I lost no time in venting my indignation at what was fast turning into a United Way for Binky Watrous. Triscilla bought Binky a chopping block, Herb in security got him a waffle iron, I have been ordered to purchase a microwave oven et tu, Brute?”
“Oh, oh, the ladies are fawning over Binky and little Archy is having a tempter tantrum.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, reaching for my drink.
“Get a life, Archy,” Connie advised, not for the first time.
“No, my dear, it’s a microwave I have to get, remember?” When Connie’s drink arrived I ordered a second.
“Mrs. Trelawney told me you were acting like a two-year-old over this.” She took a sip of her drink and proclaimed it “Delicious.”
“You spoke to Mrs. Trelawney and she invited you to join the magi bearing gifts.”
“Yes. I called you this afternoon and when you didn’t answer I tried Mrs. Trelawney. She told me you had gone to lunch so I came here looking for you.”
“As a matter of fact,” I said, “I was lunching at The Breakers.”
“In that suit?” Connie exclaimed as if I had gone to lunch in my birthday suit.
“What’s wrong with this suit?” Actually I was getting bored with both the question and my response. I took refuge in my second frozen daiquiri.
“I bet you were the only man at The Breakers in pink,” Connie wagered.
“I was the only man at The Breakers who didn’t look like every other man in the joint.” Feeling the need I pulled out my English Ovals and lit one. “And don’t tell me you thought I had given these up,” I warned.
“Okay, I won’t. And, for your information, I’m thinking of getting Binky bedding, twin size, I’m told.”
“Don’t you think that’s rather intimate, Connie?”
“I’m not going to share them with him. My God, Archy, you are acting like a spoiled brat and you know what I think?”
“No. Nor do I care to.”
That didn’t stop her. “I think you’re jealous,” she accused.
I almost jumped off my stool. “Jealous. Moi, jealous of Binky Watrous. Are you out of your Iberian mind?”
Connie smiled the smile she had smiled when she shared her eggs Benedict with me at Testa’s. This was not going well. I pulled on my English Oval for comfort and, as always, it did not disappoint. Was anything enjoyable also good for you? Sex? Yes, sex is indeed both enjoyable and healthy. Proof? I had read of a great sultan who kept a harem of one thousand wives. Every night he sent his faithful servant to select one to share his bed chamber. The faithful servant died at the age of fifty. The sultan lived to one hundred. Conclusion? It’s the chase, not the act, that does a man in. Later, in the quiet of Connie’s condo, we would discuss bedding.
“Let’s face it, Archy. Binky is ten years your junior…”
“Nine,” I said.
Ten,” she said. “He’s setting up his own household as most of us do when we reach our majority. Before you know it he’ll be married and settled down.”
Those two sentences were rampant with not so thinly disguised innuendo.
Connie was treading on thin ice and she knew it. I was spared defending my puritanical ethics and my chance for a romantic interlude by the arrival of Mrs. Pettibone, bearing a dish of shrimp surrounding a paper cup of spicy red sauce.
“Compliments of the chef,” Jasmine Pettibone said as Connie and I helped ourselves to what the Italians call il sap ore di mare, or the fruit of the sea. The little crustaceans were carefully shelled, perfectly prepared, and absolutely succulent. Leroy’s sauce lost nothing in the transfer from bottle to paper cup. Fresh shrimp is one of the rewards of living not too many miles from the Gulf of Mexico.
Addressing me, Mrs. Pettibone said, “Simon told you about Lyle, my cousin’s boy, out in California.”
I answered that he had and went on to say, “I have no idea what it’s all about. Any further developments?”
“What’s all this?” Connie said, momentarily distracted from Leroy’s offering by the promise of gossip. Momentarily, and not a nanosecond more.
As I related to Connie as much as I knew, Simon Pettibone joined us from his side of the bar.
“Henry Peavey,” Connie said, shaking her head. “Doesn’t mean a thing to me. What about you, Archy?”
As I told Mr. Pettibone, it means nothing to me either.”
Huddled around the plate of shrimp we might have been participants in a taste-test happening. It did occur to me that Mrs. Pettibone had intended to pass the goodies around to the other early diners just beginning to arrive at the club, but if Connie and Mrs. McNally’s favorite son didn’t keep their hands off the pickin’s she would have to abort her mission.
“There are more developments, Archy,” Mr. Pettibone declared with a glance at his wife.
Jasmine Pettibone had been blessed with a particularly aristocratic bearing that had served her well. Now displaying what is politely called a full figure, and with streaks of gray in her hair, it was still un mistakenly clear from whence came Priscilla’s lovely face and form.
“Lyle’s daughter called this morning,” Mrs. Pettibone told us. “She heard from her father.”
“So,” I said, ‘the mystery is solved.”
“Hardly,” Mrs. Pettibone said. “Lucy she’s Lyle’s daughter wasn’t home when his call came. He left a message on her answering machine.”
“Saying what?” Connie asked. Now she, too, seemed to be caught up in the mystery of Henry Peavey.
“Saying that he had arrived and was making contacts, and that it just occurred to him to tell Lucy not to answer any questions or make any statements to the press should they try to contact her,” Mrs. Pettibone stated with a resolute nod of her head.
I said, “And that’s it?” at the same time Connie said, “The press?”
Mr. Pettibone gave us both a nod. “And don’t ask where he arrived at because he didn’t say.”
“He originally told his daughter he was going south,” I reminded the Pettibones.
“South of Sacramento goes all the way to the Argentine,” Connie informed us. Consuela Garcia is practical to a fault.
“The plot certainly thickens,” I told them. “Well, keep us posted. I’d like to know what Lyle has gotten up to.”
“So would I,” Mrs. Pettibone answered.
The club was starting to fill, but I noticed that our favorite corner table was still vacant. “What’s Leroy tempting us with this evening?”
A crown roast,” Mrs. Pettibone announced as she moved away with the remainder of the shrimp.
Leroy’s crown roast is a couple of rib sections of a loin of lamb arranged in a circle and roasted with strips of bacon wrapped around the lower section and also covering the ends of the rib bones, to prevent them from being scorched while cooking. Stuffing the cavity of the crown is optional, but I knew that Leroy’s recipe called for an apple-and-raisin filling held together with cubed country bread and garnished with mace, sage, nutmeg, garlic cloves, and enough melted butter to soften a stone. When served, the tips of the rib bones are decorated with paper frills. Truly a feast for a king and therefore aptly named.
Picking up our drinks I led Connie to our table and once settled I noticed the attractive diamond earrings and bracelet she wore. When I complimented her on her expensive taste she laughed and said, “You like them? They’re part of my collection of summer diamonds.”
Now Palm Beach is the land of in-your-face ostentatious ness but summer diamonds? Tray tell, what are summer diamonds?” I asked.
Thrilled with the chance to show her smarts, Connie blurted, “Some-are diamonds and some-are not. Get it?”
“I’ll pretend this conversation never took place, if you promise never to call costume jewelry by any other name.”
“The earrings are real, the bracelet is not, for your information,” she said, not hiding her displeasure. “You get so uppity when you break bread at ritzy diners. Were you at The Breakers with Sabrina Wright?”
“So you’ve heard?”
“Who hasn’t? Mrs. Marsden told Madam you were on the case,” Connie said.