Moxie’s eyes were full of the sunlight reflected from the sea. “I’ve always heard Cuba is a gorgeous country.”
Up to that point, they had said little to each other.
They had walked to a Cuban-American restaurant and had a quiet breakfast. Some of the people there had recognized Moxie and smiled at her in a friendly way and kept their dignity by otherwise leaving her alone. During breakfast, Moxie wondered aloud if Stella Littleford would have a scar on her forehead forever and Fletch said he thought Stella had suffered a concussion as well because there had been quite a lot of rum in the bottle that had hit her. The senora of that restaurant made a picnic lunch for them and put it in a cardboard box. Fletch also bought a six-pack of cold soft drinks.
They walked the long way around, along the water, until they came to a beach where Fletch rented a catamaran. He put the food and the drinks aboard. Boys on the beach helped them push the catamaran into the surf. Fletch boosted Moxie aboard and then climbed aboard himself.
The process of launching put enough water in the bottom of the boat to soak the cardboard picnic box. Moxie showed Fletch the soggy box as he was finding the wind and beginning to sail on it and they laughed. She rescued the sandwiches and the fruit and rolled the box into a ball and dropped it into the bottom of the boat.
Moxie was wearing her bikini and she removed the top but she kept herself more or less in the shade of the sail. She said, “Talk to me.”
“About what?”
“Something nice, please.”
“Edith Howell says if you’re not talking you’re dead, or something.”
“If Edith Howell ever stopped talking everyone else would die. Of shock.”
“She has her eyes on your father’s millions.”
Moxie snorted. “Millions of empty cognac bottles. She’s welcome to ’em.” She put herself on her side and trailed her fingers in the water. “Talk to me about something nice. Like how come you’re so rich.”
“You’re asking me if I’m rich?”
“Well, you’re not working. You have that nice place in Italy.”
“That’s sort of a rude question, from a girl I just met.”
“I know. Answer me anyway.”
“It’s a long story.”
“I’ve got all day.”
“It’s sort of an impossible story to tell. In detail.”
“Did you do something wrong, Fletch? Are you a crook?”
“Who, me? No. I don’t think so.”
“What happened?”
“Not much. One night I found myself alone in a room with a lot of cash. The cash was there because I had been hired to do a bad thing. I had not done the bad thing. But the bad thing had happened anyway. Coincidentally.”
“Boy, why don’t you spare me a few details?”
“I told you it’s a long story.”
“So you took the money…”
“I had to. Leaving it there would have embarrassed people. It would have raised questions.”
“Robbery as an act of kindness?”
“I thought so at the time.”
“What did you do with the money?”
“I didn’t know what to do with it. I had never been very good with money.”
“No foolin’. I remember the time…”
“What time?”
“Forget it. I’m still mad.”
“There should never be money between friends.”
“That’s it,” said Moxie. “There wasn’t any. Unfortunately, you had invited me to one of Los Angeles’ most posh eateries.”
“Oh. That time.”
“That time.”
“Yes.”
“I wouldn’t mind getting my watch back sometime. The one the restaurant took.”
“A Piaget, wasn’t it?”
“With little diamonds.”
Fletch asked, “What time is it?”
She put herself on her stomach. “Who cares?”
Fletch said: “Exactly.”
Moxie inhaled slowly and exhaled with a great sigh. “Oh, Fletch. Oh, Fletch—you never change.”
He smiled at her, showing her all his front teeth. “I just get better.”
“Worse. So what did you do with all this money you stole?”
“I didn’t steal it.”
“It just fell into your lap.”
“Something like that. Long story. The money was on its way to South America, see, so I went with it. I’m very big on seeing actions completed. Essential to my psyche.”
“Then how come you haven’t finished writing the biography of Edgar Arthur Tharp?”
“I’m working on it. I was in South America. I didn’t know what to do with the money. Maybe I felt a little badly about having it. Maybe I was trying to get rid of it. So I bought gold with it.”
“Oh, no.”
“I did.”
“And the price of gold shot up?”
“Someone mentioned that to me. In a bar. So I felt worse. I got rid of the gold. Quick. Yuck. I hated the oil companies, thought they were given’ the world a royal screwin’, they were bound to get their comeuppance—”
“So you put your money into oil companies?”
“Yes. I did.”
“And their value shot up?”
“So I heard. That made me feel worse.”
“I can believe.”
“I got rid of that yucky stuff as quick as I could. I’ve done terribly.”
“And where’s the money now?”
“Well, I decided my investment policy wasn’t very sound. Very responsible. You know what I mean? I had been buying things I didn’t like.”
“So you decided to buy things you did like?”
“I decided to use the money to help out, instead of hinder. I heard General Motors was having such a tough time nobody was buying its stock.”
“So you bought General Motors?”
“So I bought General Motors. And the cable-electronic companies looked risky, so I put some money into them.”
“Good Lord, Fletch. God! You’re so incompetent!”
“Well, I never said I was any good with money.”
“You should have taken a course. How To Invest.”
“Yes,” Fletch said. “I suppose I should have.”
“You just never cared about money!”
“No,” said Fletch. “I don’t.”
When they got to the Gulf Stream she went overboard and he lowered the sails and, except for the light lines to the boat he tied to his ankles, he got naked, too, and went overboard and they played and made love in the water, only the light, drifting boat kept pulling him away from her by the ankles and he kept getting too much water up his nose and they both laughed so hard they ran out of breath and nearly drowned but they did succeed, but they were slow to leave the water and climb back into the boat anyway.
“As long as we’re talking about money,” he said.
“Is this still nice talk?”
“Jumping Cow Productions, Incorporated,” he said.
They had sailed back to an empty beach and run the catamaran up onto the fine sand. They took their food and drinks ashore and had a picnic. The drinks were very warm but they drank them anyway, for the sake of putting fluid into their bodies. The sandwiches had dried out. Mostly they ate the fruit.
After eating, they lay in the sand. It was late enough in the afternoon and there were enough passing clouds so the sun would not burn their tanned skin. Fletch waited a long while. Finally she put herself on her side and she put her hand on his hip and he put himself on his side as well and put his head on his hand. Her face told him he had her attention, but she did not expect to talk about money at this time.
“Tell me, Moxie,” he said. “What does the cow jump over?”
“The moon,” she answered easily. Then her face changed. She looked at him as if he had struck her. Then she rolled over onto her back. She covered her eyes with one hand. “Mooney,” she groaned.
“Right. Moxie Mooney.” She continued to lay flat on her back beside him on the sand, her hand covering her eyes from the sun. “You are sole proprietor of Jumping Cow Productions, Incorporated. Martin Satterlee called me this morning.”