McNally's Puzzle (11 page)

“Scratches and bruises. Nothing serious. I was zonked. But things are hairy at home. I’m staying away as much as I can.”

“Well, as they say in Alaska, be it ever so humble there’s no place like Nome.”

He looked at me. “Have you ever been in Alaska?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know they say it?”

“Peter,” I said gently, “I never intend my nonsense to be taken literally.”

“You’re right,” he said unexpectedly. “Things have been happening to me lately. Losing my sense of humor is one of them. I don’t know what’s going on.”

I feared prying into his personal angst. “May I share your pretzels?” I asked.

“Sure. Help yourself.”

I dunked one in the dish of steroidal mustard. “What was your father’s reaction?” I inquired.

“Well, he didn’t kick me out or anything like that. I guess he was just disappointed in me. It’s okay. I’m disappointed in him.”

I hadn’t the slightest idea what he meant by that and I don’t believe he did either.

He took a swallow of his beer. “I’ve got to do something,” he declared.

Now I was curious. “Do what?”

“Something. Anything. Everyone else in that zoo has a plan. I mean they know what they want and they’re going for it. That’s my problem: I don’t know what I want. You never met my mother, did you?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“A beautiful woman. I loved her so much. When she died everything fell apart. You know what I’m saying? It all went bad.”

I was trying to keep up but this conversation was becoming increasingly incomprehensible. “The family?” I ventured.

“Down the tube,” he said portentously. “Kaput. Rack and ruin.”

“Your father—” I started, but his rancid laugh cut me off.

“A puppet!” he cried. “That’s what I call him—the puppet. I hate my father.”

He said this with such despairing venom I wanted to reach out and pat his shoulder. Then, to my astonishment, his mood abruptly changed. A complete flip-flop.

He grinned at me and laughed aloud. “Hey,” he said, almost burbling, “let’s you and me go have some fun. How about Fort Liquordale or Miami? Find some action. Meet a few kindred souls, preferably female. What say?”

“Some other time,” I said with an arctic smile. “I’m on the hook for a family do this evening. Two tables of bridge. Very dull but I promised to take a hand.”

“Too bad for you,” he said with a foolish smirk. “Then I’m off to explore this great wide, wonderful world we live in.”

He jerked to his feet, gave me a floppy wave, and rushed out. I sat there, exhausted by the tension of dealing with such a disordered personality. I ate two more pretzels dipped in mustard and finished my gimlet. Priscilla came over and looked at me sympathetically.

“He’s a holy terror, isn’t he?” she said.

I nodded.

“He didn’t sign his tab.”

“I’ll pick it up.”

“Would you like something, Archy? A burger? Salad?”

“No, thanks,” I said. “I seem to have lost my appetite.”

“Who wouldn’t?” she said. “I feel so sorry for the guy. He’s just out of it.”

I returned to the bar.

“How did you make out with Gottschalk?” Mr. Pettibone asked.

“Rough going.”

He nodded. “I have an old uncle—my mother’s brother. Lord, he must be pushing the century mark. He’s still got most of his marbles. Most but not all. I visit him and sometimes he says crazy things. Truly insane. I never know whether to correct him and maybe set him off, yelling and screaming, or just go along with what he says to keep him peaceable and happy in his nuttiness. It’s a problem. You know what I mean?”

“I know exactly what you mean and it is a problem. I don’t know the answer. But Peter is a young man. Too young to give up on.”

“Maybe,” Mr. Pettibone said. “But I guess that’s not for you or me to say. If he can be fixed it’ll take more than a smile and a stroke.”

I would have liked to continue our conversation but a quartet of members came barging in, two couples dressed in tennis whites. They rushed the bar, boisterous and apparently delighted with their present and with nary a doubt of their future. I envied them. I finished my wallop while our mixologist was creating four different esoteric drinks, all of which seemed to require an inordinate amount of fresh pineapple, maraschino cherries, celery, or key limes.

I drove home in a subdued state, the meeting with Peter Gottschalk having put an effective kibosh on my temporary euphoria. The yearning for a nap returned in full force and I now saw no reason to resist it. I had a miserable night’s sleep to repair, and perhaps an hour or so of Z’s would recharge the McNally neurons and enable me to extract a few nuggets of significance from all that puzzling palaver with the junior Gottschalk.

Why on earth would a son think his father a puppet? I considered my own sire a master puppeteer.

O
N SATURDAY EVENING I ENJOYED
a pleasant cocktail hour and dinner with my parents which helped restore my dilapidated esprit. It had not been my customary lollygagging weekend and I set out for the party being hosted by Tony Sutcliffe and Emma Gompertz hoping the informal bash would completely rejuvenate my usual stratospheric gusto.

(Connie Garcia hadn’t phoned but I determinedly ignored that disappointment. My Brobdingnagian ego simply would not allow me to make the initial rapprochement. Please do not remind me that pride is the first of the seven deadly sins.)

The two clerks of Parrots Unlimited lived in a cramped one-bedroom condo in West Palm. I had stopped en route to pick up a liter of Sterling vodka as urged by my lunatic Dr. Watson, and by the time I arrived the party was already flaming. It was a bit of a shocker to realize the other celebrants were at least ten years younger than Binky and I. But the gulf between twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings didn’t seem to discombobulate my aide-de-camp. And why should it, since his mental age is teen-something?

A card table covered with a bedsheet (mercifully clean) served as a sideboard. There was one large platter of Ritz crackers and cubes of process cheese slowly turning green. Understandably no one appeared interested in this nosh; the stacks of plastic cups and gallon jugs of wine, all with screw tops, were the attraction.

I don’t mean to be snooty in this description of Emma and Tony’s party. Obviously their income and that of their friends was limited. But they were sharing laughter and companionship and if the wine was a vintage of last Tuesday—so what? In my salad days I attended and hosted many similar revelries and no one ever thought of objecting when the cab or zin was served in Smucker’s jelly jars.

Binky grabbed my bottle of Sterling like a cookie addict who had endured a week without his daily Pepperidge Farm fix. He found ice somewhere and came back with plastic cups of chilled and scantily watered vodka for me, Bridget Houlihan, and himself.

“I’m teaching Bridget to appreciate the glories of eighty-proof,” he informed me.

“It tastes like medicine,” she said with a shudder after one small sip.

“It
is
medicine,” I agreed. “But need not be inhaled or injected. I have found it an effective disinfectant for small wounds as well as an excellent gargle for a raspy throat.”

She looked at me doubtfully and I wandered away. I moved through the gabbling throng (it seemed like a throng only because the apartment was so cramped) and found host and hostess. I thanked them for their hospitality and assured them it was a marvelous party. They glowed although I doubted if they recalled who I was. Their memories might have been dulled by the volume of hard rock thundering from two speakers large as coffins.

I decided to have one more tincture of Sterling and then split. But when I went searching for the vodka bottle I saw Ricardo Chrisling standing alone, gripping a plastic cup of red wine. Well, he wasn’t alone of course—one couldn’t be in that mob—but he was withdrawn, solitary, with a fixed smile that struck me as remote if not supercilious. I moved through the crowd to his side.

He was wearing Armani, naturally, beautifully tailored. The man’s immaculacy amazed me. Didn’t he ever drop a button or stain a cuff? He was so
complete.
I was absolutely certain he had hairs removed regularly from ears and nostrils.

“Ah,” he said. “Archy McNally.”

I was pleased he remembered my name. “In the flesh,” I said, “sort of. Good to see you again, Ricardo. How was the Orlando trip?”

If he was shocked by my knowledge of his activities he didn’t show it. He flipped a hand back and forth. “So-so,” he said. “We bought the usual. Nothing very extraordinary except for a magnificent pair of varied lorikeets. Are you interested in parrots?”

“No,” I said, and he gave me his glacial smile.

“I promised the kids I’d put in an appearance,” he said. “I have and now I’m ready to leave. Are you staying?”

“Actually I was going to have one more small swallow and then cut out.”

He looked at me speculatively. “Why don’t you have your swallow at my place?” he suggested. “Something better than jug wine. This really isn’t my scene.”

I accepted his invitation gladly. The unending jack-hammering of hard rock was flossing my ears and I yearned for a spell of quiet. We stole away and I am certain our departure wasn’t noticed. Certainly not by my fruitcake assistant who was entertaining a fascinated audience with his repertoire of birdcalls, including that of the Slovenian grebe.

I would have imagined a lad as frigidly elegant as Ricardo would be driving something sinuous, foreign, and frightfully expensive. A Lamborghini Diablo? But no, his personal transportation was a white four-door Ford Explorer. Room enough for a troop of tots or cargo—lots of cargo. It was a nice enough vehicle, mind you, but I thought it an odd choice for a man who wore Armani (black label) and favored French cuffs on his silk shirts.

I began to have second thoughts about Ricardo Chrisling. My first impressions are usually accurate—but not always. I once tabbed a chap to be a complete schlub and he later turned out to be a bloomin’ genius.

It wasn’t only the car Ricardo was driving that made me begin to doubt my incipient evaluation of his character and personality. There was an added factor: the links on those French cuffs were miniature dice. Costly, I’m sure, but more Las Vegas than Paris, wouldn’t you say?

I followed Ricardo’s truck to a neighborhood not far from where the wine party was still blasting away. But this was an upscale area of West Palm, a quiet section of private homes and low-rise condos, all nicely landscaped with trim lawns and a restrained selection of dwarf palms. It was not an enclave of the
rich
rich, but just as obviously the residents were not financially disadvantaged, if you will forgive my use of the politically correct gibberish
au courant
these days.

Ricardo’s dwelling was on the second floor of a modest three-story building. He had not one, not two, but three locks on his front door, and I waited patiently while he found the proper keys.

“Security problems?” I asked.

“No,” he said shortly. “And I want to keep it that way.”

He flipped on a bright table lamp and I looked about. His one-bedroom condo was high-ceilinged and airy. Now I must give you my first impressions, again after warning they have occasionally proved faulty in the past.

The apartment looked like a model room displayed in a South Florida furniture store. The mirrored wall, the colors, furnishings, lighting—everything was pleasant enough but so pristine and spotless it was difficult to believe the place was actually inhabited.

That was my first reaction. The second was a conviction the condo had been decorated by a woman. The feminine aura of pastels was the tip-off: all those soft shades of aqua, lavender, and the palest of pinks and yellows. I mean the room was totally lacking in vigor. It seemed to have been created with colored chalks.

Of course a female interior decorator may have been hired to create that tinted meringue. Or perhaps Chrisling had purchased or leased the condo fully furnished and never bothered altering it to conform to his personal taste. But it was definitely a womanly apartment, not quite fluffy but so... so
delicate
I wondered if Ricardo, even when alone, closed the door of the bathroom when he used it.

I go to such lengths to describe his living quarters because they puzzled me. I simply could not believe a man dwelt there comfortably.
Suffocating
! That’s the word I’ve been seeking.

De gustibus non est disputandum
. And if you think that means there is no accounting for tastes you’re right on. And who wrote it? Our old friend Monsieur Anon.

“Do you like brandy?” Ricardo asked suddenly.

“Very much,” I said.

“Ever have Presidente? It’s Mexican.”

“No, I’ve never tried it but I’m willing.”

“Nice flavor,” he said. “I think you’ll like it. I’ll get us a glass. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t smoke.”

He disappeared and I sank into a plumpish upholstered armchair. A mistake. I sank and sank, wondering how I’d ever get out of the damned thing without the aid of a block and tackle.

He returned with the brandy in stemmed liqueur glasses rather than snifters. But that was all right; I can rough it. He handed me a tiny tot and waited until I took an experimental sip.

“Well?” he asked.

“Excellent,” I pronounced. “Flavorful, as you said.”

“You don’t find it a bit sweetish?”

“A bit,” I admitted. “But not overwhelming.”

“An acquired taste,” he said. “Very popular south of the border.”

“You’ve been to Mexico?”

“I have friends there,” he replied, which didn’t exactly answer my question.

He moved away from me to a couch covered with unspotted periwinkle velvet. He didn’t sit but leaned back against one of the armrests. It put him at a higher altitude than I. I was entrapped by that quicksand armchair and so he towered. I recognized it as a common ploy of business executives. If you sit or stand at a higher elevation than your visitor you automatically reduce him or her to an inferior.

“I wanted to get out of that madhouse,” he said abruptly. “Also, I wanted to talk to you in private.”