Fletch and the Widow Bradley Read online

20

  “R E A L L Y, M O X I E,” S A I D the theater Director in the light-weight, double-breasted blazer, “this does not bode well. If you’re so late showing up for a cocktail party, how can I expect you to show up on time for rehearsals and performances?”

  “We got held up on the bridge,” Fletch said.

  “Everyone gets held up by a bridge,” the Director said. “That’s what bridges do.”

  “We were delayed on the bridge,” Moxie said.

  The Colloquial, like most theaters not putting on an illusion at that moment, looked a cross between a dirty warehouse and an impoverished church. On one side of the stage, lumber was stacked. On the other side, a long, flimsy table held half-eaten wheels of cheese and many empty wine bottles. Out front were rows of dispirited, sagging chairs, existentially weary of tears and laughter, tragedy and comedy.

  When Moxie and Fletch had entered the stage from the wings other members of the cast and crew summed up Moxie coolly, professionally watching the way she walked and stood. None evinced a more human interest in her. Only the Director had come forward to greet her.

  “At least you’re alive,” the Director said. “And you’re here. We must be grateful for small favors.”

  “And I’ve studied the In Love script,” Moxie said in a small voice.

  “Paul, I think it’s wonderful.”

  “You’ll meet the author tomorrow, I trust,” the Director said. “He flew in from New York this afternoon and was just too exhausted to stand up, he said. I suspect the truth is he intends to use his time out here trying to get a paying job in television.” The Director elevated his eyebrows at Fletch. “Is this the boy you wanted me to meet?”

  “This is Fletch,” Moxie said. “You said on the phone you’re not all that keen on Sam …”

  The Director stood back, eyebrows still half way up his forehead, and looked Fletch up and down and up again, as if to gauge his suit size.

  “Nice looking,” the Director said. “Natural. I suppose your bodies would work well together.”

  “They do,” commented Fletch.

  “How do you feel about being naked?” the Director asked.

  Fletch answered, “I was born that way.”

  “But you weren’t born on a stage,” the Director said. “Although, of course, Moxie was. How is dear Freddy Mooney, Moxie, your inveterate Pa?”

  “Inveterate, thank you.”

  “But, my God, doesn’t he bathe?” the Director said of Fletch. “I mean, I know dirt turns some people on, but not enough of them to fill a theater at these prices.”

  “Am I dirty?” Fletch asked Moxie.

  “Grimy,” Moxie said. “Streaked.”

  “I’ll swear I took a shower in the Fall.”

  “He’s really as clean as a whistle, usually,” Moxie said. “It’s just that, on the way over, he …”

  “He what?” asked the Director. “Did the backstroke through the city dump?”

  “He saved a woman’s life,” Moxie said. “Sweaty work, that.”

  “But can he act?” the Director asked.

  “No,” Fletch said. “Not at all.”

  “How refreshing of you to say that. Finally, in California, I’ve heard a new line: No, I can’t act. If you’re seriously applying for the male lead in In Love, Mister Fletch, or whatever your name is, you must know you have to appear nude on stage not once, but twice. I’ll see to it that you take a shower before each performance. Afterward, you’re on your own.”

  Fletch turned to Moxie and asked, in a reasonable tone, “Moxie, darling, what are you doing?”

  “Tell him what a great actor you are, Fletch.”

  “I can’t act at all.”

  “Nonsense,” said Moxie, “you’ve been acting all your life.”

  “Never.”

  “You need the job, Fletch.”

  “Not a job acting.”

  “It would be fun,” Moxie said. “You and me.”

  “It would be horrible.”

  “You don’t have anything else to do.”

  “In fact, I do have something else to do.”

  “What? Interview more dead people?”

  “Moxie?”

  “Anyway,” the Director said, “you should meet Sam, Moxie. Your present male lead. Tell me what you think of him. Oh, Sam!” the Director called.

  Across the stage a dark-haired, heavy-browed young man stood up from a pile of lumber and started to walk over.

  “Ape,” the Director said quietly. “He walks like an orangutan with gonorrhea. Heavy thighs. Today’s audiences do not like heavy thighs. Oh, Sam, meet Moxie Mooney.”

  “Hullo,” Sam said.

  “Hullo,” said Moxie.

  “Why don’t you two children greet each other with a kiss? You’ll be working together.”

  Both Moxie and Sam put their faces forward to be kissed, neither to kiss. After indecisive, awkward maneuvers, the kiss was perfunctory.

  “Theater history is made,” said the Director sardonically.

  “It will be nice working with you, I’m sure,” Moxie said.

  “Yeah,” Sam said. “I saw your dad play King Lear. Is it true he once ran a carnival knife-throwing act?”

  Moxie’s eyes became slits.

  “Instant electricity,” the Director said. “Serendipity. I must rush home and get it all down in my journal, for posterity.”

  “See you,” Sam said.

  “Ten a.m.,” said the Director.

  Sam ambled off-stage through the scenery.

  The Director sighed. “What do you think?” he asked Moxie.

  “I don’t think,” Moxie said. “I act.”

  “At least you have the sense to realize it, dear. I wish other actors wouldn’t think they could think. Listen,” the Director said to Fletch. “Hang loose a few days. I don’t think Sam is going to work out. I hate to fire someone for thick thighs—”

  “What?” Fletch said. “No.”

  “Okay,” Moxie said. “He will.”

  “I can see you two as much more of a team. I mean, you’d be beautiful together, if one of you would take a shower. Really exciting to watch.”

  “I’m sorry to come to your party with a dirty face,” Fletch said.

  “Dirt can have its charms,” the Director said. “Especially when used to grow tulips.”

  “May we go now, Moxie?”

  “We just got here. I haven’t met the crew.”

  “I need a shower.”

  “He does need a shower, Moxie. You can meet the rest of the cast in the morning. Do try to be here at ten A.M. Excuses will not be tolerated.” The Director pointed at Fletch. “Take this boy home and wash him!”

  21

  “I’ V E D O N E Y O U a favor,” Moxie said a few times during the evening.

  In bed, after they’d showered, after they’d eaten peanut butter sandwiches, after Fletch had explained to Moxie again he had no intention of trying to be an actor and she had explained to him, again, patiently, that, yes, he would so try, that doubtlessly he would be far better than Sam in the role, Fletch’s legs were straighter, and after they, again, physically penetrated each other, and were, at that moment, lying back in the dark room, Moxie asked, “Fletcher?”

  “Yes, Ma’m?”

  “Where were you this morning?”

  “When this morning?”

  “I woke up at three o’clock. You weren’t in bed. You weren’t in the bathroom. You weren’t in the apartment at all.”

  “I went out to do a spot of housebreaking.”

  “Jeez,” Moxie said. “The way you say things I’d almost believe it. Not an actor, uh?”

  “Not to worry. I got away with it.”

  “Well.” She contracted and expanded, put her arm and her leg on his, so she’d be more comfortable. “I’ve done you a favor. A thousand-dollar favor. Or, a twenty-four thousand dollar favor, depending on your point of view.”

  “How’s that again?”

  “I’ve
stolen a thousand dollars from you. From the wallet.”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “Well, it makes sense, Fletch. You’re not spending the money when you really need to because you want to be able to return the whole twenty-five thousand dollars to the man. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, now you can’t return the whole twenty-five thousand dollars to the man. Because I’ve got a thousand dollars of it. So you might as well do the sensible thing and spend the rest of the money yourself. Right?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “As serious as a flash flood in Abu Zabi.”

  “Perverted.”

  “What?”

  “Perverted reasoning.”

  “Hardly.”

  “Moxie, you’ve stolen a thousand dollars which doesn’t belong to me.”

  “Right. Thus giving you use of twenty-four thousand dollars.”

  “That’s corrupt. You’re a crook.”

  “I’m a sensible, clever lady.”

  “What have you done with the money?”

  “Hidden it.”

  “Where?”

  “Some place you’ll never find it.”

  “Where would that be?”

  “That’s for me to know and for you not to find out.”

  “You’re serious about this.”

  “Entirely.”

  “Do you intend to spend the money?”

  “I will if I want. If there’s something I want that costs a thousand dollars, I’ll spend it.”

  “Is there something you want that costs a thousand dollars?”

  “Not that I know of. Probably I’ll think of something. I didn’t really steal the money to spend it.”

  “Oh, no. Of course I believe that.”

  “You make me sound like a suspicious person.”

  “You’re not suspicious. You’re a crook.”

  “Fletcher, if you’d lost twenty-five thousand dollars in cash, do you think anyone else would drive all around the country trying to get it back to you?”

  “I certainly hope so.”

  “Then you’re an idealist slightly more demented than Icarus.”

  “Which Icarus is that?”

  “The guy who flew toward the sun with wings attached by wax. The melting kind of wax.”

  “Oh, that Icarus. That kind of wax.”

  “Demented.”

  “Moxie, there’s such a thing as a social contract. It makes the world go ‘round.”

  “I don’t notice Frank Jaffe, or your newspaper, observing any social contract with you.”

  “Of course they have. It appears I goofed, and they fired me. That’s perfectly agreeable.”

  “You were lied to by someone at Wagnall-Phipps.”

  “Charles Blaine. And Enid Bradley did try to observe the social contract with me. She offered me money to make up for the damage I’ve suffered at the hands of Wagnall-Phipps.”

  “Did you accept?”

  “No.”

  “More likely she offered you money to make you go away.”

  “I think so, too.”

  “It’s also written into the social contract, Loosers weepers, Finders keepers.”

  “Where is that written?”

  “Page 38. Clause 74.”

  “That’s the social contract for young readers. Ages four to seven.”

  “Really, Fletch.”

  “Moxie, what am I going to do if I find the man, this James St. E. Crandall, and I haven’t got the full twenty-five thousand dollars?”

  “I have just given you reason—necessity, you might all call it—to stop looking for James St. E. Crandall. Don’t you get the point? You’re such a slow boy.”

  “You’re a crook. You’ve stolen a thousand dollars.”

  “I’ve done you a favor.”

  “Stop doing me favors. At seven o’clock you’re doing me the favor of trying to get me a job as a male stripper. At eleven o’clock you tell me you’ve done me the favor of stealing a thousand dollars from me. What’s the next favor you’re going to do me? Give me whooping cough?”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Jeez!”

  “You think about it, too.”

  “Think about what?”

  “All the nice favors I’ve been doing you. You’ll feel much better in the morning. You’ll wake up and realize you have twenty-four thousand dollars to spend. You’re so rich you can even afford to work in the theater.”

  “Good night, darling.”

  “ ‘Night, lover. Sweet dreams.”

  22

  F L E T C H O P E N E D H I S apartment door to the corridor and found himself looking down at himself, his face streaked with grime and sweat, on the front page of the News-Tribune.

  “Oh, no.”

  MOTORIST PREVENTS BRIDGE SUICIDE ATTEMPT was the headline over the photograph.

  Towel wrapped around his waist, he picked up the newspaper, closed the door, and sat down on the divan in his livingroom.

  An observant passerby with a willingness to risk his life to save the life of another climbed out onto the superstructure of the Guilden Street Bridge after dark last night and talked a middle-aged female potential suicide victim back to safety.

  “In this life we’re all in the same car together,” said Irwin Maurice Fletcher, 24.

  Until Friday of last week, Fletcher was a member of the News-Tribune editorial staff.

  Fletcher said his eye happened to be caught by the potential victim’s skirt fluttering in the breeze as he drove onto the bridge…

  The telephone rang. Absently, still reading, Fletch picked up the receiver.

  “Hello?”

  “Fletch? Janey. Frank wants to talk to you.”

  “Frank who?”

  “Hey, Fletch!” Frank Jaffe’s voice sounded too cheery for a Monday morning. “You made the front page.”

  “Not the first time, Esteemed Managing Editor.”

  “The News-Tribune gave you quite a spread.”

  “I have it in my lap. Nice of you guys to report in the third paragraph you fired me last week. Really helps in the care and feeding of Irwin Maurice Fletcher.”

  “Makes us look like shits, don’t it?”

  “It do.”

  “Had to report it. Journalistic honesty, you know?”

  “You had to report it in the lead?”

  “Yeah, well, I agree—that stinks. Some of the people around here are pretty burned off at you, in case I didn’t tell you before. One old desk man wondered aloud this morning why you didn’t let the woman jump so you could then interview her. After she drowned, that is.”

  “I got the point, Frank.”

  “Some of these guys have a truly vicious sense of humor.”

  “Tell them if they don’t restrain themselves I won’t interview them after they’re dead.”

  “I don’t suppose you want to hear the headline they really wanted to run.”

  “I don’t suppose I do.”

  “You might.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “I mean, with your irrepressible sense of humor?”

  “Okay, Frank. Give it to me. I haven’t had breakfast yet.”

  “The headline they wanted to run was GUILDEN STREET BRIDGE HERO FIRED BY THE NEWSPAPER YOU TRUST.”

  “Too long for a headline. Why did you call, Frank? To congratulate me?”

  “Hell, no. I’ve always known you could talk the bark off a tree. No big feat, talking a woman off a bridge. Not for you.”

  “So why did you call?”

  “It’s Monday morning. I’m in the office.”

  “So?”

  “You said I wouldn’t be. You cast aspersions at Clara Snow’s cooking.”

  “You must have a goat’s stomach, Frank. I know you’ve got his horns.”

  “Actually, I was thinking, Fletch.”

  “I can smell the smoke.”

  “You write pretty well.”

  “When I have a
chance.”

  “You have the chance. I’m giving it to you. What I’m thinking is, this is a perfect opportunity for a first-hand account, you know? Big feature.”

  “You mean, like, HOW I TALKED THE SUICIDE OFF THE BRIDGE BY I.M. FLETCHER?”

  “You got it.”

  “No, thanks, Frank.”

  “Why not? You got something else to do today?”

  “Yes. I have.”

  “We’ll pay you. Guest writer’s rates.”

  Guest writer’s rates were on the lower side of adequate.

  “Gee, thanks, Frank. But I don’t work for you anymore, remember?”

  “Might clean up your reputation a little.”

  “Might sell you a few newspapers.”

  “That, too.”

  “Know what, Frank? You’re not a bad managing editor—even if you are burying that story about the Governor’s Press Secretary’s brother selling cars to the state police.”

  “Know what, Fletch? You’re not a bad kid—even if you do interview dead people.”

  “See you, Frank.”

  “See you, Fletch.”

  When Moxie came into the livingroom, she looked at the newspaper and said, “You’re not twenty-four.”

  Still sitting on the divan, Fletch shook his head sadly. “Goes to show you. You should never believe everything you read in a newspaper.” He looked up at her, dressed only in his old, torn denim shirt. “Come on. Get dressed. I’ll drive you to the theater.”

  “Where’s breakfast?” she asked.

  “Same place that thousand dollar bill is, you stole from the wallet yesterday.”

  She looked at him sharply. “Where’s that?”

  He shrugged. “I wish I knew.”

  23

  “A R E Y O U T H E manager of this bank?” Fletch asked the skinny man in a worn out suit who sat at a big desk the other side of a railing.

  “Indeed I am.” The man smiled at him warmly. “You look like someone who could use a car loan. We can do very well for you on a car loan.”

  “No, thanks. I have a car loan.” Fletch waved a thousand dollar bill. “I want to know if this is real.”

  The manager saw the bill and gestured Fletch around the railing to his desk. The manager took the bill in the fingers of both hands and felt it as would a clothing merchant feeling material. He examined it closely through his eye-glasses. Especially did he examine closely the engraving of Grover Cleveland.