Fletch’s Moxie

14

“Marty? Fletch. I’m in Key West with Moxie Mooney.”

Marty Satterlee said nothing. The conversational was not Marty’s style. He received information. He waited until the information he had seemed complete. Then he processed the information. Then he acted upon it. Then he dispensed information.

“In a few hours,” Fletch continued, “the actor, John Meade, will be in your office with a piece of paper signed by Moxie giving you authority to examine her financial records in Steve Peterman’s office.” Fletch explained the rest: that Steve Peterman had been stabbed to death while sitting next to Moxie, and that Moxie worried that her financial affairs, which Peterman had been man-aging, might be in such disarray as to provide her, in the eyes of the law, with a motive for murdering him. “Will you do it, Marty? As you can see, it’s a matter of death or a life’s sentence, to coin a phrase.” Fletch paused, wondering if he had provided enough information for Marty to go seek more. “Oh, yeah,” Fletch added. “There’s an element of haste here. John Meade very kindly has offered to fly up to New York with the paper giving you authority to act. He’s leaving presently. I expect the police will want a look at these same records. They’re probably in court getting permission now.”

There was another pause. Fletch believed the information he had given was up to the instant. “How long does it take to discover someone’s been playing fast and loose with financial records, Marty?”

“Sometimes hours. Sometimes months.”

“Never minutes?”

“Never minutes.”

Fletch looked through the door into the billiard room. “Will you do this, Marty? Please?”

Marty Satterlee said, “I’ll get some people to help me.”

“Thank you, Marty. Please call the instant you have anything.”

Fletch gave Marty the telephone number of The Blue House.

Fletch was just standing up from the desk in the small library of The Blue House when the telephone rang.

“Buena” he said into the phone. “Casa Azul.”

“Fletch!”

“No ’sta ’qui.”

“I know it’s you, you bastard. You hang up and I’ll twist your head off.”

“Ted?” Fletch said. “Ted Sills? Nice of you to call home.”

“I want—”

“I know. Like the good landlord you are, you want to know if we found everything in the house to our satisfaction—towels in the bathrooms, clean sheets on the beds, coffee in the cupboards—”

“Screw that.”

“The Lopezes are marvelous people. We couldn’t have felt more welcome.”

“I want you—”

“I bet you want to tell me another of my expensive four-legged sacks of glue won another important horse race.”

“Fletcher!”

“How much did I win this time? Two dollars and thirty-five cents?”

“Fletcher, I want you out of that house and I mean right now.”

“Ted, you sound serious.”

“I am serious! I want you out within the hour!”

“Gee, did I do something wrong, Ted? Use too much hot water? Didn’t know you had a problem.”

“None of your bull, Fletcher. I saw on TBS you’re running a circus in The Blue House. In my house! Frizzlewhit said he heard something about it on the morning news. I couldn’t believe it. You said you wanted to get away for a few days.”

“I am away. Trying to relax from the strain of being a race horse owner.”

“Moxie Mooney! Jeez!”

“Sleeping in your bed at the moment. Doesn’t that just make your old loins jump though?”

“Frederick Mooney!”

“You’ll need a new placard for the front door: Mooneys, pere et—”

“Get them out of my house!”

“Why, Ted, their staying here increases the resale value of your property by at least, I’d say, another twelve thousand dollars.”

“Fletcher.” Sills spoke with the deliberation of a poker player playing his ace. “You’ve drawn a murder investigation to my house.”

“Oh, that.”

“That.”

“That will all come out in the wash.”

“What? What did you say?”

“Really, you should be here, Ted, if only you could afford the room rent. Edith Howell is here. John Meade is in and out. Gerry Littleford. Sy Koller. Geoff McKensie.”

“You’re running a hotel for murder suspects! Fugitives from justice!”

“Ted, why take it so personally? They’ve got to be somewhere.”

“Not in my house, damn it. I want you and that whole gang of murder celebrities out of The Blue House and I mean now. Within the hour.”

“No.”

“No? What do you mean ‘no’?”

“You’re forgetting something, Ted.”

“I’ll never forget this.”

“You’re forgetting I didn’t borrow your house. I’m paying rent for it. If you had been kind, and let me borrow your house, of course I’d have no choice but to accede to your wishes. But as a rent payer, I have certain rights—”

“You’re not a rent-payer, you bastard. I never got the check.”

“No? The check is in the mail.”

“The deal isn’t complete. I never got the check. You don’t have anything to prove you sent the check.”

“But, Ted, I’m in the house. That means something.”

“It means you’re a guest. And I’m throwing you out.”

“Hell of a way to treat a guest.”

“I never got the check for the feed bills, either.”

“That’s coming in dimes and quarters. Look for the truck.”

“Fletcher, just hear me out. I let you have The Blue House—”

“At an outrageous rent.”

“I didn’t want you to have it at all. You never told me you were going to fill the house up with fugitives from a murder investigation.”

“Actually, that wasn’t my intention.”

“It’s my house. My home. I don’t want pictures of it all over the world on the front pages of police gazettes and scandal magazines.”

“Never knew you were so sensitive.”

“Get out. Get out. Get those people out of there. Get everybody out of that house. Instantly.”

The phone went dead.

Fletch looked into the phone’s mouthpiece. “Great instrument of communication,” he muttered to himself. “Designed for those who insist upon having the last word.”

Mrs Lopez was in the door of the study. “Anything you want, Mister Fletcher?”

“No, thanks, Mrs. Lopez.”

“Coffee? Cold drink?”

Fletch picked up the script of Midsummer Night’s Madness from the desk. “Maybe I’ll pick up a cold drink as I go through the kitchen.”

She smiled. “Everyone is napping now.”

“Everyone except Mister Meade. He’s about to run an errand.”

“Me, too,” she said. “Shopping. It’s nice having so many people in the house. So many people I’ve only seen in the movies.” The woman fluttered her hand in a girlish gesture. “That Mister Mooney! What a man. What a gentleman!”

“You know about the murder?”

She shrugged. “Last night there was another murder. Up the block. Behind the house.” Her hand indicated southwest. “A man was stabbed. So it goes. The tour trains are not announcing that murder.”

“Why was he stabbed?”

Again Mrs Lopez shrugged. “He said something. Or he said nothing. He did something. Or he did nothing. He had something. Or he had nothing. Why are people murdered?”

“Or because he was something.”

“Tambien. Any special foods you like me to get?”

“Good fruit,” Fletch said. “Fish. Some cheese?”

“Of course. For how many days should I buy?”

“For a few days,” Fletch said. “For a few days at least.”