McNally's Risk (9 page)

"I'll walk you to your car," Theo said, and I could have screamed with delight.

We went outside, she preceding me, and I saw how her tanned legs gleamed in the sunlight. As an experienced aesthetician I notice such things.

She laughed when she saw my red Miata. "What a little beauty!" she said.

"Isn't it?" I said, happy that she approved of my wheels. "They're producing new models in black and British racing green. I may trade it in."

"Don't you dare," she said, patting the hood. "This one is
you.
Where do you live, Archy?"

"Ocean Boulevard. The Atlantic is practically lapping at our doorstep."

"How wonderful," she said. "I'd love to see your home."

"Of course," I said, almost spluttering with pleasure. "Whenever you like." I handed her a business card. "Do give me a call."

"I shall," she said, looking at me thoughtfully. "Perhaps we could make an afternoon of it. There are so many places in the Palm Beach area I'd love to see and haven't had the chance."

"I'd be happy to serve as your cicerone," I said warmly. "Perhaps we might start with lunch."

"That
would
be fun," she said.

The thought then occurred to me that maybe the Chinless Wonder was bonkers in describing Theodosia as his soon-to-be fiancée. That might be his fantasy, but the way this Lorelei was coming on, it certainly didn't seem to be hers.

"Theo," I said, "there is something I'd like to ask and I do hope it won't upset you. I'm acquainted with Silas Hawkin's widow and daughter, and in his ledger they found a notation of a painting he had been working on at the time of his death. It's listed merely as 'Untitled.' They can't find the painting and have no idea what the subject matter might be. They requested I ask you if Si ever discussed it while he was doing your portrait."

She shook her head. "No, Si never mentioned anything else he was working on. I have no idea what 'Untitled' might be."

"I didn't think you would," I assured her, "but I promised to ask. Thank you so much for welcoming me to your home. I do appreciate it."

"I'm looking forward to that lunch," she said lightly.

She shook my hand, turned, and walked back to her condo. I watched her stroll away. An entrancing sight.

I sat a moment on the hot cushions of the Miata, trying to cool off and calm down. Madam X was fascinating, no doubt about it.

I had confused impressions of both the Johnsons. Despite his air of surety Hector struck me as the type of man who constantly has to reassure himself by exaggerating his wealth, accomplishments, and prospects. Not exactly bragging, you understand, but just keeping his illusions about himself intact.

As for Theo, I ruefully admitted I may have made an initial error by equating her beauty with sweetness, purity, modesty, innocence—all that swell stuff. Now I began to wonder if there might not be a darker side to her nature, including unbridled hedonism, willfulness, cold ambition, and other attitudes that added up to a self-centered young lady with an eye out for the main chance.

Maybe, just maybe, the suspicions of crabby Mrs. Gertrude Smythe-Hersforth were justified.

Musing on the complexities of human temperament I started up the Miata and headed slowly out of the parking area. As I did, another car entered. I glanced, drove on a few yards, stopped, and made a great show of lighting a cigarette while I watched in the rearview mirror.

The newcomer stopped in front of the Johnsons' town house. The driver alighted, rang the doorbell, and was immediately admitted. Apparently Hector's expected business associate.

The car he was driving was a gunmetal Cadillac de Ville. And he was a saturnine bloke with a profile like a cleaver. Undoubtedly the gink who had spoken so familiarly to Shirley Feebling in Fort Lauderdale.

I sat there, shaken, and looked up to the heavens for revelation.

Nothing.

I returned to the McNally Building and found on my desk a message requesting that I call Sgt. Rogoff immediately. I did, finding him at police headquarters, an edifice the sergeant called the Palace but which looks to me as if it should be in the hills overlooking the Cote d'Azur.

"What's cooking, Al?" I asked.

"Me," he replied. "Murphy's Law is in action. Whatever can go wrong
is
going wrong."

"Laddy," I said, "you do sound gloomy."

"I am gloomy," he said. "It's this Hawkin kill. You know if you don't break a homicide in the first forty-eight hours, the clearance rate drops like a stone. And I'm no closer to figuring it out than I was when the squeal came in. Listen, did you talk to the Johnsons?"

"About an hour ago. I didn't ask Hector, but Theodosia says she knows nothing about a Hawkin painting called 'Untitled.' "

He sighed. "Another long shot that ran out of the money. Archy, you've spoken to the widow and daughter a couple of times. Do you get the feeling there's hostility there?"

"You better believe it."

"Got any idea what it's all about?"

"Nope," I said. "I even asked Mrs. Folsby, the maid, but she's not talking."

"Yeah," he said, "I struck out with her, too. Well, it probably has nothing to do with Silas getting iced. Keep in touch, pal."

"Al, before you hang up," I said hastily, "did Hawkin have sex just before he died?"

"Why do you ask that?"

"Idle curiosity."

"As a matter of fact he did. Satisfied?"

"No," I said, "but I hope he was."

After the luscious bouillabaisse that evening, I scampered up to my cave to record the day's happenings in my journal. There was a lot to set down, but I found myself getting all bollixed up when it came to analyzing Theo Johnson's behavior and how it affected your humble servant.

Despite my revised opinion of her—I now believed her to be as much sinner as saint—she continued to quicken me, and probably for that very reason. Obviously she was not an ingenue but I could not begin to unravel her mysteries. Lolly Spindrift's title for her, Madam X, was perfect.

I had the impression that she thought me a lightweight. That was all right. I can be a bubblehead, sometimes naturally and sometimes deliberately when I mean to profit by it. I was content to have Theo consider me a twit. My reputation for deviousness is not totally undeserved.

All this brooding about Another Woman gave me a slight attack of the guilts, and so I phoned Connie Garcia. She sounded happy to hear from me.

"Connie," I said, "have you been trying to call me?"

"Why, no," she said, "I haven't."

"Well, my phone hasn't rung all evening, and I thought it might be you."

Silence.

Finally: "Archy," she said, "I think you need professional help."

We chatted casually of this and that, made a tentative dinner date for later in the week, and disconnected after mutual declarations of affection. My stirrings of culpability had been neatly assuaged.

Do you condemn me for infidelity? Might as well blame me because I lack wings and cannot fly. I mean it's all genetics, is it not? You examine any chap's DNA and it'll show that sooner or later he'll have athlete's foot and cheat on his mate. It's simply the nature of the beast.

6

I had several extremely important tasks scheduled for Tuesday morning: get a haircut, visit my friendly periodontist for my quarterly scraping, and drop by my favorite men's boutique on Worth Avenue to see if they had anything new in the way of headgear. I am a hat freak, and that morning I was delighted to find and purchase a woven straw trilby. Cocked over one eye it gave me a dashing appearance—something like a Palermo pimp.

I eventually found my way back to the McNally Building, slowed by the lassitude that affects all citizens of South Florida in midsummer. Denizens of the north are fond of remarking, "It's not the heat, it's the humidity." In our semi-tropical paradise we prefer, "It's the heat
and
the humidity."

So I welcomed the return to my itsy-bitsy office where the air-conditioning was going full blast and the ambient temperature approximated that of Queen Maud Land in Antarctica.

Since the affair of the Chinless Wonder vs. Ms. Shirley Feebling was on temporary hold, I was free to concentrate on the investigation into the background and financial probity of Theodosia Johnson and her father. I spent a half-hour phoning my contacts at local banks, following up on my initial inquiries.

I had hoped that what I would learn might solve the riddle of those anorexic dossiers I had received from national credit agencies. But what I heard only deepened the mystery. Apparently a year ago Hector Johnson had opened a checking account at a Royal Palm Way bank with a cashier's check drawn on a bank in Troy, Mich. The identification offered had been a Michigan driver's license. He had submitted the names of two Fort Lauderdale residents as references. He had made no additional deposits, and his current balance was slightly less than $50,000.

I thought about that for a while and realized that if the Johnsons were hardly nudging poverty they soon might be if their level of spending continued and no additional funds became available. Perhaps that was the reason for Hector's business meeting with the cold-faced gent who had accosted Shirley Feebling in the pizza joint.

Another puzzle was why, with limited resources, the Johnsons had commissioned Silas Hawkin to do a portrait of Theo. Si had told me he had not yet billed for the painting, but according to Lolly Spindrift the artist charged thirty grand and up for portraits. Quite a hefty bite, wouldn't you say, from a bank balance of less than fifty?

Sighing, I donned my jacket and my new lid and ventured out again into the sauna enveloping the Palm Beach area. Walking slowly and trying to keep in the shade, I made my way to the Pristine Gallery on Worth Avenue. The portrait of Theodosia Johnson was prominently displayed in the front window with a card chastely lettered:
The Last Painting by Silas Hawkin.
Rather a macabre touch, wouldn't you say?

The gallery appeared empty when I entered, but a bell jangled merrily as the door opened, and Ivan Duvalnik, the corpulent owner, appeared from an inner room. I had met him when I purchased a charming watercolor of begonias in bloom as a Christmas present for my mother. Momsy had been delighted with the gift, and the painting now hung over the mantel in our second-floor sitting room.

"Mr. McNally," he said, holding out a plump hand. "A pleasure to see you again, sir."

"It's good to see you, Mr. Duvalnik," I said, briefly pressing his damp flipper. "I'm dreadfully sorry about Si Hawkin."

"He was my shining star," Ivan said dramatically. "I shall not see his like again."

"I notice you're still showing the portrait of Theo Johnson."

His mouth twitched. "An irritation," he said. "The painting has not yet been paid for. As a matter of fact, Si asked me to hold off billing for it. So now the painting is part of his estate, and I suppose I shall have to represent his widow. It's a valuable work."

"That I can believe," I said. "I'm surprised the Johnsons haven't claimed it."

He was mildly astonished. "The Johnsons?" he said. "But it isn't their legal property. The portrait was commissioned by Chauncey Smythe-Hersforth. I thought everyone knew that. He certainly made no secret of it. He intended it to be his engagement gift to Theo."

"Of course," I said. "And speaking of gifts, I was hoping to ask Hawkin to do a small portrait of my mother as a birthday present for her. Although I doubt if I could have afforded him."

"He
was
pricey," Duvalnik admitted. "I wanted to charge a minimum of thirty thousand for the Johnson portrait but, as I say, I could never get a firm number from Si. I think perhaps he hated to see that painting go. It was his best work and he knew it. A few fine artists are like that; they do something special and they want to hang on to it. But I represent a number of other gifted portraitists if you're really interested in a present for your mother. First let me get you something to wet your whistle."

He brought me a glass of white wine. No Chilean chardonnay this time. It was dreadful plonk, but I smacked my lips gamely and told him how splendid it was. He showed me Polaroids and color slides of the works of several other artists, none of whom had Hawkin's talent. Prices ranged from twenty-five hundred to ten thousand.

"Let me think about it," I said. "If it's to be a surprise birthday gift I can hardly ask mother to sit for a portrait. I presume some of these people can do a painting from photographs."

"Naturally," he said. "No problem at all. Si Hawkin refused to work that way; he insisted on several sittings. He was a real pro."

"Was he working on anything new at the time of his death?" I asked casually.

"Not to my knowledge," the gallery owner said sadly. "Like the card in the window says, that portrait of Theo Johnson was Hawkin's final work."

"What a shame," I said. "Thank you for your help, Mr. Duvalnik. You'll be hearing from me."

And I tramped back to the McNally Building through parboiled streets, having picked up a few more tidbits of information that might prove valuable or might turn out to be the drossiest of dross. My investigations usually depend on the amassing of minor facts rather than major leaps of inspiration. When it comes to tortoise versus hare, I'm no cottontail.

It took a few minutes in my gloriously chilled office for my temperature, pulse, and respiratory rate to regain some semblance of normality. Then I phoned Lolly Spindrift at his newspaper, hoping to add a few truffles to my collection of bonbons.

"Hi, darling," Spindrift said in his high-pitched lilt. "Have you called to invite me to another lunch of champagne and caviar?"

"You mock," I said. "I haven't yet recovered from the last one."

"Wasn't that a kick?" he said. "We were talking about Silas Hawkin, and the next day the man is defunct. Let that be a lesson to you. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, laddie."

"I fully intend to," I said. "Lol, I need some information."

"So do I," he replied. "Every day, constantly. My lifestyle depends on it. You've heard of quid pro quo, haven't you, darling? English translation: You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. Not literally, of course, since we're of different religions. But if you've got nothing for me, I've got nothing for you."