McNally's Folly (12 page)

Did I detect a tad of malice in the seemingly friendly gesture? I did, and it meant Lolly wanted the job for himself. “So the news is already out.”

“Lady Cynthia called me the minute you left her and told me everything, including the delicious fact that Desdemona Darling herself will be the show’s star. Of course I knew it ages ago, thanks to Buzz Carr’s nonstop babbling about his debut, but I refrained from using it until Lady Cynthia made the formal announcement. She doesn’t like to be upstaged. I pass this on as a cautionary measure to the new director.”

“Tell it to Buzz,” I said, wondering what a delicious fact tasted like. “I intend to keep a low profile. You know your pal Phil Meecham is going to read for the role of the evil nephew.”

“Typecasting, Archy, believe me.”

This meant Lol was not speaking to Phil, a circumstance that occurred with the regularity of our ocean’s tides.

“Desdemona Darling lending her name and talent to the community theater makes this year’s production front-page news. Sorry I can’t say the same for your addition to the crew, old boy.”

“Fool’s names like fool’s faces often appear in public places—like gossip columns.”

“Can I quote you, Archy?”

“Only if you attribute it to Mr. Anonymous.”

“Do you know Desdemona Darling married at least three of her directors? Careful, Archy, this gig might cost you your independence, if not your virginity.”

“Desdemona is now a married woman,” I said.

“That never stopped her before, Archy. Ta, ta.”

“Before you ring off can you tell me in twenty-five words or less what you know about Serge Ouspenskaya?”

“I could write volumes on the man. I met him at Lady Cynthia’s ‘who-done-it,’ where he selected me as the victim.”

I wonder why?
I pondered.

“He also named the murderer and was right on both counts. Have you heard about Hanna Ventura’s diamond clip?”

“I have.”

“There have been rumors of other amazing incidents attributed to Ouspenskaya but nothing as exciting as Hanna’s clip until he called up your grandfather and predicted your involvement with the community theater, which has come to pass.”

“Lady C is already spreading the word,” I said.

“Is she ever. And can you blame her? Between Ouspenskaya’s prediction and Desdemona Darling’s appearance, she’s going to have the SRO notice posted for the run of the show.”

“What do you think of Ouspenskaya, Lol?”

“I think he makes good copy and that’s what pays the rent and gets me invited to dinner parties six nights out of seven. What’s your interest, Archy?”

“Nothing special. He seemed to focus right in on me at the Tremaines’ and I’m curious to know why. I also hear he’s very thick with Desdemona Darling and Lady C.”

“You suspect collusion between your creative director, your star and the psychic?”

“Drop your pen, Lol. Like I said, I’m only curious.”

“But you’ll keep me posted?”

“Only if you promise to do the same, Lol.”

“Oh, I will. Ta, ta, Archy.”

A hint of scandal dropped into Lolly Spindrift’s ear was like depositing money in an interest-bearing account and with a nemesis like Ouspenskaya I needed all the help I could get.

Rather than face Father with the complicated news of my involvement in the community theater, I popped into the kitchen and told Ursi to inform the pater and Mother that I had a date and would see them anon. The stars were just about to show themselves when I hopped into my Miata and the moon was rising over the ocean. I took this to mean the gods were smiling down on my evening with Kate Mulligan.

Her pad was in a condo complex of two-story garden apartments, with mini-balconies in the rear overlooking a pool and tennis courts. A cookie-cutter Florida establishment.

Having not been told what to wear, she opted for a knee-length black slip-style skirt, a satiny white blouse with a V-neck of just the right depth and strappy black sandals with a wedge heel. All in all, not bad.

“Don’t you look spiffy,” she welcomed me.

“Not as spiffy as you.”

“I couldn’t decide between chaps or a serape so I settled for the basics,” she said.

“Good choice. I like your place,” I lied. It had all the charm of a Holiday Inn.

“It needs work to make it a home. I haven’t had a chance to put my stamp on it. It came furnished with the basics and cries out for
tchotchkes.
”

The “basics” were items of furniture once referred to as “Danish Modern,” which I doubt any thinking Dane ever bought into. “A few
tchotchkes
are fine. More than that and it becomes a secondhand emporium,” I advised. “How long have you been here? Palm Beach, that is, not the apartment.”

“A few months in both places.”

She didn’t offer to say where she had come from and I thought it rude to ask too many questions too soon. “Do you feel like taking a bit of a ride? The restaurant I have in mind is in Fort Lauderdale.”

“If you promise to put the top down on the Miata.”

“Oh, it is, and I intend to keep it that way.”

“I’m sorry I can’t offer you a drink other than a glass of the designer water I have in the fridge. I haven’t had a chance to stock the place for entertaining.”

“I’m doing the entertaining tonight, Kate. Grab a shawl, it’ll be breezy driving down the coast.” She added a head scarf to keep her hair in place—very Grace Kelly—and we were off on our first date.

One of the perks of a long drive before dining with a stranger is that by the time you arrive, you’re old friends. Without asking, I learned that Kate Mulligan was born in New York, New York, did time, as she called it, in Las Vegas working as a showgirl (with those legs I could believe it) and “ended up a magician’s assistant in a lounge act when they kicked me out of the chorus for the heinous crime of growing old.”

“That was their loss.” In the early evening light, with the scarf framing her oval face and a complexion that needed nothing more than a touch of lipstick, she was the embodiment of a sexy lady in her prime.

“Why thank you, kind sir. How gallant.”

“Did the magician saw you in half?”

“No, he married me. Then he sawed me in half.”

That needed no response so for the next few miles we drove in silence. I was basking in the pleasure of speeding along the A1A with the top down on the kind of night featured in
Moon over Miami,
and if the lady next to me wasn’t Betty Grable, you couldn’t prove it by her legs.

When the silence became more intrusive than serene, I asked, “When did you get interested in gardening?”

She laughed and turned to me. “Cat and mouse, Archy?”

It was the response I was hoping for. Kate Mulligan did not disappoint. “You don’t know a damn thing about gardening,” I amended my question.

“I know any respectable garden needs a little sun and a little water to survive.”

“And with that Temporarily Yours took you on?”

“Give me a break, Archy. I knew you were on to me when you told me how you noticed my missing wedding ring. I figured you must have seen the label on that big plant as clearly as I had.”

“Not that day. I knew my mother usually labeled her plants so I went back to the greenhouse the next morning to have a peek. But still, you couldn’t have known it was an Eyelash if it wasn’t labeled.”

“Now what makes you so sure I couldn’t.”

“Las Vegas chorus lines and lounge acts. They don’t add up to Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow.”

“I needed the job,” she stated. “Temporarily Yours advertised and I applied, but there didn’t seem to be any openings for middle-aged chorines or magician’s assistants. I can type with two fingers but I discovered that the typewriter is hardly a high-tech piece of office equipment these days. I don’t know a word processor from a toaster oven and the only computer I’m familiar with is an adding machine. In their listing of job titles I spotted Gardeners and Gardener Helpers...”

“And you told them that gardens need sun and water and they took you on. Remarkable.”

“Okay, I lied a little.”

“How little?”

“I told them I worked for the botanical gardens in Las Vegas.”

“Las Vegas doesn’t have botanical gardens.”

“I know that and you know that, but Temporarily Yours doesn’t know that.”

She started to laugh and it proved infectious. I went along with the joke, if you could call it that. “Are you going to report me?” she said, placing her hand gently on my thigh.

“No. My mother likes you.” Not to mention my thigh.

“She’s lovely, Archy. And she’s so particular about her begonias she won’t let me do anything but watch her work. All I do is make notes to follow when she’s gone. But trust me, I’m a quick study.”

“I’ll bet you are.”

Of course there was a lot still unexplained. For instance, the new VW and the condo. She might have gotten a cash settlement from the magician but her pay at Temporarily Yours wouldn’t cover the upkeep of either the pad or the car. I didn’t press the issue because I liked the lady and didn’t want to give the impression I was moonlighting for the Internal Revenue Service. She had guts. She wasn’t afraid to dirty her hands, literally, to make an honest living and if she had to tell a few lies along the way, well, that’s sometimes that makes the world go ’round. And, Mother liked her. So did Archy.

The restaurant wasn’t the Waldorf but neither was it a Taco Bell. The hostess seated us at a corner table and presented us with menus before taking our drink order. Kate went for a margarita and I went along to keep her company. They arrived in stem glasses large enough to hold a mama goldfish.

“Your health,” Kate toasted.

“Skoal,” I responded.

“Perfect,” she said, after taking a dainty sip. “And what a lovely place. Do you come here often?”

“Only when I crave heartburn.”

“Are you ever serious, Archy?”

“Only when I crave heartburn.”

Our waiter was more Tex than Mex and he told us the evening’s special was a vodka-basted loin of pork in an ancholime crust, accompanied by a black bean tortilla topped with a pineapple salsa. “Hot?” I asked.

“Is the Pope Catholic?” he answered. Kate liked that one.

She turned down the vodka-basted pork on the grounds that it might clash with the margarita. I approved of her reasoning. She went for a shrimp and crab fajita in a Creole sauce that came with sautéed onions and peppers.

I ordered the jambalaya along with black beans in an inflammatory sauce. For starters we sampled the basic chili pot, which rendered our stomachs impervious to what followed.

“What would you like with your entrées?” our waiter asked as we sampled the chili.

“How about a fire extinguisher.”

Ignoring my wit, he proffered a wine list. As I perused it Kate said, “Let’s go all the way and have the sangria.”

I winced. Jug wine loaded with fruit and ice cubes. I would lose my sommelier palate but the thought of munching on an ice cube between the chili and the jambalaya made me throw caution to the wind and I went along with the sangria. Besides, I like a lady who suggests going all the way.

We ate
con gusto
and somewhere along the way Kate asked me what I did for a living. “A little bit of this and a little bit of that,” I told her.

“You’re not a lawyer?”

“No. Father is the lawyer at McNally and Son. Archy gathers information and assists in cases where the law needs a helping hand.”

“You’re a shamus,” she exclaimed.

“My dear girl, you’ve tarried too long in the desert sun.”

But Kate was all smiles and fluttering eyelashes. “I think it’s thrilling. Do you carry a gun?”

I could have answered that one with a famous, or infamous depending on your scruples, Mae West line but thought it best to leave the
caliente
in the sauce and out of the conversation. “If I did I would probably end up shooting myself in the foot.”

Looking at me with a mixture of awe and fascination, Kate said, “I still think it’s exciting. I’ve never dated a detective before tonight. Are you working on a case now?”

“Of course. The case of the Gardener’s Assistant. Very potent stuff. Missing wedding bands, magicians, begonias and botanical gardens flourishing in the desert.”

“Oh, be serious. Are you?”

“Nothing I can talk about, I’m afraid.” So why didn’t I practice what I preached? Because—a loaf of bread, a jug of wine, a beautiful woman and—Archy, the fool. “Tell me, Kate, in the realm of show biz do psychics fall into the same category as magicians?”

With her fork in midair she gave this a moment’s thought.

“Not really. You see, magicians amaze their audience while defying them to guess how they pulled the rabbit out of the hat. What I mean is, magicians don’t pretend to be miracle workers, including the famous Houdini.”

“And psychics do,” I put in.

Kate nodded. “Right. They want you to believe they have the gift, as some of them refer to their psychic powers. If they don’t have the gift, they’re labeled fakes. Magicians don’t have that problem. Everyone knows they’re tricksters.”

As the bus person cleared the table our waiter recited the dessert list. Stomach pumps not being among the offerings, we settled for coffee.

“Did you know any psychics in Las Vegas, Kate?”

“When you work a lounge act in Vegas, you meet all kinds. Yes, I knew several.”

“Any you believed were the genuine article?”

Kate put a drop of cream into the coffee our waiter had placed in front of us—no sugar—and as she stirred the brew she said, “I’ll put it this way, Archy. In Las Vegas, the seer’s stock in trade is promising to make you rich. You know, the winning lottery numbers, blackjack, roulette, the sports pools and even faro, which, as I’m sure you know, requires as much skill as learning to chew gum. If these guys know all the answers, why are they hitting on the rubes for peanuts when they could be cashing in their own chips?”

Smart lady, Kate Mulligan.

The ride up the coast was as enchanting as the ride down. Kate turned on the radio and my easy listening station delivered Nat King Cole crooning “It’s Only a Paper Moon.” Kate and I joined the King and when done I exclaimed, “You knew all the words.”