to Sabrina Wright, as Robert Silvester had just confirmed.
It’s the commonplace that’s more likely to contain surprises behind its familiar facade.
My first thought regarding Lolly’s anonymous caller was that he or she was a clerk at the Chesterfield, who knew Sabrina Wright had registered at the hotel and had heard her ask for Robert Silvester. The informer made a grab for his, or her, fifteen minutes and settled happily for anonymous fame when Lolly printed the item. Simple and obvious. Yet I couldn’t help but ask, “Why did you suggest Sabrina herself might have made that call to Lolly Spindrift?”
Silvester grimaced. “A caprice, nothing more. I’ve been dealing with Sabrina’s impulsive behavior for so long nothing she does surprises me, but, as I’m sure you know, she did not make that call.”
“And neither did Zack Ward?”
“No, Mr. McNally, I’m sure Sabrina painted a picture of Zack replete with twirling mustaches and black cape, but he’s not like that at all.
He is a brash young man, but not a devious one. True, he works for a rag, and he is ambitious, but one has to start someplace. Even Raymond Chandler wrote for the pulps.”
I didn’t tell him that I rather liked the original pulps with their lurid cover art and even had a few stashed away in a box of memorablia I intend to leave to my godson, Darcy. The one touting The Blue Dahlia on its cover must be worth a fortune.
In keeping with Silvester’s white paper on Zack Ward, I stated rather than asked, “And he doesn’t court Gillian because of her famous mother.”
Silvester shook his head. “Did Sabrina tell you Jill met Zack in a writers’ workshop?” When I acknowledged this with a nod, he asked,
“Did she tell you that Jill was enrolled in that workshop under an alias?”
He didn’t wait for a response because we both knew she hadn’t. As I had noted when I met her, Sabrina Wright is a package. Now I knew she never allowed anyone, including her husband, to get under the wrapping.
Silvester explained, “Jill joined the workshop more as a diversion than with any serious intent to penning a novel. She also dabbled in acting classes, art classes, and yoga, all with a ‘no comment’ from her mother. It’s not easy being the daughter of a successful woman and less easy when the woman is Sabrina Wright. “Jill had learned early on that when people discovered her relationship to Sabrina they treated her with either indifference or scorn. In her early days as an actress, a noted producer offered her a big part in his next play if her mother would finance it. After that, she ventured out into the real world under an assumed name. As far as I know she and Zack saw each other for a few weeks before he knew who she really was.” “Then why,” I quizzed, ‘is Sabrina certain Zack Ward is more interested in a Sabrina Wright expose than in her daughter?” He wrestled with that one before capitualating, but not without reluctance. “Zack is young and rather attractive. He didn’t make a fuss over Sabrina, if you know what I mean. To compensate, she had to find a plausible excuse to make herself, and not Jill, the reason for Zack’s presence in our lives.
Enough said?” The thought had crossed my mind but I had given motherhood and prudence the benefit of the doubt — and come up skunked, yet again. In my formative years I had dated both Polly and Anna.
Together, they had made a lasting impression. If the writer and her editor were in a give-and-take relationship, poor Rob was coming away empty-handed.
Even if what he was telling me was true, it didn’t mean that Zack Ward wasn’t the instigator behind Gillain’s search for her father, and I said as much to Silvester.
“I honestly don’t know if he did or didn’t talk Jill into coming down here,” Silvester said. “But if it was Jill’s brainstorm, Zack is with her all the way. The two are in love, Mr. McNally. Make no mistake about that.”
I wasn’t about to make any mistakes because I was no longer involved in the rather sordid affair, but as Silvester’s lunch guest I felt I had to feign interest. Okay, I’m not kvetching. Who’s above getting the inside scoop on the antics of the rich and famous? Not Archy.
However, I couldn’t help but giving ol’ Rob a little nudge in the ribs.
And if Gillian did happen to find her papa, Zack would pull the plug on his laptop?”
Silvester signaled our waiter for the check. T’ll tell you what, Mr.
NcNally. Why don’t you ask Zack that question?”
I stood in the sitting room of Robert Silvester’s suite at The Breakers, staring at Gillian Wright and Zachary Ward. A line from the intro of an old song echoed in my brain: “Here I stand with deep regret, an innocent victim of etiquette.” That I was, and you could drop the innocent without doing bodily harm to the rhyme’s message.
When Silvester invited me up to meet the couple I refused with the lame excuse of having an appointment with my tons or He insisted it wouldn’t take long and said so while signing the check. Not wishing to bite the hand that feeds, I acquiesced. “But just for a minute,” I said, running a hand through my hair. Leaving the restaurant he admitted, “I told them I was lunching with you here and they’re anxious to meet you.” I didn’t need a crystal ball to know that Gillian Wright wanted to dub me her knight-errant in charge of her crusade to unearth Daddy Warbucks. Sorry, kid, but I misplaced my DNA-testing kit. Why me? Because they were the new kids on the block and believed I was the only game in town. Having crossed another bridge I didn’t want to leave in flames, I agreed to the meeting for the chance to politely refuse my investiture in person. Silvester called from the desk and told them we were coming up. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr.
McNally,” Sabrina’s daughter welcomed me. Gillian Wright could be called plain only in contrast to her showy mom. On her own, the young lady was rather pleasing to the eye and this eye is a connoisseur of the species. She had her mother’s dark eyes and a mop of curly light-brown hair. As a child she must have been a true blonde. She sported a healthy tan and wore a pair of indi-chic bell-bottom slacks and a man’s dress shirt with the tails hanging out. Rather than emulate or compete with her high-fashion mother, Gillian chose to dress down in a more subtle, yet edgy style in an attempt to appear as if she had better things to occupy her mind than the current length of madam’s hem line. Unfortunately it didn’t work.
I’m a very social animal in the Palm Beach area and as such come in contact with the local citizenry on tennis courts and golf courses, and crowded rooms. I could not help but look at Gillian Wright without trying to ascertain if she bore a resemblance to one of the prominent men in my circle. My chances of coming up with a match were hampered by the fact that in Palm Beach we are blessed with more prominent men than grace the hallowed halls of the Racquet and Tennis Club on New York’s Park Avenue. Gillian’s wry smile told me she probably knew what I was thinking.
It was very clever of you to find Rob.” This from Zack Ward who, with his black-rimmed glasses and a head of expensively layered brown hair, brought to mind a young college instructor bucking for tenure.
“I didn’t find him,” I quickly corrected. “He called me and gave directions.”
“But,” Zack Ward amended, ‘if Rob hadn’t called you, how would you have gone about looking for him? I ask as an investigative reporter.”
“I don’t give away trade secrets. I answer as an investigative snoop.”
This garnered a nervous laugh all around and saved me the embarrassment of telling the pushy young man that I hadn’t a clue as to how I was going to locate Robert Silvester.
“Won’t you sit down?” Gillian invited.
“Sorry, but as I told Mr. Silvester I have an engagement and would come up just long enough to meet you and Mr. Ward. It’s been a pleasure, however brief.”
This left Gillian no choice but to pounce. “Mr. McNally, you know why I’m here, and I would like to hire you to help me find my father.”
I think the statement took every bit of courage she possessed, which wasn’t much to begin with. If Sabrina was a brazen peacock, her daughter had all the verve and color of a dormouse. It was heartening to see Zack Ward take her hand as she made her plea.
“Ms Wright,” I said, ‘you could advertise or make a statement to the press. That would flush him out.”
“Oh,” she exclaimed as if I had suggested removing a wart with a stick of dynamite. “I would never do that. Did you see the piece in the paper the other day announcing mother’s arrival? I was mortified. How did the reporter know she was here?”
“I think a clerk at your mother’s hotel is the guilty party,” I answered.
“I don’t want the press involved in this in any way, Mr. McNally. It would prove humiliating to both me and my father.”
