McNally's chance

Twelve

I stepped out, telling Bianca to stay put and lock her door behind me.

Like a sensible girl she did as she was told. I hopped indifferently down the three steps as if the sight of a stretch limo at my doorstep was the rule rather than the exception. The driver was leaning against the limo, arms folded. He wore a black suit with matching tie and cap.

As I approached he straightened up. My eyes fell on the bulge under the breast pocket of his jacket. My guess was, it wasn’t a fountain pen.

When I had arrived at the Palm Court that morning I noticed that Al Rogoff’s carport was empty and had been glad of the fact. Now I wasn’t so glad.

“Mr. McNally,” the driver politely addressed me. “Would you mind stepping into the car for a few minutes?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Of course,” he answered. “But I hope you’ll oblige us. This isn’t what it seems, believe me. Mr. Cranston would like a few words with you.”

Cranston? Richard Cranston? Was it possible? This was too bizarre to be real, but unless Bianca had slipped me a mickey and I was now on my way to the Emerald City in a stretch limo it was happening. Or was it all a ruse? Was I about to meet my maker in return for some toes I had stepped on while pursuing my chosen profession? If so, did it have to be in a trailer park with the purchase of a microwave oven as my last recorded act? What a lousy way to go, and it was all the fault of Binky Watrous and his damn housewarming.

Richard Cranston, if it was the Richard Cranston behind those tinted windows, was a member of a prominent banking family. This did not stop him from adding billions to the family business via Silicon Valley and the computer revolution. In the last presidential election he had backed the winner with financial support amounting to millions, while attaching himself to the candidate’s campaign entourage as a welcome advisor. Rumor had it that Cranston was now being rewarded with a cabinet post or an ambassadorship.

The affiliation between the two men went back to their college days when they pledged the same fraternity. It was said that both the First Backside and Cranston’s bore the brand of the fraternity’s Greek letters. Thanks to his buddy, Cranston was currently the most visible and discussed Washington pol in Palm Beach since Joe Kennedy and sons’

salad days.

The driver opened the door and held it. I put off the inescapable for a moment before entering and found myself face-to-face with the man himself in surroundings as posh as a movie star’s location van. Bar, TV, several telephones, and a hamper from which the aroma of hot coffee rose in the air-conditioned air.

With more courage than I was feeling, I said, “I thought I lost you on the island.”

“We dropped you by the bridge and allowed my man in his VW bug to continue shagging you. Like your red Miata, we are a bit conspicuous.”

Two cars on my trail? This was getting weirder by the moment. If I didn’t know the guy from a myriad of newspaper photographs and countless TV shots of him and the First Man forever hurrying from a copter to a waiting limo I would think he was a rich PB eccentric having fun.

When he offered me coffee I refused with, “No, thanks, I just had a cup.”

“With the charming lady, no doubt.” Cranston had a reputation for being something of a Romeo. Tall, lanky and square-jawed, he emanated a boyish charm some women find irresistible. If he played the field he did so with practiced circumspection. His marriage was solid, with three lovely and eligible daughters to keep the paparazzi and the gossips in business. “What about a proper drink?” he tried again.

“The sun’s not over the yardarm but I’ll never tell.”

With what I hoped was a show of displeasure, I said, “Mr. Cranston, may I know why you followed me here and what you want from me?”

He took a silver box from the bar, removed the lid, and offered me a cigarette. Without a qualm I accepted. It wasn’t an English Oval I was now leaving home without them but any port in a storm, eh, what?

Giving me a light, he said, “I would have contacted you through your father but he’s away at the moment.”

“He’s traveling

“On the Pearl of the Antilles cruise ship with your mother,” he cut me short. “I know that. The next best thing was to corner you in a place were I would least likely be recognized and you led me right to it.

However, if your friend Sergeant Rogoff was at home we would have aborted the mission, but not for long.”

The guy was telling me how much he knew, which was a lot. As for the unconventional meeting, I said earlier that local patricians in need of my help did not like to advertise the fact, but this near hijacking was an all-time first.

“You seem to know a lot about me, sir, so I assume you know what I do for a living, such as it is.” He liked that and smiled his appreciation. “I take it you want to hire me?”

“I want information from you and I’m willing to pay for it,” he said.

“Consider me a client and start billing me.”

This made as much sense as Einstein looking for the answer to the cosmos in a crystal ball. “Why me when you seem to have unlimited resources at your disposal to tell you what you want to know?”

“Because, Mr. McNally, you have access to a resource I neither possess nor wish to approach.”

“Namely, sir?”

“Namely, Sabrina Wright.”

My flabber-was too startled to be — gas ted Was there no end to this woman’s liaisons? When her plane touched down in Florida the sound must have been heard around the world. Was she involved with the government on the highest level? Espionage? Now I wanted that drink but, like much I wanted in life, I had let my chances pass me by. “You speak of the popular writer, Mr. Cranston?”

“You know damn well of whom I speak, Archy. Tell me what she’s doing in Palm Beach with her family?”

As with Thomas Appleton, we were suddenly on a first name basis.

Appleton? Was there a connection? Oy vey! I thought it best to play dumb until I knew just what was coming down the pike. I puffed deeply on the weed and choked. Mr. Richard Cranston slapped my back hard.

“How would I know what she’s doing here, with or without her family?” I coughed.

Archy, I’m a busy man and I’ve spent all morning getting you where I want you, so spare me the crap. The moment Sabrina arrived in Palm Beach she contacted you. You met in a sleaze joint where she enjoyed a Pink Lady and you had a vodka and tonic. The next day you had lunch with her husband, after which Sabrina left the Chesterfield Hotel and moved into The Breakers with her hubby, daughter, and one Zachary Ward, a stringer for a tabloid. Have I got it right?”

He had it so right I felt violated. Was that insolent bartender in his employ? The waiter at Harry’s Place? The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker? I noticed that the driver was still outside the car and well out of hearing range. This powwow was top-priority hush-hush, and I didn’t like it one lousy bit. People who know too much are expendable.

“What’s she after, Archy? I don’t believe that bull in Spindrift’s column. If Sabrina wanted me, she knows where to find me. So what is she after?”

My deja was now so vu my head was spinning. “Why would she want you, Dick?” If I called him mister or sir, I would be the schoolboy playing to his master. No way. You give these guys an inch and they walk off with your life.

He puffed away, adding to the smoke we had both been exhaling. The air conditioner was now blowing it back in our faces and irritating my eyes. Was this the complaint of a true ex-smoker or of a guy who wanted out of this stretch limo?

“More to the point, Archy, what did she want from you?”

Seeing an ashtray on the bar I tapped the ash off my cigarette as I answered, “I asked you first, Dick.”

I had touched a raw nerve for which I was verbally trounced. The guy turned into a raging bull and ranted, “Don’t get wise with me, buddy.

Don’t ever get wise with me. You tell me what I want to know or.. ”

“Or what?” I trounced back. The bull had picked the wrong matador to snort at. “You rub shoulders with a few hotshots and you think you can stalk citizens, drag them into your fancy car, and threaten them to learn what you want to know. Well, think again, buddy. The charming lady is at her window with a video camera in one hand and a telephone in the other. On a signal from me, she’ll dial the police. Would you like to explain this meeting to the press?”

The guy turned the color of the long ash at the end of his cigarette.

“I don’t believe you.”

“All you have to do is try to stop me from getting out of this car and you’ll know if I’m lying or not.” I reached for the door.

When his arm shot out to restrain me the ash fell onto his lap. There is nothing like a hidden camcorder to drive a politician bonkers. “My apologies,” he muttered, shaking his head. The man was in a bad way.

“Please, hear me out.”

Keeping on the offensive, I informed him, “I haven’t got all day, but I’ll give you ten more minutes.”

He spoke very quietly when he said, “I’m going to be offered the post of ambassador to the Court of Saint James.” So, he was truly following in Joseph Kennedy’s footsteps. Good thing he didn’t have any sons or perhaps he harbored political expectations for his daughters. “Any hint of a scandal, especially of a sexual nature, could put my confirmation in doubt, or I would have to withdraw my name out of loyalty to certain parties.”

I trashed my cigarette with Sabrina’s words echoing in my head, ‘became au fait with the ways of the world, which is to say with the rich, the super rich, and the mega rich.” She even hinted at her many sexual conquests along the way. Was Richard Cranston one of them?

Almost in answer to my silent musings, Cranston was saying, “Sabrina and I had a brief tryst awhile back.”

Finally. “Your wife, of course, didn’t know about it.”

He looked at me as if I were retarded. “My wife? I didn’t even know my wife at the time.” He finally got rid of his cigarette before it singed his fingers. “Now that my name is newsworthy, is she trying to muscle in on the publicity? Is that why she’s here?”

Dickey’s ego was bigger than this car. “If you’ll excuse my saying so, I believe Sabrina Wright is a far bigger name than Richard Cranston, if you’re talking on a global scale. In short, she doesn’t need you to get her name in print. She’s not only a household word, she’s an icon.”

Imagination having no greater stimulus than a guilty conscience, he implored, “Then why is she here?”

Believing I would put his mind at ease and give the Court of St. James what it deserved, I said, “Sabrina’s daughter, Gillian, was adopted.

The girl is here looking for her father. Sabrina wants her to stop the search and return home. Why she hired me is too complicated to repeat and it has nothing to do with your affair with the lady. The end.”

e bowed his head and shielded his eyes. “The end,” he repeated. “The end of the line,”

“Sabrina Wright is not interested in you. I would swear to that if I were the swearing kind, which I’m not!”

The guy looked like he was going to be sick. “Did Sabrina tell you she is the girl’s natural mother?”

So he knew that, too. “Yes. But she didn’t tell me the name of Gillian’s father. All Sabrina wants to do is pack up the group and herd them all home. She’s not interested in you, Dick, or any of her old flames. Relax, and there’s no charge.”

“Sabrina might not be interested in me but her daughter is.”

“Gillian interested in you? Why?”

“Because I’m the man she’s looking for, Archy. I’m Gillian’s father.”

Numb from the neck up, I listened to a story that was almost verbatim Appleton’s saga of his brief encounter with Sabrina Wright. That was one hell of a spring break, let me tell you. And wouldn’t Gillian be surprised. Her daddies were coming out of the woodwork. There was so much going on in my mind I didn’t even notice when Cranston had finished telling his story. “I can count on your discretion, Archy.

Remember, you are in my employ and if you ever did repeat what I just told you I would deny it, sue, and guess who would win? Or, I would tell the world why you were expelled from Yale.”

That hit me like a knee to the family jewels. “You know?” I foolishly asked.

“I know, Archy. Believe me, I know.”

My head was aching. Were Cranston and Appleton acquainted? Given their backgrounds and social positions, they must be. Did their friendship go back thirty years? Why not? Did they know they had both bedded the then young Sabrina Wright? Doubtful. Gentlemen don’t kiss and tell and these guys were the genuine article. And who paid Sabrina to go away and never return? Both of them, naturally. Only the man who believed he had sired Gillian would pay the piper, and both of these men believed they had.

Last, and foremost, Appleton and Cranston were political animals tuned into the highest of echelons. It was crazy. And scary. I still felt that knowing the name of Gillian’s father could be dangerous and I knew not one, but two candidates for the title. What I wanted to do was crown Sabrina with a hatchet but that could wait. Right now I had to talk my way out of the car while I could still do so of my own volition.

“Your secret is safe with me and with Sabrina.” Here I went into the same spiel I had given Appleton. I would have liked to tell him just why Sabrina was so keen on keeping his, and Appleton’s, secret a secret, but held back. No man likes to be told he’s been duped, especially a man with the pride and brass of Richard Cranston.

“She’s down here to stop her daughter from learning the truth. Sabrina Wright is your ally, Dick, not your enemy. She’s a very clever woman and she will do what she must to keep the bargain she made with you thirty years ago. Put your trust in her. It won’t be misplaced.”

The poor man appeared to be aging before my eyes like a citizen of Shangri-la who had foolishly run down the mountain. His pallor accentuated the dark circles under his eyes, which were now puffed from worry and fatigue. Cranston was a man living with his head on the guillotine’s block since the day he read that item in Lolly’s column.

That insipid blind item had two important men in Palm Beach on the brink of nervous collapse, proving yet again that the pen is more lethal than the sword.

Trust her? You have to be kidding. She told the girl she was her natural mother, which was against our pact. If the girl is here looking for me she must have told her where she was conceived. Trust?

She’s about as reliable as a campaign promise. I said I wanted to hire you, Archy, and I still do.”

“What for?”

“You know Sabrina. Stick with her and her family. Especially the tabloid reporter. Keep me posted on their every move.”

With a gesture at the driver loitering just outside the car, I reminded him that he had people far more capable than myself to keep the group at The Breakers under surveillance. “I work alone,” I told him, ‘and I’m in the habit of breaking for lunch and dinner, not to mention a good night’s sleep. You could furnish a relay team to cover them around the clock.”

He shook his head and ran his hand through his fashionably cut hair. It tousled and then fell back into place, perfectly. I hate men with hair like that. “Don’t you see? That would mean telling people I’m interested in Sabrina Wright. They won’t know why I’m interested and that would be worse than if they did because they would then speculate on everything from bigamy to satanic worship. You already know the truth and you’re one person too many, but I can’t do anything about that except use it to my advantage.”

A very rich man once told me that the wealthy are often accused of milking their employees dry. That is, having them perform chores other than the ones for which they were hired. He claimed that this penurious behavior has less to do with saving a buck than in limiting the number of people surrounding them. The more sparse the court, the less worry about tattling, tell-all books, and the threat of blackmail.

Hence, I could understand Cranston’s fear, but that didn’t mean I had to like his blunt assertion regarding the vulnerability of my insider status.

I didn’t want to refuse him out of hand as my father would never forgive me, so I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse because he had no choice. “I’ll keep my ear to the ground, and I do have my sources. If I run into Sabrina or any of her group, I’ll feel them out and pass on what I learn. That’s the best I can offer you.”

He nodded, reluctantly. “Do you think I should meet with her, Archy?”

Better make an appointment, was what I thought. “That’s up to you, but I would let sleeping dogs lie. Gillian hasn’t got a clue and Sabrina is not cooperating. Get some rest and this, too, shall pass.”

“Thanks, Archy. I’m sorry I tried to pressure you.” He offered me his hand. “Friends?”

I accepted the olive branch. “I’ll keep you posted when and if I can,”

I promised.

Still clutching my hand, he said, “The Court of Saint James. It means everything to me, Archy, and nothing is going to stop me from presenting my credentials to Her Majesty. Nothing.”