Fletch's Moxie (9 page)

“Duval.”

“Duval,” Moxie said into the receiver. “Oh, by the way, Gerry, will you bring a script of
Midsummer Night’s
Madness?
I didn’t bring one, and I’d like Fletch to read it. … What’s a Fletch?” With dancing eyes she looked up and down Fletch’s naked body. “A Fletch is a short order cook. He burns eggs in short order. See you.”

She hung up and went back to squeezing orange juice. “That was Gerry Littleford. Wants to come down. Says the police and press are hounding him. I said okay. Lots of orange juice.”

In the pan, the omelette had gone limp. Fletch turned the heat up again.

They had breakfast at the table on the cistern in the backyard.

“After Key West wakes up a little,” Fletch said,
“I’ll go down and buy you some clothes. Make a list of what you need.”

She nodded. “These eggs are interesting,” she said. “Cooked in layers. Overcooked, undercooked, overcooked, undercooked, all at once. Never had eggs like these before.”

“Hope the Lopezes will rescue us, sooner or later.”

While Moxie was in the shower, the phone rang again. Fletch answered it.

“’Allo?”

“Ms Moxie Mooney, please. This is Sergeant Frankel, Bonita Police.”

“Ms Oxie Hooney? No one here that name. Good bye.”

“Where did Ernest Hemingway live?”

“On the street parallel to this. Whitehead Street,” Fletch answered. “Great writer. No sense of humor.”

Moxie chalked her cue-tip. “What handicap will you give me?”

Fletch triangled the billiard balls. “Have you been playing very much?”

“None at all.”

“You play very well. Ten point in a hundred?”

“You flatter me.”

“Fifteen?”

“That would be fine but you will beat me.”

“Should we play for a stake? You always wished to play for a stake.”

“I think we’d better.”

“All right. I will give you eighteen points and we will play for a dollar a point.”

Moxie commenced to clear the billiard table. “What have you been reading?”

“Nothing,” Fletch said. “I’m afraid I am very dull.”

“No. But you should read.”

“What is there?”

“There is
The Green Hills of Africa.
There is
A Farewell to Arms.”
“No, he didn’t.”

“What?”

“He didn’t say a farewell to arms.”

“Then you have been reading?”

“Yes, but nothing recent.”

“I thought
The Old Man and The Sea
a very good story of acquivitiveness.”

“I don’t know about acquivitiveness.”

“Poor boy. We none of us know about the soul. Are you
Croyant?”

“At night.”

It became her turn again and she pocketed three balls. “I had expected to become more devout as I grow older but somehow I haven’t,” she said. “It’s a great pity.”

“Would you like to live after death?”

“It would depend on the life. This life is very pleasant. I would like to live forever.”

“I hope you will live forever.”

“Thank you.”

Moxie pocketed the last ball. She had won. “You were very kind to play,
Tenente.”

“It was a great pleasure.”

“We will walk out together.”

*   *   *

She was putting the telephone receiver back on the cradle when he came back into the bedroom.

“That was Geoff McKensie,” she said. “He’s driving down. He called from Key Largo. Guess he was feeling woebegone.”

She was wearing the black dress. She looked hot. He had put on his shorts.

They had heard the Lopezes come into the house.

“I’ll go get you some clothes,” he said.

In the foyer of The Blue House, the Lopezes greeted Fletch.

“Mister Fletcher,” said Mrs Lopez. “Good to have you here again.”

Mister Lopez smiled and shook hands and said nothing.

“Thank you for having everything so nicely arranged when we arrived last night.”

Mrs Lopez took his head in her hands and kissed him. “But you ate nothing. You left the sandwiches and drank none of the beer.”

“We had something on the plane.”

“And this morning I did not make breakfast. Someone else did.”

“We tried to clean up our mess.”

“I can tell.”

“Upstairs is a young woman and her father. And I guess one or two more will be coming for lunch. We can use the sandwiches you made.”

“I’ll make something fresh.”

“I’m going down to the stores,” Fletch said.

“Do you want me to go with you?” Lopez asked.

“No,” Fletch said. “Just picking up a few things. Until later.”

“Until later,” said Mrs Lopez.

When he returned, walking slowly down Duval Street in the sunlight and warm wind, his arms ladened with packages, there were two cars with their trunks open in front of The Blue House. It had taken Fletch much longer to shop for Moxie than he had expected. Originally, there was confusion in the salesman’s mind. Clearly he wanted to think Fletch was buying this feminine clothing for himself, and clearly he wanted to play with Fletch in the process.

The short, weather-beaten man Fletch had seen in the police station was unloading a small yellow car. Apparently he had travelled alone. A large blue sedan was disgorging Edith Howell, the actress who could and did look like everybody’s
mother, and John Meade, who could not stop looking like a hayseed even when he wasn’t being paid to do so. They had much luggage. Fletch had not been told to expect Edith Howell and John Meade.

Across the street a small group of tourists, cameras around some necks, stood in a loose group, to watch and chat with each other over what they were and were not seeing. A tourist road-train was crawling by in the street. The tour guide was saying through his amplifier:…
Blue House. In residence now in The Blue House is the actress, Moxie Mooney, and her father, the legendary Frederick Mooney. Now the Blue House is being used as a hide out for these celebrities who just yesterday were present when someone literally, really, troo-ooly got murdered on The Dan Buckley Show. Arrived late last night in time for old Frederick to grab a few quick ones in the local bistros. Maybe I shouldn’t point out their hideout to you, but the fact that they’re there is in all the morning newspapers. Coming up on your left…

The front door of The Blue House was wide open.

Moxie was in the dining room stacking a tall pile of napkins. “Thank God,” she said, seeing the packages in Fletch’s arms. “I’m broiled and baked.”

“You have more guests arriving,” Fletch said. “Edith Howell. John Meade.”

“Yeah. They called from Key Marathon.”

“Geoff McKensie. I think.”

“You knew he was coming.” She was tearing through the packages on the diningroom table.

“More in the backyard. Gerry Littleford and his wife. Sy Koller flew down with them.”

“Sy Koller? We have two directors in the house? Isn’t that like having two ladies wearing the same expensive dress?”

Moxie was holding the bottom of a yellow bikini against her black dress. “I think it will fit.”

“I just ordered for the American build. Where is everyone going to sleep?”

“There are couches, hammocks, swings on all the balconies.”

“Where’s Oh, Luminous One?”

“Gone out for some conviviality.”

“This house lacks conviviality? It’s about to burst with conviviality. Moxie, my idea of getting you away for a few days—”

“I am away. I don’t need to hide out.” Vexed, she was pincering all the packages from the table against her breasts. “I didn’t murder anybody, you know.”

“Then we’d better find another suspect,” said Fletch. “Damned quick. And it’s not going to be easy to find a better suspect than you are.”

“I’ll go change.” She dashed out of the dining room and headed for the stairs. “You go meet the people.”

Fletch carried a glass of orange juice into the backyard.

Gerry Littleford was the first to see him. “You’re a Fletch,” he said.

“Right.”

“I’m Gerry.” He stood up to shake hands. “This is my wife, Stella.”

Stella was the young woman who the day before had taken Marge Peterman in hand.

“You know Sy Koller?”

The heavy man in the stressed T-shirt had also been kind to Marge Peterman the day before. Today’s stressed T-shirt was green. He did not rise for Fletch or offer his hand. “I’m sorry,” he said to Fletch.

“You’re a cook?” Gerry sat down again.

“Moxie only said that before she tried my omelette.”

“Not afterwards?”

“No. Not afterwards.”

Everyone in the group had a Bloody Mary.

“I really am sorry,” Roller said again. His eyes said he was sorry.

“Sorry for what?” Fletch sat in one of the white, wrought-iron, cushioned love seats. It was cooler in the walled garden, without the warm Gulf wind.

“For turning you down for that part.”

“You never did.”

Koller looked relieved and grinned. “I was sure I had. By my age, son, a director has turned down almost everybody. What have you done?”

“Done?”

“What films have you been in?”

“I’m not an actor.”

“But I’ve seen your work.”

“You saw me yesterday. On Bonita Beach. I was with Marge Peterman.”

Koller continued to stare at him.

“Illusion and reality,” Gerry Littleford said. “It’s an occupational hazard. Confusion between what we see and do on the screen and what we see and do in real life. What is real and what is on film?”

“It’s a sickness of the whole society,” Stella said.

“There is no reality for people now unless they do see it on film.”

Gerry said, “It’s our job to make what happens on film appear more real than reality.”

“And sometimes,” Sy Koller said, “we succeed.”

“Was yesterday real?” Stella asked. “Or just a segment on
The Dan Buckley Show?”

“I don’t know,” Sy Koller laughed. “I haven’t seen it on television yet. I’ll tell you after I do.”

Gerry Littleford ran his eyes over the banyan tree. “Is today real?” His arm rested on the back of the love seat, behind his wife’s head.

“Any day I’m not working, creating unreality,” Sy Koller said quietly, “is not real.”

“Yesterday …” Gerry said.

Through the back door of the house came Edith Howell, Geoff McKensie, and John Meade. Each was carrying a Bloody Mary. The Lopezes were being kept busy.

Koller jumped up. “Geoff!” He tripped on the edge of the cistern greeting McKensie. “This is great! I’ve been hoping we’d get some time together.”

“You mean before I shove off?”

“You were pushed off,” said Koller. “Something similar’s happened to me. More than once. Come on into the shade.”

Everyone greeted everyone else with kisses, except
McKensie, who kissed no one. Gerry Littleford introduced Fletch.

Edith Howell acknowledged the introduction by saying, “I didn’t know what to do with my bags, dear.”

Fletch looked doubtfully at her breasts and she sat down on a wicker chair.

John Meade said, “Good afternoon. Are you our host?”

“I guess so.”

“Thank you for having us.”

Geoffrey McKensie said nothing. He did not shake hands. But looking at Fletch his eyes clicked like the shutter of a camera’s lens.

“The light you got in
The Crow
—fantastic!” Koller walked McKensie to two chairs at the back of the group. “Particularly in that last scene, the final scene with the old woman and the boy. How did you do it?” He laughed. “Do I have to go to Australia to get light like that?”

“What a dreadful drive,” Edith Howell said. “On that seven mile bridge I thought my heart would plop into the water.”

“Is that why you never stopped talkin’?” Meade asked with a grin.

“As long as one is talking,” Edith Howell said, “one must be alive. Is Freddy here?” she asked Fletch.

“He’s here somewhere. Guess he went for a walk.”

“My, how that man wanders,” said Edith.

In the fan-backed wicker chair instinctively Edith Howell seemed to take over the foreground. Gangly
in a light iron chair, John Meade seemed to fill up the background. In his eager manners, in his absorbing everything around him, Gerry Littleford always looked ready to go on. The other nonprofessional among them, Stella Littleford, had a cute face but was small and white to the point of sallowness. The way she slumped in her chair put her very much offstage.

“What a magnificent house,” Edith Howell said. “Looks so cool and airy. You must tell us all about Key West,” she said to Fletch. “How long have you lived here?”

“About eighteen hours.”

“Oh.” She wrinkled her nose at the back of the house. “It’s called The Blue House…Maybe the front of it’s blue. I didn’t notice.”

“It isn’t,” said Fletch.

John Meade laughed. “You sure are a good of boy, aren’t you?”

Moxie popped out the back door wearing the new yellow bikini. There were more hugs and kisses. She kissed both Sy Koller and Geoffrey McKensie.

She sipped Fletch’s orange juice. “There’s no vodka in it.”

“There isn’t?”

“How can you make a Screw Driver without vodka?” she asked.

“You can’t,” he said.

John Meade laughed.

Moxie sat in the love seat beside Fletch. “Don’t tell me. You’re all talking shop.”

“Stella and I were talking about fishing,” Fletch said.

“Now that you bring it up,” John Meade drawled. “Sy? Are we going to finish the film?”

Sy looked at Moxie. “I wish I knew.”

And Moxie said: “That depends on the banks, doesn’t it? If the bankers say we finish, we finish. If the bankers say we don’t finish, we don’t finish. Jumping Cow Productions.”

“Yeah,” said Koller. “That’s the reality of this business. The only reality.”

Littleford said, “We needed a break from filming anyway.” He rubbed his left forearm. “I was gettin’ weary of gettin’ beat up. Give my bruises a chance to heal.”

The Lopezes appeared and began handing around trays of sandwiches.

Edith Howell put her hand on Moxie’s knee and said, quietly, “I hope it was all right for us to come, dear. I suppose we were all thinking the same thing…” Moxie’s eyes widened. “… At a time like this, you need people around you. Friends.”