“You must be exhausted.”
“He gives me frequent high-energy snacks. The food makes me want to do these exercises. ‘Shrinking the belly,’ he calls it.”
In Vindemia’s dark gardens, Fletch envisioned Crystal’s mammoth white belly shrinking. Then he envisioned the polar ice cap melting. “That’s good.”
“Watching the boys here in the gym inspires me. My God, the energy they spend. They jump rope, lift weights for hours, it seems, beat up punching bags, beat up each other, then do one-armed chin-ups just for fun. I didn’t know even boys could have so much energy!”
Fletch said, “It’s why war was invented.”
“I think I inspire them, too. Every once in a while they look over at me, the great burial mound—and throw themselves back into their training, speed up. Well, seeing what all they do makes me lift my arms and legs a few more times. We drive each other on.”
“Mister Mortimer is being nice enough?”
“He’s a dear. Such a gentleman!”
“Poo,” Fletch said. “If he’s a gentleman, I’m a trout.”
“You’re a trout. He couldn’t be more considerate, charming, encouraging. He says I’ll be doing standing exercises within five days, beginning to hike within seven.”
“Just don’t wreck the punching bags, Crystal. I mean, it actually is possible to hit them too hard.”
“I’m not to think about losing weight. It will just happen.”
“That sounds right.”
“My goal is not to lose weight; it’s to change my way of life, my way of thinking.”
“Your perceptions of yourself.”
“How’s Carrie? Did you see her?”
“I stopped by the farm this afternoon to get a change of clothes. She’s well. She’s waiting for a mare to drop her filly.”
“Why would a Mayor drop cream cheese?”
“Crystal, you’re still thinking food.”
“Fletch, did you happen to notice the younger boy here?”
“Ricky? Yes.”
“There’s something about him.”
“Something … What?”
“I don’t know. Standing still, being quiet, still he oozes some kind of power.”
“Sex?”
“More than that.” Crystal separated her words with pauses. “One cannot help listening to him, watching him.”
“Is he handsome, attractive, what?”
“It’s something else …”
“Charisma?”
“I read to him this afternoon, from a book that just happened to be here, Steinbeck’s
“Mister Mortimer reads Steinbeck?”
“He has lots of books.”
“He does?”
“At first, I was just reading to Ricky. He was sitting by my bed. Then I began to feel things from him.”
“From Steinbeck? Of course.”
“No. From Ricky. Then I started watching him as I read. He was hardly moving. His legs were twisted around each other. I couldn’t actually see the muscles of his shoulders, chest, arms, hands, even his face moving, but they were moving. I could feel them moving. I couldn’t hear or see him breathing, but I could tell his breathing was under some kind of intense control. His eyes were pulsing. Is that the right word?”
“I don’t know.”
“What I mean is that he was so into it… he was feeling it, every word … he was reacting physically to it … but I couldn’t see exactly what he was doing, or how he was doing it.”
“In other words, even while you were reading Steinbeck, somehow Ricky was making you watch him.”
“Yeah. Something like that. Can you explain it?”
“No. Yes.”
“Mister Mortimer here is making faces at me.” Fletch heard a grumble from the background. “He says, ‘Damned kid looked so much at himself in a mirror he fell into it and now he wants everybody else to join him there.’” Crystal laughed.
“Mister Mortimer said that?”
“What’s your explanation?”
“No explanation. Just a question.”
“What’s the question?”
“With which are you in love, Crystal? Mister Mortimer? Or Ricky? Or both?”
“You think I’m in love? Maybe. I love Wyoming. Oops, that did it! Mister Mortimer says I have to hang up now. It’s time for my sit-up.”
•
Fletch had waited on a high spot at the edge of the gardens until he had finished his conversation with Crystal.
At almost eye level was the large terrace of Vindemia’s main house. Men in white jackets and bow ties, women in their pretty summer dresses milled around.
At the side of the terrace opposite the bar and serving tables a string quartet played Haydn.
With his straight back, light glinting from his hornrimmed glasses, Doctor Chester Radliegh was urging his guests in to dinner.
Fletch noticed that variously colored lights, party lights, were built into the walls of the house facing the terrace, as well as the low walls surrounding it. Simply by switching them on, these lights would give the terrace a party glow even if no one were there partying.
For a moment Fletch watched the rich, brilliant man, gracious and graceful host, smiling, inviting his many friends into his home for dinner.
The rich, brilliant, gracious and graceful man whom more than one person was trying to murder.
Slipping the little telephone into his jacket’s pocket, Fletch rejoined the party.
20
“Close the door.”
Doctor Chester Radliegh was standing at an angle between a highly polished mahogany desk and mahogany floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in his study at Vindemia. Directly in front of him in its own mahogany stand was a world globe.
It was ten o’clock.
Fletch closed the door.
“Would you like a cognac?” Radliegh asked.
Approaching, Fletch said, “You drink cognac?”
“On occasion.”
“Sure.”
On a shelf at the base of the window separating the bookshelves behind his desk, Radliegh poured cognac into two snifters on a silver tray.
Nowhere on the desk, nowhere visible in the room was a copy of Fletch’s book,
Fletch took the snifter. “Thank you.”
“Mister Fletcher,” Radliegh said as he inhaled from his snifter, “I want to thank you and your son for showing
