McNally's Bluff

McNally's Bluff Read Free

Book: McNally's Bluff Read Free
Author: Lawrence Sanders
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attraction. They owned the carnival after two seasons on the road. Devoid of talent, hubby made the most of Marlena’s six-two frame, flowing red mane and, naturally, the ample bosom that saved his life.
    Marlena was presented as Venus de Milo before a black curtain that cleverly made her appear armless. She rode a white horse as Lady Godiva, wearing nothing more than a long red wig. She mounted a drugged tiger as Sheena Queen of the Jungle, clad in a leopard-skin sarong. As the Elephant Girl she rode—you guessed it—wrapped in the animal’s ears.
    Marlena Marvel was the perfect draw for the men Hayes fleeced with rigged games of chance, illegal gambling, and sex shows. A petting zoo and rides kept the wife and kids occupied while daddy lost a week’s pay to Matthew Hayes’s exchequer.
    Now retired, rich and infamous, the couple had arrived in Palm Beach to baffle us with their hedge maze because they were unable to dazzle us with their brilliance.
    “I understand,” Lolly concluded, “that Amazin’ was often caught in the sack with curies he liked to pick up on the fairway while Marlena was shivering inside the elephant’s ears. She threatened to sit on his lap if he didn’t mend his ways.”
    “One final word to the wise,” Lolly intoned as I gasped at the bill just presented. “I told you the Adonis I rescued from Bar Anticipation left me for a woman.”
    “Yes,” I said, surrendering my credit card with great reluctance.
    “The woman was Carolyn Taylor.”
    Well! One never knows, do one?

2
    L ADIES AND GENTLEMEN, GOOD evening and welcome to Le Maze.” Our host stood on a black drum about three feet high, which I imagine was once festooned with bunting. Matthew Hayes, dressed in a tux and sporting a red cummerbund and matching carnation, had a fine head of gray hair and piercing blue eyes. His lean figure could easily fit into the trousers and blazers offered in the prep department of better men’s shops. His voice, that of a true carny hawker, belied his spritely appearance and immediately commanded the attention of the crowd of perhaps twenty couples milling about the great room of the house just christened Le Maze.
    I think the former owners of the villa on Ocean Boulevard would have been amazed to see what Amazin’ Matthew Hayes had done with it. The furniture, strictly rental, was a potpourri of this (early hotel) and that (late motel). The art, twelve-by-six four-color posters, depicted scenes from Hayes’s former carnival in all its gaudy splendor. A strong man, a tattooed lady named Lydia, a bearded lady, male Siamese twins joined at the hip (no doubt with Super Glue), Ferris wheels, ferocious tigers, parachute jumps, a two-headed dog, the fairway and, most conspicuous of all, Marlena Marvel in all her many guises.
    There were booths offering cotton candy, candied apples on a stick, soda pop, franks, burgers, beer from a keg and a moviola advertising French films. (Really!) There was an organ grinder with a monkey, a fortune-teller (Madame LaZanga) with a deck of tarot cards, a man who guessed your age (his was a thankless job with this crowd), several pinball machines and a guy in a bowler hat and arm braces (so help me!) running a three-card monte scam across a portable bridge table. There was a knife thrower asking for volunteers (ha!), a sword swallower and a lion tamer short on lions but long on tight breeches, blond locks and whip.
    There was also a platoon of boys and girls in the traditional black pants, white pleated shirts and black bow ties, passing around trays of crystal flutes (rented) filled with surprisingly good champagne.
    Lolly, in his trademark white suit, painted silk tie and panama hat, breezed by munching a candied apple and whispered, “My dear, it gives new meaning to the word gauche.”
    “Didn’t you advise him?” I whispered back.
    “I suggested the guest list, not the decor. Look, there’s Katie Mann with her new husband. Or is it Trish Manning’s new

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