McNally's Dare by Lawrence Sanders, Vincent Lardo Page B

the pauper’s exile and his untimely death.
    Jeff and Lance were friends years ago, when they both attended the Palm Beach Day School and even before that. When the boys were about ten, Lance and his mother left Palm Beach to make their home in Switzerland. If Jeff knew something disparaging about Lance it went back to the first ten years of their lives, when they were mere tots. Surely, Jeff wasn’t killed because he knew Lance was a rake with the girls in the first grade or had plagiarized an essay in the fourth grade.
    A detective is akin to a plastic surgeon reconstructing the face of an accident victim. The PI gathers the facts, puts them together and comes up with a scenario that he hopes is a true replica of the events as they happened. A skilled surgeon probably works from a photo of the guy going under the scalpel. In both cases you end up with a reproduction. At best, a plausible likeness, at worst, a distortion of the truth.
    Excuse the analogy, but was Lance Talbot wearing a surgical mask that was a good likeness but a distortion of the truth? If Lance didn’t commit a major indiscretion in the first ten years of his life, the only thing Jeff could have against him was that he wasn’t who he claimed to be. My rationale was Nifty’s feeling that old Mrs. Talbot had some doubts about her grandson she either wasn’t able to articulate or wasn’t able to define. Neither Jeff nor Mrs. Talbot had seen Lance in ten years. Could Jeff have discerned something about his boyhood friend that a sick old lady could only puzzle over? If Jeff’s father was the chauffeur that caused the accident, Jeff would know about the amputated toe. Could Jeff have had a look at the returned Lance’s feet? Unlikely.
    This line of thinking had me heading straight for the MacNiff house to report what I suspected. Purposely, I made a detour to Seaview Avenue and drove past the Palm Beach Day School. A charming, light and airy edifice surrounded by palm trees, it looks like an ideal setting for the young and privileged. Noted for their soccer team, the Bulldogs, the school recently enrolled two boys, one from Italy, the other from England, to join the varsity squad, living up to its claim that “Beyond academics, the Palm Beach Day School stresses the importance of community service, athletics, fine art and social skills.” Jeff must have loved it.
    I drove the Miata off the A1A, or Ocean Boulevard if you prefer, and into the MacNiff driveway, pulling up short of the three-car garage that displayed the tails of a Rolls and a BMW The third door was closed so one could only guess what it was hiding. My ring was answered by Maria Sanchez in a white uniform that would not be out of place in a hospital’s intensive care unit. Maria is a shapely woman with the hourglass figure so popular a hundred years ago. I wanted to encourage her with the fact that what goes around, comes around.
    “Mr. McNally,” she said, as if I were the last person she expected to find on the MacNiffs’ doorstep.
    “In person, Maria. May I come in?”
    “Yes. Please.” She opened the door to allow me to step into the entrance foyer, which was modest by Palm Beach standards. I doubt if it could hold more than a string quartet and a dozen waltzing couples. The furnishings of the MacNiff home are not Louis Seize or Louis Didn’t Say, but American and British antiques worthy of the Winterthur collection. Wood, not gilt, dominated, making the display more home and hearth than awesome. But then the landed gentry don’t have to dazzle to intimidate.
    “When you call Ursi to tell her I’m here, Maria, would you mention that I will be home for dinner this evening?”
    Maria blushed scarlet. “Mr. McNally. I no do such a ting, you bad boy.” My word, she sounded like Carmen Miranda.
    “Before you no do such a ting, would you announce me to Mr. MacNiff?”
    “Si. I go now. They are in the drawing room.”
    When Maria returned she beckoned me onward and I followed