Gerry Littleford was the first to see him. “You’re a Fletch,” he said.
“Right.”
“I’m Gerry.” He stood up to shake hands. “This is my wife, Stella.”
Stella was the young woman who the day before had taken Marge Peterman in hand.
“You know Sy Koller?”
The heavy man in the stressed T-shirt had also been kind to Marge Peterman the day before. Today’s stressed T-shirt was green. He did not rise for Fletch or offer his hand. “I’m sorry,” he said to Fletch.
“You’re a cook?” Gerry sat down again.
“Moxie only said that before she tried my omelette.”
“Not afterwards?”
“No. Not afterwards.”
Everyone in the group had a Bloody Mary.
“I really am sorry,” Roller said again. His eyes said he was sorry.
“Sorry for what?” Fletch sat in one of the white, wrought-iron, cushioned love seats. It was cooler in the walled garden, without the warm Gulf wind.
“For turning you down for that part.”
“You never did.”
Koller looked relieved and grinned. “I was sure I had. By my age, son, a director has turned down almost everybody. What have you done?”
“Done?”
“What films have you been in?”
“I’m not an actor.”
“But I’ve seen your work.”
“You saw me yesterday. On Bonita Beach. I was with Marge Peterman.”
Koller continued to stare at him.
“Illusion and reality,” Gerry Littleford said. “It’s an occupational hazard. Confusion between what we see and do on the screen and what we see and do in real life. What is real and what is on film?”
“It’s a sickness of the whole society,” Stella said.
“There is no reality for people now unless they do see it on film.”
Gerry said, “It’s our job to make what happens on film appear more real than reality.”
“And sometimes,” Sy Koller said, “we succeed.”
“Was yesterday real?” Stella asked. “Or just a segment on The Dan Buckley Show?”
“I don’t know,” Sy Koller laughed. “I haven’t seen it on television yet. I’ll tell you after I do.”
Gerry Littleford ran his eyes over the banyan tree. “Is today real?” His arm rested on the back of the love seat, behind his wife’s head.
“Any day I’m not working, creating unreality,” Sy Koller said quietly, “is not real.”
“Yesterday …” Gerry said.
Through the back door of the house came Edith Howell, Geoff McKensie, and John Meade. Each was carrying a Bloody Mary. The Lopezes were being kept busy.
Koller jumped up. “Geoff!” He tripped on the edge of the cistern greeting McKensie. “This is great! I’ve been hoping we’d get some time together.”
“You mean before I shove off?”
“You were pushed off,” said Koller. “Something similar’s happened to me. More than once. Come on into the shade.”
Everyone greeted everyone else with kisses, except McKensie, who kissed no one. Gerry Littleford introduced Fletch.
Edith Howell acknowledged the introduction by saying, “I didn’t know what to do with my bags, dear.”
Fletch looked doubtfully at her breasts and she sat down on a wicker chair.
John Meade said, “Good afternoon. Are you our host?”
“I guess so.”
“Thank you for having us.”
Geoffrey McKensie said nothing. He did not shake hands. But looking at Fletch his eyes clicked like the shutter of a camera’s lens.
“The light you got in The Crow—fantastic!” Koller walked McKensie to two chairs at the back of the group. “Particularly in that last scene, the final scene with the old woman and the boy. How did you do it?” He laughed. “Do I have to go to Australia to get light like that?”
“What a dreadful drive,” Edith Howell said. “On that seven mile bridge I thought my heart would plop into the water.”
“Is that why you never stopped talkin’?” Meade asked with a grin.
“As long as one is talking,” Edith Howell said, “one must be alive. Is Freddy here?” she asked Fletch.
“He’s here somewhere. Guess he went for a walk.”
“My, how that man wanders,” said Edith.
In the fan-backed wicker chair instinctively Edith Howell seemed to take over the foreground. Gangly in a light iron chair, John Meade seemed to fill up the background. In his eager manners, in his absorbing everything around him, Gerry Littleford always looked ready to go on. The other nonprofessional among them, Stella Littleford, had a cute face but was small and white to the point of sallowness. The way she slumped in her chair put her very much offstage.
“What a magnificent house,” Edith Howell said. “Looks so cool and airy. You must tell us all about Key West,” she said to Fletch. “How long have you lived here?”
“About eighteen hours.”
“Oh.” She wrinkled her nose at the back of the house. “It’s called The Blue House…Maybe the front of it’s blue. I didn’t notice.”
“It isn’t,” said Fletch.
John Meade laughed. “You sure are a good of boy, aren’t you?”
Moxie popped out the back door wearing the new yellow bikini. There were more hugs and kisses. She kissed both Sy Koller and Geoffrey McKensie.
She sipped Fletch’s orange juice. “There’s no vodka in it.”
“There isn’t?”
“How can you make a Screw Driver without vodka?” she asked.
“You can’t,” he said.
John Meade laughed.
Moxie sat in the love seat beside Fletch. “Don’t tell me. You’re all talking shop.”
“Stella and I were talking about fishing,” Fletch said.
“Now that you bring it up,” John Meade drawled. “Sy? Are we going to finish the film?”
Sy looked at Moxie. “I wish I knew.”
And Moxie said: “That depends on the banks, doesn’t it? If the bankers say we finish, we finish. If the bankers say we don’t finish, we don’t finish. Jumping Cow Productions.”
“Yeah,” said Koller. “That’s the reality of this business. The only reality.”
Littleford said, “We needed a break from filming anyway.” He rubbed his left forearm. “I was gettin’ weary of gettin’ beat up. Give my bruises a chance to heal.”
The Lopezes appeared and began handing around trays of sandwiches.
Edith Howell put her hand on Moxie’s knee and said, quietly, “I hope it was all right for us to come, dear. I suppose we were all thinking the same thing…” Moxie’s eyes widened. “… At a time like this, you need people around you. Friends.”
Moxie stared at her, open-mouthed.
“Have a sandwich,” Fletch said. Lopez had placed the fancy beer-ice cooler in the shade. “Have a beer. Want me to get you a beer?”
Moxie didn’t answer.
Everyone but Moxie had a sandwich and drink in hand. The Lopezes had returned to the house.
Moxie stood up. She said, slowly, distinctly, “Dear friends. I did not kill Steve Peterman. Anyone who isn’t sure of that fact is free to leave.”
In the heavy silence, Moxie walked back to the house. She let the back door slam behind her.
Stella Littleford muttered, “That would leave an empty house.”
“Shut up,” her husband said. He looked apologies at Fletch, and at Sy Koller.
Fletch cleared his throat. “Someone bumped the son of a bitch off.”
Stella said, “He probably deserved it. The bastard.”
“I have my own theory.” Sy Koller waited for everyone’s attention. “Dan Buckley.”
“That’s a good theory,” said Fletch.
“He was as close to him as Moxie was.”
“You’re just saying that,” Gerry said to Sy, “because he was the only one present not…” He waved his sandwich at the group under the banyan tree. “… not one of us. Not working with us.”