“I never in my life came across such a weird man as you are!”
“Across the bridge, right?”
She didn’t even glance in the direction they were going.
“I mean, my God! In the three days I’ve known you all you’ve done is cry poor. Poor me! I’ve lost my job, wail, wail, wail! You haven’t bought me any food in three days!”
“Orange juice. I bought the orange juice.”
“I put my name on the dotted line for a steak, pal. And a bottle of wine. Had to pretend I was a bride new to the neighborhood with a husband working in a bank.”
“You’re good that way.”
“
“It’s not my money, Moxie. I told you that, at the apartment.”
“You wouldn’t even buy us lunch with a credit card!”
“I told you. The money belongs to James St. E. Crandall.”
“Losers weepers!”
“Twenty-five thousand dollars worth of weepers?”
“Mister Fletcher, may I point out to you that anyone who can drop twenty-five thousand dollars cash on the sidewalk and not even look around is also someone who knows where his next poached egg is coming from?”
“I don’t know that. Neither do you.”
“I do know, on the other hand, that you do not know where your next poached egg is coming from.”
“That has nothing to do with it.”
“That’s why you drove about one-hundred-and-fifty miles out of your way to stop at that dead-water town, Worrybeads, or whatever it was, right?”
“Wramrud.”
“Whatever. Here’s a guy trying to give away twenty-five thousand dollars in cash while he’s starving. I ask you, is that sensible?”
“I’m not starving.”
“You never even mentioned you were carrying so much money. And there we were, sleeping on a beach!”
“That was nice. And I did, too, mention it.”
“Yeah.
Going onto the bridge Fletch’s eye caught something fluttering in the breeze, a piece of cloth, to his right, half-way across.
“You sound like a wife,” he said.
She grinned across at him, her face picking up the light from the dashboard. “Hoped you’d say that. I rehearsed.”
He was slowing the car.
It was a skirt that was fluttering in the breeze. Fletch could see one leg below it, very white, and above it, hanging onto a bridge cable, an arm.
He pulled the car’s hazard lights switch, and pulled over to the right as far as he could.
“Get out of the car, Moxie, and stand as much out of the way as you can. Don’t stand in front of the car.”
“You’re stopping in the middle of the bridge?”
“That’s why you’re getting out and standing as much out of the way as you can. The car might get hit.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Be right back.”
Fletch got out of the car and ran back along the bridge. He saw one of the cars approaching him was a taxi. He stood in front of the taxi, making it stop.
“Bastard! You crazy?” the taxi driver shouted through his window. “Son-of-a-bitch! You some kind of a nut?”
Fletch leaned through the window. “You got a radio-phone? C.B.?”
“Yeah. What are you?”
“Call the cops,” Fletch said. “Jumper.”
“Yeah. Oh, yeah.” The taxi driver reached for the microphone hanging from his dashboard. “Where?”
“There.” Fletch waved his arm toward the edge of the bridge and then pointed to his own car. “Pull your car behind mine, will you? You got bigger lights. A roof light.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
The car rolled forward. “You goin’ out there?”
“Near enough to talk, I guess.”
“Jeez. Crazy bastard.”
Fletch watched the taxi, its roof light on, its hazard lights flashing, stop behind his car. Moxie’s face looked white in the headlights of the taxi.
Then Fletch stepped onto the knee-high guard rail. Looking down he saw the lower ledge of the I-beam and stepped down onto it. From there he saw the river far, far below him, some lights, moonlight, city lights, bridge lights, reflecting off, wavering on the oily, sluggish water. He tried to decide the water was too far away for him to care about it.
There was an L-shaped strut extending away from the bridge to a cable running parallel with the bridge road. The cable was as thick as a sewer pipe. He put one foot on the strut. There was not much wind, but there was some. He looked at the woman who was standing further along the cable, over the water to his right. There was enough wind to make her skirt flutter and stand out.
“Fletch?” Moxie’s voice came from behind him. Her voice sounded sincerely inquiring, as if she were about to ask him a question.
Both of Fletch’s feet were on the strut. He stood up straight, his hands free in the air. Then purposely fell forward, grabbing the cable with both arms, hugging it.
He held on a moment, his cheek against the cable’s fabric.
“Fletch?” Moxie said. “I think I’ll shut my face, now.”
Fletch pulled himself more onto the cable, pulled his hips onto it. His empty stomach sent an inquiry to his brain regarding the dark water swirling far below him. He pulled his feet closer to the cable and putting weight on them, on the strut, flipped himself over. For a second, neither foot, neither hand was on anything.
Then he was sitting up, his feet on the strut, his hands on the cable each side of him, the breeze in his face. On the bridge, car horns were complaining about the two parked cars. Moxie and the taxi driver, facing him, were in silhouette.
To Fletch the woman standing to his left on the cable still appeared mostly as a fluttering skirt. She was wearing one green, plastic, ballet-style slipper. The other slipper was gone. Her legs were white and heavy and broken with varicose veins.
Easily, Fletch said, “Hi.”
The woman’s head turned. Two large, dark eyes stared down at him from deep, hollow sockets. Thick black hair waved around her face.
“What do you like?” Fletch asked.
She stared down at him.
“Do you like chocolate?”
She turned her head back into the wind, the dark, back into space, and said something.
“What?” Fletch asked. “I didn’t hear you.”
She turned her head back to him, annoyed.
“What do you like?” she asked. “Tell me that.”
