the house on a gracefully winding road. The flora, reputed to be in the care of fifty gardeners under the supervision of a landscape architect, was breathtaking, to say the least. After the final curve Casa Gran appeared like a shimmering mirage rising out of the sea.

An amber marble palace sitting on twenty oceanfront acres with a spa and pool in the basement, another indoor pool on the second floor, another on the roof, and one out back, it also boasted tennis courts, both clay and grass courts, croquet, squash, and a baseball diamond for the kiddies. So much for the recreational facilities. The serious business of living was conducted in quarters larger than life.

Like playing follow-the-leader I pulled up to the port-cochere where one of several car jockeys opened the Miata’s door and handed me a numbered ticket as I got out. Up the stairs to a grand portal guarded by a guy in a tux who pointed that away while intoning, “Cocktails in the solarium, sir.” I was on a marble terrace, wider than many country roads, which appeared to girdle the entire house. There was now a group of us, couples and singles, on the march.

Where the terrace angled to follow the Casa Gran’s contours, the ocean came into view and my fellow travelers and I joined the party that spilled out of the solarium and onto the promenade. Waiters proffered trays of champagne and canapes, music came from nowhere, and the early evening air was alive with the tinkle of glasses and the hum of conversation. The sky over the Atlantic was growing dark and tiny white lights in trees and shrubs began to twinkle like diamonds. Hey, who knows, maybe they were diamonds.

The solarium and terrace were separated by a series of glass doors that created a wall when all were closed and a multitude of entrances when all were open, as they were for the party. I made my way through the pretty people and entering a vast room full of more pretty people I found myself at a political caucus for state senator Troy Appleton. For this I got a by-hand invitation? No way. There was something rotten in Casa Gran; that’s why Archy was sent for. I say this with pride, not scorn.

Troy Appleton and his wife stood in the center of the room receiving Harry Schuyler’s guests. Troy looked like Flash Gordon, all golden and smiling a million bucks worth of caps. His wife wore a chic ice-blue Paris frock that was so perfectly understated it told the world she had not only borrowed Jackie O’s hair, she had also latched on to Monsieur Givenchy. If Troy made it to Washington she would have to find herself an American couturier. I wondered if she thought Troy’s aspirations worth the compromise.

Next to the smiling couple was Troy’s dad, Thomas Appleton. Our eyes locked on each other from across the room and poor Tom reacted as if he’d just seen a ghost. He actually blinked before he forced himself to break the visual contact. Tom Appleton was not happy to see me, therefore he had not insisted on my presence. I got in line, grabbing a dollop of caviar on a sliver of toast from a passing waiter. It was the real thing.

“Hello. Glad you could make it.” Troy Appleton greeted me with a smile that must by now be hurting his face, and a handshake that attested to his prowess on a polo pony.

I’m Archy McNally.”

“Nice to know you, Archy. May I present my wife, Virginia.”

Virginia gave me her hand, which was small and soft and warm. We touched fingers. “How do you do,” Virginia said. “I like your tie and pocket square, Mr. McNally. So original.”

“Thank you, ma’am. You are most kind.”

And my father, Tom Appleton,” Troy continued his introductions.

Tom and I shook hands. “How nice to meet you, sir,” I said as if I had never laid eyes on the man before this moment.

Looking relieved, Tom said, “Same here, I’m sure. Please help yourself to a drink. If champagne is not your thing there’s a proper bar someplace in this mausoleum.”

“I will. Best of luck to you, Troy. You have my vote.”

“Well,” he said modestly, ‘it hasn’t come to that yet. We’re still testing the waters.”

Was this a fund-raiser? Was I expected to write a check? Sorry, pal, I spent it all on a microwave oven and dinner for two at Charley’s Crab. And the idea of giving this crowd money was obscene.

“Jump in,” I counseled. “He who hesitates is lost.”

“I’ll remember that,” Troy said as he stuck his hand out to the guy behind me. “Hello. Glad you could make it.”

The music came from two lovely ladies playing piano and flute. I made my way to where they were giving away the hard stuff and ordered a vodka martini with a twist. There were three bartenders in black tie to serve what looked like a stag line at the makeshift bar. When I turned to go in search of caviar and other edibles I found my way blocked by a man in blazer and ascot.

“Archy McNally?” My host asked.

Harry Schuyler looked like his own grandpa. The years had not been kind, but why should they have been? He had drained every ounce of life out of each one, leaving nothing in reserve. Life on Ocean Boulevard and Gin Lane had taken their toll. His hair was thinning, his face was lined, and he stooped in the manner of old men far too thin for their height.