Fletch’s Moxie

12

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.”

Moxie stared at her, open-mouthed.

“Have a sandwich,” Fletch said. Lopez had placed the fancy beer-ice cooler in the shade. “Have a beer. Want me to get you a beer?”

Moxie didn’t answer.

Everyone but Moxie had a sandwich and drink in hand. The Lopezes had returned to the house.

Moxie stood up. She said, slowly, distinctly, “Dear friends. I did not kill Steve Peterman. Anyone who isn’t sure of that fact is free to leave.”

In the heavy silence, Moxie walked back to the house. She let the back door slam behind her.

Stella Littleford muttered, “That would leave an empty house.”

“Shut up,” her husband said. He looked apologies at Fletch, and at Sy Koller.

Fletch cleared his throat. “Someone bumped the son of a bitch off.”

Stella said, “He probably deserved it. The bastard.”

“I have my own theory.” Sy Koller waited for everyone’s attention. “Dan Buckley.”

“That’s a good theory,” said Fletch.

“He was as close to him as Moxie was.”

“You’re just saying that,” Gerry said to Sy, “because he was the only one present not…” He waved his sandwich at the group under the banyan tree. “… not one of us. Not working with us.”

“No.” Sy Koller was munching his sandwich. “I know they knew each other. Before. How else do you think Steve Peterman got Buckley to tape his show on location? Buckley doesn’t cart himself around to every film location, you know.”

Fletch asked, “What else do you know?”

“Well, I know Peterman was to have dinner with Buckley. To discuss business. I’m pretty sure they had done business together. Buckley kept referring to some aluminum mine in Canada, throwing significant looks at Peterman, and Peterman kept smiling and changing the topic of conversation.”

“That would be nice.” Fletch looked at each of them. “If it were Dan Buckley.”

“Sure,” Sy Koller said. “Tell me this: who else could have rigged his own set? I speak as a director.” He looked at Geoffrey McKensie for confirmation. “A director is responsible for everything that happens on a set. He’s the only one who really understands everything on a set, what everything is for, how everything works. As a director I say—take a simple, open set like the one for The Dan Buckley Show and get a knife to fall accurately enough and with enough force to get into somebody’s back and kill him—that’s not easy. You can’t rig that in two minutes flat. It had to be Dan Buckley.”

“Or someone on his crew,” said Meade.

“Did the knife fall?” asked Fletch.

Koller said, “I don’t know. Obviously it came from somewhere with force. I was thinking about this all night. I’m sure I could rig that set to put a knife in somebody’s back.” Generously, he turned to McKensie. “I’m sure Geoff here could, too. But I couldn’t figure the best way to do it after thinking about it all night.” Summarily, he said: “I think Buckley’s the only one who could have had that set primed and working for him yesterday. To kill Peterman.”

In the digestive silence, the amplified voice of a tour guide wafted over the back wall. “… Mooneys, famous father and famous daughter, being questioned by police regarding the murder yesterday of somebody on the set of The Dan Buckley Show. The old man doesn’t seem too upset. Hour ago I saw him downtown crossin’ the street from Sloppy Joe’s to Captain Tony’s…

“Aw, turn it off,” McKensie said. “Makes me sick.”

Edith Howell again was pointing her nose at the back of The Blue House. “At least,” she said, “it’s nice to get away from hotel living for a few days.”