McNally's Puzzle (8 page)

“Tell them what?” Julia asked.

“Which of you is which.”

“And how could you possibly do that?” Judith asked.

This was, I believe, my first indication that I was not dealing with bubbleheads and that these two females had more than lint between their ears.

I sighed. “You have a point,” I admitted. “Which means every time the three of us meet you must identify yourselves again. What a drag! Couldn’t one of you agree to a small tattoo? Perhaps the symbol of pi engraved on one earlobe.”

They stared at each other, then stared at me.

“Are you completely insane?” Judith demanded.

“He is,” Julia said. “Absolutely bonkers.”

I believe at the moment we were working on an enormous seafood salad and demolishing a bottle of sauvignon blanc.

“Happy to be home from Europe?” I asked. “Or devastated?”

“We had a marvelous time,” Julia said. “But we’re glad to be back. Aren’t we, Judy?”

“Oh yes. Definitely. Daddy needs us.”

It was at that exact point the tenor of our conversation changed. Up to then it had been breezy silliness, a lighthearted exchange of nonsense. But Judith’s comment, “Daddy needs us,” signaled a switch of gears. I began to wonder if this luncheon had been requested with a motive other than to examine the flora and fauna of the Pelican Club.

“I’m sure your father was happy to see you return safely,” I said, deciding to let them reveal what they obviously intended with no urging from yrs. truly.

It came out with a rush.

Julia: “He worries us.”

Judith: “He’s acting so strangely.”

Julia: “He thinks his personal possessions have been stolen when he’s probably just misplaced them.”

Judith: “He’s convinced there’s some kind of a crazy plot against him.”

Julia: “But he’s not senile.”

Judith: “Oh no, nothing like that. Just these absurd notions.”

Then they looked at me as if I might be Dr. Kildare ready to deliver an instant and perceptive diagnosis.

“You feel all his fears are delusions?” I asked.

“Oh, absolutely,” Julia said.

“No doubt about it,” Judith added.

“It could be quite innocent, you know,” I said. “Your father is getting along in years and many older people suffer from short-term memory loss. But he seems to be functioning admirably as an efficient and successful businessman. Surely you don’t think he needs professional help.”

“Oh no,” Judith said.

“Definitely no,” Julia said. “He’s not that bad. Yet. But because you represent his attorney we thought you should be told of how irrationally he’s been acting lately.”

“Oh yes,” Judith said. “Quite irrational.”

“Could you give me some specifics?”

“He thinks someone in the house destroyed an old photograph of him and mother.”

“And most recently he claims someone broke an ancient phonograph record he treasured.”

“I admit they don’t sound like much,” Judith said, “but they worry us.”

“And he thinks someone killed our mynah,” Julia put in. “Poor Dicky died a natural death but daddy won’t admit it.”

“I see,” I said, although I really didn’t. Not then.

“Well anyway,” Judith said with a brave smile, “we thought you should know.”

“About the way he’s been acting,” Julia said. “So you might tell your father.”

“I’ll certainly do that,” I promised, and thanked them for their revelation. They seemed satisfied they had accomplished what they had set out to do.

“If he does any more nutty things we’ll let you know,” Judith said.

“By all means do,” I told them. “His actions may be a temporary aberration or may be an indication of a much more serious psychopathological condition.” I said this with a straight face. Is there no limit to my dissembling?

The sisters looked at me with admiration. I had obviously reacted in the manner they had wished.

We finished luncheon and moved to the bar, where I introduced them to Mr. Simon Pettibone. If he was awed by meeting such comely twins it didn’t interfere with his preparation of three excellent vodka stingers, enjoyed by one and all.

I then accompanied them out to the parking lot. They were driving a new pearlescent-blue Mercedes-Benz SL500 coupe. I looked at it in amazement.

“This incredible sloop is yours?” I asked, my founded being dumbed.

“It’s ours,” Julia said lightly. “We like to travel first-class.”

“Nothing but the best,” Judith said just as gaily.

I was the target of two identical kisses and then they were on their way. I watched them depart, trying to analyze my reaction. Willie S. came to my aid as he so often does. He wrote: “Double, double, toil and trouble...”

I drove directly home. The McNally nous was astir and I was eager to bring my professional diary up to date. A great many things had occurred since the last entry and I knew it would take an afternoon of scribbling to record events, conversations, impressions, and conjectures. Surprisingly, the anticipation of this donkeywork didn’t daunt me.

I worked determinedly for more than three hours, skipping my usual ocean swim. I finished my journalism in time to shower, change my duds, and join my parents for the family cocktail hour.

Father seemed in an expansive mood and I deemed it an opportune moment to bring up again a request I had made several times. The McNally household once had an additional member: a magnificent and noble-hearted golden retriever. Max had gone to the Great Kennel in the Sky but his doghouse still existed alongside mother’s potting shed.

Since his demise I had suggested the McNally mini-estate would be enlivened by the patter of canine feet, but the only reaction I could extract from the Don was, “I’ll think about it.” Over martinis that evening I repeated my plea and added that a smart hound might assist Jamie Olson in locating the whereabouts of the rapacious raccoon raiding our trash cans.

“All right,” father said unexpectedly. “Find a dog you like but don’t buy until mother and I get a look at it.”

“Yes, sir,” I said happily. “I’ll find a winner.”

“Not a Chihuahua, Archy,” mother said firmly. “They always look so
naked
.”

“Definitely not a Chihuahua,” I promised.

Dinner that evening was far from haute cuisine but nontheless enjoyable. We had a down-home feast of grilled turkey franks, baked beans with brown sugar, and heaps of sauerkraut tinted with cumin. Cold ale, of course. Nothing fancy but lordy it was delicious. Ursi Olson provided warmed frankfurter rolls and a mustard from hell. You had to be there.

I plodded groggily upstairs after dinner and began reviewing the notes I had jotted on the Gottschalk inquiry. My reading resulted in no epiphanies but did indicate three areas I felt deserved continued and intensified investigation. To wit:

1. Why was such a handsome and apparently sophisticated chap as Ricardo Chrisling utterly without duende and working in a parrot emporium? And what was his personal relationship with his stepmother, the redoubtable Yvonne, housekeeper of the Gottschalk ménage?

2. Why were the twins, Julia and Judith, so intent on convincing me of the growing looniness of their father? Were they correct, or did they have a veiled motive I wot not of?

3. Was Peter Gottschalk so mentally and/or emotionally disturbed that he might be the perpetrator of all the acts of terrorism threatening his father?

I was musing on these puzzles and a few minor ones—such as why Binky Watrous thought Johann Sebastian Bach was a dark German beer—when the ringing of the phone roused me from my reveries.

“Not one but
two
!” Consuela Garcia said accusingly.

Well, of course I knew she’d find out eventually—but so soon! I knew it hadn’t been Priscilla who tattled—she doesn’t blab—so it was probably one of Connie’s many informants who was present at the Pelican Club during my trialogue with the Gottschalk twins.

“Connie,” I said sternly (I can do stern), “those ladies are the daughters of one of McNally and Son’s most valued clients. They requested a meeting to discuss personal family matters which I cannot and shall not reveal. But I assure you it was strictly a business conference.”

“Including champagne cocktails, wine, and a stop at the bar afterward,” she said darkly.

“I tried to be an accommodating host.”

“Did you accommodate one by going home with her later? Or making plans for a cozy evening of three?”

“That is an unjust suggestion,” I said hotly. “You are accusing me of behavior of which I am totally innocent.”

“But you’re thinking about it, buster,” she said. “Aren’t you?”

It infuriated me because, of course, it was true.

“I resent your unreasonable suspicions,” I said, “and I refuse to endure them. I think you owe me an apology.”

“It’ll be a cold day in Key West when I apologize for thinking you’re cheating on me or planning it.”

“Your delusions are your problem. My conscience is clear.”

“Like the Miami River,” she said. “Don’t call me; I’ll call you—which may be
never
!” She hung up.

I replaced the phone with a quavery hand. Connie and I had engaged in many squabbles in the past; most of them concerning my real or imagined infidelities. But none had the virulence of our latest controversy, and it left me shaken.

It was such a complex enigma. I was honest in claiming I had not misbehaved with one or both of the Gottschalk twins and had no firm plans to do so. Connie was correct in divining that I had lust in my heart. But if males can be punished for their illicit fantasies, there aren’t enough prisons in the world to hold us all.

When I went to bed that night I punched the pillow angrily several times. It wasn’t my light-o’-love Consuela Garcia I was striking. It was an ineffectual attack against sardonic, implacable destiny. Men are men and women are women, and never the twain shall meet.

Who said that? I did.

I
WISH I COULD WRITE
Friday morn dawned bright and clear. Actually it dawned dull and murky with a sky resembling a sodden bath mat. The kind of day designed to convince one of the utter hopelessness of rising and facing life’s demands.

But when duty’s bugle sounds the charge, McNally is not found skulking. I resolutely completed the usual morning drill and arrived at my office less than an hour late after stopping at our cafeteria for a container of black coffee and two glazed doughnuts. My abstemious breakfast at home (one skimpy scone) hadn’t dulled hunger I feared might be the first indication of serious malnutrition.

I lighted an English Oval for added nourishment and phoned Lolly Spindrift.

“Lolly,” I told him, “let me be perfectly frank.”

He giggled. “Darling, I’ve known two Franks in my life and neither was perfect, believe me.”

“Then let me be perfectly honest,” I said. “I need to tap your inexhaustible reservoir of inside skinny but at the moment I have nothing to offer in return.”

“The story of my life,” he said, sighing. “All right, luv, what do you need?”

“Do you have anything on a dazzling bloke named Ricardo Chrisling?”

Brief pause. “No, I—wait half a mo. The name rings a distant bell. I know I don’t have him in my personal file but let me dig into the paper’s database.”

I sipped my coffee, nibbled a doughnut, puffed my ciggie, and tried to relax while Lol made his computer search.

“Got him!” he said triumphantly. “Which proves the Spindrift total recall is not weakening. Probably due to those memory pills I pop every morning.”

“Memory pills? What are they called?”

“I forget. Anyway, about a year ago there was an imbroglio at one of our local boîtes. A private party of six South American gents. Voices were raised, fists were brandished, and eventually a pistol was drawn and fired several times. When the police arrived one of the
sudamericanos
was dead, thoroughly riddled. Our reporter asked an investigating officer how the deceased had perished. ‘From an excess of holes,’ the cop said. Isn’t that delightful? All the other partyers were questioned. One of them was your boy, Ricardo Chrisling. But apparently he wasn’t held or charged—just questioned. That’s all I’ve got.”

“Thanks, Lolly,” I said. “I owe you one.”

“Keep it firmly in mind,” he advised. “You know what happens to people who stiff me, don’t you? I reveal their innermost secrets in print.”

“Makes me shudder. I shall eventually pay my debt. I am, after all, a man of honor.”

“Hah!” was all he said.

I hung up with the conviction I had been correct in deciding Monsieur Chrisling deserved intensive investigation. Not that attendance at a private party resulting in a homicide condemned him, but it did make one question the traits of his friends and associates. I have been present at many, many parties, as I’m sure you have, at which the waving of a pistol and the resulting ventilation of one of the guests would be considered bad form. I mean it’s just not done, is it?

Part of my interest in Ricardo Chrisling, I reckoned, came from an innocent faith common to us all that beautiful people, women and men, possess natures as felicitous as their physical attractiveness. It always comes as a shock, does it not, when these gorgeous folk turn out to be wicked wretches.

In any event, I imagined that while Hiram Gottschalk was a client of McNally & Son, it was possible Ricardo Chrisling was a client of Skull & Duggery.

I was still musing on the role Ricardo might or might not be playing in the program of threats against Hiram when I received a phone call from Yvonne Chrisling. It made me wonder if it was mere coincidence or if I was being played as the schnook du jour by a gang of slyboots for reasons of which I was totally ignorant.

“Archy,” she said in her brisk contralto, “Mr. Gottschalk and Ricardo are flying up to Orlando to attend a convention of exotic bird dealers. The twins are going to a charity dinner and one simply can’t depend on Peter. So I fear I must dine alone, which always depresses me. I was hoping it might be possible for you to join me tonight. Short notice, I admit, but if you can make it I’d love to see you again.”

“Delighted,” I said without hesitation. “What time?”