washed down with a few pilsner glasses full of suds. In the interest of keeping Al alive long enough to tell me what I wanted to know I ordered for both of us. Two grilled salmons, Priscilla, and the tossed green.”
“Okay,” Al relented unwillingly, ‘but bring me an order of fries on the side.”
As Priscilla was withdrawing I called, “Make that two orders of fries.”
“What about your waistline?” she challenged.
“I’m not going to eat them. I just want to look at them and remember when I could.”
Al watched Priscilla’s departing form, which was done up in a Pucci — a print wrap dress in light blue, black, and mocha and sighed. Watching Priscilla in retreat after taking an order had become the fastest growing non contact sport at the Pelican, an honor formerly held by our annual Running of the Lambs in the parking lot.
We were a bit early for a lazy Palm Beach summer lunch and were the only ones occupying a table in the bar area. There were a few men seated on stools watching market quotes on the TV and picking Mr.
Pettibone’s brain for tips. The dining room was nearly empty when we entered, but a steady flow of singles and doubles trickled in as we awaited our food.
While his mind was otherwise occupied, I inquired with a bored air,
“What can you tell me about Bianca Courtney, Al?”
“She and Binky had Chinese takeout last night. Chicken and snow peas with extra fried rice. They ain’t eating healthy like us.”
“Are you a peeping torn, Al?”
“No. Kevin Woo delivered my order before going next door.
Sweet-and-sour pork with two spring rolls.”
“Kevin Woo? From what part of China does he hail, Belfast?”
Al finished his beer and looked about for Priscilla. “He’s third-generation Floridian. His father is Tyrone Woo. He owns the Pagoda.”
I was getting more information than I cared to know. “So Kevin Woo delivers the orders and rats on his customers. Did you ever think of moving into a fishbowl?”
“It’s not like that,” Al said. “We’re a friendly group and we watch out for each other. We ain’t no different from your gang. You got Lolly Spindrift we got Mrs. Brewster.”
Here, Priscilla breezed by and deposited a plate of crudites on our table. “It comes with the salmon,” she informed us.
Staring at the raw vegetables, Al ordered two more beers and a platter of onion rings. “And a few dill spears while you’re at it.”
And some of Leroy’s fried mozzarella sticks,” I added.
“Should I have Leroy fry the crudites?” Priscilla asked before wandering off.
“Where were we?” I said to Al when she was gone.
“On a diet, remember?”
“No, after that.” Snapping my fingers as if a bulb had just lit up in my head, I exclaimed, “Yes, Bianca Courtney. What else can you tell me besides what she and Binky had for dinner last night.”
“Let’s see. She had a visit this morning from a man driving a red car.
Then a stretch limo pulls up outside her door and sits there until the guy leaves Bianca’s pad. He gets in the limo for maybe twenty minutes, and it just sits there like there’s a meeting going on. When the guy gets out of the limo, it drives off, and then the guy gets back in the red car and follows it.”
This left me not only flummoxed, but speechless. Our brews arrived and I drank to play for time. Mrs. Brewster had witnessed Cranston’s cloak-and-dagger ploy and reported it to the neighborhood cop. Did the snoop get the limo’s license number?
“I got a call at the station house this morning from Mrs. B,” Al said, like I didn’t know. “Nice dame, but old and nervous. She calls me if a UPS truck backfires. So who was in the limo?”
Nervous old ladies did not take down plate numbers. They wouldn’t turn their backs long enough to get pencil and paper. “It was a client, Al.
That’s all I can say.”
“How come a client met you at the Palm Court?”
Not even I could answer that with a story that was remotely believable, so I made no attempt to do so. “You said we’ve known each other for a long time, Al, right?” He nodded with a shrug. “Have I ever done anything to abuse that friendship?” He shook his head but spared me the shrug. “Then I have to ask you to trust me with this one. I can’t tell you a damn thing about the limo, Al, but I promise I will as soon as I’m able.”
“Has it got anything to do with Bianca Courtney and her deceased employer?”
Absolutely not,” I said with joy at being able to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Our onion rings, pickles, and mozzarella sticks arrived and we helped ourselves. I felt I had sweated off enough pounds over Mrs. Brewster’s see-and-tell avocation to make up for the few ounces I was imbibing.
“Has it got anything to do with Sabrina Wright?”
My joy was short-lived. I grabbed a mozzarella stick to ward off the evil eye and to appease the gnawing in the pit of my belly. Lunch with Al Rogoff could be hazardous to your health. The best way to avoid answering a question was to ask one. “How do you know Sabrina Wright is in town, and why would I be involved with her?”
Al was working on a pickle spear. He really loved those things. “We read Spindrift, too, and we like to keep an eye on the visiting firemen, especially the big shots. And there was a rumor going around that she hired Archy McNally to find some guy who ran off on her.”
There was that blind item again. Gadzooks, it had done everything but start World War Three. Bite your tongue, Archy, she’s not out of Palm Beach yet. “Do you read Sabrina Wright, Al?”
“Hell, no. But Tweeny does.”
Somehow I could not imagine Tweeny Alvarez reading anything but the Most Wanted list. Changing the subject without drawing attention to the fact, I said, “I imagine Bianca Courtney reads her, too.”
“So tell me what you were doing at Bianca’s?” Al asked.
I’m so clever it hurts.
“I was delivering a microwave oven,” I said, munching my third mozzarella stick. Well, they’re better than popping tranquillizers.
“Do I have to trust you with that one, too?”
I told Al everything, beginning with Binky’s housewarming and ending with my conversation with Bianca. “I went as a favor to Binky, you understand. The girl, as you know, is young and foolish.”
“The broad, as you and me know, is young and pretty,” Al said, delivering a death blow to the English language. But don’t ever mistake him for a fool. Many a felon has and lived to regret it for anywhere from ten years to life. “She told you about the barbell. It’s a laugh, Archy. She wanted us to dust it for prints. The guy lives in the house, for chrissakes, and if his paws weren’t on everything in the joint I would be suspicious.”
“But did you ask him why he was seen returning it to the exercise room the day after the accident?”
“Yeah. And he didn’t appreciate it. He knew Bianca was the snitch.
The barbell was in the garage holding down a stack of newspapers waiting to be picked up for recycling. The housekeeper confirmed this.”
Funny what people leave out of their stories when they’re trying to prove a point. Now I was committed to visit Antony without an h. Maybe I could talk Bianca out of the visit and into a midnight swim. “One more question, Al. What did the forensic people say about the head wound?”
“The old dame must have hit her head on the floor of the pool when she dove off the board.”
“Must have,” I pounced. “But could the wound have been caused by something else?”
Al dismissed this with a wave of his hand, which actually created a breeze. “But she was alive and well when she dove in the pool and dead when we carried her out. Conclusion, she hit her head in the pool.”
And who saw her dive in the pool, alive and well?”
“Her husband, that’s who.”
Anyone else?” I goaded.
Archy, the guy gets next to nothing from her death. You know that and so does Bianca. He was better off when his wife was alive. Okay, he had to dip his wick a few times a week, but in return he got treated like a prince. Now he goes back to pushing rich old ladies around dance floors.”
