“Nuts!” she said. “Nuts! Nuts! Nuts!”
“I think it’s nice.”
“Against safety regulations,” Moxie said. “Have that many people in the aisles. Utterly nuts.”
“The obligations of talent,” Fletch said. “Different rules.”
“He’s a drunk,” Moxie said easily. “He’s a mad, raving drunk.”
“But you love him.”
“Hell,” she said. “I love him about as much as I love Los Angeles. He’s just very big on my landscape.”
18
Dinner at the Blue House was conch chowder, red snapper and Key lime pie. Mrs. Lopez provided the best Key West dining.
Before dinner, Lopez told Fletch Global Cable News had called several times and would like him to return the call. Fletch thanked him and did not return the call.
During dinner Frederick Mooney said to Moxie, “But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter—or rather a disease that is in my flesh, which I must needs call mine.”
“Oh, no,” Moxie said. “More Lear.” Edith Howell said,
“Freddy’s a learing old man.”
“And you, Madame,” said Frederick Mooney, “are a bag of wind.”
And during dinner, Sy Koller said, “I knew something was going on between Dan Buckley and Steve Peterman. Buckley was not happy with Peterman…” He ran through his theory of the murder again, adding the idea this time that may-be Peterman had gotten Buckley into something illegal…
Moxie said nothing.
Stella Littleford, looking even smaller and more bedraggled than usual, said, “Marge Peterman.” As she spoke, she kept giving sad glances at her husband, who, after his swim, was still acting a little jumpy and at first kept his smiles perfunctory and his conversation to the mannerly minimum. “Wives can get to the point,” Stella said, “where divorce isn’t adequate. How long had the Petermans been married—ten years? And this was the first time I’ve ever seen Marge Peterman with her husband. I didn’t even know there was a Marge Peterman. And all this time Peterman’s been runnin’ all over the world, going to bed with people, doin’ what he wanted…”
“I don’t know,” Fletch said. “Did Peterman jump in and out of bed with people, Moxie?”
“Steve was interested in only one thing,” Moxie said, performing fine surgery on her fish. “Money. And talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. About money.”
“A wife gets tired of gettin’ shoved aside,” Stella Littleford insisted. “Of everybody tellin’ her she’s not important. Of bein’ told to do this, do that, do the other thing, and otherwise shut up and stay in the background. That could drive anybody to murder.”
“Stella killed Peterman,” giggled Gerry Littleford. “Out of respect for his wife.”
Stella colored. “Okay,” she said. “Why was Marge Peterman there? She’d never shown up before. There was no weekend planned, or anything. Our work schedule gave Peterman no more time off than it gave us. We had weeks to go before a break.”
“Is what you’re saying, Stella,” Fletch asked. “Is that Marge Peterman showed up on location with the intention of killing her husband?”
“Sure.”
“Does anybody know if she was expected?” Fletch looked around at the faces at his table.
“I don’t think she was,” Sy Koller said. “When you’re on location, directors—at least some of us—prefer not to have wives around…” He looked quickly at Geoffrey McKensie and then away. “Extraneous people.” He looked at Frederick Mooney who was blinking drunkenly over his plate. His eyes settled on Stella Littleford. “Apt to be damned distracting. It’s tough enough, you know, dealing with the emotions, the feelings, of the people working on a film. When those people have wives around, and husbands around to back them up, echo everything they say: lovers, retainers, and the odd relative …” Again Koller glanced at Mooney. “All telling them they’re right, they’re wrong, they’re this, they’re that, they look tired this morning—” Koller’s voice went to a bitchy falsetto, “—and is that a pimple coming under your nose? And tell that Sy Koller that scene will never be right until he gives you a stronger exit line… Makes it damned tough for the director.” Sy Koller laughed at himself. “Didn’t mean to take advantage of a simple question and climb on my hobby horse. No,” he said to Fletch. “I don’t think Marge Peterman was expected. I think Peterman and I were of one mind on this topic. I bribed my own wife off with a trip to Belgium. I think if Steve knew his wife was coming he could have asked her not to.”
“And she would have stayed home in her closet,” Stella said with disgust.
“Stroking her chinchilla,” put in Edith Howell.
“Well, this time Marge Peterman didn’t stay home,” insisted Stella Littleford. “She showed up on location and stabbed the bastard.”
Gerry snickered.
“Well, where was she during the taping of The Dan Buckley Show?” Stella asked.
“With me,” Fletch answered.
“And who the hell are you?”
“Nobody.”
“He’s our host,” said Edith Howell. “Would somebody please pass the wine?”
“And later,” said Stella, “where was she? We found her over there behind those trailers.”
“With me,” Fletch said.
“Looked to me like she was hiding,” said Stella.
“It’s decided.” Gerry Littleford put down his knife and fork. “Stella killed Steve Peterman and thus struck another blow for the equality of women.”
Mooney’s eyes kept closing and his head kept bobbing and he kept eating. He was napping during dinner.
“Investors,” said Geoff McKensie.
“Yeah,” mocked Moxie. “Let’s hear it from the investors.”
McKensie wrinkled his eyebrows at her. Apparently, like most taciturn men, when McKensie spoke, he expected to be heard. He waited for attention and then spoke in a tone far friendlier than what he had to say to the people present: “I’ve been thinking it out. Who had the most reason to kill Steve Peterman? He was really muckin’ this film up, he was. Here the company had hired a first class director—me. I only took on the job with the understandin’ I could have a free hand with the script. I spent months goin’ over that script. My wife and I flew halfway ’round this spinnin’ earth. I spent a week in California, thrashing the new script out with Talcott Cross. He approved everything I wanted to do. ’Course, he’s a professional, he is. I come out here to this American boot camp for heaven—”
“I think he means Florida,” Fletch whispered to Moxie.
“—and here’s this Peterman bloke rollin’ ’round on his back like a pig turnin’ everything on the menu into garbage.”
Sy Koller’s color was deepening. “You mean, he fired you.”
“Right he did,” said McRensie. “And he hires a second-rate, has-been director—” McKensie jerked his thumb at his directorial table mate. “—who proceeds to film the original lousy script as if it was half-good. As if it was any good.”
“Excuse me for living,” said Sy Koller. He was a deep crimson.
“Come on, Geoff,” said Edith Howell. “Be fair. You were the victim of a terrible, terrible tragedy. Your wife was killed. You couldn’t expect to carry on—”
“I’m not used to yankee-land,” said McKensie. “With a little luck, I never will be, I now think. But where I come from—Down Under—when something like that happens a decent interval takes place. A chap’s allowed to take the blow and recover.”
“Come on, McKensie,” Gerry Littleford said. “You were in no shape to direct after your wife’s death. You still aren’t. How could you be?”