Confess, Fletch

“It was not incest, darling.”

Flat on his back, finally, Fletch read the luminous dial of his wristwatch. It was only eight o’clock at night.

“Did you have something to eat?” he asked.

“Of course,” she said. “You expect me to put up with your tricks forever?”

“You’ve got some pretty good tricks of your own, Countess del Gassey.”

“Where did you go last night? One, two hours I wait for my dinner.”

“I went out.”

“I know that. Son of a bitch.” She sat up. “That’s what you do! You tell me some crazy story and then you leave me with nothing! You’re no grand chef! You’re son of a bitch! You’ll do the same thing with the paintings—tell me lies, lies! Leave me with nothing!”

He put his hand on her back.

“I left the front door unlocked for you. Did you get a nice man to let you in downstairs?”

“I had to wait, and wait. You didn’t answer the buzzer.”

“I was asleep.”

Sitting up in the bed, in the dark, the Countess de Grassi began to cry.

“Oh, Flesh! You will help me.”

“I will?‘’

“You have to help me!”

“I do?”

“Menti’s dead. I’m an early widow. With nothing. Nothing!”

“Yeah.”

“I have nothing, Flesh.”

“Actually, you have a few things going for you.”

“Angela’s young, and she’s pretty. Clever. She has her whole life ahead of her. Me? I have nothing.”

“She’s a de Grassi, Sylvia.”

“Me? I’m the Countess de Grassi!”

“I’ve heard.”

“I married Menti.”

“And his paintings.”

“They are my paintings. Menti would want me to have them. I know this. Many times he spoke of ‘our paintings.’”

“Sylvia, will you listen? Whose paintings they are is not for me to say. Either Menti mentioned them in his will, or he didn’t. If he did mention them, they go to you, Andy, both of you, neither of you—whatever he directed in his will. If he didn’t mention them, then it is for the Italian courts to decide—if we ever recover the paintings, that is.”

She crawled inside his arm, snuggled next to him.

Fletch remembered seeing, on the beach at Cagna her toes, with the nails polished.

She said, “If the paintings are in this country, then, how do you say, possession is the first law of nature.”

“Self-preservation is the first law of nature, Sylvia—an instinct you have fully developed.”

“I mean, possession.”

“I know what you mean.”

“Flesh, tell me the truth. You know where the paintings are.”

“Sylvia, I am in Boston working on a biography of Edgar Arthur Tharp Junior.”

She slapped him lightly on the chest.

“You lie. All the time you lie to me.”

“I am.”

“You writing on such a big book, then where the typewriter? Where the papers? I looked all over the apartment last night. Nobody’s writing a book here.”

“I haven’t started yet. I’ve had distractions.”

“‘Distractions!’ You find the paintings.” He could feel breath from each nostril going against his side. “Where are the paintings?”

He was awake. And he was beginning to want it.

He said nothing.

She placed the side of her knee over his crotch and moved it.

She said, “Where are the paintings? Eh, Flesh?”

“You’re a hell of a negotiator, Sylvia.”

“You will help me, Flesh. Won’t you?”

“You help me first.”