McNally's Dilemma by Lawrence Sanders, Vincent Lardo Page A

Island—then straight into the Atlantic.”
    The fact that I was James Bond had not yet reached my stomach, which churned in counterpoint to our diesel engine. Knowing that Buzz was in the cabin above us, steering, kept me steady as we went. I hoped Lolly and the heroine were faring better than Double-O-Seven. But Lolly, I knew, was in his glory. He was hot on the trail of a breaking story and seven leagues ahead of the competition. Lolly always wanted to be the Cholly Knickerbocker of Palm Beach, and here, finally, was his chance at national recognition.
    For the young, or those whose reading habits are a notch above newspapers of yore, Cholly Knickerbocker was the logo for the Hearst syndicate’s society gossip columnist—most prominently featured in the now-defunct New York Journal American. There were several Chollys, the second none other than Igor Cassini, brother of the guy who put Jackie in those pillbox hats and smart suits. One of Igor’s wives (he had four at last count) was Charlene Wrightsman, daughter of the oil baron billionaire Charles Wrightsman.
    Wrightsman, long a pillar of Palm Beach society, owned an oceanfront mansion near the more modest home of Joseph Kennedy. The Wrightsman house, furnished with priceless French eighteenth-century antiques and paintings, served as the “White House” on at least two occasions. President Kennedy rested at Wrightsman’s after his return from his historic meeting with Khrushchev and after his even more publicized trip to Paris with Jackie.
    Wrightsman’s annual New Year’s Eve Ball was the most sought-after invitation for many a season. The party came to a climactic ending the year the Kennedy brothers and brothers-in-law got up a touch-football game in the ballroom and bumped into several of those French antiques.
    Palm Beachites never cared much for the rather caustic prose Igor employed to chronicle their antics, and when, in his heyday, Igor and his brother were the winning doubles team at the Bath and Tennis Club Tournament, the Palm Beachites liked him even less. Igor will go down in history as the guy who coined the term “Jet Set.”
    But it was the first Cholly Knickerbocker, Murray Paul, who was Lolly’s mentor. Paul, a misogynist who lived with his mother, once rolled up his trouser legs on Fifth Avenue to show off his gold-plated garters, coined the phrase “Café Society,” and told a young lady who complained of having to sleep with producers to get ahead, “Nobody gives a damn who you sleep with. In this world, it’s who you’re seen dining with that counts.”
    Poor Lolly. There were no phrases left to coin and nobody gave a damn who you dined with in the closing years of our century. It’s who you slept with that counted. Lolly could report on Lady Horowitz’s dinner parties, which no one wanted to know about, but scooping Meecham’s yacht parties, which everyone wanted to know about, would be imprudent if not downright libelous. This keen observation led me to casually remind my chairmate, “Your party last night will go down in Palm Beach lore as the last gala attended by Geoff Williams.”
    Meecham sipped his drink thoughtfully. Then, with a shrug, he stated, “Really? You couldn’t prove it by me.”
    My stomach gave a lurch, which had nothing to do with the Sans Souci. “What do you mean?”
    “I mean,” he said, “that you couldn’t prove it by me. I didn’t see Geoff or Melva last night.”
    “You couldn’t have seen Melva—she stayed home. But Geoff came.”
    Another shrug. “Could be. Look, Archy, I don’t always get to socialize with all my guests.” He raised his glass and explained, “A few too many, too early, and the parade sometimes passes me by.”
    “Who was on board last night?”
    “The usual suspects.”
    “How many?” I probed.
    “I think I invited about thirty, so I assume sixty showed up.”
    A big group, plus a few too many libations, and a host couldn’t be chided for neglecting a guest or