McNally's Chance by Lawrence Sanders

showing a running tape of the day’s stock quotations.
    Are we up or down?” I asked Mr. Pettibone.
    “Sideways, Archy,” he answered. Simon Pettibone was also something of a Wall Street guru, whose tips were sought by club members who enjoyed a roll of the dice at that legal gambling casino in lower Manhattan.
    Anticipating my order, he began to prepare a frozen daiquiri.
    “I had a drink with a woman today, Mr. Pettibone, who ordered a Pink Lady.”
    Mr. Pettibone paused in his work, closed his eyes and recited: “Two ounces gin, one teaspoon grenadine, one teaspoon cream, one egg white, shake with ice and pour. Cherry, optional.”
    This was a game Simon Pettibone and I played ever since I had come upon a vintage mixology handbook and discovered such alluring alcohol bracers as a Sazerac, a Sweet Potootie, a Seventh Heaven, an Arise My Love, and, my favorite, a Soul Kiss. One evening at the club I ordered the latter and was rendered flummoxed when Simon Pettibone, without so much as a blink of the eye, mixed bourbon, dry vermouth, Dubonnet, and orange juice in exacting proportions and presented me with my order.
    Not only did Simon Pettibone know the ingredients of all the drinks in a book that was a relic of Prohibition, he also added a few that were not in my mixology guide. To wit: an Oliver Twist a martini with both olive and lemon. I never asked Mr. Pettibone from whence came this profundity of the mixologist’s art.
    Placing my daiquiri before me, he said, “I have a poser for you.”
    “I’m at your service, Mr. P.”
    “Do you know the name Henry Peavey?”
    It had been a long, hard day, so I thought about this short and easy.
    Not having Sofia Richmond to fill in the blanks, I came up with nothing. “I’m sorry, Mr. Pettibone, I can’t say it means a thing to me. Should it?”
    “I don’t know myself, Archy. Mrs. Pettibone got a letter from her cousin’s son, Lyle Washington, who lives in Sacramento. Lyle is the son of Hattie and Sam Washington. Henry Peavey was Hattie’s father.
    Jasmine, Mrs. Pettibone, is a cousin of Sam Washington, not Hattie, and both of them are gone now.
    “It seems Lyle was cleaning out the attic in the house left to him by his parents when he came upon his grandfather Peavey’s diary. His letter said it could be worth a fortune.”
    “Why?” I responded.
    “Beats me, Archy. I said Jasmine is related on the Washington side of the family and she’s never been very close to them as they’ve always lived in California. She knows even less about the Peaveys. Lyle wrote to Jasmine because, as he said in the letter, he understood we saw a lot of notables here in Palm Beach and he thought we might be helpful to him.”
    “And that’s all he said?”
    “That’s all, Archy. It looks to me as if Lyle just took it for granted that we, or at least Jasmine, knew the Peaveys and the significance of finding Henry’s diary.”
    “Did Mrs. Pettibone call Lyle?” I asked.
    “She did, and got no answer. Lyle is divorced and lives alone. She called Lyle’s daughter, who was just as mystified as we were. All she knew was that she got a call from her father who told her he was going south and for her to keep an eye on the house.”
     
    “South?” I echoed. “Do the Peaveys have relatives in the south?”
    Mr. Pettibone shook his head. “We don’t know and neither does Lyle’s daughter.”
    “I think, Mr. Pettibone, all you can do now is wait for another communication from Lyle.”
    “I agree, Archy. But you have to admit it’s a tantalizing puzzler.”
    I would admit. I would also admit that after dealing with the trials and tribulations of Sabrina Wright, Binky Watrous, Hermioni Rutherford, Al Rogoff, and, by proxy, Bianca Courtney, I deserved an English Oval.
    Therefore, I lit one.
    “I thought you gave those up,” Priscilla said in passing.
    “This is only my second today,” I told her.
    “They say there’s never a second without a third,” Priscilla called