“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 entree 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.”
