Fletch’s Moxie

name.”

“They know him as a failed director. Pardon me for not believing a word of this.”

“It is incredible. Which is why a person like me has a person like Steve Peterman to deal with all this. Who can understand it? Who wants to understand it!”

“Doesn’t this man, McKensie, have any rights?”

“Sure. He has the right to sue. He probably is suing. But I don’t think a film has been made since Birth Of A Nation without people suing. And people should have sued over that, if they didn’t. Anyway, about ten days ago Geoffrey McKensie’s wife got run over. On Old Route 41. She had stopped at a fruit and flower stand, bought some flowers and was recrossing the road to her car when she got hit. The driver didn’t stop.”

“Killed?”

“Died three hours later in the hospital.”

“No witnesses?”

“Just the woman at the flower stand. She said the car that hit Mrs McKensie was going very fast. Was either blue or green. Driven by either a man or a woman. We’re going rather far for dinner, aren’t we? All the way into Fort Myers?”

“And McKensie is still around?”

“Sure.”

“The funeral… I should think he’d want to go home…”

“First he had to bury his wife. Then I suppose he had to get lawyers. I hope he’s suing. Maybe he has to be on location to make his suit good. I don’t know. I like him. This is all terrible.”

At a red light Fletch turned right.

“This is the airport,” Moxie said.

“Yes, it is.”

“We’re eating at an airport?”

“More or less.”

“We’ve gone out of our way to eat at an airport?”

Fletch didn’t answer.

“Irwin Maurice Fletcher, I have spent enough of my life confronted with the utterly indifferent, unappetizing food served at airports.”

“Call me Oh, Wondrous One for short. Or, O-l-l.”

“I’ll never call you for dinner.”

“Be fair. You’ve never had a good meal at an airport?”

“Never.”

“Never ever?”

“Once.”

“Where? Which airport?”

“Why should I tell you? Look what you’re doing to me. Taking me to dinner at an airport!”

Fletch craned his head lower and looked up through the windshield. “Above an airport, actually.”

“Great. Dinner in a Control Tower. Very relaxing.”

“Weather’s clearing, you see. Thought it might be nice to go up in an airplane, have a leisurely snack while we watch the moon rise.”

“Serious?”

“Should time out just about right.”

He pulled into a parking space.

She was staring across the front seat at him. “You’ve hired an airplane for dinner?”

He turned off the motor. “Where else can you two superstars go tonight? One of you has been drinking all day—”

“—all life—”

“—and the other one’s as jittery as a talking doll in the hands of a small boy.”

“Fletcher, you’re something else.”

“I know that. What else is the question.”

He got out and opened the car’s trunk. She followed him behind the car. “What’s that?” she asked.

“A picnic basket. Had it made up while I was looking for Freddy. Lots of goodies. Chopped ham and pickle. Shrimp. Champagne.”

He took the hamper out and slammed the trunk’s lid.

He opened a back door of the car. “Mister Mooney?”

He shook Mooney’s arm. The bottle in Mooney’s lap was almost empty.

“We’re at the airport, sir.” Mooney blinked at him. “Thought we’d get high for dinner, sir.”

“Very thoughtful of you.” Mooney began to climb out of the car. “Very thoughtful indeed, Mister Peterman.”

8

“I don’t see the moon,” Moxie said.

“Complaints! Have to be patient.” Fletch was pouring champagne into long-stemmed glasses. “A little bubbly, Mister Mooney?”

“Never touch the stuff,” Mooney said. “Upsets my cognac.”

They were sitting in large leather swivel chairs. Each had a safety belt strapped across the lap. The passenger section of the airplane was furnished and decorated partly as a living room, partly as an office.

At first, the pilot who had escorted them across the dark runway had watched worriedly Frederick Mooney’s stumbling gait. It did not make him less worried that Frederick Mooney was singing, very loudly and very badly, If I had the wings of an angel… As they were passing under a light, the pilot’s face did a double-look and expressed shock at recognizing Moxie Mooney. He looked sharply and recognized Frederick Mooney. Solicitiously, he helped Frederick Mooney up the steps and strapped him into the seat himself.

The plane took off immediately.

“I presume we’re to fly in circles,” Moxie said.

“How on earth can you fly any other way?” Fletch asked.

Seated, Fletch was setting the pull-out table within easy reach of their chairs with things from the picnic basket. He removed the protective cellophane from the plates of cut, assorted sandwiches. Opened the containers of iced shrimp, lobster tails, their sauces, salads. Dealt plates and cutlery and napkins around the table. Last out of the basket was a little white vase and a long-stemmed red rose. He poured champagne into the vase, put the rose in it, and set the rose in the middle of the table.

Watching him, Moxie said, “You would make an interesting husband, after all.”

“I did,” Fletch said. “Twice.”

“As the lady said,” intoned Frederick Mooney, with a cold look at his daughter, “just as they were leading her away, ‘I was cursed by marriage to an interesting man’.”

Fletch looked from one to another, then said, “Anyone for eats?”

Both Mooneys wordlessly heaped their plates with every food in sight. “Enough for the vanity of film stars,” Fletch muttered, helping himself from the remainders. “Good thing I bought for six.”

Plate in lap, Mooney swiveled his chair to look out the window while he ate.

“Now,” Fletch said to Moxie, after she had downed six quarter-sandwiches, four lobster tails and half her shrimp, “want to tell me why you asked me to come down here? Or have you had enough for today? Or maybe it isn’t relevent any more… ?”

“You’re hard enough to find,” grumbled Moxie. “It took me the better part of a week to trace you down.”

“I was in Washington,” Fletch said, “trying to find The Bureau of Indian Affairs.”

“Did you find it?” She was chewing a lobster tail.

“I narrowed it down to one of three telephone booths.”

She wiped her hands on a napkin. “I seem to be in real financial trouble.”