Fletch Reflected Page 8

  “Well, I won, didn’t I?”

  “You won.”

  “I mean, there’s no point in getting into racing unless you’re willing to spend the money. That’s understood.”

  “Six hundred and fifty thousand dollars seems like a lot of money,” Albert said. “To me.”

  “Not to my father. I don’t have his support at all. Every time I see him, he asks me what business schools I’ve applied to. Everything is what he wants me to do, not what I want to do.”

  “What business schools have you applied to?”

  “None.”

  “I thought you had.”

  “I lied.”

  “He wants you to learn Business Administration so you can help him out.”

  “Who cares about his business? He built it; he can suffer for it.”

  “It pays the bills.”

  “There’s enough money so no one needs to work at it. No one needs to work at anything. Discipline! I’m disciplined.”

  “Sure,” Albert said. “Ingest and press the pedal to the metal.”

  “I graduated from Vanderbilt, didn’t I? He wanted me to do that.”

  “Yeah.” Sorting towels, Jack heard Albert chuckle. “You hired other people to take your exams.”

  “Well, I graduated, didn’t I? That’s what he wanted. Now I want to improve the car I’ve got, two versions of it. I’m already signed up for a dozen races through this year, and I don’t have the perfect car for it.”

  “You’ve got a great car. It almost gets away from you now.”

  “I can handle it. What am I gonna do?”

  “Use some of your own money? What, he gave you ten million in stock on your twenty first birthday?”

  “Why should I spend my own money? The Radliegh Mirror Car, I call it. My father should pay. It’s good advertising. Anyhow, we’re not supposed to sell the company’s stock. I will, though, if I have to.”

  “The mirror car is blinding. To the other drivers. It shouldn’t be allowed.”

  “I have other things to do with my own money.”

  “Stick it up your nose.”

  “Stick it up your ass.”

  “Go ahead. I’d know what to do with it. Get away from this crazy place. From you.”

  Jack wheeled the towel basket into the laundry and put the towels into the industrial-sized washer.

  He planned to ride back to the village later and use the pay phone.

  The idea of calling his father pleased him. He had never been able to do so until recently.

  He had always felt the general need for his father.

  Now he felt a specific need.

  What would his father think of all this?

  10

  “Want a beer?”

  The young man who lived in the apartment next to Jack, in the same cottage, stood in Jack’s door with two unopened cans of beer in his hands.

  Jack had said “Hi” to him when they both arrived back from work shortly after five. Jack was bracing his bike in the stand.

  Opening the door to his apartment, the other young man had said: “Fruity bikes.”

  He was wearing boots, jeans, and a checked white and blue shirt.

  There was no other bike in front of that cottage.

  “Sure,” Jack said. “I’ll have a beer.”

  “My name’s Peppy.”

  He was a tall, lean young man with clear, naturally dark skin and curly dark hair.

  “Jack,” Jack said. “Where’d you get the beer?”

  “From the duffel bag under my bed.” Grinning, Peppy popped one beer can and handed it to Jack. “I buy a week’s supply on my day off. It’s not cold.”

  “It’s warm.”

  “So?” Peppy popped his own can and swallowed half the beer in it. “It’s beer.” He belched.

  With the door open behind Peppy, a light breeze coming in, Jack smelled animals.

  “What do you do with the empties?”

  “Put ’em back in the duffel. Take ’em back to town with me when I go.”

  “People at the car compound don’t notice you’re carryin’ a duffel bag that clanks?”

  “I hide it in the bushes. Pick it up on the way out; drop it off on the way back.”

  “You smuggle beer.”

  “Yup,” Peppy said. “You find yourself doin’ some ridiculous things, around here.”

  Jack sat on the Hide-A-Bed couch. “You work in the stables?”

  “How’d you guess? Because I smell of horseshit? That’s my natural odor. My pappy smelled the same way.” Peppy sat in one of the two white wooden chairs at the round table near the front window of the one-room-and-bath apartment. “I work the horses. Clean stables. Shovel shit. Want some?”

  “Naw,” Jack said. “I’ve got some hamburger for supper.”

  “Same shit.”

  “How many horses are there?”

  “Eighteen now.”

  “That many?”

  “Mostly unused. The old man rides. One or two of the young executives trying to attract his attention ride. Real dudes. You should see the one Japanese vice president of something or other ride. His head wobbles around so much, I swear it will fall off. You can tell he hates riding, poor guy; thinks it’s somethin’ he has to do for the glory of Radliegh Mirror, or somethin’. The old man tries to organize trail rides once in a while but he hardly ever can get any of his family to go. Chet’s been riding, recently. You know? He put me on this place. Guests occasionally ride, some of them real good. I have to exercise the horses every day, clean them up again, do it again the next day, keep them gentle. You find yourself doin’ some ridiculous things, around here. You ride?”

  “No. But, if you like to ride, it seems like a good job.”

  “Lonely,” Peppy said. “Never been lonelier in my life. Nobody, nothin’ around here, either. Growing up, Oklahoma, I lived with horses, slept with them. Can’t get away from them. I guess I am one, after all.”

  “One what?”

  “A horse.”

  “How long you been here, on the place?”

  “Three months. Four. Five. I have to be someplace. Do somethin’.”

  “Where did you meet Chet?”

  “In a bar. In New York City.”

  “Not a good place for a horse, I think. What were you doing there?”

  Peppy didn’t answer at first. “Trying to get away from horses? Trying to stop being a horse? Trying not to be lonely?” Peppy turned his big-eyed long face toward Jack. “I look like a horse, don’t I? I move like a horse.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I am a horse.” Peppy tipped the beer can against his lips. “Neigh.”

  Jack wondered how much beer Peppy had drunk.

  “I hear a horse died the other day.”

  Peppy nodded. “Under the old man. Dead before it hit the ground. Nearly rolled over on him. If the old man hadn’t been quick, it would have broke his leg for sure.”

  “That all?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just broken his leg?”

  “If the old man had been ridin’ hard, jumpin’ fences as he usually does, it could have killed him. ’Least he hasn’t been back.”

  “Who?”

  “The old man. Doc Radliegh. Hasn’t ridden since. That surprises me. I thought the old man would be back the next morning lookin’ to ride one of the other horses. He has eighteen of them left. But, no. Still, I’m there at the stables every mornin’ with a horse saddled, ready for him.”

  “And he hasn’t showed up?”

  “No.”

  “Why not? Did the horse dyin’ on him scare him, do you think?”

  “In a way, maybe.” Peppy shrugged. “He’s doin’ less of everything these days. His Jeep nearly threw him too, I hear. All his toys are breakin’. He’s spendin’ more of his time in his office, his lab.”

  “His lab. blew up this afternoon.”

  “That so?”

  “Someone got killed there. A Docto
r Wilson.”

  “I’ll be damned. Another explosion?”

  “Lethal gas. Then an explosion.”

  “I’ll be damned. The old man’s gettin’ more and more corralled, ain’t he? Damn near hobbled, I’d say.”

  “What was wrong with the horse?”

  “Not a damned thing. It just keeled over. They’re talkin’ about it havin’ a heart attack, but it didn’t.”

  “You sure?”

  “Well, it could have,” Peppy said. “But that horse had more wind than any of ’em. It never had been short of breath, unduly. He could go straight up a steep hill and then break into a full-blown run. Which is why the old man liked him. Never had the slightest pain in his forelegs. Three years old.”

  “Was the horse killed, do you think? Poisoned, or something?”

  “Something,” Peppy said. “We’ll never know. I was told to get that horse buried before I ever pissed again.”

  “A good horse like that,” Jack said. “I don’t know. I’d think the old man would want an autopsy done on it. Him.”

  “Me, too. Always a chance of a virus, or somethin’, affect the other horses. We’d need to know about it. No, sir: ‘Bury that horse before it’s cold, Peppy,’ is what the old man said. So that’s what I did. You find yourself doin’ some ridiculous things, around here.”

  “So Doctor Radliegh has never gone back to the stables for his morning ride. You think someone is tryin’ to get him, Peppy?”

  “Doc Radliegh?” Peppy drained his beer can. “You’d have to be a fool not to suspicion it, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Is anybody doin’ anything about it? Why doesn’t he get out of here?”

  Peppy shrugged. “What do I know? I’m just a horse.”

  “You got any ideas who might have poisoned the horse?”

  “Anybody could have. Nothing is locked around here. Haven’t you noticed?” Peppy pointed at Jack’s front door.

  “There isn’t even a lock on your own front door. Sure hope you left your diamonds to home.”

  “We’re not safe in our beds.”

  “You got that right.”

  “Who around here would know how to poison a horse?”

  “Anybody. Poisonin’ a horse ain’t difficult. Horses are poor, stupid critturs, like us. They can kick ya’, throw ya’, break your leg against a fence rail, but they ain’t got no defenses against what you really can do to them, any time, all the time.”

  A large form blotted the sun out of the doorway.

  Against the light, Jack could not see who it was.

  “I want a ridin’ lesson,” a man’s voice said.

  Peppy stood up. “Yes, sir, Caballero.”

  “Bareback.” The man giggled.

  “That takes a good horse,” Peppy said. “One who won’t throw ya.”

  Jack got up and crossed the room so he could see who was in the doorway.

  “You get obstreperous,” Chet drawled. “I’ll just pull down on your ears.”

  He lunged at Peppy. He grabbed him by the ears. He pulled his head down. He raised his own knee. Gently he nuzzled Peppy’s nose against his own thigh muscle.

  Chet laughed and let go of Peppy. “Come on.” He returned to the door. He said to Jack, “You want to join us?”

  Red-faced, Peppy took Jack’s beer can from his hand. He tried to crush a can in each hand simultaneously. Jack’s half-full can squirted beer on the floor. “Oops! Sorry.”

  Chet had gone next door.

  Peppy said, “You find yourself doin’ some ridiculous things, around here.”

  •

  Through the wall, Jack heard Chet and Peppy making noise in the next apartment.

  Jack stuffed his swimsuit in a pocket of his shorts and went for a bike ride.

  He rode past the office building, the airport, then around a nine hole golf course.

  In the early dusk there were lights on in the clubhouse. There were a few expensive cars in the parking lot.

  There was neither music nor laughter coming from the clubhouse.

  From it, he could smell food cooking, especially fish.

  Around the greens were executive style homes, with driveways, set deep in perfect landscaping.

  These houses were more different from each other than were the smaller houses around Vindemia Village.

  He biked up the long slope the other side of Vindemia’s Main House. At the top of the hill, he stopped. Legs straddling his bike, he looked around. He believed the roof of the house was five acres. He counted ten enormous blue and white flags flying from tall poles on various places on the roof. Even in a light breeze the huge flags made a whipping sound.

  He heard the murmur of talk.

  Jack looked down into a large, square trellised garden heavy with roses red, yellow, white, even blue. He could see no one.

  Still straddling it, he walked his bike forward a few steps.

  On a bench in the garden sat a man and a woman.

  The man was Doctor Radliegh.

  As he talked, he held the woman’s hand with both his hands in his lap.

  The woman was Shana Staufel.

  She looked up at Jack. After a moment, she smiled at Jack.

  The man did not appear to notice him.

  Jack sat on the bike seat and pedaled on.

  In the village of Vindemia, Jack walked through the Recreation Center building. In the main lounge, a teen-aged boy and girl were playing Ping-Pong. Younger children sat along one wall playing computer games. Four teen-agers sprawled in couches looking at a huge television screen playing a music video not loudly.

  None of the youngsters seemed to notice him.

  Outside, on the veranda, two couples sat together in blue rocking chairs. On a blue wicker table were four tall glasses of what appeared to be iced tea.

  They looked at Jack as he passed by them, but did not speak.

  He was not sure they had been conversing with each other.

  He changed into his swimsuit and alone swam in the huge, lit pool.

  11

  “You see,” Fletch said to Crystal from his lawn chair, “my father was thought to be emotionally evasive. I guess that mixes up my feelings about Jack, and, you. That you didn’t let me know he existed, that I didn’t know Jack existed until two weeks ago tonight … leaves me uncertain as to how to respond to him.”

  “Your father died in childbirth,” Crystal said from inside the handicap van. “So you always said.”

  “Not quite,” Fletch said.

  “He didn’t?”

  “He didn’t.”

  It was after dark.

  The van was in the parking lot of a motel near the room Fletch had taken for himself.

  Inside the van, its side and back doors open to catch the breeze, Crystal sat propped up in her hospital bed.

  Outside the van, on the pavement, Fletch sat in a cheap metallic lawn chair.

  A few people walking to and from their rooms and vehicles had looked at this odd arrangement of a man sitting in a chair on the pavement having a picnic with a woman propped up in bed in a van but none had said anything.

  Crystal and Fletch had shared a supper of buckets of fried chicken, cartons of potato salad, coleslaw, large cups of iced tea.

  As they drove West to Wyoming, Fletch had found it a bother stopping frequently to buy fast food for Crystal. She would complain of hunger just minutes after she had eaten more than he might in a week. He did not consider it his place or expertise to curb her eating, or even comment on it, but he remained amazed at the amount of food she consumed. He felt his unsolicited comments, efforts to restrain her would do no good anyway. It would just hurt and cause her to suffer the more.

  With her, he found himself eating more. Just driving, not getting any real exercise, he was uncomfortable with undigested food constantly in his stomach. He felt sluggish, sleepy. As he drove he became more aware of his stomach against his belt, and he did not like that feeling.

  Much more of a bother was
having to stop at rest areas and help Crystal off her bed, out of the van, using the hydraulic lift, to the women’s room so Crystal could relieve herself. The van had inadequate facilities for such functions. Never before had Fletch realized what a long walk it was from most car parks to the lavatories. Her full weight of over six hundred pounds would lean on Fletch as Crystal swung one fat thigh around her other, stop a moment, sweating and panting, quivering with the exertion of taking a step. People, especially other women and children, would stare at them in amazement, scorn. Crystal’s cheeks would be wet with tears at her humiliation. Breathing hard, she would say, over and over, “Fletch, how did I get this way? How did I get this way?”

  Always on the long, torturous walks, Fletch would scan the other travelers for a strong looking woman with a touch of sympathy in her look. Such a woman he would ask to escort and help Crystal through the use of the women’s room. Some just nodded their heads, “No,” looked away, and went about their own business.

  At the motel he had stayed in the night before, he had had to help her in and out of his bathroom evening and morning and help her through the entire routine himself. He tried to make light of it, but he certainly had not enjoyed it.

  Fletch had always had great love for the human body and quietly remained horrified and depressed by seeing so closely what could happen to it by mere misuse.

  So Fletch was sleeping in motel rooms these two warm nights on the road, Crystal in the van where she was more comfortable. She had read much of the previous night, snacking from bags of useless, greasy food he had bought at a truck stop for her.

  Other than these botherations he was having a fine trip. As Fletch drove the van along America’s good highways, he talked about everything under the sun with Crystal in her bed in back. Their heads were less than a meter away from each other, although Crystal was facing backward and had to repeat some things she said.

  They talked about Jack. Fletch was full of questions about his son. Crystal’s answers were detailed, incisive, understanding, frequently witty, admiring of her son, and, most of all, loving.

  They talked about places they had worked as journalists, stories they had done, people they had known.

  Fletch had many characters he had known, studied, resolved as much as one ever can, saved for “the long ride,” as he had always called it, and this was a long ride, and he described many of them to Crystal.