Fletch's Moxie

by Gregory Mcdonald

  “We’re dropping like flies,” Koller said through a mouthful of scrambled egg.

  “Roaches,” said Gerry Littleford.

  “You Yanks don’t see the comic side of anything,” Geoff McKensie said.

  Sy Koller stopped chewing and stared at him.

  Moxie appeared in her bikini with a light, white open linen top.

  “Good morning, sweets,” Edith gushed.

  Gerry Littleford squeezed against Sy Koller to make room for her.

  Fletch hitched his chair sideways. One leg stuck in a crack. Looking down, he jumped the chair leg out of the crack. On top of the cistern was a half-meter cut square. East and west on the square were hinged lift-rings.

  “Did you sleep?” Mooney asked his daughter. “I hear there was a disturbance.”

  Lopez was back with a fresh pot and poured Moxie’s coffee.

  “Anybody know how these old cisterns work?” asked Fletch.

  “Might as well get it over,” Moxie said. She sipped her black coffee.

  “I’ve heard from the producers.” She gave Fletch a long, solemn look, warning him not to correct her. “The production is cancelled.”

  Thus was almost everybody at breakfast fired. Geoffrey McKensie had already been fired.

  Mooney did not permit the silence to last too long. “Is that the production of Midsummer Night’s Dream, daughter?”

  “O.L.!” she said in exasperation.

  “That’s too bad.” Mooney’s eyes ran up the banyan tree. “I was rather hoping to be offered a part.”

  “But why?” Edith had caught her breath. “Everything was going so well.” Moxie snorted. “Well, at least I think so, and I’m sure John would back me up, if he weren’t in jail for medicine. My part was the best I’ve had in a long time. I was doing so well at it. With the help of dear Sy, of course.”

  “Who did you speak to?” Gerry Littleford asked.

  “Didn’t quite catch the name,” Moxie answered. “It was a legitimate phone call.”

  Sy Koller asked: “Why did they call you?”

  “I just happened to answer the phone.” Moxie Mooney was lying well. “We’re all relieved of our contracts as of today.”

  “Fired,” Gerry Littleford said.

  “Ah, the vicissitudes of this business,” consoled Mooney.

  “But it’s not fair!” said Edith. “I sublet my apartment in New York. I gave up a perfectly good legitimate theater offer. Where will I go, what will I do? Freddy!”

  “Yes?” Mooney answered formally, stiff-arming being called upon.

  “Well, McKensie,” Sy Koller looked the man straight in the eyes. “Looks like your suit against Jumping Cow Productions won’t be much good to you now.”

  “Damed fools.” McKensie had reddened beneath his tan. “Too cheap to take a few days proper mourning for the director’s wife yet when a few congenital idiots wrap themselves in bedsheets and throw a few rocks at a house, they collapse and cancel the production, losing everything they’ve invested in it!”

  “Are such things insured?” Fletch asked.

  “You’ve got to look on the comic side of things, McKensie,” Sy Koller said. Koller was not laughing, or smiling, or looking at all pleased.

  “It’s the bad publicity that killed it,” Moxie said. “The man said.”

  “There’s no such thing as bad publicity,” said Edith Howell. “Especially these days. Any publicity is good. The more the better. Murder, riots, raids. Why we’ve been top of the news three days running! And the film isn’t even made yet. Freddy, tell them there’s no such thing as bad publicity.”

  “It’s not only the bad publicity,” Moxie said. “The press has begun to refer to Midsummer Night’s Madness as a badly-written, cheaply-produced exploitation picture. The film will never live down its reputation now.”

  “Even if you use my script,” McKensie said. “Even if I direct. I don’t want anything to do with it.”

  Koller smiled. “And thus dies a lawsuit. We all heard you say that, McKensie. We’re all witnesses.”

  Gerry Littleford asked, quietly, “Are they saying this picture exploits the race issue?”

  Moxie took a deep breath. “Yes. Of course. Somebody must have gotten ahold of a script. Gratuitous violence, in black and white and color.”

  “Everyone can do with a bit of a rest, I’m sure,” said Mooney. “It’s been a trying time.”

  “Freddy! Not me!” squeaked Edith. “You have no idea of my income the last year or two! I don’t have your money, Freddy!”

  “Indeed not,” agreed Mooney.

  No one was eating. Moxie had eaten nothing. Koller, McKensie and Littleford had stopped eating, and food was left on their plates. Mooney, however, had cleaned his plate twice.

  Mooney blinked his eyes brightly at the group. “Anyone for a drink?”

  “Hair of the dog,” Koller said to his plate.

  “Eye opener,” said McKensie.

  “Anything,” said Edith Howell. “Damn all cows, jumping or otherwise, and their milk!”

  “Trying times,” said Mooney.

  Gerry Littleford said: “Well…whoever was trying to stop this production… succeeded.”

  32

  “If John Meade turns State’s Evidence,” Fletch asked carefully, “will you drop whatever charges there are outstanding against him?”

  He did not know where the police station in Key West was, so he had taken a taxi. He also wanted to be there before too many papers had been filled in regarding Meade, and before too many newspapers had been filled in regarding Meade.

  Sergeant Hennings had appeared as soon as Fletch asked the desk man if he could see him.

  Apparently the sergeant did not rate an office, maybe not even a desk.

  They were sitting on a bench at the side of the police station lobby.

  “What evidence?” Sergeant Hennings asked.

  “He doesn’t have it yet,” Fletch answered. “Be-cause I haven’t given it to him yet.”

  “Evidence about what?”

  “Look, Sergeant, you didn’t raid The Blue House this morning just to bust a beloved movie actor for a few qualudes.”

  “That’s right,” the sergeant said. “I didn’t.” He stood up. “You want some coffee?”

  “No thanks.”

  The sergeant wandered behind the counter and into the backroom. When he returned he had a half-empty Styrofoam cup of coffee in his hand.

  “You’re saying you think you know something you can use to get Meade off the hook?”

  “No,” Fletch said. “Sorry. I don’t know it. I have an idea.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me before? When I was at the house this morning?”

  “Because I didn’t have the idea this morning. I hadn’t noticed something. And I hadn’t noticed it because I wasn’t suspicious before you showed up.”

  “You’re being mighty foxy.”

  “No. I’m offering you cooperation.”

  “For a price.”

  “John Meade doesn’t belong in your jail, and you know it. Everytime you cops bust an admired person for drugs, you’re making drug taking seem more admirable, more acceptable, and you know it. You’re doing the same thing an advertising agency would be doing hiring John Meade to advertise soft drinks or chewing tobacco.”

  “So people who are famous shouldn’t be arrested?”

  “That’s not what I’m saying. There are no special rules. I guess. Maybe there are. I don’t know. If you’ve got a real case, you have to do something about it. Otherwise, you’ve got to look at the end result of what you’re doing. Just like everybody else. It’s called prudence.”

  “Busting John Meade is imprudent?”

  “It’s stupid. It sells drugs. Is it the object of the police to sell drugs?”

  “Never heard this argument before.”

  “Maybe I’ve been a movie star hanger-on too long. All of three days.”

  Sergeant Hennings sat down. “What do you wan
t to say?”

  “I want to see John Meade.”

  “Let me see if I’ve got this right: you want to tell John Meade something he can use to turn state’s evidence, as you call it, to get himself off?”

  “Right.”

  “Technically, not correct.”

  “Sorry.”

  “In other words, you’re saying if we let John Meade go, you’ll tell us something that might be useful?”

  “Let him go and destroy all papers relating to his ever having been in this police station.” “Why don’t you just tell me directly?”

  “Why don’t you make the damn deal?”

  “Oh!” Sergeant Hennings smiled. “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “Okay. I swear to it on my grandmother’s grave.”

  “Was your grandmother a nice lady?”

  “The best.”

  “The owner of The Blue House is Ted Sills.”

  “I know that.”

  “Ted distinctly did not want to rent The Blue House to me. I forced him. I needed to get Moxie somewhere, not too far away from Fort Myers, where she could recuperate…”

  “From Peterman’s murder.”

  “Yeah. Peace and quiet.”

  “You’ve had a lot of that.”

  “Not much. Finally Sills suggested an exorbitant rent. I surprised him by agreeing to it.”

  “How much?”

  “You wouldn’t believe. Anyway, as soon as he sees on the television that Frederick and Moxie Mooney are staying in The Blue House and crowds and news cameras are collecting outside, he calls up and starts screaming. He sounds like a puppy with a bone suddenly surrounded by the neighborhood mongrels.”

  “Can’t blame him.”

  “Sergeant, he doesn’t want attention attracted to that house—any kind of attention. He calls time and again, each time getting more shrill, more threatening. Last time he called, he said he was coming after me with a shotgun.”

  “And yet you stayed.”

  “I had a choice? How do you move someone like Edith Howell? Getting old Mooney out of a bar requires the tact and logistical brains of an Eisenhower.”

  “Chuck told me. Threatened him with Jessie James.”

  “This morning you raided The Blue House.”

  “And found nothing.”

  “Glad to hear you say that. After you left, I called Ted Sills. To report to him his house had been raided. Well, sir, he left the country suddenly last night. When he was supposed to be at a horse race today.”

  “Yeah, Fletcher, you’ve got the point: we think Sills is a big-volume drug runner. So when are you going to get to the news?”

  “It hits me that Ted Sills doesn’t want attention drawn to The Blue House because there are drugs in it. This morning you guys searched the place. No drugs.”

  “No drugs at all.”

  “Glad to hear you say that.” Fletch focused his eyes across the room and blinked. “John Meade going to be released?”

  “On my grandmother’s grave.”

  “All reports regarding him destroyed?”

  “I’ll eat them for lunch. With mayonnaise. Where’s the heroin?”

  Fletch looked at the sergeant. “I don’t really know.”

  “Great. Why am I sitting here talking to a…”

  “A what?”

  “I don’t know what!”

  “During breakfast, I noticed that on the surface of the cistern in the backyard of The Blue House is what looks to me like a trap door. Because of the salt in the air, whatnot, I can’t tell if the trap door is newer than the cistern, you know? The lift-rings are rusted. I also don’t know how cisterns work.”

  “They have to be cleaned.”

  “I do know the Lopezes tell me The Blue House hasn’t used cistern water since the water treatment plant was built over on Stock Island.”

  “Did you lift the hatch and look in the cistern?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m not a cop. Besides,” Fletch said, “if I found there weren’t any drugs in the cistern, I wouldn’t have anything to talk with you about.”

  “Jeez. No wonder you get along with those flakey movie stars.”

  “I don’t, really. Edith Howell says she’ll never visit me again. I’m all broken up about it.”

  “I bet. She threw an aspirin bottle at Officer Owen King. Raised a welt on his cheek. Would have brought her in for assaulting an officer, but the lady happened to be in bed when she threw the bottle. Actual fact, the incident might have caused titterin’ in the courtroom.”

  “Must maintain the dignity of the fuzz.”

  “You said it.”

  “Do I have a good idea?”

  “Worth checking out.” Sergeant Henning stood up and started to amble toward the back room again.

  “Are you bringing Mister Meade out?”

  “Sure,” Sergeant Henning said, “soon as he finishes autographin’ everybody’s gunbelts.”

  33

  Fletch stood on the second floor back balcony of The Blue House, his hands on the railing. He was watching the policemen in the backyard. Sergeant Hennings was directing the removal of furniture from the top of the cistern.

  Downstairs, in the living room, a morning cocktail party was in progress. Edith Howell, Sy Koller and Frederick Mooney stood in a close triangle, drinks in their hands, drinks in their heads, out-shouting reminiscences at each other. It wasn’t Olivier who said that. I was there at the time… Geoffrey McKensie sat alone at the side of the room, sipping from a glass of dark whiskey. John Meade had gone to the kitchen for a late breakfast or an early lunch. Mrs Lopez said Gerry Littleford had gone to the hospital to collect Stella. Lopez had gone to the hardware store to buy window glass. Moxie was sitting in the bedroom staring at a game show on television.

  In the backyard, two policemen lifted the hatch easily. Sergeant Hennings looked down and then knelt down and reached into the cistern. He pulled up one plastic bag. Then another.

  He looked up at Fletch on the balcony and gave the thumbs-up sign.

  Fletch waved back.

  “The fog is beginning to clear.” In the bed-room, Fletch flicked off the television. Sitting with her legs in the double width chair, Moxie simply looked at him. “The cops just found a lot of heroin—I guess it is—in the cistern in the backyard.”

  Her expression remained blank. “Did you help them find it?”

  “Sure.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t like heroin. I don’t like people who import heroin illegally. I don’t like people who sell heroin to other people.”

  “I don’t see how it helps me.” Then she shook her head with distaste at what she had just said. “You said I have to think of myself now.”

  “You do. But things are beginning to become clearer. Listen, Moxie, this is my best guess at the moment.” He remained standing in the bedroom. “Steve Peterman and Ted Sills were friends. We knew that. They were also in business together. We didn’t know that.”

  “Smuggling shit.”

  “Yeah. I would say Sills was on the smuggling end of it; Peterman the financial end. Sills used The Blue House as a stash. Which is why he owns it. Which is why the Lopezes have been so lonely. The house isn’t really used for anything else. Except maybe—” Fletch grinned ruefully at himself, “—to entertain damned fools who can be talked into investing in slow race horses. Peterman was moving an awful lot of money around, in and out of the country, from banks in Honduras, Columbia, to banks in Switzerland, France, under the name of Jumping Cow Productions, and, most regrettably, under your own name. Moxie, you were being used like a laundry. An awful lot of money was being washed—at least loosened up, freed, moved—under your name.”

  “Did they think they could get away with it forever?”

  “Moxie, they didn’t give one damn about you.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “I would say that in order to make Jumping Cow Productions conti
nue looking like a viable film company, Peterman ultimately knew he had to make a film. Or appear to be making a film. But a successful film would only draw attention to Jumping Cow Productions.”

  “So he was purposely making a bad film.”

  “Purposely.”

  She sighed. “A film so bad it couldn’t even be released.”

  “It must have blown his mind when Talcott Cross actually hired a good director, Geoff McKensie, who then showed up with a good script.”

  Moxie almost laughed. “Dear Steve.”

  “That put him in quite a pickle. He had to get rid of McKensie and bring in a washed-out director who would film a bad script exactly as it was written—badly.”

  “Okay, okay. Are you saying Sills murdered Peterman?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Sills wasn’t even on location. He couldn’t have been.”

  “He could have had someone get on location and kill Peterman. But why would Sills want to kill Peterman?”

  “Trouble between them.”

  “Clearly, Sills isn’t better off with Peterman dead. He hightailed it to France last night. At least the way things have worked out, he isn’t better off.”

  Moxie was distinctly looking tired. “What are you telling me. Fletch?”

  “I don’t know. Moxie, why the hell did you go along with acting in a bad, offensive movie? You’re too good for that.”

  “I understood there was another script. A good one. McKensie’s, I guess. When I arrived in Naples, I understood McKensie was directing. Then things happened awfully fast. McKensie’s wife was dead. Koller was directing. We were shooting the original script. The whole film company, the crew were on location. My mind was taken up with where Freddy was, when was he going to get run over? What was I supposed to do, walk out? On my own friend-agent-manager-producer?”

  “Still—”

  “Fletch. Remember the time I had a broken wrist in London?”

  “I never knew you had a broken wrist in London.”

  “I did. I was in the middle of filming The Face of Things. I broke my wrist. I was really blue. Steven flew in from somewhere within a matter of hours. Moved me into an even more expensive, more comfortable suite at the Montcalm. Surrounded me with flowers. Smoothed out all the contract nonsense. Got a special, removable cast rigged for my wrist. Showed them all how we could continue filming even if I did have a broken wrist.”