McNally's Bluff (2 page)

However, to show her heart was in the right place, Carolyn offered Laddy Taylor his late father’s wardrobe, which included a dozen pairs of silk boxer shorts, all emblazoned with the image of a flamingo on the run. This did nothing so much as set the perfect stage for a crime of vengeance.

I did not want to discuss our meeting with Laddy Taylor, no matter how obliquely. Determined to get what I was paying for, I abruptly shifted gears and asked, “What do you know about Matthew Hayes, Lol?”

Lolly dropped Laddy Taylor and picked up on Matthew Hayes without missing a beat (or a bite). “Finally, the reason for your largesse,” he sighed. “Did you get your invitation to the opening of the maze?”

“How did you know I was invited?”

“I worked with Hayes on the list of invitees.”

Besides his gab column, Lolly does obits, weddings and bar mitzvahs for extra cash. He is also available for “consultation” for those wishing to break into Palm Beach society, which is comprised of three strata. The old-money folks, who speak only to each other and shun trendy restaurants, dining only at their clubs, the Everglades and the Bath and Tennis. The new-money people, who will speak to anyone who is kind enough to notice them and dine out, ad nauseam, at trendy restaurants. And finally, there’s the Smart Set, made up of the offspring of the former and the latter, with a soupcon of young boys and girls whose entree is their youth and comeliness.

Don’t tell father, but the McNally money is too new to be considered old, but old enough not to be labeled
nouveau.
Hence we transcend the system, which is a boon to business.

“What’s the poop on Matthew Hayes, Lol?” I repeated.

“You want the official bio, or the awful truth?”

“The awfuler the better, Lol.”

Over an outrageously expensive bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau (it doesn’t age so well, like we humans, the younger the better), Lolly imparted what I had come to hear.

To wit: Hayes was a second-generation carny who began his professional life as a human cannonball. His stature, five-feet-four in heels as high as a man could don without arousing suspicion, made him not only suitable for the job but also had his father eyeing Manny the Midget with malevolent scorn.

Hayes was literally catapulted into the big time when the cannoneer, who was not licensed to kill, misdirected his missile, sending Hayes over the net and head first into the amazin’ bosom of Marlena Marvel. To be sure, at the time of this encounter of head and heart, she was plain old Molly Malone, but unlike her namesake of song, this modern Molly did not proffer mussels and cockles, alive, alive, all. This Molly proffered alcoholic beverages in downtown Des Moines where she was affectionately known to her loyal customers as Stretch, due no doubt to the fact that she stood six-feet-two in her stocking feet. When Molly ambled about in her work shoes, towering red satin high-heeled slides, she resembled an L.A. Lakers center in drag.

Molly settled the disoriented cannonball on her lap as an enterprising photographer took a snap. When he sold it to the local press, who ran it beside a shot of the popular dummy of yore, Charlie McCarthy, seated on the lap of his creator, Edgar Bergen, a star was born.

Hayes talked Molly into joining his traveling carnival. To ensure that she didn’t stray, he married her in a very public ceremony. Ever aware of photo ops, the groom climbed a ladder in order to plant a kiss on his blushing bride’s cheek. The newlyweds billed themselves as the Amazin’ Matthew Hayes and the Marvelous Marlena Marvel: he as the carny pitchman and she as the show’s main attraction. They owned the carnival after two seasons on the road. Devoid of talent, hubby made the most of Marlena’s six-two frame, flowing red mane and, naturally, the ample bosom that saved his life.

Marlena was presented as Venus de Milo before a black curtain that cleverly made her appear armless. She rode a white horse as Lady Godiva, wearing nothing more than a long red wig. She mounted a drugged tiger as Sheena Queen of the Jungle, clad in a leopard-skin sarong. As the Elephant Girl she rode—you guessed it—wrapped in the animal’s ears.

Marlena Marvel was the perfect draw for the men Hayes fleeced with rigged games of chance, illegal gambling, and sex shows. A petting zoo and rides kept the wife and kids occupied while daddy lost a week’s pay to Matthew Hayes’s exchequer.

Now retired, rich and infamous, the couple had arrived in Palm Beach to baffle us with their hedge maze because they were unable to dazzle us with their brilliance.

“I understand,” Lolly concluded, “that Amazin’ was often caught in the sack with curies he liked to pick up on the fairway while Marlena was shivering inside the elephant’s ears. She threatened to sit on his lap if he didn’t mend his ways.”

“One final word to the wise,” Lolly intoned as I gasped at the bill just presented. “I told you the Adonis I rescued from Bar Anticipation left me for a woman.”

“Yes,” I said, surrendering my credit card with great reluctance.

“The woman was Carolyn Taylor.”

Well! One never knows, do one?

L
ADIES AND GENTLEMEN, GOOD
evening and welcome to Le Maze.” Our host stood on a black drum about three feet high, which I imagine was once festooned with bunting. Matthew Hayes, dressed in a tux and sporting a red cummerbund and matching carnation, had a fine head of gray hair and piercing blue eyes. His lean figure could easily fit into the trousers and blazers offered in the prep department of better men’s shops. His voice, that of a true carny hawker, belied his spritely appearance and immediately commanded the attention of the crowd of perhaps twenty couples milling about the great room of the house just christened Le Maze.

I think the former owners of the villa on Ocean Boulevard would have been amazed to see what Amazin’ Matthew Hayes had done with it. The furniture, strictly rental, was a potpourri of this (early hotel) and that (late motel). The art, twelve-by-six four-color posters, depicted scenes from Hayes’s former carnival in all its gaudy splendor. A strong man, a tattooed lady named Lydia, a bearded lady, male Siamese twins joined at the hip (no doubt with Super Glue), Ferris wheels, ferocious tigers, parachute jumps, a two-headed dog, the fairway and, most conspicuous of all, Marlena Marvel in all her many guises.

There were booths offering cotton candy, candied apples on a stick, soda pop, franks, burgers, beer from a keg and a moviola advertising French films. (Really!) There was an organ grinder with a monkey, a fortune-teller (Madame LaZanga) with a deck of tarot cards, a man who guessed your age (his was a thankless job with this crowd), several pinball machines and a guy in a bowler hat and arm braces (so help me!) running a three-card monte scam across a portable bridge table. There was a knife thrower asking for volunteers (ha!), a sword swallower and a lion tamer short on lions but long on tight breeches, blond locks and whip.

There was also a platoon of boys and girls in the traditional black pants, white pleated shirts and black bow ties, passing around trays of crystal flutes (rented) filled with surprisingly good champagne.

Lolly, in his trademark white suit, painted silk tie and panama hat, breezed by munching a candied apple and whispered, “My dear, it gives new meaning to the word gauche.”

“Didn’t you advise him?” I whispered back.

“I suggested the guest list, not the decor. Look, there’s Katie Mann with her new husband. Or is it Trish Manning’s new husband Katie’s got her mitts on? Oh, dear. Tata, dearheart.”

“Before you ta-ta, Lol, will you tell me if that’s Carolyn Taylor’s beau?” I asked, discreetly nodding toward the couple in question.

The widow Taylor is a looker in her forties. She wore her auburn hair in a rather mannish cut that was surprisingly sexy on her. In a miniskirt and black satin bolero blouse knotted above her toned bare midriff, there could be no doubt as to her gender.

Her partner was at least twenty years younger and as good-looking as all the young men, usually from the Midwest, who come to our town not seeking fame (they go to N.Y. and L.A. for that) but fortune. This one came in natural blond.

“That’s him,” Lolly said, pouting over his loss. “Billy Gilbert. There’s less to him than meets the eye, if you get my drift.” With that he took off to see just who Katie Mann was hitting on.

Not far from Carolyn and Billy I spotted Laddy Taylor in the crowd but could not ascertain if he was with a date or on his own. He was far enough from his stepmother to prevent him from engaging her in fisticuffs, but the night was young.

Judging from the din, the Smart Set appeared to be enjoying a night out. They were garbed in the suggested casual attire: shorts, sneakers, polo shirts, tees with naughty words in block letters and jeans worn low enough to reveal the brand of underwear beneath the denim—a fad I wish would go the way of long-playing records and telephones anchored to a wire.

My near-six-foot frame looked splendid in a pair of trim madras slacks (I believe the relaxed look is for those who have something to hide) and a blue Ralph Lauren button-down. For contrast, I added a white-on-white ascot to the outfit and shod my size eleven hoofs in a pair of canvas docksiders—sans socks,
naturellement.
My underwear will be revealed on a need-to-know basis.

“I guess you’re wondering why I gathered you all here tonight,” Hayes continued, to laughs, catcalls and applause. “Well, wonder no longer, for the moment of truth has arrived. You will be the first of whom I hope will be many to enter the maze of Le Maze and search for the goal.

“To make your quest more interesting I am going to ask the ladies to pick a name out of this bonnet”—Hayes pointed to a woman’s straw bonnet resting on the rim of the platform next to a man’s top hat—“and the gentlemen to pick a name from this hat. Those with matching names will be partnered to search for the goal.”

Feet shifted and necks craned to size up the possibilities.

“By matching,” Hayes explained, “I mean a lady who picks, let’s say, Bonnie, will have to find the man who has selected Clyde.”

This got a smattering of nervous laughs, giggles and moans.

“Before we begin,” Hayes went on, still holding the room’s rapt attention, “I would like to introduce you all to the little woman whom I have loved, admired and looked up to since the day we met.”

The silence that followed was embarrassing until one brave soul let out an insidious snicker. A moment later the entire room was rocking with laughter, led by Hayes himself who egged everyone on like a maestro sans baton. As the laughter subsided the lights began to dim, slowly, until the great room was dark and eerily still.

A spotlight came on and moved to the foot of the curved marble stairway that descended gracefully to the great room and rose to the upper floor and a balcony where, decades ago, an orchestra once played to the waltzing couples below. The spotlight mounted the stairs, crossed to the balcony, hesitated, and then illuminated Venus de Milo in all her glory. The crowd gave a collective gasp before breaking into unbridled applause.

Marlena Marvel, looking ten feet tall, had to be fifty-plus, but thanks to artfully applied theatrical makeup, appeared to be as ageless and armless as the ancient statue. Her skin was alabaster white and some device had been attached to her waist to make her appear both naked and modest. There was a demure smile on her lips and only her famous red hair broke from a detailed imitation of the original Venus. Forgive the analogy, but she stood as still as a statue with only her shiny black eyes reflecting a glimmer of life behind the facade. It was amazin’.

The spotlight faded as the house lights came on. The audience, shaking their heads and exclaiming over the presentation, hardly had a chance to digest what they had seen before Hayes was beckoning to them to come forth and pick a partner for the search for the goal. “Marlena will join us as soon as she screws her arms back on.” He worked the crowd he now held firmly in the palm of his hand with all the finesse of a true carny pitch man.

In the “His” and “Hers” queues I noticed Mr. and Mrs. Vance Tremaine. His family money was so old it died, forcing Vance to marry Penny Brightworth, whose money was so new it squeaked. Mr. Brightworth was a fast-food czar who catered lavishly to his only daughter, whom he called Bright Penny. Vance’s smart pals called the match dollar wise and penny foolish. Vance had an eye for young ladies and it was said he had cheated on Penny on their honeymoon. The more callous said he actually did it at his own wedding reception when he went missing from the bridal table for fifteen minutes before being spotted coming out of a utility closet with one of the waitresses.

This has long bothered poor Penny. She once asked her friend and mentor, the formidable dowager Emily Fairhurst, “Can a man do it in fifteen minutes?” To which Emily responded, “My dear, he’s your husband, you tell me.”

A group of Vance’s prep school buddies once pasted a bumper sticker to the rear of his Rolls that advised
KEEP IT IN YOUR PANTS, VANCE.

Also on line, much to Penny’s annoyance and Vance’s delight, was the beautiful and nubile Elizabeth “Fitz” Fitzwilliams. Vance had been after the young Fitz for years, to no avail, and Penny had gone to great lengths to keep the two as far apart as aeons in history. When the fates brought them together Penny kept a vigilant eye on both and, should nature call, Penny had been known to cajole Fitz into accompanying her to the loo, refusing to leave them alone for even five minutes, fearing Vance might attempt to break his record.

If Fitz picked Bonnie and Vance picked Clyde, Penny would pick the knife thrower. Come to think of it, what would happen if Carolyn picked Bonnie and Laddy Taylor picked Clyde?

With Fitz was Joe Gallo, a young man who used to be tight with my Georgia. Once a caddie at one of our more prestigious clubs, Joe, who aspired to join me fourth estate as a reporter, had got himself a position as news gatherer for our local television station, which is how he must have made Lolly’s list of notables. How Joe got Fitz I wouldn’t know.

Also among us were a couple who appear on the channel Gallo labors for with their own morning show, unoriginally titled
Breakfast with Mack and Marge.
It’s a television version of the old radio shows that featured celebrated couples who were supposed to be at their breakfast table chatting about their wonderful evenings nightclubbing after the theater or rubbing shoulders at a society ball. These revelations greatly delighted their audience comprised primarily of the secretaries, wives, waitresses and telephone operators who would never see the inside of a nightclub, theater or ballroom.