37

F L E T C H   S A I D, “I’M sure Melanie is looking forward to your reincarnation.”

He turned from the window in time to see Francine’s hands flutter, her effort to keep surprise, alarm from her face. Her final expression was patronizing. “Now what are you talking about?”

“Melanie. Your horse. Your horse in California. No one ever sold your horse.”

“What do you mean, my horse?”

“I don’t get this even slightly.” Standing in front of the window, Fletch shrugged. “You’re Tom Bradley.”

“My God!” Francine said. “Now the man has totally flipped!”

His face screwed in perplexion, again he looked at her breasts. “Maybe.”

“First you told me Enid murdered Tom, and now you’re telling me I am Tom!” Her laugh came entirely from her throat. “Maybe you do need more than half-a-year off!”

Fletch, with the light of the window behind him, peered at her on the divan. “I must say,” he said, “you’re marvelous.”

“Enid hasn’t sold Tom’s horse—Melanie, or whatever her name is—ergo I’m my brother? Enid’s been busy, you know—very busy. She’s been running a family, and a good-sized company. Selling a horse is the last thing she has to worry about.”

“You ride horseback,” Fletch said. “I watched you this morning, on West 89th Street.”

“Yes, I enjoy riding. My brother enjoyed riding. Does that make me my brother?”

“The night we had dinner,” Fletch said, “last Friday night, you spent almost the entire time telling me a long, convoluted, not-very-funny barnyard story.”

“So what? I’m sorry if you didn’t like my story. I’d had a drink. I thought it was funny.”

“Long, not-very-funny dirty jokes are characteristic of Thomas Bradley. As reported to me by Mabel Franscatti, Alex Corcoran, Mary Blaine and Charles Blaine.”

“Tom and I had certain characteristics in common. We’re brother and sister. Fletch, are you insane?”

“Brother … sister. You are your brother.”

“I’m also my own grandfather.”

“Could be.”

“What’s the point of this joke?”

“The point is I have only one piece of paper, when I should have, by this time, three pieces of paper.” He took from his inside jacket pocket Thomas Bradley’s birth certificate and placed it on the coffee table in front of her. “Thomas Bradley was born in Dallas, Texas.”

She nodded. “Thank you. I knew that.”

“I went to Dallas, Sunday,” he said. “By the way, your old neighborhood’s torn down.”

She shrugged. “There goes the neighborhood.”

“You were not born in Dallas, Texas.”

“I told you. I was born in Juneau, Alaska.”

“Tuesday I was in Juneau, Alaska. You were not born in Juneau, Alaska.”

Francine stared at him.

“And Thomas Bradley did not die in Switzerland.” Fletch had returned to stand by the window, but he was still watching her. “So, instead of having two birth certificates and one death certificate, I’ve got only one birth certificate. And that’s yours. The Bradleys had only one child—a son named Thomas.”

“I was born well outside Juneau, about a hundred miles—”

“You weren’t born at all, Francine.”

She sighed and looked away. “My God.”

“And Tom Bradley didn’t die.”

“You do believe in pieces of paper, Fletcher. Bureaucracies, clerks, secretaries—”

“And Swiss undertakers. I believe in Swiss undertakers. You’ve been writing those memos to Accounting yourself, Francine, and initialing them ‘T.B.’, probably without even realizing you were doing it. We all have low-level habits that are just second-nature to us. We all do certain things in certain ways, and we continue doing them, under all circumstances, unconsciously.” Looking at her, he gave her a moment. “True?”

“No,” she said.

“Francine, would you come here, please?”

She looked a scared, unwilling child.

“Please come here,” he said.

She rose and came across the room to him unsteadily, leaving the low table between them.

“Look down,” he said.

She looked at the tile mosaic on the low table.

“Almost finished, isn’t it?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“When I first entered your apartment, a week ago, it was less than half finished.”

Looking down at the mosaic, her mouth opened slowly.

“I see.”

“Come on, Tom,” Fletch said. “I’m not trying to embarrass anybody. As you said, I’m just trying to save my own ass.”

Francine cupped a hand to her face, bridging cheekbone and forehead, turned, and started across the livingroom toward the foyer. She bumped into a free-standing chair.

Fletch heard her high heels click across the foyer’s hardwood floor. And then he heard her knock on a door.

“Enid?” she called. “Enid, would you please come help me, dear?”