Fletch, Too Read online

  The official smiled at her.

  Fletch said, “It’s a little difficult explaining just why we have landed in Kenya carrying snow skis. I admit that.”

  The official wagged his head. “I love my job.”

  “We’ll definitely take the skis with us when we leave,” Fletch said.

  “We have to return them,” Barbara said. “They’re borrowed.”

  “I would love to see them,” the official said, “while they’re here.”

  “Of course.” Fletch opened the zipper on one of the ski covers. The man carrying the machine gun stepped back a pace. “There,” Fletch said. “Skis.”

  The official seemed surprised. “And those …” He bent his knees again and now used his hands as paddles. “… those are ski walking sticks?”

  “Ski poles.”

  The official concerned himself with his clipboard. “Snow skis are very large items to carry with you when you can’t use them.”

  “Cumbersome, too,” Barbara said.

  Fletch said, “I’m very fond of them.” He zippered the cover closed again.

  “May I see what is in your luggage, please?” the official asked.

  “Of course.” Fletch handed the skis to Barbara and unzipped his large knapsnack. As he folded back the cover he saw on top of the clothes a book entitled How to Screw Around. “Oh, my,” he said. He remembered Alston had packed for him. Quickly, he picked up the book and held it by his side.

  The official stroked the palm of his hand over the nylon surface of Fletch’s ski pants. “That feels beautiful,” he said. “Like the skin of a woman. Do you wear these?”

  Fletch swallowed. “When I go skiing.”

  “Oh, I see. These are skiing trousers.”

  “Yes.”

  The official’s hand went layer through layer down the bag. “They’re like moon clothes.”

  “We’re not from the moon,” Barbara said.

  “They’re ski clothes,” Fletch said.

  The official said, “This bag is full of ski clothes.”

  Fletch said, “I suppose it is.”

  “Usually when people come to Kenya for pleasure,” the official said, “they bring shorts. Safari jackets. Sun hats. Swimsuits. Hiking boots.”

  Fletch said, “Oh, I see.”

  The official waved his hand at the bag, indicating it could now be closed. “I’m afraid you won’t have a very good time in Kenya, if you insist on going snow-skiing.”

  Fletch dropped How to Screw Around back into the knapsack. “We’ll try our best.”

  Fletch handed Barbara a one-hundred-dollar bill. “Would you please go to the exchange booth and get some local currency?”

  Immediately when they came out of the controlled area five small boys had grabbed the skis and carried them on their shoulders out to the sidewalk. A man had grabbed the rest of the luggage. Others had just shouted Taxi! at them.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Men’s room. We need taxi fare.”

  “What’s the exchange rate?”

  “Tit for tat. Roughly.”

  “Thanks.”

  There was only one other man in the men’s room. Slim, he wore a full-length safari suit. Thinning hair was stretched across his pate. He had a pencil-thin moustache. He was washing at a basin.

  Sitting in the cabinet, Fletch watched the man’s brown boots make the little movements on the floor a person makes while thinking he is standing still. The water was splashing into the basin.

  The main door to the men’s room opened. Heavy black shoes beneath dark trousers came into view beneath the cabinet door. The brown boots turned. The two men spoke a language Fletch didn’t understand. He could barely hear it over the sound of the running water. Then one man shouted. The other man shouted. They both were shouting. The feet began moving, agitated. Forward, back, sideways, some sort of crazy dance. The brown boots became nearer the men’s room door. One of the black shoes landed on the floor on its side, on the man’s ankle. The black shoes pulled backward to the right. The brown boots turned and sprinted for the door. The water was still running.

  Fletch came out of the cabinet, pulling up his jeans. He pressed the flat of his hand against his stomach. His other hand covered his mouth.

  Blood was on the mirror, the white washbasins, the floor.

  A man’s body was in the corner, his neck twisted against the wall. His white shirt was soaked with blood, from just below the chest down. Some blood was on his dark trousers, as far down as his knees. His jaw was slack. His eyes, glassy as a stuffed animal’s, stared toward the men’s room door. On the side of the sink above his head was his bloody, streaked hand print.

  Water was still running in the basin. A knife had been dropped into it. Water swirling around the knife was still bloody.

  Fletch’s two hands could not stop what was about to happen. He went to a basin nearer the door. He vomited. He rinsed out the basin. He vomited again.

  After rinsing the sink a second time he stood against the basin a moment to steady himself. Then he rubbed cold water on his face, the back of his neck.

  Using the bottom of his shirt around his hand, he opened the men’s room door.

  Eyes stinging, temples throbbing, knees shaking, Fletch tried to walk straight across the airport terminal while he tucked in his shirt.

  The sunlight on the sidewalk outside the Nairobi airport was brilliant. Barbara was showing the taxi driver how to weight down one end of the skis with a knapsack so they could stick out of the trunk without falling. Many people stood around very interested in this problem of transporting skis by taxi.

  Trembling, Fletch crossed the sidewalk directly to the taxi. He sat on the backseat. He rolled down the window. He sucked warm, dry air into his lungs.

  Bending, Barbara looked through the back door of the taxi at him. “Fare to the Norfolk Hotel should be about one hundred and seventy shillings. I exchanged a hundred-dollar bill for local currency, inside, at the bank window.” Adjusting to the light inside the taxi, her eyes narrowed. “What’s the matter with you? What happened?”

  “Get in, please.”

  She sat on the backseat. “Can’t take a little jet lag?”

  “Close the door, please.”

  “Do I look as badly as you do? Fletch, what’s the matter?”

  Speaking softly, he said, “I just saw someone get murdered. Stabbed to death. Blood.” He tried to rub the brilliant sunlight out of his eyes. “Blood everywhere.”

  “My God! You’re serious!” She sat closer to him on the seat. “Everywhere where?”

  “Men’s room.”

  She, too, spoke softly. “What do you mean, you saw a murder? My God, this is terrible.”

  At the back of the car, the driver was trying to arrange the trunk lid so it would not fly up and bounce as they went along the road.

  Eyes closed, facedown, Fletch pressed his fingers against his forehead and cheekbones. “When I went into the men’s room, a guy was standing at the basin washing his hands. I went into a cabinet. While I was sitting there, another guy came in. They began shouting at each other. Below the cabinet door I saw their feet get excited, do this crazy dance. There was a loud shout from one of them, agony, distress.” Barbara put her arm over Fletch’s shoulder. “I came out as quickly as I could. The second man, the man I hadn’t seen before, was slumped in a corner, dead. There was blood everywhere, coming from just below his ribs. There was a bloody hand streak on the wall. His eyes were open, staring at the door. The water was still running in the basin. In the basin was a knife. The water in the basin was red.”

  “You’re sure he was dead?”

  “He wasn’t blinking.”

  “My God, Fletch. What are we going to do?” She looked through her closed window to the airport terminal.

  “I don’t know. What can we do?”

  “What have you done so far?”

  “I’ve thrown up.”

  “You look it.”

  �
�Into one of the other basins. I cleaned up after myself.”

  “Nice boy.” She took one of his hands in hers. “Do you think anyone else knows about this yet?”

  Fletch looked through the window at the people standing on the sidewalk. “No one seems very excited.”

  “We must tell someone.” Her hand went for the door handle.

  “Wait a minute.” He took her hand. “Let’s think a minute.”

  “What good is thinking going to do? Something terrible has happened. Somebody got murdered. You saw it. We have to tell someone.”

  “Barbara, just wait a minute.”

  “Can you identify the murderer? The first man in the men’s room?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Middle-aged. Slim. Thinning, sandy hair. Pencil moustache. Khaki clothes. Safari jacket.”

  “What were they arguing about?”

  “I couldn’t tell. Foreign language. Portuguese, I think.”

  “Fletch, we have to tell someone.”

  “Barbara, you’re not thinking.”

  “What’s to think about? You saw a murder.”

  “We’ve just arrived in Kenya. We don’t know how things are here. Because of the skis, the ski clothes, we made clowns of ourselves coming through customs.”

  “Come on. That was funny.”

  “Yeah. And the press will report we were not acting normally going through customs. We seemed confused.”

  “I am confused.”

  “I know. I’ve written reports like that. Barbara, we attracted the attention of the two gun-carrying soldiers.”

  “True.”

  “What are we doing in Kenya?”

  “What are we doing in Kenya with skis?”

  “We’re here to meet my father. Prove it. There’s this washed-out letter inviting us. It’s illegible! We’re not on very solid ground here.”

  “You’re just reporting a murder.”

  “I don’t want to have anything to do with a murder. This isn’t California. We’ve just arrived in a foreign country. We don’t know what it’s like here. I go into a men’s room. There’s someone in there alive. I come out and report there is someone else in the men’s room who is dead? And you expect people to believe I had nothing to do with it? Come on, Barbara. What would you think? I didn’t come halfway around the world to be taken off immediately in handcuffs and leg irons to the local police warehouse.”

  “Did anyone notice you go into the men’s room?”

  “How do I know?”

  “Or come out?”

  “Barbara …”

  “You’re right. Until a better suspect comes along, you’re the best the police would have.”

  “Just an airport incident.”

  “You have no evidence that there was another guy, a third guy, in the men’s room?”

  “Nothing but my word. And that’s the word of a guy who has just arrived on the equator carrying skis and ski clothes, waving an illegible invitation from a man whom the courts in California declared dead years ago.”

  “Shaky ground.”

  “Without a leg to stand on.”

  “Fletch, we have been moving pretty fast here.”

  “Yeah. Lots of fun. Until something goes wrong.”

  Annoyed, Barbara looked through the window at the terminal again. “Why didn’t your father meet us at the airport? He’s a pilot. He has to know where the airport is!”

  Fletch didn’t say anything. He exhaled slowly.

  “Your breath smells like an old cat’s,” Barbara said. “Do you still feel sick?”

  “Good thing British Air didn’t give us much breakfast.”

  The driver passed by Fletch’s window.

  “Barbara, don’t say anything about this the driver can hear.”

  Barbara sighed. “Your decision.”

  Before starting the engine, the driver turned around in the front seat and looked at Fletch. “Jambo.”

  “Habari,” Fletch breathed.

  The driver’s forehead wrinkled. “Mzuri sana.”

  “My husband’s sick,” Barbara said. “Must be something he ate.”

  For the first time, Fletch heard the two-note song, B flat, F: “Sorry.”

  In a land where people, even a broad-shouldered taxi driver, sang so sweetly, so gently, their simple courtesies, “Oh, I see. Sorry,” how could Fletch possibly have seen what he just saw? A clean, public lavatory turned into a blood-splattered, blood-streaked, blood-puddled room of horror in less time than it took for him to relieve himself. Like seeing a snake come out of a hen’s egg. Again, Fletch rubbed his eyes with his fists. The man sat in a pool of blood, spraddle-legged on the floor in the corner of the room, his neck twisted, his eyes staring unblinking at the door, blood everywhere below his rib cage.

  “Damn!” Barbara expostulated. “Your father didn’t come to meet us at the airport.”

  Softly, Fletch said, “I guess he didn’t.”

  As the taxi pulled away from the curb it passed a group of people packing into a van. From behind the van walked quickly the first man Fletch had seen in the men’s room, thinning combed hair, pencil moustache: the murderer. He carried his safari jacket rolled up in his hand. Small sections of his khaki trousers were dark brown, wet.

  Fletch said, “Hey, wait a minute.”

  The taxi slowed. The driver looked at Fletch through the rearview mirror.

  Barbara asked, “Are you going to be sick?”

  The man, the murderer, had his hand on the door handle of a parked car. He was looking around.

  Fletch did feel sick again.

  “Go ahead,” Barbara said to the driver. “He’ll be all right.”

  The taxi proceeded through the gate. The moment had passed.

  Barbara took Fletch’s hand onto her lap. “You going to be all right?”

  “I’ll be all right. Just a shock. The last thing I expected to see.”

  “It was the last thing someone did see.” She squeezed his hand. “Welcome to Africa.”

  “What in hell are we doing here?”

  “When you arrive at a ski lodge in Colorado you’re handed a cup of hot chocolate.”

  “Somehow,” Fletch said, “I don’t think this welcoming was arranged by the Kenyan Tourist Bureau.”

  “No,” Barbara said. “But I would have expected your father to be here. He arranged the tickets. He knew when we were arriving. Altogether, it would have been a help having him here.”

  Again, Fletch exhaled, heavily.

  Slowly, on the drive into Nairobi from the airport Fletch became more alert to his surroundings.

  The taxi went at a sedate pace. Worriedly, the driver kept glancing in the rearview mirror. As they went along, the trunk lid bounced higher and higher.

  The snow skis sticking out of the trunk of a taxi driving into Nairobi, Kenya, attracted a lot of attention. Other drivers smiled at them, blew their horns, waved at what appeared to be a joke or, at least, something funny. People on the sidewalks pointed. A few people seemed to know, or were able to figure out, what they were. Others just found two blue fangs sticking out the back of a flapping Mercedes funny enough.

  As they began to go around a rotary, Fletch saw, on his left, a children’s playground. Everywhere in the playground were oversize traffic signs, STOP, RAILROAD CROSSING, WAIT, WALK, CAUTION.

  Fletch said, “People here like their kids.”

  Barbara frowned at him. “People everywhere like their kids.”

  “I’ve never seen an urban park dedicated to teaching kids traffic signs before.”

  The car slowed before making a U-turn to pull up at the front door of the Norfolk Hotel.

  “Oh, no,” Barbara said.

  “Oh, no, what? It’s beautiful.”

  The hotel looked like a Tudor hunting lodge in tropical sunlight. In front, a deep, covered veranda, a bar/restaurant, ran half the length of the building.

  “Look at all those people.” />
  “So what?”

  “Oh, nothing,” Barbara said. “I don’t mind pulling up in front of all those people, getting out of the car with a ghostly young man who clearly has been sick all over himself, putting my snow skis on my shoulder, and walking into a tropical hotel. Why should I mind?”

  “Okay.” Fletch started to get out of the taxi. “Stay here. I’ll send you out a poached egg.”

  “Either we’re going to end up in a Kenyan jail,” Barbara said, following him, “or an asylum for the insane.”

  “Pay the driver, Barbara. You’ve got the money.”

  “I’ll tip him,” Barbara said, “asking him to forgive us and forget us.”

  In fact, the big doorman took the skis out of the trunk, brought them into the lobby, and stood them up against the wall as if this were something he did hourly.

  A few people on the veranda looked up and nodded at Fletch and Barbara.

  In the people’s eyes was little more than mild curiosity.

  “Hello?”

  There was a hesitation. “Is this Mr. Fletcher?”

  “Is this Mr. Fletcher, too?” Fletch answered.

  There was another pause. “My name’s Carr. I’m a friend of your father’s. Are you all up there?”

  “All who?” Fletch asked. “Up where?”

  “Is your father with you? With you and your wife, in your room?”

  “I haven’t seen him,” Fletch said. “Ever.”

  “Oh. He told me we’d all meet here, on Lord Delamere’s Terrace. For a drink. Rather think the old boy wanted me along for moral support, don’t you know. I understand the situation. Father and son meeting for the first time.”

  Barbara was in the shower.

  “More than I do, I expect.”

  Fletch had opened the knapsacks, gotten his shaving kit out.

  “Well, I’ve got a table on the terrace. He’ll turn up.”

  Slanted along the wall, propped against the windows, were the two pairs of snow skis. Outside the window, brilliant flowers were everywhere.

  “I’ll come down,” Fletch said. “How will I know you?”

  “Well, we’ll be two proper-looking gentlemen, I trust, with drinks in front of our faces, all eyes on the front door of the hotel.”