Talent shouldn’t be wasted.” His shoulders eased into a more relaxed posture. “I think of the incident as nothing more than Ulysses bashing in his teacher’s head with a lyre. There comes a time when one must do away with one’s teacher, one way or another. Granted, Ulysses and Marilyn took a more dramatic approach than others…”
Fletch said, “She was having some trouble with Peterman. Which is why she asked me to come down to see her.”
“What?” Mooney asked crisply. “You mean you’re not in the
“No. I’m a reporter.”
“Oops. Must mind my manners. Am I being interviewed?”
“No. You’re not.”
“I’m offended. Why not?”
“Because, sir, you’re drunk.”
“In your opinion…” Mooney paused. He blinked slowly. “… I’m drunk?”
“No offense.”
“I’m always drunk,” Mooney said. “No offense. It’s my way of life. My being drunk has never stopped my giving a good interview. Or performance.”
“I once read that you’d said you’ve made as many as thirty films dead drunk and don’t remember anything about any of them. Is that true?”
Mooney’s head seemed loose. Then he nodded sharply. “Tha’s true.”
“How can such a thing be true?”
“I love to see movies I know nothing about. Especially when I’m in them.”
“I don’t get it. How can you get yourself up for a scene, appear not drunk on the screen, when you’re drunk?”
“Unreality,” Mooney said. “Reality. The distortion of reality. You see?” he asked.
“No.”
“I made a whole film, once, in Ankara. A year later, I told a reporter I’d never been in Turkey. Widely quoted. The studio said I’d been misquoted. That I’d said I had never been in a turkey.” Mooney laughed. “I’ve been in turkeys. I guess I’ve also been in Turkey. Nice place, Turkey. I live in a nice place, in my mind. Filming’s easy. It only takes a few minutes a day. I can always get myself up for it.”
“Always?”
The pupils of Mooney’s eyes were shaking, or glimmering with challenge. “Want to see me get myself up right now?”
Fletch said, “I think I just saw you do it. You were just Lear, in front of my eyes.”
“I was? I did? I’ll do it again.” Mooney composed his face. He took a slow, deep breath. Behind his face something was pulling him to sleep. “I don’t feel like it,” he said.
He took a drink.
“Sorry, sir,” Fletch said. “Don’t mean to badger you. Just stupid curiosity, on my part.”
“’S all right,” Mooney said cheerily. “I’m used to being an object of ururosity. Cure-urosity.”
“You’re a great man.”
“Like any other,” said Mooney.
“Shall we go to the car? It’s not raining so hard now.”
“The car!” exclaimed Mooney. He looked around himself, then out at the beach. “What, have they stopped shooting for the day. Lose their light?”
“We’ve been sitting through a hell of a storm. Pouring rain. Thunder. Lightning.”
Mooney looked confused, curious. He said, “I thought that was in
“Come on.” Fletch stood up. “Your daughter’s waiting.”
“Involved in a murder…”
“Something like that.”
“I wonder… if she has a black veil in her wardrobe.”
“I don’t know,” Fletch said. “Time to go.”
“That bottle…” Mooney pointed at it. “… goes in that bag.” He pointed at the wrong spot on the floor, to his right rather than his left, to where the airlines bag wasn’t.
Fletch capped the bottle and put it in the bag.
There were three other full bottles in the bag, one empty, and some bulky odd rags.
Mooney swallowed the rest of his drink, stood up and lurched.
Fletch grabbed his arm.
“Going now?” the bartender asked.
“Thank you, Innkeeper,” Mooney said, “for your superb horse.”
“‘Night, Mister Mooney.”
“Horsepitality.”
Fletch said,
Bent over, clutching Fletch’s arm, Mooney grinned up at him. “
Getting him down the stairs was a chore. It took almost ten minutes.
When Mooney stepped out from under the roof he looked at the day, at the Gulf, at the rain as if he’d never seen it all before.
“Wet day,” he said. “Think I’ll go back to the hotel and slip into a dry martini.”
“Think I’ll go back to the hotel,” Fletch said, “and slip into your daughter.”
Mooney did not look at Fletch or turn his head but the skin just forward of his ear turned red.
Fletch put him in the back seat of the rented car.
On the drive to Vanderbilt Beach, Frederick Mooney took two swigs from his bottle and fell asleep. He snored loudly enough to awake anyone dozing in any balcony, anywhere.
7
“May I help you, sir?”
Through the glass of the front door of Hotel La Playa, the red jacketed bellman had seen Fletch drive up, get out of the car, and hesitate. It was after dark and Fletch was shoeless, in wet shorts and shirt.
“Yeah. Will you please tell Ms Mooney her father and driver are waiting for her?”
“Certainly, sir.”
Fletch leaned against the wet car. Even with doors and windows closed he could hear Frederick Mooney snoring in the back seat.
Within five minutes Moxie came through the door and down the steps.
She was wearing a simple, short, black dress. And a black veil.
Fletch held the passenger seat’s door open for her and got in the driver’s side.
In the back seat Frederick Mooney turned quiet.
“My God,” Moxie expostulated. “What’s the world coming to? Think of a man like Steve Peterman being stabbed to death right before my very eyes!”
“Was it?”
“Beg pardon, young man?”
Fletch headed the car back to Route 41. “Was it before your very eyes?”
“No. Really, I didn’t see a thing. I don’t see how such a thing could have happened.”
“Were you close?”
“Like brother and sister. Steve’s been with me years. Helping me. Through thick and thin. Through good times and bad times. Ups and downs.”
“Coming and going.”
“Coming and going.”
“Arrivals and departures.”
“Arrivals and departures.”
