McNally's Dilemma (37 page)

If money couldn’t buy happiness, it could buy the most remarkable substitutes, and for a quarter of a century Penny had fought to protect hers. The strain was beginning to show. One wondered why she didn’t dump the satyr for a more reliable shoulder to lean upon. Could it be that she loved the guy? Indeed, it could very well be.

Vance was eyeing Fitz in the manner of a dog on a short leash who had just spotted a fire hydrant.

Arnold Turnbolt was saying, “A gypsy in West Palm read my tea leaves a few months back and told me a beautiful woman would soon end my bachelor days. I said, ‘Honey, if that’s the best you can do you should seriously consider a career change.’ ”

“Oh, Arnold,” Mrs. Fairhurst chided. “I’m going to ask Mr. Ouspenskaya if my daughter, who’s in the family way again, is going to have a boy or a girl.” Emily Fairhurst had not been a great beauty, but this was more than made up for by a charisma that was as enchanting as it was infectious. Like many great ladies, Emily was equally at home in the back seat of her Rolls or at the wheel of her station wagon.

“That would give him one chance in two of being right, Mrs. Fairhurst,” I told her. “We have to think of something more difficult for Ouspenskaya and something we can verify immediately, not nine months from now.”

“Six months, Archy. Sarah is three months along,” Mrs. Fairhurst answered.

“I would ask her obstetrician,” Vance said, “and I’m sure he’ll charge less than Ouspenskaya. What do you think, Fitz?”

With a smile that had Vance blinking, Fitz answered, “I’m going to ask him if I should accept an engagement ring from my Ensign suitor, just out of Annapolis, or a dreamboat just out of SMU who’s been drafted by the Dallas Cowboys.”

“I’ll take your discard,” Arnold called from the bar.

“Oh, Arnold,” Mrs. Fairhurst scolded.

When my drink arrived, I managed to corner Fitz. Eyeing me, she said, “You look like a shadow, Archy.”

“And you look like Fort Knox. So what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”

Fitz is a blue-eyed brunette with a creamy complexion. This was affixed to the prototype female form from which the word “nubile” derived its root and, when she looked into your eyes, she made you believe she was actually interested in what you had to say. From Fitz I learned that Mr. Fitzwilliams had passed his flu on to his wife, rendering them both housebound. Fitz was sent to us as a stand-in for her mother.

“And I’m here as a stand-in for your father. Do you believe in kismet, Fitz?”

“I believe that Mr. Tremaine is panting after me, Arnie is panting after Mr. Tremaine and Mrs. Tremaine is sorry she got herself into this mess.”

“Why did she get into this mess? Do you know?”

“My father—you know he’s on Wall Street—says a European cartel is after the Brightworth chain and Daddy thinks Mrs. Tremaine is trying to contact her father to ask him if she should hold on or let go.”

“Her father, I take it, has passed over.”

Fitz nodded. “He’s in hamburger heaven, Archy.”

You didn’t have to be on Wall Street, or psychic, to know there were big bucks at stake here and I said as much to Fitz.

“The opening bid is ninety million,” Fitz informed me.

“Dollars?”

“We’re not talking enchiladas.”

Penny was still holding firm to Vance as they chatted with Mrs. Fairhurst and Arnold. Vance kept looking our way and nodding at Fitz each time he caught her eye. This guy did not believe in the inviolable sanctity of the home.

“This place gives me the creeps,” Fitz complained.

Looking around the Tremaine drawing room I thought, “One man’s creeps is another man’s crepes.” If Ouspenskaya raised Louis Quatorze, Quinze and Seize, their majesties would think they were back at Versailles waiting for dinner to be announced.

What was announced was “Mr. Serge Ouspenskaya,” by our Roland with a supercilious air and a stiff upper lip.

Standing in the doorway was a vision best described as an extra from
Passage to India.
Shortish, plumpish, white turban, white Nehru jacket, white trousers and white shoes. If his namesake was the character actress Maria Ouspenskaya, his face bore a remarkable resemblance to the actor Turhan Bey who enjoyed a brief popularity in the forties, thanks to Uncle Sam, who had Hollywood’s leading men otherwise engaged. The skin was darker than olive and the eyes peering out of a moon-shaped face were a luminous black.

In short, it was all too corny not to be real. Serge Ouspenskaya was either the Prince of Fools or the Prince of Knaves.

He walked directly to his hostess with all the captivating pomp and swagger of a maharajah and bowed from the waist, keeping his hands firmly at his sides. As intended, this discouraged Penny from offering him her hand. Perhaps he thought it prudent not to appear overly anxious to grasp the hand that was about to grasp ninety million bucks. The night’s pickin’s could be very lucrative for this middle-aged Sabu and I couldn’t wait to hear what the dearly departed Mr. Brightworth had to say to his daughter. “Don’t sell short” came to mind.

To be sure that I have correctly described the magnetic powers of Mr. Serge Ouspenskaya, I will say now that for the first time since I entered the room Vance Tremaine had taken his eyes off Fitz in favor of the psychic. And that, believe me, is saying a mouthful.

“Mrs. Fairhurst, I know.” Ouspenskaya bowed to the lady as Penny led the introductions. “A pleasure, once more, madame.”

His English was perfect. So perfect that I could not detect a trace of an accent that bespoke his origins either here in America or abroad. Like his appearance and carriage, was this yet another indication of theatrical training?

Even Arnold, who was never at a loss for an acrimonious retort, was awed into silence as he was presented. It was interesting to note that as Ouspenskaya acknowledged each of us he made no attempt to amaze his audience with individual comments such as guessing one’s astrological sign, place of birth or the name of a pet cat or dog that had just passed over. If it were all an act, he wasn’t playing to the balcony.

I got a curt nod. Was it my imagination or was Ouspenskaya giving me a wide berth, like a ship skirting an iceberg? Could it be my attire, which was the complete antithesis of his, that repelled rather than attracted and if so, was my choice of dress a harbinger?

When he came to Fitz he broke his silence and stated, “Ah, a classical beauty.”

“Would you care for a drink, Mr. Ouspenskaya?” Vance offered.

“Thank you, no,” he responded. “I take nothing before a sitting. If we are successful, however, I might bother you for a glass of champagne when we’re done.”

“And if we’re not successful?” I asked.

“Then, Mr. McNally, I will still insist on my glass of champagne.”

This, as intended, got a laugh, and Ouspenskaya pointed to the round table and seven chairs already in place at the far end of the room. “Shall we proceed? As you may know I discourage socializing before a sitting and arrive late not to make a grand entrance but to avoid the necessity of engaging in banal conversations. This only hinders the purpose of our meeting.”

Arrogant? Maybe. But very clever. The less said, the less one could accuse him of picking our brains for helpful hints the spirits might find useful later in the evening.

As we took our places as described earlier—clockwise, with Ouspenskaya in the number twelve position, we had Arnold, Mrs. Fairhurst, Vance, Penny, yrs. truly, and Fitz—Roland moved about the room turning off the ornate lamps. When we were settled, the butler left the room, dousing the ceiling light from a wall switch abutting the door. With the window curtains drawn, the room was now in total darkness.

“Let us all join hands,” Ouspenskaya instructed, “and empty our minds of all worldly thoughts. I will not take questions, but wait to see what comes to me—or through me, if you will. Think of me as a radio. You are going to mentally switch me on and tune me in. I hope you like what comes out, but like a radio I am not responsible for the content of the broadcast. I do not create, I convey. Now, please, let us all imagine a taper—tall, slim, its wick aglow. Concentrate on the flame, please.”

His voice in the darkened room was so perfectly modulated it could have been coming from one of those recordings that people employ to achieve blissful tranquility via alpha rhythm, a pattern of slow brain waves that adherents of the therapy believe make one receptive to daydreaming while fully awake. However, it was tension, not relaxation, I felt in the hands holding mine and I suspected this was the psychic’s intention in spite of what he was saying.

“The flame is the radio’s dial. Look into it. See what you will. Don’t go from station to station. Select one. The one you want to hear from. The one that has a message just for you—be it a person, place or thing. Let your imagination soar. On the other plane all things are possible. All things.”

Was Penny seeing her father’s image in the flame? Fitz, her two current beaus? Arnold, Fitz’s two current beaus? Vance, no doubt, was trying to tune in Fitz and Mrs. Fairhurst, the child her daughter was carrying. I kept seeing the
Atlantis,
or was it the
Pearl of the Antilles,
weaving in and out of the flame like the
Flying Dutchman
on a foggy sea.

There came a long pause. So long I thought Ouspenskaya had fallen asleep.

“Do the words ‘Top Banana’ mean anything to anyone present?”

It was Ouspenskaya’s voice, but its comforting vocal caress was now as cold and matter-of-fact as a train conductor announcing the next stop.

My hands, as well as my heart, did a quick squeeze. Fitz didn’t respond but Penny returned the pressure. Good grief, what did that mean?

“I repeat, is anyone at the table familiar with the words...”

“A Top Banana is an archaic name for the lead comic in a burlesque show.” This from the smart-ass know-it-all, Arnold Turnbolt.

I had come to expose Serge Ouspenskaya but it looked as if Ouspenskaya was about to expose me. What I mean is, my grandfather, Freddy McNally, was a Top Banana on the Minsky circuit. The old pratfalling Freddy had sent his son to Yale and made him a lawyer while buying up Palm Beach real estate for a pittance. The latter made his lawyer son, my father, a rich man. In spite of all this, my father thought it best to pretend that Freddy McNally never existed and that he, son Prescott, arrived on our planet as a freshman at Yale with no past and only great expectations in his future.

How the hell did Ouspenskaya know this? Or, perish the thought, was Freddy actually with us? I stuck to the aphorism I have lived by all my life and one that has seen me through many a stormy sea and into a safe port.
When in doubt, keep your mouth shut.

“Tell them to book the
Pearl
,” Ouspenskaya advised, “the
Atlantis
sucks.” Pause. “Does this mean anything to anyone present?”

For the sake of my psychic partners, I hoped the palms of my hands were not as wet as my forehead. This was too much and it was making a convert of this nonbeliever.

“No one seems to know this horrid person,” Penny Tremaine said. “Can’t you block him out so others can get through?”

“I don’t think it works that way, dear,” Mrs. Fairhurst told her hostess.

Seeing as Penny Tremaine was footing the bill tonight, I think she had a right to complain. And if Ouspenskaya wanted to feather his nest he would be better disposed to call up old man Brightworth and put a gag on Freddy. Why was Ouspenskaya doing this?
How
was Ouspenskaya doing this?

“I played the Lake Worth Playhouse in ’24,” Ouspenskaya all but shouted. “It was the Oakley Theater then. SRO three straight weeks. I was on the bill with Lolly Pops, who did amazing things with three strategically positioned balloons. The men in the audience were frisked for hat pins, darts and pencils with sharp points. You won’t be the first McNally on the bill there. You hear me, Archy? You hear me?”

“Archy!” Penny Tremaine harangued.

Fitz giggled.

“Lolly Pops?” Arnold Turnbolt screamed.

UNLIKE
the last owners of Penny Tremaine’s
ameublement
I got out of the palace with my head attached to my shoulders and, of all things, Fitz attached to my arm. If I had inadvertently rained on my hostess’s parade, I had, with malicious aforethought, deluged the conflagration that raged within the savage breast of my host. Thanks to Serge Ouspenskaya, Archy McNally was now persona non grata at the Tremaine residence.

To wit: After fingering me as the person to whom the so-called Top Banana was shooting off his mouth, Ouspenskaya refused to continue with the séance, or sitting, because of the quote, disruptive personality, unquote, of said comic. Meaning that Freddy had clogged the airwaves with enough ham to thwart any other channels from coming through. This Ouspenskaya had the
cajones
of a brass monkey. Arnold’s near hysterics over the name Lolly Pops did not help my cause.

I said earlier that I thought Ouspenskaya was skirting me when we were introduced. I now believed that he knew the reason I had attended the séance and had set out to goad me, embarrass me and warn me off. He had succeeded in two out of three. At the close of my first inning with the psychic the score was one to zilch, in favor of the spooks.

But how did he know? More important, if he was wise to me, he had to know who had hired me. And if he had put off catering to the ninety-million-dollar baby in order to get me off his back it meant that he had long-range plans for mining the rich turf of Palm Beach. He had also managed to K two B’s with one stone this evening by demonstrating his powers to me and impressing the rich folk at the same time.

Naturally, I had to admit that family lore had it that my grandfather “dabbled” in theatricals. Let’s face it: How often do you get the spirit of a Top Banana and an ecdysiast called Lolly Pops at your neighborhood séance? Penny couldn’t wait to set up a private sitting with Ouspenskaya and tune in to daddy dearest. Fitz, it seemed, had been dropped off at the Tremaines’ abode by her brother and it had been decided that the Tremaine chauffeur would see her safely home. The Tremaine chauffeur had come down with a bellyache induced, no doubt, by the greenback Vance must have slipped him to play sick. The gallant Vance volunteered to see Fitz to her front door. Penny turned the color of Ouspenskaya’s turban at the thought of her husband and Fitz zipping along the A1A under a starry sky and stopping God knows where for God knows what along the way.