McNally's Dare (20 page)

I was overruled, as Connie’s arrival with her guest shows. Liking the amenities the Pelican offers, Georgy is now thinking of applying for membership. I proposed a moratorium on new admissions on the grounds that our exclusivity was being compromised, which sent the sitting board members into raucous laughter from which they have yet to recover.

The girls touched cheeks and kissed the air over their heads, telling each other how pretty they looked. Alex gripped my hand and, I think, broke it.

“Have you guys been to the Leopard Lounge?” Connie asked.

“No,” Georgy told her. “Why do you ask?”

“The safari jacket,” Connie tittered, “he always wears it when he goes there. Right, Archy?”

“Afraid not, Consuela. I also wear it when I go to the zoo.

“I like it,” Alex said. “You know, Archy, if you were a little taller and a little broader in the shoulders, I would borrow it.”

Really? Well, if I were a little taller and a little broader in the shoulders, Alex, I would punch you in the nose.

Sensing my thoughts and thinking a quick parting of the ways was the better part of valor, Georgy announced that we were just going to sit down to dinner.

“Don’t let us keep you,” Alex said. “We just stopped in for a quick one before heading south. My cousin is getting married on Saturday and I’m in the wedding party, so we’re starting the weekend a few days early.”

Alex is first-generation American and therefore more American than apple pie. Between them, Alex and Connie have about three thousand cousins in Miami, making weddings, christenings and funerals a weekly occurrence. Being a political columnist for a Miami Hispanic daily seemed to give Alex enough free time to practically commute between his hometown and Palm Beach. But when the imminent invasion of Cuba is your sole topic, you can afford to play the hook. One hour in Cuba and Alex would come running back to the comforts of Miami if he had to swim all the way.

“Archy,” Connie said in that voice I knew only too well meant a major grievance. “My lady boss is furious with your pal, Lolly Spindrift. She wanted to entertain Dennis Darling, but Lolly forbade it on the grounds that Darling was here to trash us and anyone associating with him would be social poison in this town. Now we hear Lolly and Darling were chatting it up over dinner at Cafe L’Europe.”

“Do as Lolly says, not as Lolly does,” I quipped, unmoved by Lady Cynthia Horowitz’s plight. I find it difficult to get sentimental over a lady with ten million bucks, ten acres on Ocean Boulevard and six ex-husbands. Lady C’s passion for gorgeous hunks made Alex most vulnerable. Connie must be keeping her new love as far from the Madame as possible, but Lolly certainly gave Lady C all the ribald details just to goad her.

“If we all did as Lolly does we’d all be at the Colony right now,” Connie said. When this got her three blank stares, she told us that Thursday night at the Colony was now where the boys gathered in rather large numbers. “Lolly is probably holding court as we speak.”

What was this world coming to when you had to check what day of the week it was before you went out for a few pops? The right pub on the wrong day, or the wrong pub on the right day, and you become suspect. Georgy and Alex were listening to all this with rapt attention. They both enjoyed hearing the Palm Beach scuttlebutt, which had as much impact on the real world as an elephant delivering a mouse.

“And,” Connie went on, “the Hollywood crew has arrived to screen-test Jackson Barnett. Read all about it in tomorrow’s dailies.”

“Are they staying on Meecham’s yacht?” I asked.

Connie shook her head. “At the Colony. And make of that what you will.”

Mr. Pettibone arrived to take their drink order, giving us the opportunity to relinquish our stools and head for our corner table. The girls touched cheeks and kissed the air over their heads. I waved bye-bye at Alex to avoid serious damage to my hand.

“You make a handsome foursome,” Priscilla said when she presented us with menus. “A study in contrasts, if you know what I mean.”

“Yeah,” I answered. “The sublime and the ridiculous.”

“Archy, that’s not kind,” Georgy reprimanded, as if I didn’t know.

“Meow. Meow.” Priscilla meowed.

“Are you auditioning for
Cats,
Missy? If not, kindly take our drink order.”

“Are you sticking to champagne cocktails?”

“No, but I’m sticking to wine. I’ve already had two bourbons.” Without consulting the wine list I ordered, “A bottle of our best
Pouilly-Fuissi.”
To Georgy, I said, “Does that suit, or would you prefer a proper drink?”

“I’m in your hands,” she acquiesced.

“You might want to reconsider, Georgy,” Priscilla suggested.

“Hush, and go fetch our wine,” I barked.

She performed a perfect curtsy before scurrying off, leaving Georgy and me alone for the first time that evening. It was now close to ten and the late diners were just settling in as the early crowd began to make their exit. Couples and singles greeted each other in passing and Mr. Pettibone’s bar was standing room only. Alex and Connie, I noticed, were now part of a group of revelers. We were a congenial crowd at the Pelican with an eclectic mix of guys and dolls who believed in life, liberty and the pursuit of different strokes for different folks, regardless of what day of the week you felt like doing your thing.

“Alone at last,” I sighed.

“Where did you have those bourbons?” Georgy grilled me.

“Don’t you have to read me my rights, first?” I objected.

“This is off the record, McNally.”

“At the Chesterfield,” I admitted.

She thought a moment, looking adorable, then said, “Isn’t the Leopard Lounge in the Chesterfield?”

“Off the record, yes.”

“Then Connie was right,” she concluded. “Why didn’t you admit it?”

“I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction,” I sulked.

Georgy and I had met on the rebound. Me, from Connie’s demands to legalize our open relationship, and Georgy from Joe Gallo who had succumbed to the lure of a rich Palm Beach widow. What neither of us expected was to be confronted with our past loves and our reaction to it. We had run into Connie and Alex at the club where I was forced to introduce them to Georgy.

Out of curiosity, I think, the girls had become wary friends. Georgy, because she was curious about her predecessor, and Connie because she wanted to see just who had taken her place. As the fates would have it, I got to meet Joe Gallo and Vivian Emerson on a tennis court, of all places. I didn’t know who he was at the time, but Georgy reminded me with a reference to Gallo’s masculine appeal.

Georgy, as she just made clear, is quick to tell me how well Connie knows me, which suggests a former intimacy, and I now wonder how often Georgy dwells on Gallo’s manly charms. Furthermore, I am discourteous to Alejandro Gomez y Zapata for no reason other than his affair with the woman I willingly gave up. What we obviously need is Minerva Barnes to sort it all out in twenty-five steamy chapters with a happily-ever-after ending. The only happy ending I see at the moment is me walking off into the sunset with Izzy Duhane in a pearl necklace and me in matching cufflinks.

“You’re pouting,” Georgy accused.

“I’m thinking about Binky’s cufflinks,” I said, in all honesty.

“They make a cute couple, Binky and Izzy, don’t you think?”

“No, I do not think any such thing. She’s interesting, in a way, and he’s in over his head. All she wants from him is info on me for her book. Lolly told me she’s a sucker for causes and hops from one to another like a bee in a garden. When she loses interest in this writing project she’ll leave Binky, move her clothes back to The Breakers and hightail it out of Palm Beach. As Lolly would say, you heard it here first.”

“Promise me you won’t tell her Binky is not undercover on a case,” Georgy requested. “It would break his heart.”

“I want to break his neck, but I won’t rain on his parade. The day of reckoning is near enough.”

“You’re a softie, McNally.”

“And you are the prettiest cop in Juno.”

“What about the rest of Florida?”

Todd brought a bucket of ice on a tripod to our table and greeted me. I introduced him to Georgy.

“Handsome,” she dubbed our sommelier when he went off to get our wine.

“He’s spoken for,” I told her. “Her name is Monica. She’s a political science major when she isn’t waitressing at the Ambassador Grill.”

“How do you know all this?” Georgy wondered.

“A lot has happened since last we met, Georgy girl. Do you want to hear what Skip McGuire has been up to?”

“I’m listening, Skip.”

Todd brought our wine, did the honors and poured. “I’m working the MacNiff party tomorrow, Mr. McNally. You going?”

“I am, Todd.”

“A little creepy, don’t you think? Jeff was just buried today and now they’re having a party around the pool he drowned in.”

That gave Georgy a start. “What’s this?”

“Mr. MacNiff is going to announce that his scholarship fund will be renamed in memory of Jeff Rodgers. I think you’ll find it all in good taste, Todd.”

“If you say so, Mr. McNally” He withdrew, unconvinced of Nifty’s good intentions.

“Jeff Rodgers is the kid who got done in at the charity party,” Georgy said. “Was he a friend of Todd’s?”

“Cheers,” I toasted, and proceeded to tell her all the salient facts of “The King Is Dead.”

Georgy’s position makes it possible for me to confide in her, trusting that she would not repeat what she heard. Her keen assessment of the facts was always welcome as well as helpful. It’s the same relationship I am lucky to share with Al Rogoff, but I must say that Georgy girl offers additional tangible assets that Al could not possibly compete with.

Georgy heard me out like the pro she was and interrupted only to clarify a point I had not made clear. When done, I refilled our wine glasses and waited for her learned commentary. Not exactly unexpectedly, she opened with, “Have you told the police this?”

“Not yet, but after talking to Talbot tonight, I decided to call Al Rogoff and share with our boys in blue.”

“You should have done it sooner,” Georgy said. “I’m not telling you how to run your business,” she added, telling me how to run my business. “I hear the Palm Beach police haven’t got a thing out of the boy’s friends, and they have no reason to suspect any of the guests at this point. Your story changes all that. You could have saved Al and his partners a lot of sweat, tears and shoe leather.”

“Please, don’t lecture,” I complained. “What else do you hear?”

“The chloroform has them puzzled. It’s a controlled substance but readily available in hospitals. Any nurses at the party?”

To the best of my knowledge, there were no nurses at the party and Holga’s doctor hubby had not yet graced us with his presence.

“Georgy girl, if I had a buck for every controlled substance on the open market I could buy Binky’s cufflinks.”

“You and those cufflinks, McNally. You’re obsessed.”

“Okay. If I had a buck for every controlled substance on the open market I could buy you Izzy’s string of pearls.”

“Now you’re talking my language, McNally. But before you run off to Harry Winston’s emporium, go to the police and tell them what you know.”

“I will after the pool party tomorrow. With any luck I can get Talbot into a pair of trunks and count his toes. If he is Talbot, I won’t worry the police on that score, and we can look elsewhere for the key to Jeff’s blackmail scheme.”

“If Jeff was blackmailing Lance Talbot,” Georgy said. “And if he isn’t Lance Talbot. What then?”

“Malcolm MacNiff, the executor of old Mrs. Talbot’s estate, goes to the police and motive is established. Then all we have to do is find out who done it on behalf of the faux heir.”

Georgy smiled thoughtfully. “Is there a butler on the list of suspects?”

“Nary a one,” I lamented. “What’s your take on all this?” I asked, looking for a fresh angle on the case.

“Let’s toss it around over dinner,” she said. “I’m a hungry working girl and it’s after ten.”

I signaled Priscilla and she came to take our order and impart the specials.

“Osso buco, served over polenta with grilled peas and prosciutto. Calf’s liver, sautéed with onions and bacon. New York steak with fries and corn niblets.”

“I want them all,” Georgy said. “But osso buco is something I seldom do at home, so I think that’s what I’ll have.”

Osso buco is a veal shank, braised in a vegetable and herb broth. Loosely translated it means a hollow bone. Properly cooked, the meat is so tender and savory it needs no knife to accompany your fork. I didn’t think Leroy’s presentation would be disappointing.

Polenta is Italian-style cornmeal, combined with water and cooked slowly to create an unctuous, creamy base for the meat drippings. It’s often compared, erroneously, to grits.

“You’ll find it a tad better than Mama Mia’s Italian Take Out,” I assured her. “I’ll have the same, Priscilla. Any suggestions for starters?”

“Being in an Italian frame of mind, Leroy has stuffed artichokes to die for,” the chef’s sister recommended.

“Let’s go all the way,” Georgy exclaimed.

“Well, aren’t you nice,” I teased. I love to see Georgy girl blush. The color begins at her lily-white throat just before two patches of pink appear on her cheeks like a Raggedy Ann doll of yore.

“You’re hateful,” she cried.

Priscilla laughed as she asked if we cared for a salad before or after dinner.

“After,” Georgy declared, “and then espresso with
dolci.
If we’re going to dine Italian we...”

“Might as well go all the way,” Priscilla finished when Georgy hesitated. “We have fresh spinach with chives, leeks and tiny tomatoes, topped with an olive oil and balsamic dressing.”

“Sold,” I said.

“And another bottle of wine,” Georgy ordered.

“You’ll get tipsy, Officer,” I cautioned.

She shrugged. “When in Rome, McNally. When in Rome.”

Todd brought our bread basket and a saucer of oil for dipping, along with a plate of green and black olives, chickpeas, carrot sticks and mini celery stalks.

As we dipped and nibbled, Georgy asked, “Where did that crab bite you, McNally?”