McNally's Bluff (21 page)

“I have a few ideas, Oscar, but I’m not ready to go public. Can we pow-wow again after you see the leading contenders?”

“Sure,” he agreed, “I’ll give you a call.”

“Was the digitalis in the tea water, or is that classified?”

“It was in a liquid she ingested that night. The doc can’t be more specific, but we know that tea was the last thing she drank.”

Standing, I considered telling Oscar what I knew about Mack Macurdy but decided to see what my client had to say on the subject before putting more fat in the fire—a decision I would soon regret. Instead, I told him, “I think Hayes is going to appear on the Macurdy show.”

Oscar pulled a face. “That Macurdy is a public nuisance. I asked him to tone it down, get off all that occult nonsense, and you know what he said?”

“He told you to come on his show and have your say. What did you tell him?”

Eberhart displayed the middle finger of his right hand while asking, “Why is Hayes going on?”

“I don’t know, Oscar, but I intend to ask him the next time we meet.”

“And tell the horticulturist, Gallo, his nursery in Boca is under surveillance. That’s all I can say right now.”

Quoting Dorothy Parker, I sallied, “You can lead a whore to culture, but you can’t make her think.”

“Get out of here, McNally.”

C
OMING OUT OF THE
PALACE
I ran into Tilly, escorted by Al Rogoff, coming in. She looked furious and Al looked determined. We passed, like ships in the night, without tooting our horns.

During my visit with Lieutenant Eberhart the bright morning sun had been obliterated by billowing gray clouds propelled by a steady breeze coming off the ocean. The weather, for better or worse, can change rapidly in the tropics. By eventide we could have a picture-perfect sunset or a torrential downpour. Not being a gambling man I raised the top on my Miata.

I made a mental to-do list as I pulled the seat belt across my lap and snapped it into its socket. Matthew Hayes was numero uno.

I had to get hold of Joe Gallo and caution him and his stringer, Binky, on the perils of wheeling and dealing in “exotic” plants. I would try to squeeze in a visit with Connie to see if she would shed some light on the yachting parties now that I was to join them, and to pump her for the latest gossip regarding our latest murder. Thanks to her boss, Lady Cynthia, Connie is a good source for upper-echelon chatter.

For belowstairs patter I turn to our Ursi, and it might not be a bad idea to swing around to the McNally manse and do just that.

I should call Lolly and tell him to stop propositioning the fuzz. Also, get the name of that dubious bar. Could be Bar Anticipation in West PB, or had Lolly discovered a more sordid sanctuary? Lolly lives by the tenet that proclaims:
There’s always one step further down you can go.

I also wanted to touch base with Marge Macurdy to learn if Mack was still riding the crest. And who was their guest on this morning’s show? Count Dracula to hype the county’s blood drive?

I had to check out Palm Beach Helicopters in Lantana and Ocean Helicopters in West Palm.

Last, I had to get some lunch which I decided to do first. Armies, and Archy McNally, travel on their stomachs. Thinking I could K two B’s with one S, I headed for the Royal Palm Way bridge, beeping the glass and steel McNally Building as I sped past. My destination was Ocean Helicopters on Aviation Boulevard with a detour to Sandy James, the luncheonette on Southern Boulevard and S. Dixie Highway that was suddenly all the rage with Palm Beachites.

The eatery is as big as your handkerchief with a table or two for
alfresco
munching and has caught on with the people who matter for reasons best known to those who matter. At informal lunches it’s become quite the thing for the hostess to announce, “the sandwiches are from Sandy James, don’t-you-know.” Only in Palm Beach can you get a designer sandwich.

I had the tuna melt on an English muffin with tomato, topped with cheddar and provolone and a side order of fries. I looked upon it as a last supper for the tan gabardine suit.

Nearing my destination I approached the Palm Beach Kennel Club, home to the dog races as well as the Paddock and Trophy Room restaurants, all just a stone’s throw from the airport and, of all places, the Pelican Club. The young man in the small office looked like Hollywood’s idea of a barnstorming stunt pilot of a bygone era. Tall, lean, skin like leather and a bomber’s jacket left over from the last big war.

“You interested in hiring a chopper, sir?”

“Perhaps. I’m Archy McNally and I have some questions. Have I come to the right place?”

“That depends on the questions. Are you the police, a husband, a PI on behalf of a husband or, given the times in which we live, are you looking for the man that got away?” He raised his arms in atonement. “No offense, sir.”

I laughed and so did he. He was a charmer who could charm me right out the door. I proceeded with caution. “None of the above. A friend recently employed one of our local helicopter services and I forgot which one. His name is Mack Macurdy.”

“The guy with the television show,” he shouted. “Sure. I flew him over that maze and would you believe what happened there? They say it was built on a Seminole burying ground and it’s haunted. Mr. Macurdy had a Seminole witch doctor on the show this morning and he thinks the dead lady was the reincarnation of a warrior’s squaw who rose up to claim her. The Seminoles are not happy about this.”

Neither is Mrs. Macurdy, I refrained from saying. And where did Mack get the witch doctor from? Central Casting? My poor Marge. She must be ready to murder Mack.

“Yes. It’s all very unnerving to say the least, Mister...?”

“Martin. Like the flying dude in the comic strip,
Smilin’ Jack Martin.
Only I’m Tom Martin. Are you with the network, Mr. McNally?”

“No, Tom. Like I said, I’m a friend of Mr. Macurdy and I have people coming to Palm Beach in a few weeks. Business associates. I’m in real estate, you see. I want to give them a bird’s-eye view, as it were, of parcels just west of here. I’d like to take along a cameraman, as did Mr. Macurdy.” I lie with great conviction, as you may have noticed, and never bother to cross my fingers. I am always believed because my face does not betray me. In the words of A.E.W. Mason’s Inspector Hanaud,
It is a great advantage to be intelligent and not to look it.

Tom nodded his head in agreement. “No problem, Mr. McNally. Would that be a video cameraman you had in mind?”

“Yes. As I said, it would be just like the run you did for Mr. Macurdy.”

“I asked because Mr. Macurdy took along a telescopic camera, too,” Tom informed me.

“Who was taking snaps with a telescopic camera? Mr. Macurdy?”

“That’s right, sir. He said it was to show what he called tight shots on the screen but I never saw them when I watched the show the next day. Maybe they didn’t come out so good.”

On the contrary, Tommy boy, they came out picture perfect and I could hardly contain my excitement. I had followed my stomach and struck gold. Adding another to-do to my already busy schedule I decided there and then to fly over that maze for starters, and do it again with a telescopic camera if necessary. Where does one get a telescopic camera? From a paparazzo, who else?

“If I wanted to make a test run, Tom, would you oblige me?”

“Sure thing.” He flashed me his smilin’ Jack smile and promised, “I’ll also charge you.”

As I made my way back to Palm Beach I gloated over my discovery. Mack had taken telescopic photos of the maze, maybe even had them blown up, then pieced them together like a jigsaw puzzle and got himself a clear picture of the grid which, incidentally, he did not share with his audience. He kept it all to himself and even had the audacity to brag to his wife that he would make the goal. What a devious bugger was Mack Macurdy.

He went up in that chopper days before the party, so had no way of knowing there would be a search for the goal and a prize to the winners. No. He took those photos, memorized the key, and filed away the information for whatever use he could make of it in the future, and the future had arrived sooner than even Mack himself had expected. But it seems the prize turned out to be far more than just a few gift certificates to trendy Worth Avenue boutiques.

What had Mack seen when he flew over the maze—either by the naked eye or courtesy of his high-powered equipment—to allow him to intimidate Hayes? Pay up or I’ll go public with the key to your maze? Surely not. Mack saw more than that and now Archy was going to learn what it was on Matthew Hayes’s dime even if it had nothing to do with Marlena Marvel’s murder.

How much did Marge know about this? Mack liked to brag. Could he have resisted telling his wife what he had done? If she knew, why was she jerking me around? Did she suspect, like me, that he had learned more than just the key to the grid which he wasn’t sharing with her? Did she want Archy to learn what it was—gratis, no less?

Freckles, moonlight and—guile?

I retraced my route back across the Royal Palm Way bridge, this time pulling into the McNally Building’s underground garage. I greeted Herb with a thumbs-up as I hurried to the elevator and ascended to the mail room. I purposely avoided going to my office as I was certain the monster’s little red eye would be blinking furiously and should I retrieve my messages they would all be from Matthew Hayes protesting Tilly’s abduction by the police.

Binky was at his desk, munching a sandwich not from Sandy James and reading a bodice ripper. Binky is addicted to the genre. His favorites seem to be sagas of virile Norsemen sailing up and down the coast of western Europe, laying waste to the land and ravishing all the farmer’s daughters. He once told me there are worse things one could read and I asked him to name two. I still await an answer.

“Get your nose out of that tome and tell me how you and Joe Gallo found the exotic plant dealer in Boca.”

Binky looked up at me with those brown eyes and blinked several times before saying, “Why don’t you give that purple shirt a rest, Archy?”

The nerve. Since he’s become a stringer for a news-hound he has lost all respect for those he used to respect—like me. “I happen to like this shirt, not that I have to answer to you for what I choose to wear. Now let’s talk about that foxglove plant and the guy who sold it to you. Who told you he might have such a plant?”

“I do believe it was the lovely Fitz who knew of Romeo’s nursery.”

I should have guessed it was Fitz, the reigning princess of the Smart Set, who would know where to get anything exotic, be it animal, vegetable or mineral. “Romeo, is it? Well I’m here to warn you and Joe that the police are very interested in Romeo and his exotic plants. He’s suspected of growing cannabis and is under surveillance by the police from Boca to Juno.”

Binky shrugged his bony shoulders. “You’re such a prude, Archy.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Everyone knows that Romeo is a dealer. But it’s just grass, no hard stuff, so what’s the problem?”

This was infuriating. “The problem is that it’s illegal and a health hazard. Have you ever...”

“I refuse to answer on the grounds that it might incriminate me.” With that he returned to his bacon, lettuce and tomato on toasted white with mayo. It looked scrumptious.

It was clear that his time spent in the good offices of McNally & Son were not lost upon him. I had my say and what he and Joe did with it was their affair. “A word to the wise, Binky, but I see my caution falls on deaf ears.”

“Relax, Archy,” he suggested. “Your generation is responsible for two world wars and that doesn’t bother you as much as a little pot to dull the sharp edges.”

My generation? Two world wars? “We are contemporaries, if you please.” I have ten years on Binky, that’s all. Well—maybe fifteen.

Binky finished his sandwich and sipped from a straw embedded in a can of Classic Coke. Such a diet helped maintain his twenty-eight-inch waist. I should have parked on the bridge and jumped off.

“Joe’s no fool,” Binky crowed, and I was touched with nostalgia for the days when Binky Watrous sang my praises. “Getting the plant for show and tell was a great idea so who cares where it came from? The end justifies the means, Archy.”

“That, Binky, is Machiavellian.”

“No it’s not, Archy. It’s show business.”

Well, I couldn’t refute that keen observation.

Not being proud I gather my rose buds regardless from whose bush they fall, so inquired, “Has Gallo come up with anything new in his investigation?”

“He has an idea but that Mack Macurdy won’t cooperate,” Binky complained.

Now that was most interesting. “How so, Binky my boy?”

He closed his paperback without bothering to mark his place but I surmised Binky had the page numbers of his favorite chapters etched into his memory. Binky needed a woman to dull those sharp edges and I suddenly wondered if he had tried the “personals” I understand are now so popular on the Internet. Employing code names, couples get to know each other via correspondence before actually meeting. They say many have ended in marriage, or affairs, but there are no statistics as to the duration of these liaisons.

Binky once had a gal who told me he was dynamite in the boudoir. Would she write a recommendation? What could she say?
There is more to Binky than meets the eye?

“You heard Mack flatly refuses to have Joe back on the morning show,” Binky reported.

“I have,” I assured him.

“But the network is giving Joe a few minutes on the late news as a followup to the foxglove plant presentation, which was Joe’s idea.”

“Is Macurdy trying to get Joe canned from the evening news spot?” I asked.

Binky shook his head. “No. He doesn’t have that kind of influence with the network. Joe wants to have a look at the footage Mack shot of the maze from the air and Mack is not being cooperative.”

This, to be sure, was of paramount importance to me. Joe Gallo was no fool, indeed, and what did he know, or was he just whistling in the dark? I got the feeling as I sometimes do in a case that things were rapidly coming to a head, but I couldn’t see the crown for the clouds.