McNally's Puzzle by Lawrence Sanders Read Free Book Online

It’s Bridget Houlihan.”
    “Ah,” I said. “The Hibernian crumpet. Fancy her, do you?”
    “She’s such a marvelous female,” he enthused. “Sweet and charming. And talented. She plays the tambourine.”
    “Binky,” I said, “I’m not sure one can play a tambourine. Don’t you just shake it or bang it? I mean Brahms never wrote a lullaby for tambourine, did he?”
    “Oh, you can play it,” he said with great certainty. “Bridget and I are thinking of getting up an act. I’ll do my birdcalls while she accompanies me on her tambourine.”
    I hastily finished my first beer. For some unexplainable reason I recalled the comment of a Hollywood wit who remarked on the natural affinity between Rin-Tin-Tin and Helen Twelve-trees. In my relationship with Binky I seemed to be playing the actress. But I resolutely put this nuttiness from my mind.
    “What about the other employees?” I asked him.
    “There are two clerks in addition to Bridget. Young kids. Boy and girl. Tony Sutcliffe and Emma Gompertz. I think they may have a thing going.”
    “Cohabiting?” I suggested.
    “What does that mean?”
    “Living together.”
    “Like me and the Duchess?”
    “Not quite. Living together as husband and wife.”
    “Oh,” he said. “Well, yes, they may be cohabiting. Did you ever cohabit, Archy?”
    “No,” I said.
    “I did,” he said. “Once. For a weekend in Glasgow.”
    “What on earth were you doing in Glasgow?”
    “Cohabiting. And drinking Glenlivet.”
    “Binky,” I said, sighing, “can we get back to business? What about the manager?”
    “Ricardo Chrisling? A very slick character.”
    “Slick? In what sense? Slippery?”
    “Oh no, I wouldn’t say that. More like sleek—you know? Hair carefully brushed and shining. Silk suit and all that. Might even have a manicure.”
    “Handsome?”
    “I suppose impressionable dolls might think so. I find him a bit on the gigoloish side.”
    “Smooth?” I suggested.
    “Very smooth,” Binky said. “Exceedingly smooth.”
    I asked him if employees had been invited to attend the party welcoming home Mr. Gottschalk’s twin daughters.
    “We have indeed,” he said happily. “Even I, the most recent and lowliest of the peons. You’ll be there?”
    “Wouldn’t miss it,” I assured him. “Don’t get hammered, Binky. Behave yourself.”
    “So I shall, old boy,” he vowed. “I’ll be the very soul of decorum. By the way, while I was being interviewed by the owner he told me the most amazing story about two macaws who prayed all the time. It seems this woman had bought—”
    “Stop right there,” I said. “He told me the same tale.”
    “Do you believe it, Archy?”
    “Of course. Indubitably.”
    “I do too,” he said. “It just proves what incredible creatures birds are. Equal or superior in intelligence to many humans.”
    “How right you are,” I agreed. “Keep up the good work, Binky. See you at the bash tomorrow night.”
    We hung up and I hastened to add the names Tony Sutcliffe and Emma Gompertz to my journal before I forgot them. I doubted if this young couple had any connection with the threats against Hiram Gottschalk. But one never knows, do one?
    Then I finished my lunch and because the radio and TV had warned about riptides I skipped my ocean swim that afternoon. I took a nap instead and slept fitfully, troubled by wild images: a black crow stalking into the shadows, a strangled mynah, a beady-eyed parrot condemning me to Hades.
    I blamed the nightmarish snooze on the smoked turkey in my luncheon sandwich. All those damnable fowl seemed determined to make my life miserable. My discomfiture, I decided, was definitely for the birds.

CHAPTER 6
    M R. GOTTSCHALK HAD TOLD ME this party was to be informal, without swank, and so I dressed accordingly. I had recently purchased a lightweight wool sport jacket in a houndstooth check of olive, gold, and blue. Sounds rather citified, does it not? Dullsville in fact. But it had suede