“Fletch, a person in my shoes has to trust somebody.”
“You’re not wearing shoes. I noticed.”
“One cannot be one hundred percent creative sharp and one hundred percent business sharp at the same time. It is mentally and physically impossible. Some people pick wonderful business managers in the talent garden, and live happily ever after. I picked a bad apple.”
“And if the District Attorney don’t get you, the I.R.S. will.”
“You make everything sound so cheery.”
“Everything is cheery. It’s all in the point of view.”
“Want me to tell you about this dumb movie?”
“Yeah. Tell me a story.”
“Girl. Got it so far?”
“Yeah. American build. I can see her now.”
“Small town.”
“Anywhere, U.S.A.”
“Anywhere. Gets raped by son of chief of police.”
“Opening scene?”
“Opening scene.”
“Beats the aerial view of the Empire State Building.”
“Of course she doesn’t tell.”
“Why not?”
“Girls frequently don’t tell when they’ve been raped, Mister Fletcher.”
“Why not?”
“It embarrasses them,” Moxie said uncomfortably. “It’s the psychology of the whole thing. For some crazy reason they think it lowers them in the esteem of others.”
“Does it?”
“You tell me. Does it?”
“I hate the whole thought.”
“Have you been raped?” she asked.
“Sure.”
“Have you told?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It comes up in conversation so seldom,” he said. “You’re not letting me get to the point of the movie.”
“Get to the point.”
“Girl is pregnant. Girl is truly in love with young black male.”
“American build?”
“You’ve seen Gerry Littleford.”
“Handsome man. Looks like a Greyhound. Racing dog, I mean. Not the bus.”
“White girl and black man get engaged to be married.”
“Does he know she’s pregnant by another man?”
“Sure. These people really love each other.”
“And what happens?”
“Town finds out they intend to get married. Town not pleased. Give black man a hard time. Town discovers girl is pregnant already. And then on midsummer’s night town goes crazy and pursues black man through countryside, swamp, woods until he comes to the edge of the ocean where they catch him and beat him to death. Needless to say, rapist-son-of-police-chief deals the killing blow, right into the black man’s head while the black man’s head is against a rock.”
“Yuck.”
“It plays upon people’s worst emotions, Moxie. It really does.”
“Oh, come on, Fletch. People don’t think that way anymore. Gerry Littleford’s wife is white.”
“Yeah. In recent years, miscegenation has been made legal. Most places.”
“You mean it’s still illegal some places?”
“Yes.”
“Come on, Fletch. I’ve read there is no such thing as an American black person without some white blood.”
“We’re talking about rape again. Aren’t we.” Fletch sat up on the bed and put his back against the tall, carved wooden backboard.
“I wasn’t even thinking of those things.” Moxie rolled over and put her chin in her elbow. “I just think as a movie it stinks. It’s badly written. I think the whole thing was written between drinks in The Polo Lounge. By people who don’t know anything about boys and girls, men and women, human beings, The South, The North, or America.
The World. Scene for scene, it just doesn’t reflect how people regard each other.”
“Moxie?”
“I’m still here. In case you hadn’t noticed.”
“I’m just thinking. The hit-and-run. Peterman.
A question some reporter asked, at the police station. Is it possible some one, or some group is trying to stop this film from being made?”
Her one visible eye looked up and down the wrinkled sheet between them. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Commit murder to stop a film?”
“I suppose it’s possible.”
“People are more sophisticated than that.” She curved her back and leaned on her elbows. “It’s a bad film, Fletch. It will never be released. No one will ever see it.”
“Yeah, but no one knows that, yet.”
“I’ll tell them, if they ask me.”
“You will like hell. In fact, let me ask you this: if filming resumes on this turkey film, will you go back on location and continue starring in it?”
“I have to, Fletch. I have no choice.”
“Thanks to dear old Steve Peterman.”
“Thanks to dear old Steve Peterman,” she repeated quietly.
Somewhere in the house a door slammed. A heavy door.
“What was that?” she asked.
“Oh, no,” Fletch said.
He jumped off the bed. “Oh, no.”
He ran down the stairs and opened the front door of the house and stepped out onto the porch. He looked down toward the center of Key West.
There was no one in the street except two men walking directly in front of the house.
“Come on all the way out, beautiful!” called one man.
“You’re gorgeous!” screamed the other one.
The first one belted the second one, hard. Fletch heard a bottle drop.
He realized he was naked. “Sorry,” he said.
He went back in the house and closed the door. Looked in the kitchen. Upstairs, he looked in Frederick Mooney’s room.
Returning to his own bedroom, he said, “I guess your father went out for a walk.”
“He went out for a drink and some conviviality,” Moxie said. “‘Conviviality’, he calls it.”
“Damn.”
“What time is it?”
“Stop asking that question in Key West.”
