OF ALL THE COUNTIES in Florida, Palm Beach is the Ace of Clubs. There is a superabundance: golf clubs, tennis clubs, yacht clubs, polo clubs. Probably the most elegant and exclusive social clubs on Palm Beach Island are the Bath & Tennis and the Everglades. But about five years previously, I got together with a bunch of my wassailing pals, and we agreed what the town needed was another club, so we decided to start one. We called it the Pelican Club in honor of Florida’s quintessential bird. Also, most of the roistering charter members resembled the pelican: graceful and charming in flight, lumpish and dour in repose.
We found an old two-story clapboard house out near the airport that we could afford. It was definitely not an Addison Mizner but it had the advantage of being somewhat isolated: no close neighbors to complain about the sounds of revelry. We all chipped in, bought the house, fixed it up (sort of), and the Pelican Club opened for business.
And almost closed six months later. We were lawyers, bankers, stockbrokers, realtors, doctors, etc., but we knew nothing about running a club bar and restaurant. We were facing Chapter 7 when we had the great good fortune to hire the Pettibones, an African-American family who had been living in one of the gamier neighborhoods of West Palm Beach and wanted out. All of them had worked in restaurants and bars, and they knew how an eating-drinking establishment should be run.
They moved into our second floor, and the father, Simon Pettibone, became club manager and bartender. Son Leroy was our chef, daughter Priscilla our waitress, and wife Jas (for Jasmine) was appointed our housekeeper and den mother. Within a month the Pettibones had the club operating admirably, and so many would-be Pelicans applied for membership that eventually we had to close the roster and start a waiting list.
The Pelican Club was not solely dedicated to merrymaking, of course. We were also involved in Good Works. Once a year we held a costume ball at The Breakers: our Annual Mammoth Extravaganza. All the proceeds from this lavish blowout were contributed to a local home for unwed mothers, since so many of our members felt a personal responsibility. In addition we formed a six-piece jazz combo (I played tenor kazoo), and we were delighted to perform, without fee, at public functions and nursing homes. A Palm Beach music critic wrote of one of our recitals, “Words fail me.” You couldn’t ask for a better review than that.
It was to the Pelican Club that I tooled the Miata after my stimulating morning with Lady Horowitz. It was then almost eleven-thirty, but traffic crossing Lake Worth on the Royal Park Bridge was heavy, and it was a bit after noon when I arrived at the club.
No members were present when I entered the Pelican, but Simon Pettibone was behind the bar, polishing glasses and watching the screen of a television set displaying current stock quotations.
I swung onto a barstool. “Are you winning or losing, Mr. Pettibone?” I inquired.
“Losing, Mr. McNally,” he replied. “But I prefer to think of it as a learning experience.”
“Very wise,” I said. “A vodka-tonic for me, please, with a hunk of lime.”
He began preparing the drink, and I headed for the phone booth in the rear of the barroom. Did you guess I intended to call Jennifer Towley? You will learn that when duty beckons, there is stern stuff in the McNally male offspring; I phoned the Palm Beach Police Department. I asked to speak to Sergeant Al Rogoff.
“Rogoff,” he answered in his phlegmy rasp.
“Archy McNally here.” I said.
“Yes, sir, how may I be of service?”
When Al talks like that, I know someone is standing at his elbow—probably his lieutenant or captain.
“Feel like a nosh?” I asked. “I’ll stand you a world-class hamburger and a bucket of suds.”
“Your Alfa-Romeo is missing, sir?” he said. “I’m sorry to hear that. It will be necessary for you to file a missing vehicle report. Where are you located, sir?”
“I’m in the barroom at the Pelican.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, “I am familiar with that office building. Suppose I meet you there in a half-hour, and you can give me the details of the alleged theft.”
“Hurry up,” I said. “I’m hungry.”
I returned to the bar where my drink was waiting on a clean little mat. I took a sip. Just right.
“Mr. Pettibone,” I said, “life is strange.”
“Bizarre is the word, Mr. McNally,” he said. “Bee-zar.”
“Exactly,” I said.
Sgt. Al Rogoff owned that adjective. I had worked a few cases with him in the past—to our mutual benefit—and had come to know him better than most of his professional associates. He deliberately projected the persona of a good ol’ boy: a crude, profane “man’s man” who called women “broads” and claimed he would like nothing better than a weekend on an airboat in the Everglades, popping cans of Bud and lassoing alligators. He even drove a pickup truck.
I think he adopted this Joe Six-pack disguise because he thought it would further his career as an officer of the law in South Florida. Actually, he knew who Heidegger was; could quote the lines following “Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?”; and much preferred an ’82 Medoc to sour mash and branch water. He looked and acted like a redneck sheriff, but enjoyed Vivaldi more than he did Willie Nelson.
He hadn’t revealed the face behind the mask voluntarily: I had slowly, patiently, discovered who he really was. He knew it, and rather than be offended, I think he was secretly relieved. It must be a tremendous strain to play a role continually, always fearful of making a gaffe that will betray your impersonation. Al didn’t have to act with me, and I believe that was why he was willing to provide official assistance when my discreet inquiries required it.
By the time he came marching through the front door, uniform smartly pressed, the Pelican barroom was thronged with the lunchtime crowd and people had started to drift to the back area where a posted warning said nothing about jackets and ties but proclaimed: “Members and their guests are required to wear shoes in the dining room.”
I noticed a few patrons glancing warily at the uniformed cop who had invaded the premises. Did they fear a bust—or were they just startled by this armed intruder who was built like a dumpster? Al Rogoff’s physical appearance was perhaps the principal reason for the success of his masquerade. The man was all meat, a walking butcher shop: rare-beef face, pork chop jowls, slabs of veal for ears. And unplucked chicken wing sideburns.
I conducted him to the dining room where Priscilla was holding a corner table for me. We both ordered medium-rare hamburgers, which came with country fries and homemade coleslaw. We also ordered steins of draft Heineken. While waiting for lunch to be served, we nibbled on spears of kosher dill pickles placed on every table in mason jars. The Pelican Club did not offer haute cuisine, but Leroy Pettibone’s food adhered to the ribs.
“How much time do you have?” I asked Rogoff.
“An hour tops,” he said. “What’s up?”
“I want to report a crime.”
“Oh?” he said. “Have you sexually abused a manatee?”
“Not recently,” I said. “But this may not be a crime at all. It is an alleged crime. And the alleged victim will not report it to the police. And if you hear or read about it and question the alleged victim, she will claim no crime has been committed.”
“Love it,” the sergeant said. “Just love it. Alleged crime. Alleged victim. And I’ve got to listen to this bullshit for a free hamburger? Okay, I’m not proud. Who’s the alleged victim?”
“Lady Cynthia Horowitz.”
He pursed his lips in a soundless whistle. “Mrs. Gotrocks herself? That makes the cheese more binding. She’s got clout. And what’s the alleged crime?”
“Possible theft of a valuable possession.”
“The Koh-i-noor diamond?”
“No,” I said. “Four postage stamps.”
He looked at me sorrowfully. “You never come up with something simple,” he said. “Like a multiple homicide or a supermarket bombing. With you, everything’s got to be cute. All right, buster, tell me about the four postage stamps.”
But then our food was served, and we were silent until Priscilla left. Between bites and swallows, I told him the whole story of the Inverted Jenny and how a block of four of the misprinted stamps was missing from the wall safe in Lady Horowitz’s bedroom. The sergeant listened without interrupting. Then, when I finished, he spoke.
“You know,” he said, “this hamburger is really super. What does Leroy put in the meat?”
“Probably minced Vidalia onion this time of year. Sometimes he uses chopped red and yellow peppers. The man is the Thomas Alva Edison of hamburgers. What about the Inverted Jennies?”
“What about them? What do you want us to do?”
“Nothing,” I said. “If you go to Lady Cynthia, she’ll tell you the stamps weren’t stolen but have been sent to a New York auction house for appraisal.”
“Uh-huh,” Rogoff said. “And who gave her that idea—as if I didn’t know.”
“I did,” I admitted. “But she doesn’t want any publicity.”
The sergeant pushed back his empty plate and stared at me. “You’re a devious lad, you know that?”
“You’re the second person who’s told me that today.”
“Who was the first—Lady Horowitz?”
I nodded. “But it’s not true,” I protested. “I’m not devious. I just want to maintain civility in the world.”
“Of course,” Rogoff said. “And I’m the Tooth Fairy. So if you’re not demanding the PBPD get involved, what do you want?”
“A little information.”
“It figures,” he said mournfully. “There’s no free lunch.”
“Have another beer,” I urged.
“Nope. Coffee and a wedge of Leroy’s key lime pie will be fine. I deserve it for listening to your blather.”
Priscilla cleared our table, and I gave her Al’s order. I settled for just coffee. Black.
“Getting a little tubby?” she teased.
“Nonsense,” I said. “I’m still the slender, lithe, bronzed Apollo you’ve always known.”
“Oh sure,” she said. “And I’m the Tooth Fairy.”
“Two ‘devious lads’ in one day,” I complained to Rogoff, “and now two Tooth Fairies in one day. Does everything come in twos?”
“Everything comes in threes,” he said. “You should know that. Now cut the drivel. What kind of information do you want?”
“Those Inverted Jenny stamps,” I said. “They’re extremely rare. Only a hundred of them were originally sold. I imagine all stamp dealers and most collectors know about them. A block of four recently went at auction for a million bucks. I mean they’re valuable and they’re famous. So, assuming Lady Cynthia’s stamps were pinched, what’s the thief going to do with them? It’s been bothering me since I was handed the job. He can’t sell them to a legitimate dealer; he’d want to know where they came from—the provenance. Ditto for auction houses. So how does the criminal profit from his crime?”
Silence while Priscilla served our coffee and Rogoff’s dessert. Then:
“Lots of possibilities,” Al said, digging into his pie. “One is ransom. The perp contacts Lady Horowitz and offers to sell her stamps back to her for X number of dollars. Were they insured?”
“Half a million.”
“All right, if Horowitz won’t play ball, the crook calls the insurance company and tries to make a deal. The insurance people would rather pay out a hundred grand than a half-mil.
“Another possibility is that it was a contract heist. Some collector just had to have those cockamamie stamps. He can’t afford a million at auction, but he can afford, say, fifty thousand to hire some experienced burglar to lift them. Believe me, there are collectors like that. They’d never put the Jennies on public display; it would be enough to drool over them in private.
“A third possibility is that the thief will use the stamps as collateral for a bank loan. Take my word for it, there are banks here and abroad that accept collateral like stolen bearer bonds without inquiring too closely how the loan applicant got possession. So the crook gets his loan, defaults, and the bank is stuck with hot merchandise while the bad guy is tanning his hide on the French Riviera.”
“Fascinating,” I said. “I didn’t realize it would be so easy to convert the stamps into cash.”
“Not easy,” Rogoff said, “but it can be done. The simplest way, of course, would be to sell the stamps to a crooked dealer.”
“Talking about dealers,” I said, “do you know of any local experts who could provide more information about the Inverted Jennies?”
He thought a moment. “There’s a guy on the island named Bela Rubik. As in Cube. He’s got a stamp and coin shop off Worth Avenue. He knows his stuff. I’ve used him to help identify stolen property.”
“Is he straight?” I asked.
“As far as I know.”
“Thanks, Al. You’ve been a big help. I’ll take it from here.”
He stared at me. “Why do I have this antsy feeling that I haven’t heard the last of the Inverted Jennies?”
“Beats me,” I said, shrugging. “I can’t see why the Department should get involved.”
“The last time you told me that, I ended up in a shoot-out with two crackheads. Remember that?”
“I remember,” I said. “You performed admirably.”
“Oh sure. And almost got blown away. Thanks for the banquet. Don’t call us; we’ll call you.”
We shook hands and he tramped away. I signed tabs for the lunch and my drinks at the bar, then headed back to Palm Beach. I was satisfied with what I had learned from Rogoff. I don’t claim to be yours truly, S. Holmes. I mean I can’t glance at a man and immediately know he is left-handed, constipated, has a red-haired wife, and slices lox for a living. I do investigations a fact at a time. Eventually they add up—I hope. I’m very big on hope.
I found Rubik’s Stamp & Coin Shop without too much trouble. It was a hole-in-the-wall but appeared clean and prosperous. There was an attractive display of Morgan silver dollars in the front window.
But the door was locked, and I rattled the knob a few times before the man inside came forward and inspected me carefully through the glass. Then he unlocked, let me enter, locked the door behind me. He went back behind the showcase and shoved his glasses, a curious pair of linked jeweler’s loupes, atop his bald head.
“Mr. Rubik?” I asked.
He nodded. I fished out a business card and handed it over. He read it slowly, then handed it back.
“I don’t need a lawyer,” he said. “I already got a will.”
I smiled as pleasantly as I could. “I’m not drumming up business, Mr. Rubik. I just need a little information.”
He stared at me, silent and expressionless. I figured he was on the downside of sixty, and if his grayish pallor was any indication, he’d never hit seventy. He had a puffy face and his gaze was unfocused and nearsighted. He reminded me of someone I had seen before. Suddenly it came to me: He was Mr. Magoo.
“Information?” he said finally, in a creaky voice. “You lawyers bill by the hour, don’t you?”
“That’s correct.”
“For information,” he said, “I do the same. My fee is fifty dollars an hour. Payable in advance for the first consultation.”
I took out my wallet, picked out a fifty, and handed it over. “I’ll need a receipt for that,” I said, trying not to show how miffed I was.
“Of course,” he said. “What information do you want?”
“I want to learn something about the Inverted Jenny airmail stamps.”
His stare was making me nervous. “Why do you want to know about that issue?” he asked.
I could have demanded, “What the hell do you care? You got paid, didn’t you?” Instead I said, “My firm is handling the will of a Boca Raton real estate developer who passed away recently. His estate includes a block of four Inverted Jennies. We’d like to establish an approximate evaluation.”
“You want me to make an appraisal without seeing the stamps? Impossible. What condition are they in? Are they glued in an album or what? Are they faded, torn, folded? All these things affect the value.”
I sighed. “I don’t want you to appraise this particular block of stamps, Mr. Rubik. I just want some general information about Inverted Jennies.”
“Nine sheets of the twenty-four-cent airmail stamps were issued in 1918. The printing plate of the blue biplane in the center had been put on the press backwards. Eight sheets were destroyed after the error was discovered. The ninth was sold over the counter in a Washington, D.C., post office to a broker’s clerk for twenty-four dollars. A week later he sold the sheet of a hundred stamps to a dealer for fifteen thousand. The sheet was then broken up into blocks and singles. Over the years the value has greatly increased. The block of four that was recently auctioned in New York for a million showed the plate number. A block of four with a printing-plate guideline through the middle went for less than half of that.”
“Are there any Inverted Jennies for sale now?”
Rubik shrugged. “Everything is for sale—if the price is right. But many of the Jennies have deteriorated. Like I told you, the value depends on the condition of the stamps.”
I tried again. “Are there any on the market now?”
“That I can’t say.”
“Could you find out? You have contacts with other dealers, I presume. Do you have an association?”
“Yes.”
“Will you inquire and see if any Inverted Jennies are being offered for sale?”
“That’s a big job,” he said. “It’ll take time.”
“Fifty dollars an hour,” I reminded him.
“All right,” he said grudgingly, “I’ll ask around.”
I waited patiently while he pulled down his crazy glasses and wrote out a receipt for fifty dollars in a spidery scrawl. Actually, prorated, he had given me about twenty dollars’ worth of time. But I said nothing. If he wanted to believe he had diddled me, so much the better. I have profited mightily by letting people think I am a tap-dancer when, in reality, I am capable of Swan Lake.
I took the bill and handed back my business card. “If you hear of any Jennies for sale,” I said, “give me a call. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll stop by again in a week or so.”
“I’ll have my bill ready,” he said without smiling.
He may have been straight, as Sgt. Rogoff had said, but I thought Bela Rubik was a surly character with a galloping case of cupidity. I vowed he would never get my vote for Mr. Congeniality.
My next step was at a nearby sporting goods emporium. In the tennis section I picked out a Spalding graphite racquet I thought would please Jennifer Towley. The clerk promised she could exchange it if the weight and balance didn’t suit her. I had it gift-wrapped with a wide ribbon and bow, tossed it into the Miata, and headed for home.
I arrived in time to change and go down to the ocean for my daily plunge. When the surf wasn’t too high, I tried to swim a mile up the shore and a mile back. I am not a graceful swimmer, I admit, but I plow along and I get there. Swimming two miles in the late afternoon is an extremely healthful exercise and makes one eager for the cocktail hour.
The gentry must have their ceremonies, of course, and the cocktail hour was one of ours. Actually, it rarely lasted more than thirty minutes, but it wouldn’t be posh to call it the cocktail half-hour, would it?
My mother, father, and I met in the second-floor sitting room, and there the senior McNally would go through the ritual of mixing a pitcher (not too large) of gin martinis. I know it is fashionable to demand dry martinis; the drier the better. Some insist on a mixture of eight or ten parts gin to one of vermouth. In fact, I know fanatics who believe having an unopened bottle of vermouth somewhere in the neighborhood is sufficient.
But my father is an ardent traditionalist, and his martinis were mixed in the classic formula: three parts gin, one part vermouth. The result was so odd and unusual that I found it enjoyable. The sire did relax his stern standards to the extent of using olives stuffed with a bit of jalapeno pepper.
On that particular day he had come home early to enjoy the family cocktail hour and then change into black tie since he was scheduled to be the main speaker that evening at a testimonial dinner of our local bar association.
After the martini rite was completed, my father departed, and mother and I dined alone downstairs. That night, as I recall, we had lamb chops with fresh mint sauce. Different from Leroy Pettibone’s hamburgers, but not necessarily better. Just different.
Now I must tell you something about my mother since she was fated to play an important role in what I later came to call “The Direful Case of the Inverted Jenny.”
Her name was Madelaine, and she was the dearest, sweetest woman who ever lived but, like all mothers, slightly dotty. She was a native Floridian, which is very rare; most Floridians were born in Ohio. She met my father-to-be when she worked as a secretary in the Miami law firm he joined after becoming a full-fledged attorney. It turned out to be a splendid match.
Not that there weren’t disagreements, but they were mostly of a minor nature. My parents could never, ever, agree on the proper temperature setting for their bedroom air conditioner. And my father decried mother’s insistence on drinking sauterne with meat and fish courses, while she could never understand why on earth he demanded starch in the collars and cuffs of his dress shirts.
A more serious personal problem was Madelaine McNally’s health. My mother was overweight, not obese but definitely much, much too plump. In addition, she suffered from high blood pressure, which probably accounted for her somewhat florid complexion and occasional shortness of breath. Our family physician had put her on a strict diet, and we were bewildered that it resulted in no weight loss. Then we discovered she had been sneaking chocolate truffles while working amidst her begonias in the greenhouse.
But she really was a wonderful woman, and I loved her. I shall always treasure the profound advice she gave me in the first letter I received at New Haven. “Archy,” she wrote, “live as if every day may be your last, and always have on clean underwear.”
That night, during the minty lamb chops, mother and I chatted of this and that, laughed, and then clapped our hands when Ursi Olson brought us fresh, chilled raspberries topped with a sinful dollop of whipped cream.
“No-cal,” Ursi assured my mother.
“I don’t care,” she said. “I just don’t care. Life is too short.”
Over coffee, I remarked that I had seen Lady Cynthia Horowitz that morning.
“Oh? I hope you gave her our best wishes.”
“Of course I did,” I said, though I hadn’t.
“What an unhappy woman,” my mother said, suddenly saddened. “I feel sorry for her.”
“Mother! That woman’s got everything!”
“No,” she said, “she doesn’t. She wants it all, and no one can have it all.”
I thought she was talking goofy nonsense and made no response. We left the table, and mother returned to the sitting room for an evening of television. I went upstairs to my suite to enter the day’s events in my journal.
But first I phoned Jennifer Towley on my private line. I got her answering machine, and after the beep, I said, “Jennifer, this is Archibald McNally. It is vitally, urgently, desperately important that I speak to you. Please call me at any hour of the day or night.” Then I recited my unlisted number, said, “Thank you,” and hung up.
I lighted my first English Oval of the day (I was so proud) and wondered again what Lady Horowitz had been hinting about Jennifer. I could not believe that cool, complete woman could be guilty of anything more serious than an ingrown toenail, but it was mildly unsettling to discover she was the subject of Palm Beach gossip.
I had worked on my journal for more than an hour, jotting down what I had learned that day, when my phone rang about nine-thirty, and I grabbed it up and said, “H’lo?”
“Jennifer Towley,” she said crisply. “What on earth is so vitally, urgently, desperately important?”
“Have you decided to see me again?” I asked eagerly.
“I’m still considering it.”
“Well, you must,” I said. “The Board of Directors of McNally and Son, in solemn conclave assembled, voted to reward you with a gift for your splendid cooperation in the affair of the Frobisher letters. I have made the gift selection and now must make delivery. And that is why it’s necessary to see you as soon as possible.”
She laughed. “What a devious lad you are,” she said.
“Three,” I said. “Rogoff was right. Now don’t tell me you’re the Tooth Fairy.”
There was a brief silence. Then: “What are you gibbering about?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Just idle chatter. Well, when is it to be?”
“I don’t know,” she said doubtfully. “I’m going to be awfully busy. I’ve landed a new client who wants her bedroom done over in Art Nouveau. It’ll take me forever to find the right pieces.”
“Then you’ll need a few hours of relaxation,” I said. “Dinner tomorrow night would be nice. Ever been to the Pelican Club?”
“No, but I’ve heard a lot of weird things about it.”
“They’re all true,” I assured her. “Dress informally. I’ll stop by for you around seven. Okay?”
“All right,” she said faintly.
“And I’ll bring your gift,” I said. “If I can get three men to help me load it onto the truck.”
She was giggling when I hung up. That was a delight, to hear that restrained woman giggle. I went back to my journal with a song in my heart.
I finished making notes and drew up a tentative plan of how I intended to proceed in the Inverted Jenny investigation. Then I poured myself a very small marc from a private stock of spirits and liqueurs I kept in an old sea chest in my sitting room. Pony in hand, I settled down to watch a rerun of Columbo on my portable TV set. I had seen that particular segment twice before, but it was still fun.
One more marc and one more English Oval, and I was ready to kiss the day goodbye. I undressed, brushed my teeth, and showered. If I thought of Jennifer Towley—and I did, continually—they were innocent thoughts. Mostly.
I pulled on my pajama shorts, set the air conditioner at 75°, turned out the lights, and went to bed. I slept the untroubled sleep of the pure at heart.