McNally's chance

Four

Culottes. I had not seen a pair in ages and often prayed that I never would again but, like all my petitions for divine intervention, this, too, had gone unheeded. If more tears are indeed shed over answered prayers, my eyes are as arid as the Gobi in August.

Along with the navy-blue culottes came a white middy that lacked only a whistle on a string. Inside this remarkable outfit was Hermioni Rutherford, hope of the homeless. Red hair, the shade of which did not appear on Mother Nature’s palette, and tortoiseshell glasses completed the picture of a Palm Beach realtor of the lower echelons. In a town where eighty-seven percent of the inhabitants are millionaires and where a good number of them run up a four-digit utility bill each month to keep the beach house cool, Hermioni’s clientele content themselves with an electric fan oscillating over a bucket of ice cubes.

Binky pulled into the allotted carport of the mobile home one remove from the stationary trailer Al Rogoff called home. As we emerged, Hermioni charged me with all the grace of a smiling linebacker. “Mr.

Watrous,” she stated.

“I am Mr. McNally,” I replied. “This is Mr. Watrous.”

Eyeing Binky, she asked, “Are you two considering this as a couple?”

That went a long way in confirming my initial opinion of Hermioni Rutherford. “Mr. Watrous is contemplating making the Palm Court his bachelor digs’ weighty pause ‘if what is being offered meets his needs.”

“I see.” Turning to Binky she continued her interrogation. “May I know your occupation, Mr. Watrous?”

Before Binky began his litany of jobs held and lost, I answered, “Mr.

Watrous is in pneumatic tubing.”

“Who are you?” Hermioni questioned. “His spokesperson?” Did I detect a note of hostility in her query? Well, if I was ruffling her feathers the feeling, I am sure, was mutual. However, she seemed pleased with showing the trailer to one in pneumatic tubing. Binky also looked happy with this job title. “Are you thinking of buying or renting, Mr.

Watrous?”

“Renting,” Binky told her, ‘but you never know.”

I kept a watchful eye on Al’s trailer as Hermioni and Binky got acquainted. I had purposely left my Miata in the garage at the McNally Building and had come in Binky’s car, hoping to get in and out of the Palm Court without being seen by Sgt Rogoff should he happen to be off duty and at home. If Binky did take up residence here I did not want it to appear as if I

had encouraged the move. Binky, I fear, is not one of Al’s favorite people.

Into my line of vision came a rather attractive young lady just leaving the trailer that separated Al Rogoff’s from the one up for grabs. She acknowledged our presence with a discreet nod before getting into a black Mercedes 190, modest but tasteful, and driving off. Binky had seen her, too, and I hoped her appearance would not cause him to sign a lease before investigating the premises.

“Shall we go in?” Hermioni suggested.

Three steps led to a concrete front porch that could hold one chair and little else. This was girdled by a wrought-iron fence painted a hideous green. Hermioni pointed to the trailer’s number painted over the front door in gold-flecked fluorescent white. “Eleven-seventy, just like the Bath and Tennis Club,” she announced. Here all resemblance to that posh establishment ended.

A mobile home, or trailer, is in essence a railroad car divided into diner, parlor, and sleeper. The kitchen of number 1170 contained a card table, one place mat, and one chair. A look in the cabinets and drawers revealed one cup and saucer, one dinner plate, one soup plate, one bread-and-butter plate, one water glass, one fork, one knife, one soup spoon, one tea spoon, an egg beater, and a timer.

The parlor was furnished with one club chair, one end table, one lamp, and one television stand minus the telly. The bedroom held one twin-size bed and beneath its counterpane, one fitted sheet, one top sheet, one blanket,

and one pillow with pillow slip. There was also one chest of drawers and one wardrobe in the sleeper.

“It was a divorce,” hermioni explained, ‘and everything was divided equally.”

Binky looked a tad crestfallen, so I encouraged him with the promise,

“Never fear, Binky. We will go to the Wal-Mart and furnish you with everything from stemware to bedding to Jockey shorts, and come January we will scour the white sales. The rest of your life is before you, young man.”

“Who are you?” Hermioni wanted to know. “His decorator?”

Looking out the parlor window, Binky asked, “What do you think of the view, Archy?”

Trailer courts are usually laid out in a grid with a disposal area unsuccessfully hidden behind a stockade fence at the far end of the vertical avenues. Each cement-block-mounted home has a carport and a patch of lawn the size of a handkerchief. Binky’s parlor windows provided a marvelous view across the avenue of trailer number 1171.

“There is nothing wrong with this vista that good curtains can’t enhance,” I assured him.

Hermioni had very little to say as we paced the boxcar, mostly because there was very little to say. What you saw is what you got. “We will need references, of course,” she cautioned, ‘from local residents as well as proof of employment and two months security on signing a lease.

Do I understand that this will be a single-occupancy lease?”

“For the time being,” Binky answered. For Binky, hope springs eternal.

The Palm Court is a respectable community,” hermioni told us lest we didn’t know, ‘catering to retirees and professionals. While we don’t exclude young families with children, neither do we encourage them.”

“What do you think, Archy?” Binky asked.

“What I think, Binky, doesn’t matter. What do you think?”

Hermioni and I stood our ground as Binky make a quick tour of the trailer, pausing only to scan the place mat on the card table depicting a map of Palm Beach Island. His brown eyes glassy, his limp blond hair fringing his now perspiring forehead, Binky looked more like a frightened child than a prospective tenant, and Hermioni, I was sure, fought the urge to take Binky into her arms and cradle him against her ample bosom.

I’ll take it,” Binky finally blurted to the place mat.

“Oh, good,” hermioni cried, like a proud mother. “I will give you my card and you can come to the office to complete a formal application and leave a deposit whenever it’s convenient.”

Having earned her commission, she was more than ready to abandon us in pursuit of her next ten-per center Looking at me she said, “I will leave you two alone as I’m sure you’ll want to go over everything without me looking over your shoulders.” Hermioni was now playing Goody Two-shoes with as much sincerity as a baby-kissing politician.

“Just close the door when you leave and the spring lock will fall into place not that there’s anything much to take. Hee, hee.”

No sooner had she gone out the door, then she popped back in again and called out, “Did I tell you that I also represent a cleaning service that will do for you once a week or more often if requested? Our domestic engineers are all bonded, of course.”

“Mr. Watrous can do for himself, thank you,” I called back.

“Who are you?” Hermioni demanded. “His father?”

Exit Hermioni Rutherford, and not a moment too soon.

After a brief silence that had Binky looking as if he wanted to change his mind, I said, “Congratulations, Bink. You are a man with a pad to call his own. Be it ever so humble and all that jazz.”

“Did you see the girl next door, Archy?” Here, any trace of second thoughts vanished.

“I saw a woman leave the trailer next door, Binky, but that does not mean she is your neighbor. Many people enter and leave the White House, but not all of them are the President.” Giving that a moment’s thought, I added, “But coming from Palm Beach County, one never knows, do one?”

Undaunted, as is Binky’s wont when it comes to speculating about the opposite sex, he went on, “She was some looker, eh?”

“Where you should be looking,” I admonished, ‘is into your wallet. Have you got the loot for the two-months’ security?”

“The duchess said she would help me,” was Binky’s not surprising answer. Having invested over twenty years in Binky, a few more bucks, with the promise of the end in sight, wouldn’t break the bank.

“Well, Binky, if you can tear yourself away from your castle, I think it’s time to call it quits.”

I’ll drive you back to the McNally Building, Archy, and thanks for your help.”

“Help? I did nothing but hang around,” I assured him.

“He who waits also serves,” Binky informed me. This keen observation can be found framed and hanging on the walls of courthouses where prospective jurors wait, endlessly, to be called to judge their peers.

Juror was one of Binky’s periodic gigs.

Murphy’s law anything that can go wrong, will — prevailed as we stepped out of Binky’s incipient love nest and almost collided with Al Rogoff, chomping on a stogie and toting a plastic garbage bag. Al is a big guy. Beefy, in the vernacular, and seeing him in his leisure togs is like coming upon Smokey the Bear decked out in Bermuda shorts and tank top. Astonishing, I believe, is the most fitting adjective, and Al was just as astonished to see Binky Watrous and Archy McNally on the street where he lives.

Removing the stogie from his mouth, Al gaped. After ogling Binky as if he were breaking parole simply by being at the Palm Court, Al turned his attention to me and exclaimed, “Don’t tell me Bianca hired you.”

“Bianca? No, we came to see Hermioni Rutherford. Who’s Bianca and why should she hire me?” I asked.

“Bianca Courtney,” Al answered, the stogie back in his mouth. “She’s the dame who lives there.” He gestured with the garbage bag toward the trailer from which we had seen the young lady surface earlier.

Al Rogoff has several colorful epithets to denote the female gender, none of which will earn him points with the more politically correct denizens of our democracy. However, before you label Al Rogoff crass, let me state that he is a closet balletomane and an aficionado of classical music and the performing arts more associated with the erudite than with a police sergeant who resides in a trailer court and subsists on a diet of hamburgers, beer, and chocolate pudding.

Al enjoys playing the uncouth slob in public, allowing only a select few, myself included, to get to know his Dr. Jekyll alter ego.

Furthermore, I’m reasonably certain that I’m his only friend who knows his middle name is Irving.

“Why would Bianca Courtney hire me?” I asked.

“She’s got some crazy idea that a murder has been committed and the perp is getting away with it.”

“Is she in danger?” Binky asked Al. Binky has a recurring Walter Mitty fantasy of turning into a masked crusader at the behest of a damsel in distress.

“Only of making a pest of herself,” Al told him.

“What’s the story, Al?” I asked.

“You looking for work, Archy?”

“No. Just an interested citizen.”

Al again removed the stogie from his mouth, shrugged, and explained,

“Bianca worked for a rich broad who married a guy twenty years her junior and drowned a few months after the marriage. Bianca thinks the guy did her in.”

“What do the police think?”

“Granted, the circumstances looked a little queer, but we checked it out and ruled it an accident. When she moved in next door and learned I was a cop she started hounding me to reopen the case.”

“On what grounds?” I questioned.

“Female intuition,” Al barked. “There’s no reason to reopen the case because there never was a case to begin with.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Motive,” Al stated. “The guy had no reason to murder his bride unless you think having twenty years on him was just cause.”

I was beginning to enjoy this. There is nothing like a little bit of intrigue to stir the creative juices. I wondered if I could interest Sabrina Wright in this plot with a few variations, to be sure. The young He would become a young She and the old She would become an old He. But I had the feeling the new transgender heroine would not end up with her heart’s desire, namely, the spoils of marriage to the old and the wealthy. And I was right.

“He doesn’t benefit from her will?” I guessed.

“You got it. She made a will leaving everything, which is plenty, to the children’s wing of St. Mary’s hospital and didn’t change it after her marriage. He gets to keep the Jag she gave him for a wedding present.”

“So what’s Bianca’s gripe?”

“Revenge, that’s what. The marriage cost her a cushy job. Companion to the rich dame. Nice digs, three squares a day, and a regular paycheck every week. She rented the trailer when her lady boss got herself a new companion of the opposite sex.”

As interested as I was in Bianca Courtney’s plight, I was more interested in escaping the Palm before Al began to wonder what we were doing there if not to speak with his neighbor. If I wanted to hear more I could always invite Al to lunch at the Pelican and get him to talk while he devoured a hamburger, fries, and Bass ale, at my expense.

“Well, I.. ” Binky began before I nudged him toward the car and away from Al Rogoff.

“Good seeing you, Al.” I cut Binky off. “Call me and we’ll get together for lunch.”

Poor Binky was bursting to tell his news but with a gentle pressure on his arm, I kept increasing the distance between him and Al Rogoff.

“See you,” Al said, hoisting his garbage bag and heading for the disposal area.

Just as we got the car doors opened I heard Al shout, “Hermioni Rutherford? She’s with the real estate outfit that runs this place.”

I waved at Al and tried to get into the car, but it was too late. He retraced his steps, garbage and all, demanding to know why we were talking to Hermioni Rutherford.

The moment of truth had arrived and there was no place to hide. “Binky has taken a lease on this trailer,” I said. “Number eleven-seventy, just like the Bath and Tennis.”

“Oh no,” Al moaned.

“Love thy neighbor as thyself,” I reminded Al before he vented his wrath.

“Yes,” Binky agreed, thinking no doubt of Bianca Courtney.

With Binky safely in the car I walked up to Al and whispered, “There are worse things in life than having Binky Watrous for a neighbor.”

“Name two,” Al challenged, waving the shopworn stogie in my face.

Looking at my watch I said I didn’t have time at the moment but would think of a few, perhaps even three, before hell froze over. Moving purposefully past me and coming up to the car window, Al looked in and advised Binky, “We have a rule around here, buddy. Don’t come knocking when the trailer is rocking.”

Exit Al Rogoff, and not a moment too soon.

As he drove out of the Palm Court, Binky wondered aloud, “Don’t come knocking when the trailer is rocking? What do you suppose that means, Archy?”

“For someone so eager to cohabit ate Binky, you have a lot to learn.”

“I’m not a virgin, Archy.”

Give unto me a break.

The McNally clan meets every evening at seven for cocktails in Father’s den where he mixes our martinis in a perfect silver shaker filled with perfect little ice cubes, pouring the result into perfect baccarat crystal glasses and garnished with perfect green olives. The only thing not perfect is the brew itself, thanks to the seigneur’s heavy hand with the vermouth. In this, as in all things, father is consistent when he measures out the ingredients including, so help me, the exact number of ice cubes.

Topics of conversation at this family gathering are limited to who did what that day. If I’m on a case, I will give Father a progress report.

He, in turn, will nod his approval or vocalize his disapproval after which he will keep us abreast of the antics of his more prestigious clients or drop a few of the names he rubbed shoulders with at last season’s Glitz at the Ritz Ball.

Mother, if she’s had a letter from my sister, Dora, in Arizona, will report on the family there with emphasis on the grandchildren, Rebecca, Rowena, and my godson, little Darcy. Or, after hearing a guest speaker at the C.A.S. (Current Affairs Society) she will tell us, in detail, what the lecturer had to impart. Mother joined the group out of concern for the ozone layer without quite knowing what ozone is.

I recall one guest speaker, a Ms Glynis Ives, self-proclaimed authority on the British royal family,

reporting that when King George VI and his queen, Elizabeth, visited the United States in 1939, they brought with them gallons of British water to be used for brewing their tea and had insisted on hot-water bottles for their beds in Washington, D.C.” in the springtime.

What this has to do with current affairs I do not know, nor would I dream of asking. But I record such information in my journal under the heading “Incidental Intelligence.”

As you can see, we lead a privileged lifestyle due not to my father’s flourishing law practice but to the man who greased the way to father’s success — his sire, Freddy McNally. Freddy was a bulb-nosed, prat falling burlesque comic on the Minsky circuit who worked with such headliners as the exotic dancer Trixie Forganza and Her Little Bag of Tricks. Grandpa Freddy invested not in the stock market but, on his many visits to Florida in the Roaring Twenties, put his money into Gold Coast real estate at a dime an acre. When Wall Street laid that egg, Freddy’s act soared.

While father is not ungrateful for Freddy’s foresight, he is not exactly joyous over Freddy’s chosen profession. The lord of the manor would prefer to have it believed that the McNally dynasty began with him and, based on my expectations, will no doubt end with him.

With two-thirds of the family not at home, our household was a microcosm of Palm Beach in the summer months when the population drops to nine thousand, from a winter high reputed to be close to thirty thousand. Since the pater and mater had gone to sea I had been taking my evening libation at the Pelican where the bar is presided over by Mr. Simon Pettibone, the club’s general manager, factotum, and, on numerous occasions, father confessor.

Simon Pettibone is a dignified African-American who, along with his wife and children, keeps the Pelican in tip-top shape and solvent, and accounts for the length of our membership waiting list. At this early hour I was Mr. Pettibone’s only customer. Priscilla Pettibone, Simon’s beautiful and sassy daughter, was busy setting tables in the bar and dining room and the Pettibone son, Leroy, who wears the toque blanche, was in the kitchen whipping up delights, This left Mrs.

Pettibone, our den mother, who I assumed was upstairs in their apartment over the shop getting dolled up to greet the evening diners.

Simon was watching the television screen showing a running tape of the day’s stock quotations.

Are we up or down?” I asked Mr. Pettibone.

“Sideways, Archy,” he answered. Simon Pettibone was also something of a Wall Street guru, whose tips were sought by club members who enjoyed a roll of the dice at that legal gambling casino in lower Manhattan.

Anticipating my order, he began to prepare a frozen daiquiri.

“I had a drink with a woman today, Mr. Pettibone, who ordered a Pink Lady.”

Mr. Pettibone paused in his work, closed his eyes and recited: “Two ounces gin, one teaspoon grenadine, one teaspoon cream, one egg white, shake with ice and pour. Cherry, optional.”

This was a game Simon Pettibone and I played ever since I had come upon a vintage mixology handbook and discovered such alluring alcohol bracers as a Sazerac, a Sweet Potootie, a Seventh Heaven, an Arise My Love, and, my favorite, a Soul Kiss. One evening at the club I ordered the latter and was rendered flummoxed when Simon Pettibone, without so much as a blink of the eye, mixed bourbon, dry vermouth, Dubonnet, and orange juice in exacting proportions and presented me with my order.

Not only did Simon Pettibone know the ingredients of all the drinks in a book that was a relic of Prohibition, he also added a few that were not in my mixology guide. To wit: an Oliver Twist a martini with both olive and lemon. I never asked Mr. Pettibone from whence came this profundity of the mixologist’s art.

Placing my daiquiri before me, he said, “I have a poser for you.”

“I’m at your service, Mr. P.”

“Do you know the name Henry Peavey?”

It had been a long, hard day, so I thought about this short and easy.

Not having Sofia Richmond to fill in the blanks, I came up with nothing. “I’m sorry, Mr. Pettibone, I can’t say it means a thing to me. Should it?”

“I don’t know myself, Archy. Mrs. Pettibone got a letter from her cousin’s son, Lyle Washington, who lives in Sacramento. Lyle is the son of Hattie and Sam Washington. Henry Peavey was Hattie’s father.

Jasmine, Mrs. Pettibone, is a cousin of Sam Washington, not Hattie, and both of them are gone now.

“It seems Lyle was cleaning out the attic in the house left to him by his parents when he came upon his grandfather Peavey’s diary. His letter said it could be worth a fortune.”

“Why?” I responded.

“Beats me, Archy. I said Jasmine is related on the Washington side of the family and she’s never been very close to them as they’ve always lived in California. She knows even less about the Peaveys. Lyle wrote to Jasmine because, as he said in the letter, he understood we saw a lot of notables here in Palm Beach and he thought we might be helpful to him.”

“And that’s all he said?”

“That’s all, Archy. It looks to me as if Lyle just took it for granted that we, or at least Jasmine, knew the Peaveys and the significance of finding Henry’s diary.”

“Did Mrs. Pettibone call Lyle?” I asked.

“She did, and got no answer. Lyle is divorced and lives alone. She called Lyle’s daughter, who was just as mystified as we were. All she knew was that she got a call from her father who told her he was going south and for her to keep an eye on the house.”

“South?” I echoed. “Do the Peaveys have relatives in the south?”

Mr. Pettibone shook his head. “We don’t know and neither does Lyle’s daughter.”

“I think, Mr. Pettibone, all you can do now is wait for another communication from Lyle.”

“I agree, Archy. But you have to admit it’s a tantalizing puzzler.”

I would admit. I would also admit that after dealing with the trials and tribulations of Sabrina Wright, Binky Watrous, Hermioni Rutherford, Al Rogoff, and, by proxy, Bianca Courtney, I deserved an English Oval.

Therefore, I lit one.

“I thought you gave those up,” Priscilla said in passing.

“This is only my second today,” I told her.

“They say there’s never a second without a third,” Priscilla called over her shoulder.

I would admit that, too.