“Yuck.”
“Midsummer Night’s Madness.”
“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.”
“Is it possible to get a drink in Key West at this hour?”
“Are you kidding?”
“I guess it’s early yet anyway. I thought you were putting Freddy to bed a little early.”
“Damn, damn,” Fletch said. “Damn, damn, damn.”
“Nice line,” Moxie said. “Up there with O, O, O, O. What’s the matter with Freddy going out for a drink? Can’t keep him in anyway.”
“In case it hadn’t dawned on you, O, Luminous Two, I was trying to keep your presence in Key West a deep, dark secret.”
“Oh,” she said.
“The minute Freddy’s famous face hits the light of any bar, up goes the telephone receiver to the press.”
“Of course,” she said.
“Freddy here: Moxie here. Simple equation.”
From the bed, she said, “Nice try, sport. Best laid plans, and all that.”
“Damn.”
“Damn,” she said, looking at him as he stood in the middle of the room. “I think you have an American build.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I was made in the U.S.A.”
11
“So how come,” Moxie asked very early in the morning in the bright kitchen, “you get to borrow such a nice big house in Key West at a moment’s notice?”
Frederick Mooney was asleep in his room. Fletch had checked.
“It belongs to someone I do business with.” Carefully, Fletch was trying to make individual omelettes. “A little business. Well, what it comes down to is that I give him money which he feeds to race horses.”
“Sounds like a great business.”
“The horses like it, I guess.”
“Get any manure in return?”
“Nothing but.”
“Even in daylight The Blue House is white. First thing I did this morning was run out and check.” Moxie was not wearing the only dress she had brought with her. The large backyard of The Blue House was completely walled. “Are you ever going to tell me why it’s called The Blue House?”
“Probably.”
“But not now, right?”
“Got to be a little mystery in our relationship.”
She was squeezing orange juice. “Seems we have quite a big enough mystery to deal with already.”
The omelette was sticking to the pan. Fletch turned down the heat.
“So who owns The Blue House?”
“Man named Sills. Ted Sills.”
“Sounds vaguely familiar.”
“Come to think of it, I met him at a party at your apartment.”
“You did?”
“Tall guy. Beer belly. Hair plastered down.”
“Right. Sounds like everybody who comes to my parties.”
“Trouble is, I found myself having a drink with him later, talking about investing in his race horses. Then, later, spent a week with him at his horse farm, and the weekend here in Key West, where I actually signed some papers.”
“How come you’re rich?” Moxie asked.
The phone rang.
Automatically, Moxie picked it up. “The Blue House,” she said. “Mister Blue isn’t here.” Then she said, “Hi, Gerry! How did you know I was here?” She looked across the kitchen at Fletch.
“It’s on the news this morning?… They even say The Blue House, Key West? Rats…” She listened and then said to Fletch, “Gerry Littleford says it was on Global Cable News at six o’clock last night that I had disappeared.” She said into the phone, “That’s impossible, Gerry. I didn’t disappear until eight o’clock.” She shook her head at Fletch. “These reporters,” she said. “Aren’t they awful? … Yeah, I know. Freddy was out on the town in Key West and spilled all. He’s a very convivial man, Freddy is…” She turned her back to Fletch. “… Sure, Gerry… sure… Sure you’re not just being paranoid, Gerry? Coke does that to you, you know… Sure… Okay, that would be great.” She turned to Fletch. “What street are we on?”
“Duval.”
“Duval,” Moxie said into the receiver. “Oh, by the way, Gerry, will you bring a script of Midsummer Night’s Madness? I didn’t bring one, and I’d like Fletch to read it. … What’s a Fletch?” With dancing eyes she looked up and down Fletch’s naked body. “A Fletch is a short order cook. He burns eggs in short order. See you.”