McNally's Secret (16 page)

“What is it, Mr. Wolfson?”

“Living,” he said and looked to me for an appreciative chuckle. I obliged as best I could. He asked: “And are you still snooping about after those silly stamps?”

I was offended by that derisive description of my discreet inquiries, but let it pass. “I’m still investigating, yes.”

He stopped a moment to lean on his cane and stare out at the dim horizon. “I really don’t understand why you’re making such a fuss about the disappearance of those misprinted bits of paper. I assure you that Lady Cynthia is not losing any sleep over their loss.”

“If the stamps are not recovered, an insurance claim will be filed. My father wants to make certain that both his office and the police have made a good-faith effort to find the stamps or the thief or both.”

He made no reply but resumed his slow walk. His head was lowered, the wide brim of his hat hid his eyes.

“And why did you wish to talk to me?” he inquired. “I’ve already told you what little I know of the matter.”

“Just a few more questions,” I said. “You left Phil Meecham’s yacht with Gina Stanescu after the cruise was canceled. Do you mind telling me where you went?”

“Yes, I do mind,” he said. “I resent this interrogation since it seems to imply there may have been something suspicious in my activities that day. However, I have nothing to hide so I shall answer. Gina and I found our way to Worth Avenue and visited several shops. We separated in a department store because I was weary of walking about. We made plans to meet in an hour. I stopped briefly in a bookstore but found nothing that interested me. I then went to the Cafe L’Europe, sat at the bar and had an excellent vodka gimlet, ice cold and razor-sharp. Gina eventually joined me and had a glass of white wine. We finished our drinks—I had a second—and phoned Kenneth. He came for us in that marvelous Rolls, and we rode home in style. Satisfied?”

“I am,” I said, “but you know what the police are like; they’ll want to check your story with Gina, the clerk at the bookstore, the bartender at L’Europe, and Kenneth.”

“Let them do all the bloody checking they want,” he cried with unexpected fury. “I don’t give a good goddamn!”

I looked at him with astonishment. The sudden spasm of anger seemed to have weakened him. He swayed, I feared he might fall, and put a hand on his elbow to steady him.

“Are you all right?” I asked anxiously.

“I’m beginning to feel the heat,” he said with what I can only describe as a vulpine grin. “I think we better go back.”

“Of course,” I said. “Would you care to lean on my arm?”

He glared at me. “I am stronger than you may think,” he said coldly. “I am not yet decrepit, I do assure you.”

But we retraced our steps slowly, Wolfson with his head bowed and using his cane. He stopped abruptly, lowered his head a little more to peer at the sand.

“Look at that!” he said. “A lovely shell! Will you retrieve it for me, please.”

I bent to pick it up, shake out the sand and hand it to him. It was a common whelk, chipped and encrusted, but he turned it tenderly in his fingers as if he had found a treasure.

“Is it rare?” he asked.

I could not lie but I could dissemble. “All shells are rare along this stretch of coast,” I told him. “We’ve had very slim pickings for the past few years.”

“I shall give it to Gina,” he said. “She’ll love it.”

We finally got back to the Horowitz mansion, and Wolfson left me to go to his room. “A short nap,” the antiquarian said, “to recharge my batteries.”

I went out to the Miata and saw Kenneth Bodin puttering about in the garage. He was wearing one of his skimpy T-shirts, muscles popping in all directions. I joined him and proffered my box of cigarettes. He selected one and examined it closely.

“English Ovals, huh?” he said. “I never smoked one. Imported?”

“Yes,” I said. “From Virginia.”

“I’ll have it after lunch,” he said, and tucked the cigarette behind his ear. “You find those stamps yet?”

“Not yet,” I said. “Perhaps you can help. On the day all the houseguests were supposed to go for a yacht cruise, did you get a call around one o’clock to pick up Gina Stanescu and Angus Wolfson?”

“That’s right,” he said. “The cruise was canceled, so they went shopping. Then they wanted a ride back. They could have called a cab, I guess, but that’s what I’m here for—right?”

“Right,” I said. “Where did you pick them up?”

“Outside the Cafe L’Europe,” he said promptly. “They were waiting for me on the sidewalk.”

“And you drove them directly back here?”

“Sure. Hey, has this got something to do with the stamps?”

“One never knows, do one?” I said, and left him flummoxed.

I returned home for lunch. But before digging into the chef’s salad Ursi had prepared, I made two phone calls. The first was to Sgt. Al Rogoff.

“Hiya, sherlock,” he said. “What’s up?”

“You’re having lunch,” I said. “I can hear you masticating.”

“Nah,” he said, “I haven’t done that since I was in the navy.”

“Not a bad pun,” I admitted. “What are you eating?”

“Anchovy pizza.”

“Rather you than me,” I said. “Can you chew pizza and make notes at the same time?”

“Sure.”

I repeated what Angus Wolfson had told me of his activities during the time Bela Rubik was getting his skull smashed.

“Okay,” Al said. “Thanks. I’ll check it out.”

“I’ve already questioned the chauffeur,” I told him. “He says yes, he picked up Stanescu and Wolfson about one o’clock. Do you believe him?”

“I don’t believe anyone,” Rogoff said.

“Does that include me?” I asked.

“Especially you,” he said.

My second call was to Jennifer Towley, and I was pleasantly surprised when she replied instead of her answering machine.

“Sorry,” I said, “but I can’t talk until you
beep.
”

“Beep,
” she said.

“How about dinner tonight?”

“Love to,” she said at once.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to consider it for—oh, say two seconds?”

“I did,” she said, “and I’d love to have dinner with you tonight. What shall I wear?”

“Clothes would be nice—but if you’d rather not...”

“I’ll wear clothes,” she said firmly.

“Listen,” I said, “I just had an earthshaking idea. I haven’t done the black-tie bit in ages. Why don’t we glam it up just for the fun of it?”

“Groovy,” she said. Then: “Do people still say groovy?”

“No.”

“Well, I think glamming it up for an evening is a marvy idea.”

“No one says marvy anymore either.”

“Keep it up,” she warned, “and you and your black tie will end up alone at the Pelican Club.”

“See you around seven,” I said.

“That’s keen,” she said. “Also neat.”

I hung up, thinking she was in a delightfully antic mood.

At the family cocktail hour that evening, father eyed my white dinner jacket with his usual distaste for my duds. He once observed that wearing a white dinner jacket made a man look like a trombonist in Guy Lombardo’s band.

Mother had news. She had received a handwritten note from Lady Cynthia Horowitz. The three of us were invited to attend an informal dinner for Felice and Alan DuPey on Friday night. It was to be a farewell party prior to their departure for France on Saturday morning.

“Shall we accept, Prescott?” she asked. (She had once addressed him as “father,” and he had instructed her in no uncertain terms that since he was not her father, he did not appreciate the designation. All very well and good, and I agreed with him, but I noted that on more than one occasion he had addressed her as “mother.” How do you figure that?)

“I think we should,” he said, and turned to me. “You’ve met the DuPeys, Archy?”

“Yes, sir. I spoke to them today.”

“A pleasant couple?”

“Newlyweds,” I said, “and disgustingly in love. It can’t last.”

“Don’t be so sure of that, Archy,” my mother said, sipping her martini.

I know it’s fashionable to be late, but early in our relationship I had sensed that Jennifer was a woman who preferred punctuality in her business and personal dealings. So I rang her bell a minute or two after seven o’clock, duded up in dinner jacket, black tie and cummerbund, as promised.

She came to the door, and I almost shouted with delight. If that wasn’t a Hanae Mori she was wearing, it was an awfully good ripoff. The beaded gown fell to her ankles and looked as if it had been painted by van Gogh, perhaps as a study for “Starry Night.” It was all swirls of vibrant colors that caught the light and gave it back deepened and intensified.

Jennifer must have seen my admiration, for she struck a model’s pose and twirled. “Glamorous enough for you?” she asked.

“Magnificent,” I said. “I think I better cancel our reservation at Burger King. We’ll go to a fancier place.”

“We better,” she said. “I shot my bank account on this little number.”

Actually, I had made a reservation at The Ocean Grand, a new hotel down the road a piece. It’s an elegant resort, and if anything could top the painted silk murals on the walls of the dining room, it could only be that scintillant gown Jennifer was wearing.

I’m not going to describe our dinner in detail because you’d gain weight just reading about it. I’ll merely mention our entrees: Jennifer had sautéed breast of pheasant with kumquats, and I had wood-grilled tenderloin flavored with tamarind and guava. Isn’t that enough to set your salivary glands atwitter?

After dessert and espresso, we moved to the lounge, where a harpist was strumming something that sounded suspiciously like “The Darktown Strutters’ Ball.” We sat at the bar and ordered S.O.B.s. You may not be familiar with that drink. The full name is Sex on the Beach, and I believe it’s indigenous to South Florida. I don’t wish to reveal the ingredients lest it achieve wide popularity and undermine the democratic institutions of this great nation.

“Oh Archy,” Jennifer said, sighing, “what a scrumptious dinner! I must have put on five pounds.”

“Nonsense,” I said. “It was all no-cal—didn’t you know?”

“Liar,” she said. “But I don’t care; I’ll go on a diet tomorrow.”

“Famous last words. Just play a few sets of tennis in the hot sun; that’ll melt the avoirdupois. Jennifer, have you used your new racquet yet?”

“Not yet. I can’t tell you how busy I’ve been. I was hoping to take an hour off yesterday for a lesson with the club pro, but something came up.”

I didn’t ask.

“As a matter of fact,” she said, looking down at her drink, “my ex phoned. He was going to be in West Palm Beach and wanted to have lunch.”

“Uh-huh,” I said. “And did you?”

She nodded. “I thought about it and decided there was no point in being uncivil. After all, we
were
married. And having a quick lunch with Tom didn’t send a signal that I wanted him back, did it?”

I didn’t answer that. “It’s your decision,” I said, but suddenly the evening didn’t seem quite as perfect as it had ten minutes ago.

“Well, I saw him,” she went on. “I think it was more curiosity than anything else. I wondered if those years in prison had changed him.”

“And?”

She gave a short laugh. “I think they helped. Physically, at least. He’s thinner and has a good tan. He looks very fit. And he’s as optimistic as ever. I suppose salesmen have to be that way.”

“What about the gambling?”

“He says that’s all finished. He claims he hasn’t made a bet since his release, and he swears he’ll never gamble again as long as he lives.”

“Do you believe him?”

“Oh Archy, how can I? He told me the same thing so many times when we were married, and he always broke his promise. No, I don’t believe him.”

“I think that’s wise.”

“I hope he means it this time,” she said thoughtfully. “For his sake. But I wouldn’t bet on it.”

“Good,” I said. “Don’t you start betting.”

She gave me a sad smile.

We finished our drinks and left. I drove slowly on the trip homeward while Jennifer chattered on about her crazy clients and their wild decorating ideas. I had never known her to be so voluble, and it suddenly occurred to me that she—like Gina Stanescu and Angus Wolfson—might be lonely. Lonely in the sense of lacking someone in her life with whom to share intimacies, even if they were only the mundane details of living: What did you have for lunch? Did you get caught in the rain? Is your headache better? Did you remember to pick up the dry cleaning?

In other words, she lacked a partner. And I wasn’t yet certain I wanted to apply for the job. The reason is obvious, isn’t it? Cowardice.

She invited me in for a nightcap, and I accepted gratefully because I did admire this woman. She really demanded nothing from me, and I knew she wouldn’t. She gave generously and in return, I think, she wanted me to respect her independence. And so we circled each other in comfortable orbit, but never collided. That would have meant destruction or merger, and I don’t believe either of us had the moxie to chance it.

That evening, in her Victorian four-poster, her horizontal aerobics were as fervid as ever. At least her body responded enthusiastically to stimuli. But I had the feeling that her thoughts were away and drifting.

I
HAD THURSDAY CAREFULLY
planned: things to do, people to see, questions to ask. And then my carefully crafted schedule just fell apart, and chance and accident took over again, with no help from me this time.

I was heading out to the garage after breakfast when the phone rang. I scampered back into the kitchen with a premonition that the day was not going to proceed as planned.

“The McNally residence,” I said.

“May I talk to Mr. Archibald McNally, please.”

A woman’s voice, deep and throaty. I had heard it before but couldn’t place it.

“Speaking,” I said. “Who is calling?”

“This is Mrs. Agnes Marsden.”

“Mrs. Marsden! How nice to hear from you. Sorry I didn’t recognize your voice. How are you?”

“Very well, thank you. Mr. McNally, are you coming over today?”

“I intend to,” I said, “but later this afternoon.”

“Could you come right away?” she said, almost pleading. “There’s something I should tell you, and I want to get it off my chest now. If I wait till this afternoon, I might change my mind again.”