McNally's Bluff (3 page)

Mack and Marge work on a set at the studio in West Palm that features a divan for the couple and a few easy chairs for guests. A coffee table holds an urn, cups and saucers so Marge can play mother. After commenting on the weather and making a few public announcements they introduce their esteemed guest. Authors, gardeners, decorators, antiquers and politicians lead the list. My mother, who is a serious gardener, boasting six million varieties of begonias under her care, has been earmarked for an appearance but to date has managed to postpone her debut indefinitely. Mother is at an age where senior moments come without warning, but is cognizant enough of her malady not to tempt the fates on live TV. Amen.

Most recently, Mack had hired a helicopter to fly him and a cameraman over the Amazin’ Maze of Matthew Hayes, giving viewers a bird’s-eye view of the phenomena. The clip was run on the evening news.

People were now waving white adhesive labels in the air and shouting, “Rhett looking for Scarlett.”

“Cathy looking for Heathcliff.”

“Cleopatra looking for Caesar or Antony.”

“Petruchio here, where’s Katharina?”

I heard Vance shout, “Romeo,” and head straight for Fitz only to be waylaid by Juliet, a matron of sixty years and three chins. Penny beamed at the coupling.

I picked Adam and went in search of Eve. I ran into Fitz who gave me a peck on the cheek and announced that she was Delilah. I told her we were in the same church but different pews. Joe gave me an affectionate hug (he’s of Italian descent, don’t-you-know) and lamented that he was Gatsby, not Samson.

I approached Carolyn Taylor and said, “Adam.” She shook her head and answered, “Daisy.” I told her where to find Gatsby. Poor Billy had chosen Theseus and looked perplexed. I told him to seek out Phaedra. Clearly, the Greek classics are not these boys’ long suit.

Someone tapped my shoulder and I turned to find my Eve in the person of Marge Macurdy. “This is serendipity,” Marge exclaimed at the sight of the
ADAM
label now plastered to the breast pocket of my shirt.

“Serendipitist? Do you think we’ll be called upon to be fruitful and multiply?”

“I certainly hope not, Mr. McNally. It didn’t work the first time so why beat a dead horse.”

“Then I doubt if you’ll share even a candied apple with me.”

She laughed and looked as pretty as any not-so-recent college grad had a right to look. Marge Macurdy had a head of chestnut curls and true brown eyes, and didn’t try to conceal the freckles the sun brings out, but rather flaunted them with a bright toothpaste smile and a lot of attitude. This was my kind of woman.

“If we’re going to search for the goal as a team, I think you should call me Archy.”

“I’ll call you anything you want if you’ll agree to appear on my show. I’m determined to snare a McNally, mother or son.”

“A discreet inquirer on television would be an oxymoron.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t ask you to drop your fig leaf,” Marge insisted.

At that moment the air resonated with the trademark call of a man who taxies around the jungle on exceptionally strong vines, clad in the forerunner of the thong.

“That’s Mack looking for Jane,” Marge said, wincing. “I begged him not to do it.”

Here I will narrate events exactly as I would record them in my journal in the near future and relate them to the police before the night was over.

As the guests found their mates, some with joy, others with polite fortitude, a young woman descended the marble staircase. She wore a black dress with white collar and cuffs, sensible shoes and a ridiculous frilly cap atop her hair which was pulled back from her face and knotted into a bun. So loudly did her manner and dress proclaim her profession that she could have come from a theatrical agency rather than a domestic employment agency. I was immediately reminded of the ungainly maid in a French farce.

She made her way through the crowd, apologizing for the intrusion which no one seemed to notice, and went straight for the dais where Hayes stood. He got down on one knee and presented her with his ear. The message was obviously very brief, for just moments later Hayes was back on his feet and the maid was scurrying up the stairs.

Once more begging our attention Hayes announced, “Marlena is afflicted with the petite headache and will join us for our buffet dinner after one lucky couple has gained the goal.”

I whispered to Marge, “Given her size it’s amazin’ she can have a petite anything,” and got a playful poke in the ribs.

“A final word,” Hayes boomed, “and we’ll be off. In the goal the winners will find two envelopes resting upon a sundial. Each envelope contains ten gift certificates,
pour l’homme et la femme,
redeemable at ten premier Worth Avenue shops.”

This got a roar of approval and thunderous applause—and the hunt was on.

I noticed that Lolly did not choose to partake in the contest, preferring to chat with the catering staff as they began to remove the carny attractions to make room for the buffet tables. On those rare occasions when Lolly does not clean his plate he has been known to take home the chef in lieu of a doggy bag.

As we marched out of the house led by Tarzan (Mack Macurdy) and Jane (Penny Tremaine, of all people), the organ grinder serenaded us with “Three Blind Mice.” The entrance to the maze was outlined with a string of blinking colored lights and, like Noah’s crew, we entered the labyrinth two by two. The couple preceding Marge and me turned right, so we hung a left.

The hedge (privet, I would guess) was some ten feet tall and about half as thick. The paths were cleverly outlined with tiny white lights running along the ground, much like the illuminated center aisle of a movie theater.

I have already recounted the scene as we began our quest for the goal. After a half hour, the laughter began to turn to frustration and even anger. Marge and I arrived at our starting point three times when we thought we were on the opposite side of the maze.

Tired of head-on collisions, many couples began to hunt in groups of four, six and eight, trotting along like the linked cars of a runaway train. It was remarkable, and frightening, how soon many became disoriented and lightheaded. One’s phobia can become alarmingly claustro in a maze.

“With any luck we’ll come to the entrance again, and if we do I’m getting out,” Marge griped. Naturally, we never saw it after that.

We did see poor Juliet who had lost her Romeo and was seeking him, not the goal. Other couples who did not think to join hands had been separated in the dark and now roamed in groups, clogging the pathways. The organ grinder was someplace within the maze still grinding out “Three Blind Mice” until it began grinding on our nerves, abetted by our host running up and down the aisles, laughing, teasing and goading us on.

“The next time that shrimp cuts us off,” Marge threatened, “I’m going to step on him.”

We had been in the maze over an hour, and just when I feared the hunt would turn into a stampede, Tarzan let out a formidable yodel which could mean only one thing.

“Mack’s found it,” Marge cried. “He said he would, and he did.”

Floodlights mounted on poles at the end of each passage came on and Hayes began collecting people like a little Pied Piper. In the light I noticed that the reason for Hayes’s remarkable navigational skills was a map of the grid, which he consulted at every right angle.

The goal was approximately ten by ten feet and only a lucky few of us, Marge and I included, could fit within its confines. Others crowded the entrance to peek in. Mack and Penny, all smiles, waved their envelopes at the crowd, as Hayes mounted the sundial to congratulate the winners and ask them, “Can you lead us back to the house?”

“Ask him, he found it,” Penny said, indicating her partner.

“Never,” Mack stated. “That would be like winning the lottery two consecutive times.”

“Then allow me,” Hayes boasted, leaping off the garden ornament with the dexterity of one long used to plummeting from a perch. People cleared the entrance as Hayes, taking Mack and Penny by the hand like a child walking his parents, began the procession out of the maze and towards the house. The organ grinder belted out “Hail, Hail, The Gang’s All Here” and, like people finally freed from an elevator stuck between floors, voices were raised in thanksgiving to the rousing Gilbert and Sullivan refrain.

“I told you I would do it,” Mack called to his wife.

“He did,” Marge said in awe, “he really did.”

“Have you seen Vance?” a concerned Penny called to us.

“Everyone got all tangled up in the confusion,” Marge called back, “he could be anyplace.”

Penny stumbled and was rescued by Mack.

“Tangled in the crowd?” I chastised Marge. “You’re a bitch, Ms. Macurdy.”

“Serves her right,” Marge answered. “Penny Tremaine needs Worth Avenue gift certificates like I need a hole in the head.”

“It was your husband that got ’em for her,” I reminded her.

“And for that I’m going to have a headache for the next ten years,” she vowed.

Poor Mack. To the victor go the spoils—but not always.

Tired and giddy, we staggered out of the maze and into the house where an enticing buffet had been set up with servers behind each course and portable bars scattered about the great room. The party atmosphere now restored, everyone headed for the booze, all talking of their trials and travails in the Amazin’ Maze of Matthew Hayes.

The guests were getting their drinks, the catering staff was fussing over the buffet, the boys and girls were once again bussing their trays of champagne and our host was underfoot here, there and everywhere. The clatter and chatter rose to a crescendo until it was suddenly silenced by the mother of all screams.

Everyone looked up to see the maid standing on the balcony, her cap askew, her arms flailing the air, her voice raised in anguish as she reported to her employer below, “Mr. Hayes, Mr. Hayes, Madame has disappeared.”

I
N RETROSPECT, I BELIEVE
we all assumed the balcony scene was part of the evening’s entertainment. Hayes was a master showman and con artist whose skill was keeping the chumps amused as he picked their pockets. You know, the old razzle-dazzle, from whence comes the cliché, three-ring circus. If none of your acts can stand on their own, present them all at once and the audience will be convinced they’re seeing the greatest show on earth.

Hayes even had the
cojones
to feature his wife in one of the rings, which had to be an all-time Palm Beach first. In a town where wives are prized for either their waist size or their purse size, Hayes had committed the ultimate faux pas by exhibiting his wife as a nude statue. The word
common
comes to mind.

All eyes shifted from the balcony to the sight of Hayes climbing the marble staircase. The combination of his short legs and the graceful rise of the steps made it impossible for him to take them two at a time, giving his climb the appearance of a gerbil on a treadmill. I could hear snorts and nervous laughs emanating from the crowd.

“Do you think she’ll now appear as the invisible woman?” I quipped.

“To appear invisible is a contradiction of terms,” Marge noted brilliantly.

“Nobody likes a smart-ass,” her husband reminded her.

Mack Macurdy, born John Macurdy, is a redheaded Irishman with dark eyes and an infectious grin, with a body that announced his college-football-playing past. Our housekeeper, Ursi Olson, who is Lolly Spindrift’s unpublished counterpart, told me that Mack Macurdy enjoys a loyal female following who are more interested in Mack than the hot topics of his show. Macurdy is irritatingly aware of his appeal both on and off the tube, making him a bit too full of bluster and blarney for my taste, but then I’m not married to the guy.

It had occurred to me earlier that Mack had found the goal because he knew where to look. By this I mean that he had flown over it in that helicopter, but the result of his snooping was soon made public on his televised show and the evening news. As I recall it was impossible to distinguish individual pathways from the helicopter’s altitude, and even if they had been discernable to the naked eye from up there it would have been impossible to commit the layout to memory. Still, Macurdy had boasted to his wife that he would make the goal—and he did. Curious?

The crowd began to drift off into groups, all gabbing about the show that had just been enacted by the master of the house and the upstairs maid. People like to be among friends when in strange surroundings and Le Maze was proving most strange in a town where the norm was anything but.

Joe Gallo and Fitz joined us and, need I add, they were followed by Vance and Penny Tremaine. I could see Carolyn Taylor and Billy Gilbert with a group but could not pick out Laddy Taylor. When Hayes finally reached the balcony he took the hysterical maid by the elbow and led her off to the second-floor hall and oblivion. People continued to storm the bars but, while awaiting the fate of Marlena, no one dared approach the buffet except Lolly, who sampled the crabmeat.

“Do you think we have a news-breaking story here?” Joe mused aloud, hoping for the worst.

“Only if Marlena can’t screw her arms back in,” Vance said, garnering a look from Penny not unlike that of a mother gazing proudly upon her precocious two-year-old. Vance sought Fitz’s approval and got only a blank stare. It has been my experience that the more beautiful the woman, the more blank the stare.

As the wait for Hayes’s return grew longer, the natives grew restless—and a little tipsy. I was reminded of my school days when the teacher would leave the classroom and we would sit like good little boys and girls for a prescribed number of minutes. Should the teacher exceed the limit, all hell would break loose.

People had begun attacking the buffet and making party sounds when Hayes reappeared at the top of the staircase with the teary-eyed maid in hand. Together they began their slow descent. A guilty silence now reigned, and the chow hounds tried to hide the proof of their gourmandism.

About midway down Hayes paused and stated clearly and simply, “Marlena has disappeared,” as if he didn’t believe it. He looked stunned and disheveled, having shed his tux jacket and cummerbund. If this were an act, it was worthy of a Barrymore. The maid clutched a handkerchief, covering her mouth with it every few seconds to stifle her sobs.