Fletch's Moxie

by Gregory Mcdonald

  “You filmed The Face of Things with a broken wrist?”

  “About half of it. See it sometime. In about half the film, I don’t use my left hand at all.”

  “And you’re saying Peterman’s doing all that was some kind of a favor?”

  “Seemed so at the time.”

  “How’s your left wrist?”

  She wriggled it. “I have almost full use of it.”

  “Some favor.”

  “I needed the money. A lot of people were able to keep working.”

  “Yeah, you’re really well off now. Peterman saw to that, all right. Terrific guy.”

  “Oh, Fletch!”

  “Don’t get angry with me.”

  “Well, what’s all this supposed to come down to? I’m a fool, I’m a murderer, and now I’m some kind of big gangster? Now I’m responsible for scrambling the brains of half the people in the country?”

  “Not half.”

  “Any people?” Tears rolled down Moxie’s cheeks. “What good does all this do me? Next to me, Eva Braun looks like Madame Curie!”

  The phone rang twice. They ignored it.

  “Take it easy, Moxie. I’m just reporting that we’re coming to some sort of an understanding of what happened. We know more than we did.”

  “You’re just getting me in worse trouble! I’m an innocent person! I didn’t kill anybody! I don’t know anything about this business! I don’t know anything about drugs!”

  Quietly, Fletch said, “I think if Peterman were alive, I’d kill the son of a bitch.”

  “Terrific! So I did, right?”

  “You had plenty reason to.”

  “Well, I didn’t.” Leaning forward, she dried her tears on her linen jacket. “Here I am, sitting in this stupid house, crying my eyes out, people throwing rocks—”

  “Sy Koller knows all about this funny money movie business. I’ve talked to him. I wonder to what extent he was in on all this. He knew Peterman and Buckley were in some sort of a deal together.”

  “Go get Sy Koller arrested. He can direct his own execution. That way it will never come off.”

  There was a knock on the door.

  Lopez was in the corridor. “Chief…”

  “Nachman?”

  “The police. On the phone. She says she must speak to you.”

  “Okay. I’ll take the call downstairs.”

  In the bedroom, Moxie had gotten up from her chair and clicked on the television set. Noon weather was being reported. The report was that it was a nice day.

  Koller had just climbed the stairs. He was a little out of breath. His black T-shirt was more than usually strained.

  In the corridor, Fletch said to him, “Sy, that story you told me the other night. Was it last night? About that fight you and Peterman had.”

  Koller was looking with big eyes at Fletch from close-up. Fletch could smell the liquor on his breath.

  “You said Peterman was putting up phony movies and pocketing the money he raised. But you knew he was actually concealing the movement of drug money around the world. Right?”

  Koller raised his hand as if to grab something at eye level. “That’s how I had him by the short hairs.”

  Koller lumbered down the corridor toward his room.

  “Sy? You knew Midsummer Night’s Madness was never going to be released…”

  At his door, Koller turned around. “Anything for a job, boy. Anything for a week’s pay.”

  He closed the door behind him.

  34

  “And how’s the weather on Bonita Beach now?” Fletch said into the phone. “Still photogenic?”

  “I’m not in Fort Myers,” Chief of Detectives Roz Nachman said. “I’m at the airport in Key West. And I’ve put my last coin into the phone box waiting for you to pick up the phone.”

  “Sorry. Catching the noon weather report on television.”

  “I’m waiting to be picked up by the local force.”

  “They’ve had a busy morning. Up early, rousting the citizens—”

  “I called you earlier, before I left the office but someone insisted you weren’t there.”

  “I was helping the police on an underground matter. You have news?”

  “Just keep everybody at the house until I arrive, please.”

  “What’s your news?”

  “If everybody isn’t there when I arrive, I’ll hold you responsible, Mister Fletcher.”

  “Did Steve Peterman rent a car before he rented the car you examined?”

  Nachman paused. “Yes. An identical blue Cadillac. From another company. The day of the accident, he turned one car in at the airport, leaving it in the parking lot, and rented another one.”

  “And was the first car damaged?”

  “Yes.”

  “Had it been in a hit-and-run accident?” “Yes. Blood, bits of cloth beneath the front fender. The fender itself had been washed off.”

  “The blood match?”

  “We’re presuming it does. We’ll know soon. There’s a police car. I’d better go outside so they’ll see me. Don’t let anybody leave, Fletcher.”

  “We’ll be glad to see you, Chief. At least I will.”

  35

  Upstairs, Fletch went back into the bedroom and closed the door. The television was still running, softly. On a women’s talk show, herpes was being discussed.

  Fletch sat in the double width chair with Moxie. He took her hand.

  “Nachman is on her way over from the airport,” Fletch said. “To arrest Geoffrey McKensie for the murder of Steven Peterman.”

  The television was telling women not to feel badly about having herpes.

  “Peterman killed McKensie’s wife,” Fletch said. “Ran her down with a rented blue Cadillac.”

  Again tears were rolling down Moxie’s cheeks.

  “You see,” Fletch said, “Koller was right: McKensie did know how to rig a set.”

  Moxie freed her hand. She stood up. She walked to the bed and sat on its edge.

  She sobbed.

  Fletch grabbed a tissue from the bedside table and handed it to her. “I’d think you’d be relieved.”

  “Poor Geoff.” She blew her nose. “Poor damn Geoff. Why did they have to find out?”

  She began to choke. She went into the bathroom. She closed the door.

  Fletch listened to her sobbing and blowing her nose and sobbing some more.

  “I’ll be downstairs,” he said to the closed door.

  36

  Mrs Lopez opened the front door of The Blue House when the police arrived. Fletch was in the living room, within sight of the front door. He had walked around the house seeing where everyone was.

  Chief of Detectives Roz Nachman entered. Sergeant Hennings was behind her.

  Fletch shook hands with them. “McKensie is in the small library at the back of the house. Trying to arrange a flight to Sydney.”

  Nachman said: “Good.”

  “Having a busy day, Sergeant.”

  “Busier than some.”

  Moxie came down the stairs. She had put on the white linen trousers and the sandals Fletch had bought her. Obviously she had washed her face with cold water, but her eyes still showed she had been crying.

  “Hello, Chief,” she said.

  Chief Nachman said to her: “You have the right to remain silent—”

  “What!” Fletch yelled.

  “Will you please allow me to finish reciting this lady her rights?”

  “You’re arresting Moxie?”

  “If you’d stop making so much noise.”

  “But you can’t!”

  “I can. I should. I must. I am arresting Ms Moxie Mooney for the murder of Steven Peterman.”

  Frederick Mooney stood in the living room door. His eyes were hollow, empty.

  “Geoff McKensie killed Peterman!” Fletch exclaimed. He looked around. McKensie was standing down the corridor outside the billiard room door. “Peterman killed McKensie’s wife!”

  “Sor
ry, Mister McKensie,” Nachman said. “You didn’t know that before, did you?”

  In the shadow of the deep corridor, McKensie’s ruddy complexion paled.

  “Of course he knew it!” insisted Fletch.

  “He wasn’t even on location that day, Mister Fletcher. Not in the afternoon. He was in Miami, seeing lawyers.”

  “I saw him at the police station.”

  “He was at the police station, yes. He heard the news on the car radio and came directly to the police station. He was not on location.”

  “He rigged the set.”

  “The set was not rigged,” said Nachman. “So say the experts.”

  “God,” said Fletch.

  Nachman fully recited Moxie Mooney her rights. To Fletch, it sounded like the mumblings over a grave. Staring at Nachman, Moxie’s eyes were glazed. Mrs Lopez’ face was long. In the living room doorway Mooney swayed stupidly. Down the corridor, McKensie was leaning against a table.

  “What evidence?” Fletch asked lamely.

  “Cut it out, Fletcher,” Nachman said, as if admonishing a child. “All the evidence in the world. Motive: we’ve had a report on her financial records. Whatever swindles Moxie and Peterman were pulling, it had certainly gone sour for Moxie. Opportunity: she was on the stage with him; she was wearing a bulky bathrobe in which a knife could be easily concealed; she crossed behind him just as he was stabbed. Dan Buckley was also on the stage, but there was no way he could have concealed that knife in his clothes, and he never left his chair. Motive and opportunity make the case.”

  Silently, looking as if he were going someplace to be sick, Frederick Mooney crossed the front hall to the stairs. His fingers just barely touched Moxie’s sleeve.

  Her eyes watched him climb the stairs.

  Sergeant Hennings released handcuffs from his belt. He said to Fletch: “Okay if I arrest her? She’s talented and famous.”

  “It’s not okay!” Fletch shouted. “No handcuffs!”

  “Sorry, Miss,” Hennings said to Moxie. “Police department rules.”

  “Don’t I get to get my toothbrush?” Moxie asked.

  “We supply toothbrushes now,” Nachman said. “Especially for capital offenses.”

  Moxie held out her wrists. Moxie Mooney was looking drawn and haggard.

  She smiled at Fletch. “What’s your line about bravery?”

  Fletch answered numbly, “Bravery is something you have to think you have to have it.”

  “Yeah,” Moxie said. “I’ll think on that.”

  “I’m going with you,” Fletch said.

  Roz Nachman said, “Sorry, earwig, you’re not. Not enough room in the helicopter.”

  Sergeant Hennings was guiding Moxie through the front door, gently, by her elbow.

  Moxie was looking back at Fletch. “Hey, Fletch?” she asked. “You’ve never told me. Here’s your chance. Why is this house called The Blue House?”

  Nachman put her nose up at the corners of the ceilings. “Used to be a whore house,” she said.

  “Really?” Fletch said. “I never knew that.”

  In the front hall, Fletch turned in a complete circle.

  McKensie approached. Bitterly he said to Fletch, “Thanks, mate.”

  Then he went up the stairs.

  From the front porch of The Blue House Fletch watched them put Moxie in the police car. Chief of Detectives Roz Nachman got in the back seat with her.

  He watched the car drive off.

  He stared at where the car had been. Moxie… fun and games…so many images of Moxie…on this beach and that beach…in the street…in the classroom …in little theaters…in this room and that…getting into the back of a police car in handcuffs.

  Behind him, Mrs Lopez said, “Can I get you something, Mister Fletcher? Maybe a drink…?”

  He said: “Apple juice.”

  She said, “We don’t have apple juice.”

  “You don’t?” He turned to her.

  “We never have apple juice. Why have apple juice in the land of orange juice?”

  Fletch stared at her.

  “I can make you a nice rum drink with orange juice.”

  “Excuse me.”

  Fletch went by her and up the stairs.

  37

  Fletch knocked on Frederick Mooney’s bedroom door and entered without waiting to be invited.

  Mooney was sitting in a Morris chair, his hands in his lap. Silently, he watched Fletch.

  “How long you been sober?” Fletch asked.

  “Over three years.”

  The airlines flight bag was on the floor beside the bed. Fletch hunkered down next to it. He lifted one of the bottles from it. He uncapped the bottle and sniffed the contents.

  “You can’t get apple juice in most bars,” Mooney said.

  Fletch left the bottle on the bureau. “You’re one hell of an actor.”

  “I thought you knew that.” Mooney shifted in his chair. “Of course I had the advantage. Once people think of you as a drunk, they see you as a drunk.”

  “Moxie said you were drunk when she arrived at her apartment in New York.”

  “I had set the stage, knowing she’d show up sometime. Empty bottles around, dirty smelly glasses…”

  “But why?”

  “I wanted to see her, as it were, without being seen. She would have shut off the reformed Frederick Mooney. I had shut her off too many years. Her behavior would have been cool and proper in front of the great man, her father. I decided the best way to see her, to really see her, get to know her, was as a dependent. In front of a helpless old man, blind drunk, Marilyn was herself. I’ve really gotten to know her, the last few weeks. She’s really quite marvelous.”

  “But she hasn’t gotten to know you.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Frederick Mooney. “It’s all on film.”

  “So at the apartment in New York you heard everything. Everything about Peterman—”

  “Of course. I even read Midsummer Night’s Mad-ness one afternoon while she was out. I knew the fiddle was on. You see, Fletch…” Fletch, in continued shock, glanced at the man. He could not get his mind around the dimensions of this man’s acting genius. All that Peterman-Peterkin-Peterson-Patterson routine had been consciously created. “…in my twenties, I was virtually ruined by one of these charlatan friend-managers, the word friend italicised. I was dragged through courts for five years. Someone I had trusted. It virtually ruined my work, my sleep, my health. One is made to feel so vulnerable, so weak. And doing creative work while being made to feel weak and vulnerable is immensely hard. Mind breaking. Creative people should receive some protection by law. There really aren’t that many of us, and our time is short, our energies limited. Our energies should not be drained by lawyers playing at their paper games. Something similiar happened to me again in my late thirties. If I had known then what I know now—that energies do not last forever—I would have killed anyone who so assaulted me.”

  “Instead you killed Steve Peterman.”

  “I haven’t been able to do much for Moxie, as a father. I didn’t want her to be dragged through the courts for years, humiliated, made a fool, her life and work laid out in little boxes, her every privacy invaded. Preventing all that was something I could do for her.”

  “How did you do it?”

  “I’m an actor. A well-trained actor.”

  “You know how to ride a horse like a guards-man and an Indian, how to handle a gun as if it were a natural extention of your hand…”

  “You heard that little sermon I gave at Durty Harry’s.” Mooney’s eyes wandered over the palm trees outside the windows. “Always used to go over well at colleges.”

  “Downstairs just now,” Fletch said, “when they were carting Moxie away, I remembered her telling me, years ago, that as a kid in the carnivals, whatever, small-town travelling shows, you were even a part of a knife throwing act. That was just after I realized I had seen three empty apple juice bottles in the rubbish.”

&
nbsp; “You’d be surprised how your youthful physical skills come back to you after you’ve become absolutely tea-total.” Mooney smiled. “I was never the drinker I was made out to be, anyway. I cultivated the image. I could heighten the audience’s suspense by making them wonder if I was too drunk to go on, too drunk to finish the play. I believe Kean used the same trick. There’s old Mooney, drunk again. It can’t be him who’s acting so beautifully, but some god acting through him. You see, everyone had seen Hamlet before, knew the story. They had to be made unsure as to whether Mooney could play Hamlet. Again. And again and again. Believe me, friend and lover of my daughter, no one could do what I’ve done as drunk as I’m supposed to have been. Of course I didn’t make twenty or thirty pictures without knowing what I was doing. People will believe anything…”

  “Mister Mooney, how did you actually commit the murder? There were cameras everywhere.”

  “I made myself into a rubbish man. A few rags, more hair, more beard, a discouraged way of standing, walking, wandering around location picking up the odd candy wrapper, cigarette pack.” He chuckled. “Edith Howell asked me to move a trash barrel away from her trailer. Didn’t ask. Demanded. Called me a lazy old lout, when I moved slowly on my supposedly sore feet. Not a very nice lady, Edith Howell.”

  “She has her eyes on your millions.”

  “She was always looking the wrong direction onstage, too. She’d look a meter more upstage than she was supposed to be looking, a meter more downstage. That woman drove me nuts all during Time, Gentlemen, Time.”

  “And have you millions of dollars?”

  “Sure.”

  “Many millions?”

  “Why not? I’ve practiced a rewarding profession. Worked hard all my life, and been well paid for it. Never had expensive tastes. One hotel room is very much like another.”

  “Oh. Moxie thinks you’re broke.”

  “It’s been good for her soul to think so.”

  Fletch sighed.

  “So,” Mooney continued, “as an old, tolerated member of the custodial staff, I even watched them build the set for The Dan Buckley Show. You think I don’t know how to work out camera angles? I approached the slit curtain at the back of the set from all the way down the beach, from the water’s edge. I had to walk in a very carefully worked-out Z. I never showed up on film. And thankfully there wasn’t much breeze. The curtain stayed more or less still.”