“Is that what they say? I guess it’s what we said at the time.”
“That you had Peterman down on the sidewalk and were strangling him when you were pulled off.”
“Yeah,” Koller sighed. “It felt good.” Fletch said:
“She must have been one fantastical woman.”
“I wish I’d ever known a woman worth strangling someone over.” Koller lit a cigarette. “Methinks, mine host, you enquire as to why I was strangling Steve Peterman.”
“Just curious,” said Fletch. “Did he stick you with one of his telephone bills?”
Koller took a drink. “Happy to tell you. Because my strangling Steve Peterman three years ago is the best evidence I’ve got that I didn’t stab him yesterday.”
Fletch waited. The tip of Koller’s cigarette glowed brightly.
“I caught him out in a fraud,” Koller said. “I resented it. I hated it. Peterman wasn’t the first to work this scam, and he wasn’t the last. But, Fletcher, this business can be so dirty… sometimes it gets to you. What he was doing was raising money for a film which didn’t exist, and never would. He had gotten ahold of something which looked like a filmscript, a story about some South American patron and his daughter and a priest and a revolutionary—a complete mess. Anybody who knew anything about the business would know it wasn’t a filmscript. It was just a hundred pages of people saying hello and goodbye and making speeches at each other. He had been out peddling this to people who didn’t know better across this broad land—you know, the doctors and the shoemakers, the widows and the orphans, all who dream of making a financial killing on a big movie while having their lives touched with glamor. They’d be invited to the opening in New York. Also the Academy Award ceremony of course. He told the suckers he just wanted start-up money, to be paid back when and if he got the film capitalized.”
“But not to be paid back if he did not get the film capitalized?”
“Of course not. Told them it was going to be filmed in El Salvador. Even had an El Salvadorean S. A. Had no intention of trying to capitalize it. You never heard of this scam?”
“No.”
“I figure he’d raised about a half million dollars, all of which had disappeared down this El Salvadorean hole.” Koller stubbed out his cigarette. “I hated this for two reasons. It’s bad for the business. The next guy who goes out and tries to raise start-up money for a film might be honest. The more of these little cheats there are running around, the harder it is for the honest guy.” Koller drank. “The second reason, of course, was that he was using my name. He had told these people maybe he could get Sy Koller to direct. That we’d had conversations. That we were in negotiations.”
“Not true?”
“I’d never met the son of a bitch. First I’d heard about it was when Sonny Fields told me he’d heard it was going on.” Koller lit another cigarette, his lighter flaring in the dark garden. “So, one night after more to drink than was good for me, I met Peterman in a Los Angeles bar, pulled him out to the sidewalk by his coat collar, proceeded to hit him upside the head. He fell to the sidewalk. I sat on top of him and proceeded to throttle him. It felt real good. His neck was soft. No muscle at all. Wonder I didn’t kill him before nosey people interfered.”
“Why didn’t Peterman press charges?”
“Why didn’t I have him arrested for fraud?”
“I don’t know.”
“We came to an amicable settlement. Peterman said he was just using this scam to raise money for a real film, somewhere down the road. My career wasn’t looking too good. Aforementioned frantic need to gain employment. So…”
“So… ?”
“I agreed that if he ever had a real film to direct, I would direct it. We laid the fight off on a woman.”
“You blackmailed him.”
“We blackmailed each other. It’s the way much of this business works, old son.”
“And what happened to the half a million dollars?”
“It went into Peterman’s pockets. And then into his shoes and his wife’s furs.”
“So Midsummer Nights Madness came along, starring Moxie Mooney, whom Peterman by then controlled, and Gerry Littleford—”
“And Talcott Cross hires Geoffrey McKensie to direct. I called Steve Peterman.”
“Had you seen the script?”
“No. But I had a pretty good idea it wasn’t much good.”
“Why would you want to direct a loser?”
“Well. … In the three intervening years my career had sunk so low I was getting the bends. You understand?”
“How would directing a stinker help your career?”
“It would prove I could get employed. It would also provide me with some much needed money. You know about money?”
“I’m learning.”
“End of story,” said Koller. “As long as Peterman was producing, Koller was directing. Peterman dead: Koller dead. Ergo the one person absolutely guaranteed not to kill Steven Peterman is your’s truly. Maybe it’s a shameful story,” Koller concluded, “but it’s a hell of an alibi.”
“Fletch?” Moxie’s voice came from the upper balcony of the Blue House. “Are you out there?”
“Yo.” He stepped under the balcony.
She said, “If you give me any of that Romeo crap, I’ll spit on your head.”
“If only your fans could hear you now.”
“Go find Freddy for me, will you? I was sort of rough on him.”
“Yes, you were.”
“If I want criticism,” she said irritably, “I’ll ask for it.”
“You’re asking for it.”
22
After a long silence, while Fletch waited, the man’s voice drawled over the phone, “Sorry. Chief Nachman says she can’t come to the phone now.”
“Please,” said Fletch, with as much dignity as he could enlist. “Tell her it’s her earwig calling.”
“Earwig? You mean that little no-see-’um bug?”
“Right.” Alone in the study at the back of The Blue House Fletch smiled. “Earwig.”
There was another long silence before Chief of Detectives Roz Nachman picked up. “Yes, Fletcher?”
“Thank you for answering, Chief. You’re working late.”
“Has one of your house guests become overwhelmed with remorse and confessed to murder?”
“It’s a classier crime than that.”
“I know it is.”
“I have a line of investigation for you, though. Just a suggestion, really.”
“Suggest away.”
“Steve Peterman must have had some kind of a car. A rented car or something. Everyone was up and down that Route 41 so much, between the two beaches.”
“I suppose so.”
“I suggest you check Peterman’s car to see if it’s been in an accident. A hit-and-run accident.”
Nachman did not pause long. “You talking about McKensie’s wife?”
“Just a thought. Wouldn’t take much to check it out.”
“I see.”
“For what it’s worth,” Fletch said. “All right.”
“Is there still nothing showing up on all that film?”
“Nothing.”
“And the experts aren’t discovering anything funny about the set?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s a real significant fact in itself.”
“Good night, Irwin. I’m busy.”
23
The inside, the bar area of Durty Harry’s, was virtually empty, but there was a huge crowd sitting and standing on the patio, all facing into the same corner.
Fletch got a beer from the bar and went out to the patio.
Quite a diverse collection of people had gathered. There were the tourists in the best light colored clothing one can really only buy in a big city but never really wear in one. Their faces and arms and legs were red and stiff with sunburn. There were the genuine denizens of Key West, the Conchs, who prefer to keep themselves as pale as Scandanavians in deep Scandanavian winters. They think of the sun as enemy, and run through it from building to car and car to house. There were some art-folk of all ages, their faces and bodies looking as if they’d lived plenty, their bright, quick eyes showing they wanted to live plenty more. There were the cocaine cowboys in their stringy leather and denim; the girls in their full skirts and full blouses and dead hair. And there were the drunks, with the weird blue in their skin which results from mixing too much constant alcohol with too much constant sun.