“Yes.”
“C-r-a-n-d-a-1-1?”
“Yes.”
“And what name and number shall I bill this to?”
“I. M. Fletcher.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Don’t think so.”
“That you, Fletch?”
“Yeah.”
“Hey, real sorry you got booted. What did you do, set fire to Frank Jaffe’s pants?”
“I thought everyone knew.”
“Yeah, I know. You quoted a stiff.”
“Who is this?”
“Mary Patouch.”
“Well, Mary. Want my address?”
“Fletch, I’ve always wanted your address. You know that.” Fletch gave her his address and then called the
“How did I meet Fletcher?” Moxie said like a child talking to herself. She had dropped her apron on the bathroom floor and gotten into the tub of warm water with Fletch. “I was buying a hot dog and this nice man standing next to me at the counter paid for it and then said nothing to me. So I said, ‘Thank you very much, sir,’ and you said, ‘Seeing we’re having such a terrible lunch, why don’t we have dinner together?’”
“Your story is true so far. And you said, ‘Yes, all right’. Why did you say, ‘Yes, all right’?”
“Because you’re beautiful and smooth and have funny eyes and I wanted to touch you.”
“Oh. Perfectly good reason.”
“Your eyes look like they’re laughing all the time. Almost all the time.”
“I see.”
“You can’t see your eyes. And at dinner I told you I had to come down here this weekend to start rehearsals Monday and you said you were driving this way next day, you had to be back at the office, ho ho ho, and why shouldn’t I save bus fare by coming with you. So, seeing we were friends already, we went back to my place and …”
“… and what?”
“And touched each other.”
She kissed his throat and he kissed her forehead.
“So tell me about this day,” she said. “I’ve known you three days, but only been with you two.”
“A very ordinary day,” Fletch said. “Just like all the others. Met a grouchy guy who tried to throw me off his place while I was trying to do him a favor, I thought, called the cops and tried to have me arrested.”
“And did the cops give you a shower and shave today?”
“Not today. A ticket for driving barefoot. Then I met a marvelous happy woman named Happy who invited me in and cooked me up three hamburgers.”
“Nice of her. She wanted your bod?”
“For three hamburgers?”
“I got you for less. Jar of peanut butter.”
“Charles Blaine’s mother-in-law. Charles Blaine, by the way, the source of my suicidal story, has gone to Mexico.”
“So you can’t beat him up.”
“I think I’d like to. Then I met a solid-looking man working on his boat in Southworth who looked less like a neighborhood gossip than Calvin Coolidge but who told me all the gossip about the Bradley family he could think of, and maybe then some.”
“Did he know who he was talking to?”
“Of course not. Then I met the widow Bradley.”
“Jeez, you’re brave. Are these brass?”
“Can’t take that. The gossipy neighbor said Mrs. Bradley is a midnight screamer who probably drove her husband to attempt suicide. Speaking of her, she is dignified, quiet, reasonable. She says this whole thing happened because Charles Blaine is suffering a nervous breakdown or something, which is why she sent him on vacation.”
“So is Tom Bradley dead?”
“Then I went to the Southworth Country Club for a beer.”
“I know.”
“How do you know?”
“I can see it. Right there in your stomach.” She pressed her finger against his appendix.
“Cannot.”
She kissed his mouth. “I smelled it when you came in.”
“Met Alex Corcoran, president of Wagnall-Phipps. Everyone says Tom Bradley’s dead. The widow Bradley showed me his ashes.”
“But, of course, you don’t want to believe it.”
“Of course I believe it. I believe everything. That’s how I got into trouble in the first place.”
She pushed his head below water.
“Glub.”
“Face it, Fletch. You’re sunk.”
“Glub. Where you going?”
She was stepping out of the tub.
“Forgot the steak. Can’t you smell it burning?”
“Steak! How’d you get steak?”
She had called to him,
“Opened a charge account,” she said.
“Your name?”
“Of course.” She poured wine into the glasses. “Can’t starve forever.”
“It’s good. Great!”
“It’s cheap and burnt,” she said. “At least you’ll never have to divorce me.”
“Why’s that? Not that I was thinking of it, already.”
“ ‘Cause you’ll never marry me.”
“Oh. I was thinking of asking.”
“I’ll never marry anybody.”
“Never ever?”
“Never ever. I’m an actor and actors should never get married.”
“A lot do.”
“You know about my father.”
“Frederick Mooney.”
“ ‘Nough said.”
“You told me he’s playing Falstaff in Toronto.”
“When he’s sober. Then he’s playing
“So he’s an actor who likes to drink. Not the first. Not the last. Your dad was known as a damned fine actor. Still is, as far as I know.”
“I haven’t told you about my mother.”
“No.”
“She’s in a very expensive home in Kansas for the mentally absent.”
“Oh. You think that’s your father’s fault?”
