Free McNally's Chance by Lawrence Sanders

before he could order a bottle of champagne to toast his bride. Still, his bright blue eyes and genial smile rendered him more cute than classically handsome.
    “What will you have?” he asked as I sat. “This.” pointing at the drink in front of him, ‘is a pint of Guinness stout. When in Rome ..
    .”
    I wasn’t in Rome so I ordered a frozen daiquiri before playing my first, and only, card. “You know your wife hired me to find you, so I’m obligated to report this meeting to her and tell her you’re staying at The Breakers.”
    He smiled his Hollywood smile, exposing his Hollywood pearly whites.
    “You stopped at the desk before coming in here and asked them if I was registered.”
    I flashed him my jumbo charmer 150-watt smile and assured him that I had. “Zachary Ward and Gillian Wright are also registered, with all of you in separate rooms. How sad for the lovers.”
    My drink arrived and the waiter hovered. “Give us a few minutes,”
    Silvester told him. Alone once more, he said to me, “You’re very good at your job, Mr. McNally. I see I made a wise choice. And I will probably call Sabrina and tell her we’re here before you do.” He lifted his stein. “Your health, Mr. McNally.”
    I drank to that and decided not to tell him he could call me Archy. “So much for my case. Do I still get fed?”
    “But of course. Does a ploughman’s lunch interest you?”
    “Not in the least, but the shepherd’s pie is the best you’ll get this side of the Atlantic.”
    He signaled the waiter and ordered the shepherd’s pie for two. “I’m sure Sabrina filled you in on what we’re all doing here.”
    “She did. But she was rather coy on how she got my name.”
    Silvester nodded knowingly. Typical Sabrina. Never give anything away on page one that you might need later on. It’s the writer’s instinct.
    The less you tell, the more the reader must turn pages to find out what he wants to know. With Sabrina, life imitates art.” He drank his Guinness and managed it without leaving a trace on his upper lip. “When Jill left New York, Sabrina guessed she had come here. You do know why?”
    “I do.”
    “Sabrina wanted to follow immediately and drag Jill home. I talked her into letting me come down alone, find Jill, and see if I could talk her into coming home. I have been acting as arbitrator between Jill and her mother since Sabrina and I were married.” He seemed to think this over, then said, “Perhaps referee would be a more apt job description.”
    As he spoke I filled in the blanks. Fresh out of some Ivy League college with a baccalaureate in English lit, Silvester went to work for a big publishing house with a dream of trees that grow in Brooklyn and valleys full of dolls. He moved rapidly from assistant to associate editor to editor. One day the dream landed on his desk in the form of four hundred laser-printed pages. Robert Silvester had a winner and he showed his appreciation by falling in love with the fictional heroine of Darling Desire.
    When he met the author he experienced a classic case of transference.
    Sabrina Wright had been places and done things Robert Silvester had only read about in the novels he usually returned with the customary
    “Not for us’ rejection letter. If Silvester was bewitched by the fictional Darling Desire he was dazzled by her flesh-and-blood counterpart. This one was not only ‘for us, it was for him.”
    Sabrina’s interest in the bartender at Bar Anticipation told me she had a thing for younger men. Robert Silvester was prime and as an added attraction, as if any were necessary, he was the guy who could shape her novel into a bestseller and guide her career. Not wanting to share her editor, she had married him. Both must have thought they were getting the best of all possible worlds and if fame, fortune, and sex were the criteria, they had.
    During the early days, Gillian was in Switzerland, learning how to speak French atrociously and ski beautifully. When