I was an excellent driver, even one-handed…
“Binky told me you have a steady girl,” she said matter-of-factly, as if commenting on the price of gowns at Martha Phillips on The Esplanade.
And I had foolishly spared Binky’s life this very afternoon. Did he do nothing over his Chinese takeout with Bianca but talk about me and imitate birds? “Binky has a big mouth and, as I said a few moments ago, he lies. I see someone more often than I see others, that is true, but she is not my so-called “steady” and we have an open relationship. Why only recently she was out with Ferdy Attenborough, a good Mend of mine. They had a delightful time.”
“That’s nice. Did you tell her you were taking me to dinner tonight?”
Clever or obtuse? Something told me to keep both hands on the steering wheel as prescribed by law. “I didn’t because I do not have to report to her on my whereabouts. In fact, she is dining with Binky at the Pelican as we speak.” And I was up to my chin in cow dip.
“Is that why we’re going to Charley’s Crab?”
“There’s a gun in the glove compartment, dear; would you pass it to me?
I promise to stop before I shoot myself in the foot again.”
“Oh, relax, Archy,” she said, putting her hand on my knee. How that gesture was supposed to relax me I’ll never know. All it did was cause a muscle spasm that sent the speedometer up ten notches. “I was involved in an open relationship for two years.”
“When was that?”
At college. He played basketball. He was a mile high and an inch wide. I like the type.”
I sucked in my tummy and almost keeled over. “What happened?” I asked.
“He had an open relationship with six other girls.”
“Surely not six?”
“Six, Archy. Tall and thin gives ‘em endurance, like on the court.
When we all found out about each other we had a meeting and drew straws. I lost.”
“Who won?”
“Virginia Miles. She was tall and thin.”
“I must say your generation is casual about these things. I remember poor Tim Hicks, who was tall and thin and engaged in multiple open relationships in our freshman days at Yale. When the ladies compared notes they formed a vigilante group to liberate Tim from his pants. It was the day Tim had mislaid his clean laundry and he was running about with nothing under his jeans but Tim.”
Bianca laughed that laugh and squeezed my knee. If she kept that up we would qualify for the Daytona 500. We had reached Ocean Boulevard and I turned south.
“What happened to Tim?” she wanted to know.
“As I recall, he was bombarded with invitations from women as far south as Miami and as far north as the Canadian border.”
“Oh, Archy!”
Was she blushing? I fear not. But my knee was.
At Charley’s Crab we had time for a drink at the bar, which offers an ocean view. The sky was remarkably clear over the horizon, cutting a sliver of blue across a dark sea. The prevailing cloud cover might pass before it rained on my parade. There were a few couples at the bar and several diners circling the salad bar. “What’s your pleasure?”
I asked my date.
“What are you having?”
This told me she wasn’t a drinker and afraid of ordering the wrong thing. I would bet my authentic
NY Yankees baseball cap that the preference at the U. of Miami was for Alabama Slammers or a cup of grain-alcohol punch dipped from a trash can. Drawing straws? Wait till I told Mrs. Trelawney that one.
I ordered two apple martinis. Trust me. You’ll like it.”
“I do trust you, Archy. To pin the goods on Antony Gilbert.”
She persisted like a locomotive at full steam and Antony Gilbert was tied to the tracks. The only thing I was going to take a pin to was her balloon. I promised Binky I would let her down gently, but why should I keep a promise to someone who said nasty things behind my back? Like my age.
The bartender put our drinks before us and I raised mine to her. We touched glasses and sipped. “Hummm, this is good,” she said.
“You didn’t tell me Gilbert was returning the barbell from the recycling bin where it had been used as a paperweight, and the housekeeper confirmed his explanation.”
She didn’t like this one iota and let me know it. “Who told you that?”
“Sergeant Al Rogoff of the PBPD,” I said.
“You told him you were acting on my behalf?” She spoke as if I had betrayed a confidence.
“Calm down, missy. I am not acting on your behalf because I don’t think you have a case. You told me what you suspected and I agreed to meet with Gilbert.
That’s all. But you didn’t level with me, and so I feel no obligation to bother the guy.”
She was seething and drinking much too fast, neither of which helped her cause. Did she look this way the day she lost her basketball player? “I thought you asked me out to discuss the case. You like to get particulars, or did I misunderstand?”
Clever or obtuse? Definitely clever. “It was an excuse to have dinner with a pretty girl, Okay? I’m not ashamed of it. And stop gulping that drink; it’s supposed to be enjoyed.”
I’m so mad I could spit,” she said. “Why did you go running to Al Rogoff?”
This was going from bad to badder in leaps and bounds. A few stools away, a couple were looking at us and so was the bartender. That’s all I needed to get bounced out of Charley’s Crab and onto the police blotter with a pretty girl in tow. How do I get into these situations?
Easy. I work very hard at it. About this time Connie would be giving Binky his towels and Priscilla would be handing over her cutting block.
Would I be missed?
Coming back to the present, I told Bianca, “I went to Al because I’m a professional. I don’t compete with the police, I work with them. I wanted to know what ground they had covered in their investigation of Mrs. Gilbert’s death so I would not waste my time reinventing the wheel. Doesn’t that make sense?” Fearing she would say it didn’t, I went on to tell her how foolish it was of her to ask the police to dust for prints on the barbell. “It’s Gilbert’s home. His prints should be all over the place, and he didn’t deny carrying the barbell back to where it belonged.”
Looking contrite, she made a hopeless gesture with her shoulders. “I know it was foolish, but I was desperate. He had everything worked out so perfectly I was grasping at straws.”
Grasping straws was definitely not the poor child’s forte. “What did he have worked out? He was at breakfast and she was taking her swim.
Sounds like the usual morning routine.”
“Oh no,” she cried. “It wasn’t. Both the housekeeper and I were out of the house.”
“Where were you, Bianca?”
“At Publix shopping, with the housekeeper.”
“Did you usually accompany her shopping?”
“No.” She was so thrilled to be making a point, her cheeks flushed and her hands waved in the air as she spoke. “No, never. But that morning Lilian asked me to go with Louisa, the housekeeper, because she wanted me to pick up fresh cut flowers for the dinner table that night. She always said I had an eye for flowers and friends were coming.”
I didn’t see the point and I told her so. “What did Gilbert have to do with this?”
As if exasperated by my inability to see what was perfectly clear to her, she sighed and said, “Tony must have told her to get me out of the house that morning.”
“But why?” I could have throttled her.
With a quick glance from right to left she told me, “They sometimes swam together in the nude at Tony’s
