Fletch and the Widow Bradley

19

“S H I T O N A windy corner!” Moxie muttered as she got into the passenger seat of the car in the dark. “You even beat Freddy Mooney!”

“Don’t bother giving me directions. I know where the Colloquial Theater is.”

“I never in my life came across such a weird man as you are!”

“Across the bridge, right?”

She didn’t even glance in the direction they were going.

“I mean, my God! In the three days I’ve known you all you’ve done is cry poor. Poor me! I’ve lost my job, wail, wail, wail! You haven’t bought me any food in three days!”

“Orange juice. I bought the orange juice.”

“I put my name on the dotted line for a steak, pal. And a bottle of wine. Had to pretend I was a bride new to the neighborhood with a husband working in a bank.”

“You’re good that way.”

“You’ve got fifty dollars—I’ve got about the same, for the rest of my life.” Even to Fletch her imitation of him sounded accurate. “You leave the house to run around the countryside in your sports car.” She slapped the dashboard of the M.G. with her hand. “I spot a wallet hanging out of your dirty jeans, say, What’s this?, pull it out, open it up, and there—right there before my eyes as surprising as Mount Everest in the Sahara Desert—is twenty-five thousand dollars cash in one thousand dollar bills!”

“It’s not my money, Moxie. I told you that, at the apartment.”

“You wouldn’t even buy us lunch with a credit card!”

“I told you. The money belongs to James St. E. Crandall.”

“Losers weepers!”

“Twenty-five thousand dollars worth of weepers?”

“Mister Fletcher, may I point out to you that anyone who can drop twenty-five thousand dollars cash on the sidewalk and not even look around is also someone who knows where his next poached egg is coming from?”

“I don’t know that. Neither do you.”

“I do know, on the other hand, that you do not know where your next poached egg is coming from.”

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“That’s why you drove about one-hundred-and-fifty miles out of your way to stop at that dead-water town, Worrybeads, or whatever it was, right?”

“Wramrud.”

“Whatever. Here’s a guy trying to give away twenty-five thousand dollars in cash while he’s starving. I ask you, is that sensible?”

“I’m not starving.”

“You never even mentioned you were carrying so much money. And there we were, sleeping on a beach!”

“That was nice. And I did, too, mention it.”

“Yeah. So I took the twenty-five thousand dollars. That’s what you said. Is everything you say a joke? Are you a joke, Irwin Fletcher?”

Going onto the bridge Fletch’s eye caught something fluttering in the breeze, a piece of cloth, to his right, half-way across.

“You sound like a wife,” he said.

She grinned across at him, her face picking up the light from the dashboard. “Hoped you’d say that. I rehearsed.”

He was slowing the car.

It was a skirt that was fluttering in the breeze. Fletch could see one leg below it, very white, and above it, hanging onto a bridge cable, an arm.

He pulled the car’s hazard lights switch, and pulled over to the right as far as he could.

“Get out of the car, Moxie, and stand as much out of the way as you can. Don’t stand in front of the car.”

“You’re stopping in the middle of the bridge?”

“That’s why you’re getting out and standing as much out of the way as you can. The car might get hit.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Be right back.”

Fletch got out of the car and ran back along the bridge. He saw one of the cars approaching him was a taxi. He stood in front of the taxi, making it stop.

“Bastard! You crazy?” the taxi driver shouted through his window. “Son-of-a-bitch! You some kind of a nut?”

Fletch leaned through the window. “You got a radio-phone? C.B.?”

“Yeah. What are you?”

“Call the cops,” Fletch said. “Jumper.”

“Yeah. Oh, yeah.” The taxi driver reached for the microphone hanging from his dashboard. “Where?”

“There.” Fletch waved his arm toward the edge of the bridge and then pointed to his own car. “Pull your car behind mine, will you? You got bigger lights. A roof light.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

The car rolled forward. “You goin’ out there?”

“Near enough to talk, I guess.”

“Jeez. Crazy bastard.”

Fletch watched the taxi, its roof light on, its hazard lights flashing, stop behind his car. Moxie’s face looked white in the headlights of the taxi.

Then Fletch stepped onto the knee-high guard rail. Looking down he saw the lower ledge of the I-beam and stepped down onto it. From there he saw the river far, far below him, some lights, moonlight, city lights, bridge lights, reflecting off, wavering on the oily, sluggish water. He tried to decide the water was too far away for him to care about it.

There was an L-shaped strut extending away from the bridge to a cable running parallel with the bridge road. The cable was as thick as a sewer pipe. He put one foot on the strut. There was not much wind, but there was some. He looked at the woman who was standing further along the cable, over the water to his right. There was enough wind to make her skirt flutter and stand out.

“Fletch?” Moxie’s voice came from behind him. Her voice sounded sincerely inquiring, as if she were about to ask him a question.

Both of Fletch’s feet were on the strut. He stood up straight, his hands free in the air. Then purposely fell forward, grabbing the cable with both arms, hugging it.

He held on a moment, his cheek against the cable’s fabric.

“Fletch?” Moxie said. “I think I’ll shut my face, now.”

Fletch pulled himself more onto the cable, pulled his hips onto it. His empty stomach sent an inquiry to his brain regarding the dark water swirling far below him. He pulled his feet closer to the cable and putting weight on them, on the strut, flipped himself over. For a second, neither foot, neither hand was on anything.

Then he was sitting up, his feet on the strut, his hands on the cable each side of him, the breeze in his face. On the bridge, car horns were complaining about the two parked cars. Moxie and the taxi driver, facing him, were in silhouette.

To Fletch the woman standing to his left on the cable still appeared mostly as a fluttering skirt. She was wearing one green, plastic, ballet-style slipper. The other slipper was gone. Her legs were white and heavy and broken with varicose veins.

Easily, Fletch said, “Hi.”

The woman’s head turned. Two large, dark eyes stared down at him from deep, hollow sockets. Thick black hair waved around her face.

“What do you like?” Fletch asked.

She stared down at him.

“Do you like chocolate?”

She turned her head back into the wind, the dark, back into space, and said something.

“What?” Fletch asked. “I didn’t hear you.”

She turned her head back to him, annoyed.

“What do you like?” she asked. “Tell me that.”

“I like chocolate,” Fletch said. “I like to see birds hopping on the grass. Do you like to see little birds hopping on the green grass?”

She said something that was lost in the wind.

“What else do you like?” Fletch asked. “Who do you like on television?”

There was no answer.

“Mike Wallace? Merv Griffin? How about As The World Turns? Do you ever watch that?”

No answer.

Fletch’s throat was dry.

“Hey,” he said, “do you remember the smell of a brand new car? Really new?”

No answer.

“How about the smell of brownies baking? Isn’t that the greatest?”

From above she was staring down at him.

“What kind of sounds do you like?” he asked. “Harmonica?

Violin? Guitar?”

No answer.

“You know what I like?” he asked. “I love seeing a newspaper page blowing along a city street. I love to hear rain—really hard rain—when I’m in bed. The yap of a puppy. Do you like to hear the yap of a puppy sometimes?”

“Hey,” the woman said. “Kid.”

“Yeah?”

“Take my hand, willya? I’m scared shitless.”

“So am I,” Fletch said.

She began reaching for him, immediately tottering.

“Wait a minute,” Fletch said. “There has to be a right way to do this.”

To sidle toward her, Fletch would have to take his feet off the strut.

“Just sit down,” Fletch said. “Right where you are. Slowly, carefully.”

Slowly, carefully she sat down on the cable, facing the bridge. The green plastic slipper dangled from her foot.

“Hold onto me,” she said.

Fletch took her hand.

“Wait for the cops,” Fletch said. “We’ll wait for the cops.”

“What the fuck we doing out here?” the woman asked.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “Sometimes we find ourselves places like this.”

She was shivering then. “It’s not my fault, you know. It really isn’t.”

“I’m sure it isn’t,” Fletch said. “Tell me what you like. What’s the nicest book you ever read?”

“That’s a funny question.”

“Well, what is the nicest book you ever read?”

“Black Beauty,” the woman said.

“Tell me about it.”

The woman thought a moment. “I don’t remember nothin’ about it,” she said,” ‘cept that I liked it.”

“Hey, great,” Fletch said. “You get to read it again.”

“This really isn’t my fault,” the woman said. “Believe me.”

“I believe you,” Fletch said. “Believe me I believe you.”

And there came onto the bridge the swirling lights of two police cars, then a fire truck, then the Rescue Squad truck. A policeman and then a fireman had spoken to Moxie and the taxi driver.

The man in the fire hat called to Fletch and the woman. “All right to come over?”

“Sure,” Fletch answered.

“All right,” the woman said.

A canvas-backed ladder was run across to them, landing on the cable between them, and a fireman walked across on it and took the woman by the arms and helped her to stand up. He guided her feet on the ladder, putting himself behind her, holding her arms, bearing most of her weight himself, urging her to move her feet along. From behind he looked a giant child walking a rag doll.

Halfway across, the fireman turned his head back to Fletch. “Want me to come back for you?”

“Just give me a minute,” Fletch said. “I’ll be right there. Put the coffee pot on.”

Once the woman and the fireman were off the ladder, Fletch crawled along it back to the bridge on all fours.