Fletch

12

“You’re Joan Stanwyk, aren’t you?”

She was sitting alone at a table for two overlooking the tennis courts. A half-empty martini on the rocks was in front of her. “Why, yes.”

“I haven’t seen you since your wedding.”

“Are you a friend of Alan’s?”

“We were in the Air Force together,” Fletch said. “In San Antonio. I haven’t seen Alan in years.”

“You’re very clever to have recognized me.”

“How could I forget? May I sit down?”

Fletch had left his car in the club parking lot and had gone around the building past the kitchen door to the service entrance to the locker rooms. The freshest sign on a locker door said Underwood. A new member. They and their guests could not yet be well known to the club staff.

When he had come onto the tennis pavilion, the headwaiter had said, “Pardon me, sir. Are you a guest of the club?”

Fletch had answered, “I’m a guest of the Underwoods.”

“They’re not here, sir. I haven’t seen them.”

“They’re coming later.”

“Very good, sir. Perhaps you’d like a drink while you’re waiting?”

Fletch had spotted Joan Stanwyk.

“We’ll put it on the Underwood bill.”

“A screwdriver, please.”

He sat at Joan Stanwyk’s table.

“I’m afraid my memory isn’t so good, although it should be,” Joan Stanwyk said. “I can’t remember your name.”

“No one can,” Fletch said. “The world’s most forgettable name. Utrelamensky. John Utrelamensky.”

“John I can remember.”

On the table was a Polaroid camera.

“Are you from this area, John?”

“No. Butte, Montana. I’m here on business. In fact, I’m leaving on a midafternoon plane.”

“And what business would that be?”

“Furniture. We sell to hotels, that sort of thing.”

“I see. Too bad you won’t be able to see Alan. He’s at a flying convention in Idaho.”

“Alan still flying?”

“Relentlessly.”

“Unlike some of the rest of us, he really enjoyed it. I’ll never forget the time he buzzed a house in San Antonio with a training jet.”

“He buzzed a house?”

“He never told you? Shattered glass. The police were out after him. He was severely reprimanded for it.”

“Funny the things husbands don’t tell you.”

“I expect he’s not too proud of it.”

“How nice to meet an old friend of Alan’s. I mean, meet again. Tell me more.”

“Only wrong thing I ever knew of him doing. We weren’t that close, anyway. I just happened to be out here the week of the wedding, bumped into him and he said, ‘Come along.’”

“But surely you’re a good deal younger than my husband?”

“Not much,” Fletch said. “I’m thirty.”

“You look young for your age.”

“The furniture business has been good to me.”

“Well, I’m sure Alan will be sorry to have missed you.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“Oh?”

“We had a political difference at your reception.”

“About what?”

“I made some crack about big business. Alan didn’t like it a bit.”

“How could you?” There was mockery in her eyes.

“I was younger then. I had not yet received a corporate paycheck.”

“Did you say anything about his marrying the boss’s daughter?”

“No. Is that what he did?”

“He married the boss’s daughter—me. He’s a bit sensitive about that. That’s probably why he got so angry.”

“I see. I hadn’t realized that. I guess I really goofed.”

“Never mind. He’s been accused of it enough times. Poor Alan spends all his available time proving he married me for myself and not for Poppa’s business.”

“He works for your father?”

“I’m not sure at the moment who works for whom. Alan runs the place. Dad runs tennis tournaments. In fact, these days Dad does pretty much what Alan tells him.”

“Alan always was very competent.”

“Remarkably.”

“What sort of a business is this, anyway?”

“Collins Aviation.”

“I never heard of it. Sorry.”

“You wouldn’t have, unless you were in the aviation business. It makes parts for airplanes the actual airplane manufacturers put together.”

“Not exactly a dry-cleaning shop.”

“Not exactly.”

“You see how bad I am at business. I don’t even follow the stock market.”

“Very little of Collins Aviation stock is available. It belongs mostly to us.”

“The whole thing?”

“To us and a few family friends. You know, like the family doctor, Dad’s old Harvard roommate, Joe Devlin… people like that. All as rich as Croesus.”

“How nice.”

“It is nice to have everyone you know rich. Problems never come up about who pays the drink bill.”

“Would you like another?”

“Why, John. How nice.” He signaled a waiter.

“By the way, John, how did you gain entrée to the Racquets Club?”

“I’m a guest of the Underwoods. He and I are doing a little business together. He knew my plane was not leaving until midafter-noon, so he suggested I come over, hit a ball and have a swim.”

“The Underwoods? I don’t know them. They must be new members.”

“I’m sure I wouldn’t know.”

“But where’s your tennis racquet?”

“I borrowed one. I just returned it to the pro shop.”

“I see.”

“A martini on the rocks, please, and a screwdriver,” he said.

The waiter said, “Yes, Mrs. Stanwyk.”

“The Racquets Club is Daddy’s pet. He darn near built the place himself. In fact, he’s endowed it so well, the Racquets Club is a major stockholder in Collins Aviation. That very chair you’re sitting on was probably designed for an airport lounge in Albany. Does Albany have an airport?”

“Albany, New York?”

“Yes.”

“Who cares?”

“Good point. Who cares about Albany, New York?”

“Except the Albanians.”

“Except the Albanians. Woo. I usually don’t drink martinis after playing tennis in the morning.”

“What do you usually do after playing tennis in the morning?”

“I wouldn’t mind doing that either,” she said. “Alan’s away a lot. Mondays and Wednesdays he never gets home before eleven o’clock at night. The ends of the weeks he’s apt to get in his airplane and go somewhere on business. Business, business, business. Ah, here’s another drink.”

The waiter said, “Here you are, Mrs. Stanwyk.”

“To business,” she said.

“He never comes home until eleven on Mondays and Wednesdays?” Fletch repeated.

“Very late. On Thursdays I have a committee meeting here at the club. Just as well; the servants at home are out. Julie and I have supper here at the Club. Julie’s my daughter. You haven’t met her yet. I don’t know what happens to Alan on Thursdays. That leaves us exactly Tuesdays together. He’s always very attentive on Tuesdays.”

“I remember Alan got a piece of metal stuck in him overseas.”

“He got a scar in his belly and a Purple Heart.”

“Is he all right now?”

“Perfect. He’s in perfect physical condition.”

“He is?”

“Why are you so incredulous?”

“He always worried about having cancer. Every time he lit a cigarette he’d mention it. He called them cancer sticks.”

“I have noted no such justifiable neuroticism on his part.”

“He’s never had cancer?”

“God. Don’t even say it.”

“Remarkable.”

“What is?”

“That he’s never had cancer.”

“He doesn’t smoke all that much. But for you, John whatever-your-last-name-is, there seems nothing wrong with you.”

“I never went overseas,” Fletch said.

“You seem quite perfect.”

“Overflight.”

“What?”

“Overflight. I’m trying to think of the name of Alan’s best man. Over-something.”

“Eberhart. Burt Eberhart.”

“That’s it. He struck me as a nice guy. Is he still around?”

“You have some memory. He’s still around. Fat and balding. He lives here on The Beach, on Vizzard Road. Married to a social climber. Three ugly kids. He’s in the insurance business.”

“The insurance business?”

“Yes. He handles Alan’s insurance, and now the company’s insurance, and the club’s. He has been well set up. By Alan. They were friends at Colgate.”

“Sounds like a good business. Seeing Alan’s still flying, he’s probably got a lot of insurance on him.”

“A foolish amount. My father wanted to teach Alan, via the route of monthly premiums paid by Alan himself, the value of Alan’s precious life. An effort to get him to stop flying after Julie was born. It worked not at all. Alan remains perfectly willing to cast his wife and child to the insurance adjuster just to climb through the clouds to sudden sunlight once again.”

“Alan pays the premiums? Not the company?”

“When we say ‘the company’ in my family, we mean my father. Dad obliges Alan to have such insurance coverage as a condition of his employment, but Alan must pay the bill himself. Daddy’s very cute at making such arrangements. Pity they never work.”

“I should think, from what you say, Alan would need to get away and have some fun by himself once in a while.”

“There’s the club.”

“He relaxes when he flies,” he said.

“And everyone else has heart failure. I hate to think what he’s flying this weekend. For fun. You wouldn’t even recognize those experimental craft he flies as airplanes. They look like the mean, nasty sort of weapons aborigines throw through the air. Horrifying.”

“It must be tough on you.”

“I wish he’d stop flying.”

“One thing I’ve always wondered about.”

“Dad is late for lunch.”

“Is he coming?”

“He was supposed to meet me here twenty minutes ago.”

“Perhaps I should leave.”

“No, no. He’d be happy to meet you. Any friend of Alan’s and all that. What were you wondering about?”

“Why Alan’s parents didn’t come to the wedding.”

“Alan’s parents?”

“Yes.”

“They’re estranged. He never sees them.”

“He never sees them?”

“Does that surprise you?”

“Yes, it does. I had the idea they were rather close.”

“No way. He hates them. Alan always has. I’ve never even-met them.”

“How can that be so?”

“You must be thinking of someone else.”

“I’m sure Alan used to fly home to see his parents whenever he could. Every six weeks or so.”

“Not Alan. His parents were very pushy toward him. The crisis came, I think, at the Golden Gloves.”

“The Golden Gloves? I remember Alan had boxed.”

“Alan boxed because his father made him. Pushed him right up the ladder or whatever into the state Golden Gloves. When he was fifteen. Every day after school he had to spend in the basement at home, boxing until supper time. He hated it. He refused to go into the nationals. He and his father have never spoken since then.”

“I must be confused.”

“You must be. And he’s always said his mother is a sickly, neurotic thing. Spends most of her time in bed.”

“Aren’t you interested in these people? Alan’s parents? Aren’t you curious to meet them yourself?”

“Not if what Alan says is true about them. And I’m sure it is. Why wouldn’t it be? Believe me, honey, I have enough difficult people around me to not want to add in-laws.”

“I see.”

There was a stir in the pavilion as a handsome, distinguished-looking man in his fifties entered, dressed in white tennis slacks and blue blazer. People reacted like children in a sandbox catching sight of someone coming with a box of popsicles. They waved from their tables. Men nearest the entrance stood up to shake hands. Women beamed. The headwaiter welcomed with happy bows of his head.

“There,” Joan said, “is Dad.”

Fletch said, “Yes, I remember him.”

“Don’t be disappointed if he doesn’t remember you.”

“Why should he remember me?” Fletch said.

“Because you’re beautiful,” she said. “You really turn me on. Are you sure you have to leave town today?”

“I’ve got to be back tonight.”

“But tomorrow’s Sunday.”

“Listen,” Fletch said, “you and Alan ought to have a place you can go and be by yourselves once in a while. I mean, a place of your own.”

“The ranch.”

“What?”

“Alan is buying a ranch. In Nevada. For us.”

“Great.”

“No, it isn’t great. It’s awful. Who wants a ranch in Nevada?”

“Most people.”

“I spent a summer on a ranch when I was a kid. Hot, dusty, dirty. Boring. Incredibly boring. All the men look like pretzels. And when they talk they sound like a Dick-and-Jane book. It comes out slow and it ends up obvious. And you don’t talk about anything that hasn’t got four legs. I mean, sitting around looking at a cow is not my idea of pleasure.”

“Then why are you doing it?”

“Alan wants to. He thinks the ranch is a great idea as an investment. I haven’t even been out to look at it. He insists he’s taking me next weekend.”

“Next weekend?”

“I can’t tell you how I’m looking forward to it.”

“It’s a place you could be alone together.”

“Like hell. There’s an airstrip in the back yard. I know that already. As long as there’s an airplane in the back yard, Alan will be off on an important business deal somewhere and I’ll be left staring at cows with a bunch of pretzels in blue jeans.”

“So stop it. Stop Alan from buying it.”

“Supposedly, he’s taking the down payment, the cash, out himself next weekend.”

“The cash? As cash?”

“Yes. Isn’t that crazy? Cash. He said cash, visible cash is the only way to do business with these people. If he shows up with cash in a brown paper bag or something, flashes the real stuff, he might save percentages from the purchase price.”

“They must be more sophisticated than that.”

“This is deep in Nevada, honey. How do you know what appeals to a pretzel in blue jeans with a cow on its mind? Oh, Dad.”

Fletch stood up.

“This is an old friend of Alan’s. They were in the Air Force together. John—”

Shaking hands, Fletch said, “Yahmenaraleski.”

“Glad to meet you, Mr. Yahmenaraleski,” John Collins said. “Stay and have lunch with us.”