Confess, Fletch

Thirty-two

The dining room table had been set with crystal and silver. The light was subdued.

“Oh, it’s nothing, said Sylvia, removing her apron. ”I’ll serve.“

Fletch sat at the far end of the table. Before leaving the room, Sylvia indicated Andy should sit to his right.

Sylvia would sit at the other end of the table.

Fletch said to Andy, “Trust you don’t feel seven years old.”

“What’s going on here?”.

“Oh!” said Fletch. “Soup!”

“The first course,” said Sylvia. “A nice soup!”

In the flat bowls was about a cupful of consommé.

The bouillon cube, worn away only at its edges, sat an island of its own grease, surrounded by cool water.

“I can tell,” said Fletch. “You gave us big spoons.”

Applying the tip of the spoon to the bouillon cube accomplished nothing. A minute Michelangelo with hammer and chisel might make something of it.

Stirring the water around the cube only caused it to sway like a tango dancer. The grease reached out in disgusting, finger-like patterns.

Sylvia said, “I thought we all needed a good dinner! Filling and tasty! American cooking, yes?”

Fletch said, “Yes.”

“After such a long airplane ride, for poor, dear Angela!”

“Yes.”

“This beastly, cold New England weather!”

“Yes.”

‘Good, hot American cooked soup!“

“Most substantial,” said Fletch. “Full body, vigorous aroma, the ambiance of a bus…”

“You no like your soup?” Sylvia had come to collect, his bowl. “You no finish your soup.”

“It’s, taking too long to cool down.”

He waved it away.

While Sylvia was in the kitchen, Andy said, “She can’t cook. Everyone knows that.”

“I’m finding it out.”

“Now the fish!” Sylvia announced from the door. “Good American fish!”

A Piece of cold, canned tuna fish and a quarter of a lemon lay on his plate.

What happened to the fourth slice of lemon?

“Oh, yeah,” said Fletch. “Fish. I recognize it. Glad you removed the head, Sylvia. Never could stand a fish head on a plate. Aren’t you glad she removed the head, Andy?”

“I’m glad she removed the lid.”

“That, too,” said Fletch. “Funny no one’s ever made a solid silver can opener to go, with a place setting. I’d think there’d be a market for it.”

At her end of the table, Sylvia was beaming.

Her neckline disappeared into her lap. Her bilateral, upper structural support systems were more sophisticated than anything used on the Swiss railway system.

It was not the same gagging décolletage she had worn to stun the Ritz.

“Yeah.” Fletch chewed the fish. “This is nice.”

“Just like a family,” said Sylvia.

“Precisely,” said Fletch.

“Just like a family, we are together.”

“Precisely like a family. Precisely.”

“If only Menti were here.”

“Now there was a man who knew a piece of fish when he saw one.”

“Poor Menti.”

“Nice touch, the slice of lemon,” Fletch said. “Did you cut it yourself?”

“They’ve located his body,” Andy said.

“Whose?”

Sylvia said, “What?”

“In a pasture. Outside Turin. The police called, just before I left.”

Sylvia said, “They found Menti?”

“Really?”

“Sorry,” Andy said. “I didn’t mean to bring it up at dinner.”

“You can’t ruin dinner,” Fletch said.

Sylvia began in galloping Italian exclamations (at one point, she blessed herself with her fork), ultimately giving way to long questions, which Andy answered tersely. As Sylvia’s questions became shorter, she switched to French the language of reason. Andy, who had attended school in Switzerland, answered even more tersely in the language of reason.

Muttering in Portuguese, Sylvia took the fish plates into the kitchen.

“Now it’s my turn,” said Fletch.

“The police called just before I left. They found the body in a shallow grave in a pasture outside Turin.”

“Do they know its your father?”

“His age, his height, his weight. They’re pretty sure. Dead about three weeks.”

“I see.”

Sylvia entered with salad plates. The salad consisted of a clump of cold, canned peas huddled together against the rim. On none of the plates had any of the peas broken free of“the clump.

“Oh,” said Fletch, “a pea.”

“Salad!” Sylvia screwed herself into her chair. “Good American salad!”

She had added salt. Too much salt.

“I would think,” Fletch spoke quietly, “if that were the case, one of you, if not both, should be in Italy to receive the remains.”

“‘Remains?’” asked Sylvia. “What’s ‘remains’?”

Fletch said, “Sort of like supper.”

Andy answered her properly in Italian.

Quickly, Sylvia said, “This is not to be spoken of at dinner.”

“I thought not,” said Fletch.

“Angela,” the Countess demanded archly, “why you no stay to accept your father’s remains?”

“The police want them.”

“Why the police want the remains of Menti?”

Sylvia was getting a remarkable amount of chewing out of her pea.

“They said they had much to do.”

“What to do? What to do with the remains of Menti?”

“They have to test his teeth.”

“What’s wrong with Menti’s teeth? He’s dead! No good testing them now!”

Fletch said, “That’s how they confirm the identification of a corpse, Sylvia. The body’s been in the ground three weeks.”

“Oh. If the body is wearing Menti’s teeth, then they know it is Menti?”

“Yes.”

“Ha!” said Sylvia for some reason victoriously, fork in air. “Menti had no teeth!”

“What?”

“All Menti’s teeth false! His gums were entirely—how you say?—bareass.”

“That’s right,” said Andy. “I had forgotten that.”

“They can identify a corpse by its false teeth,” Fletch said.

“How come you know so much?” Sylvia asked.

Andy said, “The police said they would give us a closed coffin when they are through doing what they can to identify father. We can have a burial. It doesn’t matter when. We’ve already had the funeral.”

“This is terrible,” said Sylvia. “Poor Menti.”

Something was sizzling in the kitchen, suggesting the threat of a fourth course.

“Did you have a chance to speak to the lawyers?” Fletch asked Andy.

“Yes. I called Mister Rosselli. He said it was good news.”

“That your father was murdered?”

“We knew he was murdered. The police said so.”

“Sorry.”

“He said the will could be read after he gets the papers from the police.”

“What papers?” exploded Sylvia. “Already we have had papers up the asses!”

“They have to have positive identification, Sylvia,” Fletch said. “They can’t settle an estate without a corpse.”

“Pash!” She shook her fork in the air. “All they want is Menti’s teeth! You look in that closed coffin. There will be no teeth! Some police inspector in Turin will wear them!”

Fletch said, “Sylvia. Something is burning.”

“Ooo,” she said, grabbing up her gown for the run to the kitchen.

In their momentary privacy, Fletch said to Andy: “I guess I’m tired.”

She said, “That’s why we’re having such a nice dinner.”

“I should have planned something.”

“Yes. You should have.”

“I never guessed Sylvia would make such an effort.”

Andy said, “I don’t guess she has.”

The entrée was a burned frankfurter each, sliced lengthwise.

At the edge of each plate was a tomato, obviously hand-squeezed. The indentations of four fingers and a thumb were clear. In fact, Sylvia’s thumb print was clear:

“Oh, my god,” Fletch said.

“What’s the matter?” Sylvia was screwing herself into her chair again. “Good American meal! Hot dog! Ketchup!”

Andy said, “Sylvia, really!”

“You live in America, you get used to American food,” ‘Sylvia said. “I been here nearly one week already. See?”

“We see,” said Fletch.

“Bastard Rosselli say what Menti’s will say about my paintings?”

Fletch said, “What paintings? There are no paintings.”

“There are paintings.” In her insistence, Sylvia leaned so far forward she almost dipped one in the ‘catsup.’ “My paintings you two find. If you no look for, why you here? If you no find, why Angela come? Eh? Answer me that, Mister Flesh Ass-pants.”

Fletch said, “We, just came for dinner.”

“Rosselli said nothing about the will, Sylvia.”

Fletch said, “I’m in love with Jennifer Flynn.”

He made no approach to his frankfurter and tomato. They sat, there, burned and thumbprinted, like a victim and a perpetrator.

Andy, using her knife and fork on the frankfurter was looking at him.

He said, “I would think you’d both want to be in Rome now.”

“No!” said Sylvia. “I stay here. Where my paintings are.”

Looking at Sylvia, Fletch counted the number of hours of sleep he had had. Then, he counted the number of hours of sleep he hadn’t had.

“Sylvia,” he said. “The paintings are in Texas?”

“Texas?”

“Andy and I are planning to fly to Dallas the end of this week.”

“Good! Then I go, too.”

“Good!” said Fletch. “We’ll all go. Just like a family.”

Andy’s look could have burned through telephone books.

To Andy he said, “I doubt you’ve ever had Texan chili. Good American cooking.”

“Chili sauce,” said Sylvia. “You want chili sauce?”

Fletch placed his unused napkin next to his untouched plate.

“Sorry I can’t stay to help out with the dishes. I’m going to sleep now.”

“Sleep?” Sylvia was prepared to be hurt. “You no want dessert?”

“Don’t even tell me what it is,” Fletch said. “I’ll dream on it.”

He went into a guest room, locked the door, stripped, and crawled between the sheets.

The rhythms of exclamations in Italian, French, Portuguese, and English through the thick walls lulled him to hungry sleep.